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This week's stories: (click on the headline
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West
High School
Student intercepted after threatening
to shoot students at West High School
By RUSS CHOMA
Staff Writer
BEDFORD A 14-year old Bedford student was taken into police
custody hours after making threats to carry out a Columbine-style
attack at West High.
The student, who made the threats over the Internet by instant
message on the evening of Wednesday, April 21, was apprehended
by police early on Thursday, April 22, before school.
Bedford Police Lt. Dave Davison said a resident reported
the threat and police worked quickly to identify and apprehend
the teenager.
"Officer Matt Fleming worked all night and through the assistance
of Internet providers and subpoenas, was able to determine where
the message came from," Davison said "And early
this morning we questioned a 14-year-old West High student from
Bedford, who admitted to sending the (threatening) messages."
Because the student is a minor, police will not identify him,
but Davison said he would be facing charges, though which ones
have yet to be determined.
In the instant messages sent by the student, he allegedly threatened
that West High School would be "another Columbine."
Davison said the threat was taken particularly seriously because
the student made specific references to times and places.
"The threat implied that an incident was going to take place
at West High school today," he said. "And it was given
more credence, because (the messages) said the only safe place
would be the library."
"He was taken into custody and it was determined he did
not have the resources to carry out any of these threats,"
Davison said. "He was more or less looking for attention."
Manchester Police Department Sgt. Mark Fowke said that even
though the student never returned to school after making threats,
city police had a strong presence at the school.
"Because of the type of threat we always take them seriously,
even though the entire circumstance was handled before school," Fowke
said. "We always have a police presence, but we increased
that so students could see we were there."
Fowke said there were "four or five" uniformed officers
and a several additional resource officers, "to make sure
the student feel safe."
COLOR="#ff0000"Pembroke
Museum says please touch
By KAREN BRAYNARD
Correspondent
Get Curious that's the motto
for the Children's Museum of Portsmouth. And what better way
to get curious than to visit the hands-on traveling Museum To
You.
"Touch everything," encourages Paula Rais, Museum To
You coordinator, as she welcomes visitors to the exhibit hall
located this month at the Pembroke Town Library.
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The Pembroke exhibit kicks off a two-year
program for The Museum To You, following a very successful one-year
pilot.
In a nutshell, Museum To You brings exhibits into the local communities.
During the pilot program, the museum visited Newmarket, Seabrook
and Raymond, as well as Sanford, Maine. While the program is
funded by two-year grants from the Institute of Museums and Library
Services and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, community
businesses can also contribute to the program, as did Ayles Insurance,
Great Northern Video, and A&B Lumber of Pembroke. Local donations
offset the costs of traveling, supplies and printing posters
for the communities prior to the museum's arrival.
Terri Caplette, alternate library trustee and Pembroke community
volunteer, said the program seems very organized. Rais works
with community leaders and volunteers prior to the program's
arrival to ensure that everything from setup to manning the museum
is in place. The exhibits arrive in a big truck, and, because
the program is volunteer driven, community volunteers help to
unload and set up.
In addition to the two-year grant, Museum
To You was also provided a grant from the Little Harbor Charitable
Foundation to work with some public school classes to teach the
children how to build a museum exhibit. The fourth-grade class
of the Pembroke Hill Elementary School is participating in this
project.
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WARP AND WEFT Hannah Serafin, 2,
of Pembroke, is helped by her mother, Jennifer with the colorful
weaving loom at the Pembroke Town Library. The library is hosting
a traveling museum through the month.
(Karen Braynard Photo)
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Xanthi Gray, the museum's exhibit coordinator, taught the children
what goes on behind the scenes and the considerations that have
to be thought out prior to a display. In two weeks the class
will have created their own museum exhibit, which will be displayed
for the remaining week of the Pembroke visit. Andrea Duchesne,
a fourth-grade teacher at Pembroke Hill Elementary School, said
her class will most likely create an exhibit about the history
of Pembroke schools. The children learned to consider facts that
even adults might overlook, such as the accessibility and safety
of an exhibit.
Museum To You presents hands-on activities and information that
touch on the arts, cultures from around the world, history, science,
and just plain old having fun. One of the most interesting exhibits
is the display of children's art, from the International Children's
Art Foundation. The artists are age 8 through 12, and their art
depicts their interpretation of the world. Vibrant in color and
fascinating to study, these drawings really do say a thousand
words.
