THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511230210
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Jennifer O'Donnell and Eric Feber
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
Much has been said about the decline of family life in America, so it is heartening to meet a family with a bond that extends over five generations.
Take the Grose/Tranquillo/Jennings clan of Great Bridge, for example. Five generations of the family, ranging in age from 88 to 2, got together not long ago to pose for a photo.
The family includes Gladys Capps Ward of Pungo, 88; Ida Ward Lynch Grose, 63; Rita Lynch Hollis Tranquillo, 40; Sherry Hollis Jennings, 22; and her 2-year-old baby girl, Brittany Nichole Jennings.
Grose said she also has a 24-year-old grandson, Reginald Keith Lynch, who was not able to appear in the photo.
Tranquillo's husband works at the Ford Motor Co. plant in Norfolk, and Jennings' spouse is a teacher with Chesapeake Public Schools.
``We got together especially to make a five-generation photo,'' Ida Grose said. ``We knew if we waited too long we may never get this opportunity again.'' Pilgrims' progress?
After several grueling performances chronicling the challenges and obstacles of the passengers of the Mayflower, the seventh-grade performers of StoneBridge School aren't likely to hit Broadway anytime soon.
The students performed their play, ``The Mayflower Memoirs,'' Nov. 17 to a crowd of parents, grandparents and home-schooled students at the StoneBridge annual Plimoth Plantation Day celebration.
``It was so tedious,'' said James Erb, who played a passenger aboard the famous ship headed for America. ``We spent so much time learning our lines and what we supposed to do. Right now, we're all pretty sick of the story.''
But for Lauren Geer, the play's narrator, it's the anxiety of performing in front of loved ones that had her looking forward to curtain close.
``They were all trying to make me mess up when my grandparents were in the audience,'' Geer said of her classmates.
Shane Drye, who played John Howland, had the only stunt in the performance.
``Howland fell off the boat,'' said Drye. ``He had to hold on to a rope for 20 minutes before someone found him. My arm is sore from falling all morning,'' he added.
Still, the young cast members said their gripes aren't nearly as serious as those of their ancestors.
``They had it really hard,'' said Geer. ``They were on the boat for 66 days. It makes our problems seem so small.'' Familiar music
Some of the world's most popular classical music won't be played over WFOS during the next couple of months.
You won't hear most of the music that was featured in Walt Disney's ground-breaking animated film ``Fantasia,'' which for many Americans is the only exposure they may have had to classical music. That film included such popular pieces as Dukas' ``Sorcerer's Apprentice,'' Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Stravinsky's ``Rite of Spring'' and Tchaikovsky's ``Nutcracker.''
WFOS will not play any of those nor such well known works as Tchaikovsky's ``1812 Overture'' or Beethoven's ``Symphony No. 5.'' And about the only ``Four Seasons'' you'll hear any time soon will be fronted by Frankie Valli and not Antonio Vivaldi.
The reason?
Attack of the barely-educated-in-classical-music summer staff.
Program Director Dennis McCurdy said every summer the station welcomes area high school students into its free summer broadcast program to teach teens the art of programming, announcing, engineering and other radio skills. But many of the students come to the station with a less-than-broad knowledge of classical music.
So what do these teens program? The warhorses and the entire musical program from ``Fantasia'' including that ``Night On Bald Mountain.''
``Oh my! Old Baldy gets played to death if you let these students get away with it,'' McCurdy said with a laugh. ``But seriously, we want to avoid playing those works to death in order to get the students to expand their own musical horizons. These kids will fall into that play-the-familiar-piece trap if you let them. No matter how good the music is, you get pretty sick and tired of hearing these same works day after day after day.'' by CNB