Granville aces BW 1-0 in 8-inning DII District softball nailbiter

PICKERINGTON — In a clas­sic pitch­ing dual, Granville’s Abby Barker out dueled Big Walnut’s Kate Petty in a 1–0 Divi­sion II Cen­tral Dis­trict Tour­na­ment Semi­fi­nal matchup between the fourth-seeded Blue Aces and fifth-seeded Golden Eagles Mon­day after­noon at Pick­er­ing­ton Cen­tral High School.

Granville (21–6) scored the win­ning run in the bot­tom of the eighth to end the stand­off between Barker and Petty. With one out, the Blue Aces loaded the bases on a Mala Peter­son sin­gle down the left field line, a walk on a 3–2 count to Vega Throphilvs and a throw­ing error on Anna Moorhead’s sac­ri­fice bunt attempt. On Petty’s first pitch to Sil­via Simon, Simon dropped a sin­gle into short left-center to bring Peter­son home with the win­ning tally.

“It was a tough loss,” Big Wal­nut head coach Jeff Hat­field said. “Kate pitched a gem, but we could not get any­thing going against Barker who matched Kate pitch for pitch … it was a tough game to lose.”

BWLSD Roush Honda Eagle Mentor Awards

Mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict hon­ored their own at a recep­tion hosted by Roush Honda at Big Wal­nut High School on Mon­day, May 13, imme­di­ately pre­ced­ing the Big Wal­nut Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing. Rec­og­nized dur­ing the recep­tion were the 2012–13 school year recip­i­ents of the Roush Honda/Eagle Men­tor Award.

Roush Honda/Eagle Men­tor Award recip­i­ents are selected through a nom­i­na­tion process that began in March of this year. School admin­is­tra­tors, staff mem­bers and area res­i­dents were asked to nom­i­nate indi­vid­u­als they believe have made a pos­i­tive impact in the life of Big Wal­nut students.

Cri­te­ria included involve­ment, sup­port and com­mu­ni­ca­tion for the school build­ing and com­mu­nity; impact­ing the lives of chil­dren in a pos­i­tive man­ner; and pro­mot­ing the wel­fare of chil­dren at home, school or community.

A panel of vol­un­teers and staff selected the final honorees.

Sunbury, Galena Memorial Day ceremonies on horizon

In 2000 Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton issued a for­mal White House Mem­o­ran­dum ask­ing all Amer­i­cans to pause and con­sider the true mean­ing of Memo­r­ial Day.

“Memo­r­ial Day rep­re­sents one day of national aware­ness and rev­er­ence, hon­or­ing those Amer­i­cans who died while defend­ing our Nation and its val­ues,” Pres­i­dent Clin­ton wrote. “While we should honor these heroes every day for the pro­found con­tri­bu­tion they have made to secur­ing our Nation’s free­dom, we should honor them espe­cially on Memo­r­ial Day.”

Clin­ton went on to ask all Amer­i­cans to come together to rec­og­nize how for­tu­nate we are to live in free­dom and pros­per­ity and to observe a uni­ver­sal National Moment of Remem­brance on each Memo­r­ial Day.

“This memo­r­ial obser­vance rep­re­sents a sim­ple and uni­fy­ing way to com­mem­o­rate our his­tory and honor the strug­gle to pro­tect our free­doms,” Clin­ton said.

On Mon­day, May 27, the Vil­lage of Sun­bury will usher in the sum­mer sea­son with its tra­di­tional Memo­r­ial Day obser­vance, one of the village’s annual anchor events. The day comes com­plete with a cer­e­mony hon­or­ing those who have served in the mil­i­tary ser­vices and who fought and died defend­ing free­dom both at home and abroad.

SUMC’s Pastor Brian retiring after serving 36 1/2 years

When a suc­cess­ful fellowship’s pas­tor has been active both in the church and the com­mu­nity for many years, it’s dif­fi­cult to imag­ine that fel­low­ship and the com­mu­nity with his or her lead­er­ship. They’re anchors, they’re rocks, they’re the go-to per­son parish­ioners and even many unaf­fil­i­ated com­mu­nity mem­bers seek out when they have a need.

