BW Competition Cheer Squad Crowned Division II State Champion

There’s noth­ing like get­ting bet­ter every year, and that’s what mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut High School Com­pe­ti­tion Cheer­lead­ing Team typ­i­cally do dur­ing the annual Ohio Asso­ci­a­tion of Sec­ondary School Admin­is­tra­tors 2012 Cheer and Dance State Cham­pi­onships; but if there is one thing that beats get­ting bet­ter each year it’s finally becom­ing the best.

On Sun­day, mem­bers of the high school com­pe­ti­tion cheer­lead­ing squad did just that when they became the 2013 OASSA Divi­sion 2 Non-Mount State Cham­pi­ons dur­ing the 2013 Cheer and Dance Cham­pi­onships held at St. John Arena on the cam­pus of The Ohio State University.

Town Hall roof options discussed at Council

Sun­bury Town Hall has needed a new roof for some time. There have been leaks in Coun­cil Cham­bers, the metal roof is cor­roded and break­ing apart around the perime­ter, the painted coat­ing is fail­ing, and nails are pulling out.

Late last year vil­lage con­sult­ing engi­neer Wes Hall, CT Con­sul­tants, brought in Dan Bon­ham from his office to inspect the inte­rior and exte­rior of the roof to deter­mine its exact con­di­tion, and the nature of needed repairs when the roof is replaced.

Dur­ing a Feb­ru­ary 6 com­bined Parks Com­mit­tee and Ser­vices Com­mit­tee meet­ing Bon­ham said the roof’s basic struc­ture is sound, but the entire roof itself is in poor con­di­tion, is fail­ing, and should be removed to the top of the rafters, includ­ing the metal roof, shake shin­gles and purlins. Bon­ham also rec­om­mended that a stand­ing seam metal roof of either a gal­va­nized metal with a polyvinyli­dene flu­o­ride coat­ing or cop­per be installed over full ply­wood sheathing.

Lincolns For Rosecrans campaign wraps up

On Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lincoln’s birth­day, Feb­ru­ary 12, Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict stu­dents com­pleted the Lin­colns for Rose­crans penny cam­paign to help pay for a bronze eques­trian statue to honor Major Gen­eral William Starke Rosecrans.

William Starke Rose­crans was born in Kingston Town­ship Sep­tem­ber 6, 1819, attended West Point, and became one of the Civil War’s least under­stood gen­er­als. So mis­un­der­stood that he is the only Civil War gen­eral not hon­ored with an eques­trian statue.

State school funding OK for now; but future is uncertain

While some media reports are call­ing Gov­er­nor Kasich’s new edu­ca­tion fund­ing for­mula in the pro­posed bien­nial bud­get a com­pre­hen­sive over­haul of fund­ing to edu­ca­tion, dur­ing Mon­day evening’s Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing Dis­trict Trea­surer Feli­cia Drum­mey said it’s not.

Noth­ing is firm yet, Drum­mey said. The bien­nial bud­get must travel through a leg­isla­tive process; a final bud­get doesn’t have to be approved until June 30. The good news is, if the budget’s for­mula holds up under leg­isla­tive scrutiny Big Wal­nut would not see a reduc­tion in state fund­ing for the next two years.

BW’S Abbie Myers invited to AJAS Convention

Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School eighth grade stu­dent Abbie Myers has been involved in Big Walnut’s annual sci­ence fair since she was in fifth grade. As a sixth grader Myers com­pleted a sci­ence fair project, Aquatic Oil Spill Clean-Up, that is still gar­ner­ing awards for Myers, includ­ing a Feb­ru­ary 13 to 17 trip to Boston where she will be inducted as a Life­time Fel­low in the Amer­i­can Junior Acad­emy of Sci­ences dur­ing the 2013 AJAS Annual Convention.

Big Walnut’s Safe School Hotline active

Dur­ing the Jan­u­ary 14 Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing, dis­trict assis­tant super­in­ten­dent Gary Bar­ber gave an update on the school district’s plans to con­tract with an out­side provider of an anony­mous report­ing sys­tem to con­form to the man­dates of HB 116, the Jes­sica Logan Act. HB 116 was named in mem­ory of Jes­sica Logan, a Cincin­nati teenager who com­mit­ted sui­cide after being harassed via cyber-bullying.

Under man­dates of the Jes­sica Logan Act, edu­ca­tors are respon­si­ble for inves­ti­gat­ing and pros­e­cut­ing com­plaints (includ­ing anony­mous reports) of cyber-bullying, even if the mate­r­ial was cre­ated on the student’s own time, away from school groups and apart from any school-sanctioned activ­ity. This would include emails, post­ings on Face­book and other social networks.

At that board meet­ing Bar­ber said the Big Wal­nut district’s con­tract with Safe School Helpline would be active within a week; and on Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 23, a let­ter and explana­tory video were posted on the dis­trict web­site not­ing that the 24/7 helpline is now active.

Village Finance wrestles with health insurance; stays with medical Mutual’s highest deductible

Employee health insur­ance is a large part of any employer’s bud­get. Most employ­ers would like to live with­out that cost, but with the Afford­able Health­care Act on the hori­zon every entity that employs peo­ple will have to pro­vide insur­ance; and with unknown changes com­ing down the prover­bial pike nobody seems to know what future health­care costs will be – except that they will be higher than they already are.

Chris Whitkop with HR But­ler, the village’s employee health insur­ance bro­ker­age firm, was in cham­bers dur­ing last Wednesday’s Finance Com­mit­tee meet­ing to explain options for renew­ing Sunbury’s employee health insur­ance coverage.

Rosecrans Statue fund almost there: thanks to County Commissioners

The Rose­crans Head­quar­ters Unit and mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Area His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety have been work­ing dili­gently over the past sev­eral years to raise enough funds to erect a mon­u­men­tal (larger than life) bronze eques­trian statue of Civil War Major Gen­eral William Starke Rose­crans on Sun­bury Vil­lage Square.

Gen­eral Rose­crans was born on Rose­crans Road in Kingston Town­ship in 1819. He grad­u­ated from West Point, worked in the Corps of Engi­neers rein­forc­ing ports on the east coast before teach­ing at West Point.

He left the mil­i­tary and went into pri­vate busi­ness as a geol­o­gist and archi­tect in Cincin­nati. When the Civil War broke out, Gen­eral Rose­crans reported for duty and ended up lead­ing major union armies to victory.

The one and one-third life-size eques­trian statue will not only honor an east­ern Delaware County home­town hero, it will pro­vide a mon­u­men­tal work of art for Sun­bury Square. The statue, cast by Alan Cot­trell of Zanesville, will be mounted on a 50,000-pound gran­ite glacial boul­der set in place in July of last year.