ANNOUNCEMENTS
DeGennaro heads Future Committee

Several county students were recently honored at the Interfaith Council of Greater Richmond's 41st annual Brotherhood Sisterhood Youth Awards. They included (front row from left) Shanice Monae Hickman, Thomas Dale High School; Christine Beavers, Lloyd C. Bird High School; and Jennifer Ezell, Manchester High School. Back row: Chenell Erika York, Clover Hill High School; Michael Ny, Meadowbrook High School; Kaisha Baker, Cosby High School; and Xavier Darden, Chesterfield Community High School. Not pictured: Nisan Hubbard, Matoaca High School; and Asma Azher Shethwala, Monacan High School.

Edward L. DeGennaro has been selected to continue chairing the Committee on the Future. DeGennaro was appointed to the committee in January 2000 and represented the Dale District for eight years before moving to the Matoaca District. Dianne L. Mallory has been elected to serve as vice chairperson. She has been a committee member since April 2006. Other committee members are Thomas A. Miller and Gary R. Thomson (Bermuda District); Liu-Jen Chu and Dorothy Hudson (Clover Hill); Thomas Owens and Andrea P. Brown (Dale); James McClellan (Matoaca) and Wendy McIndoe Austin (Midlothian).

Pridgen

In other announcements:

Cardiology of Virginia opened its second location on Mar. 3 at 13572 Waterford Place at the corner of Genito Road and Charter Colony Parkway.

Midlothian-area Annex Brands shipping stores have partnered with Cell Phones for Soldiers to collect old cell phones and sell them in order to buy phone cards for soldiers stationed overseas through March. Cell Phones for Soldiers has raised almost $1 million and distributed more than 400,000 prepaid calling cards to soldiers serving overseas. For more information on donating cell phones, contact Petra Quinn with the Handle With Care Packaging Store of Colonial Heights, located at 798 South Park Blvd. Ste. 32, or call 520-5111.

Bruce C. Eagle Jr., Constance C. Miller and Edward S. Hudson have been appointed to the Towing Advisory Board.

Dr. John F. McClellan, John Thayer and Rick Young have been reappointed to the Airport Advisory Board for a threeyear term. Rob Key, director of General Services, was also appointed for a three-year term.

Jordan Pridgen, who lives in Salisbury and attends the Maggie Walker Governor's School, is one of 2,600 students nationwide to be named to the 2008 Presidential Scholars Program. Scholars are selected based on academic and artistic achievement, leadership, character and activities.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts recently named Catalyst, located in Chesterfield County, as a semifinalist for the 2008 Muse Awards.

Village Bank and Trust Financial Corp. earned $205,000 for the quarter ending Dec. 31 compared to $301,000 for the same quarter in 2006. Net income for 2007 was $1 million down from $1.4 million in 2006. CEO Tom Winfree pointed to increasing bank liabilities for long-term deposits and subprime mortgage loans for the declines.

Chesterfield finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program are Midlothian High School student Evan Connell, Clover Hill High School students Hussain Aly, Sean Carey and Ian Tomlin and Maggie L. Walker Governor's School students Derek Chi, Alexandra Gecker, Elizabeth Leisey, Palmer Mebane, Jessica Merry, Dila Mignouna, Anna Mohan, Douglas Munroe and Anant Shukla. The scholarship program recognizes about 16,000 academically talented high school seniors across the country as semifinalists. About 90 percent of the semifinalists advance to become finalists, and about half of the finalists will be notified later this year that they have been named National Merit scholars and earned scholarships.

Chesterfield finalists in the National Achievement Scholarship Program are Clover Hill High School student Alexandra Almore, Appomattox Regional Governor's School student Wilmer Wilson and Maggie L. Walker Governor's School students Amarachi Eseonu, Ida Girma and Dila Mignouna. This program recognizes outstanding African-American students throughout the nation. Evan Connell and Louan Pagan of Midlothian High School and Amber Garcia of Appomattox Regional Governor's School were recognized in the National Hispanic Recognition Program.

Harrowgate Elementary Principal Linda Wood has been named the Outstanding Administrator for Reading and a James D. Mullins Leadership Award nominee by the Virginia State Reading Association's Richmond Area Reading Council. Wood's nomination has been sent for consideration to the Virginia State Reading Association, which will choose a winner for the commonwealth. She has been with Chesterfield schools for 22 years, first as a teacher and now as an administrator.

Swift Creek Elementary Reading Specialist Diane Connell has been awarded the Reading Teacher of the Year Award by the Richmond Area Reading Council. The Richmond Area Reading Council is comprised of 14 area counties and cities. Connell has been with Chesterfield schools for 16 years.

On Mar. 8, Manchester and L.C. Bird High School's SUCCESS Programs will send a large delegation of students to the Virginia Victory Games at St. Christopher's School to serve as "buddies" to the athletes with disabilities participating in the games.

The Pre-Engineering Specialty Center team at L.C. Bird High School is the only team in Virginia and one of just 18 teams in the country to be accepted into NASA's Student Launch Initiative. This is the second year in a row that a team from L.C. Bird has participated in the Student Launch Initiative. Team members are David Meyer, Brian Chappell, Amber Williams, Daniel Hynst and Chase Catherman. Nancy Hoover, coordinator of the Pre-Engineering Specialty Center, is the team's faculty adviser. Tom Lyon and Bruce Sexton, members of the Vikings Rocket Society, serve as mentors for the team. The team is designing and building a rocket that will fly to a one-mile altitude carrying a student-designed scientific payload to measure the effect of increasing the rocket's rotational inertia on the rotational motion. The team will travel Apr. 23-27 to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to launch the rocket.

Paul Ward Kohler II of Troop 498 and William H. Faison and Matthew D. Entwistle of Troop 2877 have attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

Jimmie G. Newton has retired as a principal maintenance worker with the Chesterfield Environmental Engineering Department after 34 years.

Warren Brown, a student at Ecoff Elementary School, will attend the People to People World Leadership Forum in Washington D.C. on Mar. 24-30. He was selected based on scholarship, civic involvement and leadership potential.

Getloaded.com of Midlothian is one of two metro Richmond companies now entering into the two-year Virginia Leaders in Export Trade (VALET) Program. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership launched the program in 2002 to assist exporters in the commonwealth who qualify with international exporting as an expansion strategy. Getloaded. com is an Internet-based freight matching system, serving the transportation industry across the U.S. and Canada.

Announcements can be e-mailed to news@chesterfieldobserver.com, faxed to 744-3269 or mailed to Chesterfield Observer, Attn: Announcements, P.O. Box 1616, Midlothian, VA 23113.