But even pas­tors, min­is­ters and priests retire and move on to per­sonal pur­suits, and that’s what Sun­bury United Methodist Church Pas­tor Brian Smith is doing. He’s retir­ing after being a Methodist Pas­tor for the past 36½ years; his last day in the SUMC pul­pit will be on June 16 — Father’s Day.

Fujii, BWHS Principal, leaving to take post at Delaware Area CC

Dur­ing the April 8 Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing board mem­bers accepted the res­ig­na­tion of assis­tant super­in­ten­dent Gary Bar­ber, and within a week rumors began float­ing around the dis­trict that Big Wal­nut High School prin­ci­pal Steve Fujii was leav­ing. Bar­ber is leav­ing to take the superintendent’s posi­tion at Mar­ion City Schools; Fujii has since con­firmed that he will become the Delaware Area Career Cen­ter Assis­tant Superintendent.

Big Wal­nut Super­in­ten­dent Steve Mazzi said when both moves became com­mon knowl­edge folks started ask­ing him what Big Wal­nut would do with­out Bar­ber and Fujii, two key play­ers in the school district’s suc­cess while nav­i­gat­ing uncer­tain eco­nomic waters.

“I don’t get excited about key peo­ple leav­ing the dis­trict; I remind myself that with change comes oppor­tu­nity,” Mazzi said dur­ing an inter­view last week. “To tell you the truth I hate to see either Gary Bar­ber or Steve Fujii go. How­ever I’ve never stood in the way of some­one who wanted to grow in his or her career. What I do want to do is assure mem­bers of our com­mu­nity that while we’re fill­ing their posi­tions we’re going to seek out peo­ple who are going to do great things for us here at Big Walnut.”

15th COC Expo tonight at BWHS

The Sunbury/Big Wal­nut Area Cham­ber of Com­merce and the Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict are join­ing forces to host the annual Cham­ber Expo, Busi­ness, Health, Civic & School Show­case — Liv­ing, Learn­ing & Work­ing in the Big Wal­nut Area, from 5 to 8 p.m., tonight in the Big Wal­nut High School Gymnasium.

Mon­day was Earth Day, tomor­row is Arbor Day, so there’s no bet­ter time to stop by the For­man Realty booth at the COC Expo and pick up a free White Spruce to take home and plant. Mar­tin For­man said there would be 500 trees avail­able; no one should have to go home with­out one.

15th COC Expo next Thursday at Big Walnut High School gym

The Sunbury/Big Wal­nut Area Cham­ber of Com­merce and the Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict are join­ing forces to host the annual cham­ber expo, Busi­ness, Health, Civic & School Show­case — Liv­ing, Learn­ing & Work­ing in the Big Wal­nut Area, from 5 to 8 p.m., next Thurs­day, April 25, in the Big Wal­nut High School Gymnasium.

More than 100 local busi­nesses and orga­ni­za­tions that will be on hand to pro­vide infor­ma­tion aimed at increas­ing com­mu­nity aware­ness of the many out­stand­ing pro­grams, ser­vices, prod­ucts and resources avail­able locally in the Big Wal­nut com­mu­nity. In addi­tion to local busi­nesses show­cas­ing their many prod­ucts and ser­vices, res­i­dents will be able to receive infor­ma­tion about a vari­ety of issues related to health, fit­ness, nutri­tion, safety and wellness.

Berkshire board slows I-71 outlet mall

Berk­shire Township’s zon­ing board on Thurs­day tem­porar­ily put the brakes on a pro­posal to build an out­let mall just off Inter­state 71.

The zon­ing board tabled an appli­ca­tion to rezone 88 acres in the south­east­ern quad­rant of the I-71/Ohio 37/ U.S. 36 inter­change from its cur­rent agri­cul­tural dis­trict des­ig­na­tion to a planned com­mer­cial and office district.

Local devel­oper Pat Shiv­ley and national out­let mall devel­oper Craig Realty Group plan to build 353,000 square-foot out­let mall along with other com­mer­cial devel­op­ment on the property.