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.

15th Annual Chamber Community Expo Set for April 25
 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., Thurs­day, April 25, in the Big Wal­nut High School Gymnasium.

The event is open to all res­i­dents of the Big Wal­nut com­mu­nity, and best of all admis­sion is free. Browse among 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.

Big Walnut German students excel in NGE results

Each year Big Wal­nut High School sec­ond, third and fourth level Ger­man lan­guage stu­dents join nearly 24,000 other stu­dents from across the nation when they take the National Ger­man Exam. The NGE, now in its 53rd year, pro­vides indi­vid­ual diag­nos­tic feed­back, rewards stu­dents through an exten­sive prize pro­gram, and cre­ates a sense of accomplishment.

Big Wal­nut High School Ger­man lan­guage teacher Frau Geor­gia Craig said the exam’s results pro­vide a means of com­par­ing stu­dents in all regions of the coun­try; and are among the cri­te­ria used in select­ing the recip­i­ents of chap­ter awards and the national AATG/PAD Study Trip Awards, a four-week study trip pro­gram in Germany.

Galena Building goes on auction block April 3

After 156 years of serv­ing east­ern Delaware County stu­dents the Galena Admin­is­tra­tion Build­ing, for­merly the Galena School, will be sold at auc­tion at 6 p.m. on Wednes­day, April 3. Auc­tions go quickly, that’s their nature. Within min­utes of call­ing out for first bids auc­tion­eer Chip Car­pen­ter will say: “Going once, going twice, sold to …” and a piece of Big Wal­nut area his­tory will pass from pub­lic into pri­vate hands.

The his­tory of Big Wal­nut area edu­ca­tion goes back even before the Galena Build­ing, even before Galena itself was for­mally plat­ted as the vil­lage of Zoar in 1816. The Gilbert Car­pen­ter fam­ily immi­grated to the area from Penn­syl­va­nia in 1809. Car­pen­ter, the first Methodist cler­gy­man in Delaware County, was a miller by trade who chose to set­tle in Galena because the drop from the Big Wal­nut Creek to the Lit­tle Wal­nut Creek made an ideal loca­tion for a gristmill.

Two impor­tant insti­tu­tions, even if in a prim­i­tive form, always seemed to pre­cede an offi­cial plat­ting of a com­mu­nity, churches and schools. Folks arrived in the wilder­ness and imme­di­ately needed a place to wor­ship, and a place to teach chil­dren to read, write and do prac­ti­cal math­e­mat­ics. Often a log struc­ture served both needs.

Drummey doesn’t like HB 59; the Gov taketh away more than he giveth

It didn’t take up much time dur­ing Mon­day evening’s Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing, but it might have been one of the more impor­tant items on the agenda. Board mem­bers briefly dis­cussed, and then approved, a House Bill 59 Resolution.

House Bill 59 (HB59) is Gov­er­nor Kasich’s bien­nial bud­get that con­tains a num­ber of items that con­cern dis­trict trea­surer Feli­cia Drum­mey, dis­trict admin­is­tra­tors and board of edu­ca­tion mem­bers. Specif­i­cally, HB59 pro­poses to expand the Edu­ca­tional Choice Schol­ar­ship Pro­gram through two new pro­grams that will sig­nif­i­cantly increase the num­ber of publicly-funded vouch­ers for stu­dents to attend pri­vate or parochial schools.

“The bot­tom line is, local dol­lars will leave the dis­trict,” Drum­mey said. “Last year the state gave us $1,500 per stu­dent, but if a stu­dent would choose to go to a char­ter school the state would direct $5,700 to the char­ter school.”