DATE: Friday, April 18, 1997                TAG: 9704160101

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 02   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:  101 lines

TOWN TALK

Sandra Fenner learned she had been selected to attend the Presidents' Summit for America's Future before she even knew she was nominated.

``I think a lot of people knew before I did,'' said the Indian River Middle School teacher.

Fenner will join nine other citizens in the Virginia Beach delegation to the summit, which will feature President Clinton, former presidents George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and former First Ladies Nancy Reagan and Lady Bird Johnson. General Colin Powell will chair the conference, April 27-29 in Philadelphia, where 140 citizens nationwide have been invited to attend.

Fenner said she was nominated by the Housing and Neighborhood Preservation Association in Virginia Beach, but is excited about bringing back what she's learned to help her students in Chesapeake - as well as other Hampton Roads communities.

Fenner said the summit serves a five-fold purpose: to find ways to increase mentoring opportunities, safe places, better teaching and service opportunities for children.

``When I first heard about it, I was real excited,'' Fenner said. ``I`m sure by the 27th I'll probably be bouncing off the walls.''

- Nancy Young The waiting game

The Chesapeake police got a lot of good tips last week when they walked the beat at Golden Corral on Volvo Parkway.

Police officers changed hats for a night to serve as waiters and waitresses at Golden Corrals throughout the region to raise money for the Greater Hampton Roads Crime Line. There were no high-speed chases, but volunteers say there was more than a little hustling during the four-hour benefit event.

Nine police officers and civilian Crime Line board members from Portsmouth and Chesapeake traded in their usual crime-fighting duties to educate patrons about the Crime Line - while trying not to spill water on them.

After walking a mile in a waiter's shoes, Chesapeake police spokesman Dave Hughes said he plans to keep his day job.

``These waitresses work real hard; I came to appreciate how hard their job is, on their feet all night long,'' Hughes said. ``We were running around a lot.''

The volunteers got no pay for their efforts - and all the tips left in jars on the tables went directly to the Crime Line, Hughes said. The Golden Corral's regular wait staff, which served the dinners, kept their own tips for their hard work.

Chesapeake's event raised $530 for the Crime Line. ``Not bad for a Tuesday night,'' Hughes said.

Crime Line uses money from its fund-raisers to offer up to $1,000 rewards for information leading to arrests, Hughes said.

Golden Corral also will donate a portion of the night's proceeds from each of its locations to Crime Line, Hughes said. In 1996, Chesapeake's Crime Line helped solve 191 cases, recovering more than $52,000 in property and drugs. It paid out more than $9,000 in rewards. Across Hampton Roads, Crime Line solved nearly 1,500 cases, paying out more than $74,000 in rewards and recovering more than $8 million in property and drugs.

- Liz Szabo No overkill

Greenbrier residents apparently have insatiable appetites.

When the new 3 Stores 1 Roof supermarket opened off Greenbrier Parkway earlier this year, some residents wondered if the new stores would dampen sales at the upscale grocery market, Harris Teeter.

But according to Dennis Brewer, manager of Harris Teeter, business has never been better.

``The new competition hasn't hurt us one bit,'' he said.

As for the 3 in 1, a recent trip down the aisles by a Clipper reporter suggests that management at the new stores must be as pleased as Brewer.

- Jennifer O'Donnell Balloon with a message

Last Monday Phyllis Johnson and her husband Don received some inspiration from the sky.

Johnson said her husband was taking care of his mother's lawn at her Dock Landing Road area home. He was policing her back yard when he noticed what appeared to be a bit of purple trash lying in the grass. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a popped balloon with a yellow ribbon bearing a message.

``It was a balloon that had flown all the way from Greensboro,'' Johnson said about her husband's find. ``After reading the message attached to the ribbon, we found out that it came from the Charity Baptist Church in North Carolina.''

The message, typed on yellow parchment paper, contained a prayer, chapter and verse guides to several New Testament passages from the books of Romans and John, exhortations to be saved through Christ, offers of spiritual help from the church, along with its phone number and address.

``I called the church and spoke with its pastor,'' Johnson said. ``He told me he had heard from five other people who found the balloons. Most of the others were from the I-95 area.''

The pastor said the balloon was sent along with 499 others on Easter Sunday as part of the church's ``Balloon Ascension'' effort.

``I felt blessed,'' Johnson said. ``Little things like that mean a lot.''

Johnson is a free-lance magazine writer, a correspondent for several local papers and an unpublished author who recently sent a manuscript of a young adult fictional work to a publishing house. She feels the balloon find could be a good sign.

``The message came from Greensboro and the publisher I sent my book to is in Greensboro,'' she said. ``I'm hoping for the best.''

- Eric Feber

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