But children like to touch things, so probably one of the most
favorite displays is the Masks from Around the World. These replicas
of cultural masks give children an opportunity to learn more
about other cultures through play. Mirrors hang at the center
of each mask display, encouraging participants to try them on
and even dance around. The ability to touch everything was very
appealing to Thomas Graziano, 9, a fourth-grade student at Pembroke
Hill Elementary School. Matthew Serafin, 9, said it's easier
and much more fun to learn this way. But Museum to You is not
only for kids. The Pembroke seniors club, Moving and Motivated,
also enjoyed the hands-on fun.
During the exhibit from March 30 through April 29, the museum
also provided three workshops, free to the community.
Jennifer Currier, a 10-year-old student, summed it up quite nicely.
"This is a really good idea because not everybody can go
all the way to Portsmouth."
COLOR="#ff0000"Pembroke
Picket lines
Teachers protest lack of contract
By RUSS CHOMA
Staff Writer
rchoma@yourneighborhoodnews.com
Nearly two dozen Pembroke teachers set
up picket lines at the entrance of Three Rivers School Thursday,
April 15. Armed with signs with slogans like, "We value
your children Do you value us?" teachers said
they were protesting the lack of a teachers' contract.
Marge Poznanski, president of the teachers' union, said the teachers
staged the picket to let residents know there is a slim chance
that they could still get a contract this year.
"The school board chair (Clint Hanson) has given some misinformation,"
Poznanski said. "We still could get a special election this
year."
"Basically we're out here for awareness," she said.
"It isn't all done until next March. We still don't have
a contract, so we're just trying to raise awareness because teachers
are not happy."
Carol Ehmling, an art teacher at Pembroke Academy, agreed.
"We're out here because we're making the same money (as
last year)," she said. "Morale is going down.
The school board does not appear to be supportive to the teachers
or value them."
JoAnn Lytle, Pembroke Academy's nurse, said it was disturbing
everyone but teachers and nurses got raises.
"There were raises given to everybody at the SAU,"
she said. "The only people who didn't get them were the
teachers and the nurses. It really doesn't make sense."
School board Chairman Clint Hanson said he was incredulous about
union claims that teachers were preparing to leave the district
in large numbers.
"They're encouraging people to leave," he said. "They
would like to see people leave so they could say, 'Look, see,
we're right.' But I don't think that's going to happen."
The most recent attempt to settle the contract issue ended when
the school board rejected an offer made by teachers.
Hanson said the board had offered the teachers a three-year contract,
but they returned with the counter-offer of accepting the first
year's salary but not the other years.
"What they chose to do was ignore the premise of a three-year
contract (agreed upon in mediation) and say, well, we'll take
one year," Hanson said. "Well, that wasn't the offer,
the offer was three years and is still three years."
Poznanski tells a different version of the story, and says teachers
see the school board as having rejected its own proposal. That,
she said, is bad for teacher morale.
"I think the fact the school board turned down their own
salary proposal was a scary message to teachers," she said.
Hanson reiterated that the two sides had agreed to consider three-year
deals during mediation.
"That's not the school board rejecting their own offer,
that's the union not listening that it's a three-year deal,"
he said. "They can be pigheaded if they want, but they agreed
at the end of the mediation to three-year proposals."
Hanson went on to say the teachers' union negotiators hadn't
been clear with their membership about the situation.
"The issue is they have a negotiations team that basically
hasn't leveled with the membership," he said. "The
teachers are supported (by the school board), and if, in fact,
their leadership had been forthright with them and kept them
abreast of what's on the table, I think the majority of the membership
would have found the offers being presented by the board are
legitimate and appropriate."
The next step will be fact-finding, where a third-party mediator
will be brought in to consider the request being made by both
sides. The mediator will then issue a report they believe
to be fair to both sides.
Poznanski said she is looking forward to taking the next step
but is frustrated that the situation has reached this point.
"Why do we have to have a third party when we should be
able to sit down and talk like adults?" she asked.
COLOR="#ff0000"Pembroke
Pembroke Safety Center opens
By RUSS CHOMA
Staff Writer
rchoma@yourneighborhoodnews.com
The old Pembroke police station has certain
charms. Located at 4 Union St., the dark brick structure is one
of Suncook's classic old buildings.
But the recent opening of Pembroke's brand new safety center
on Pembroke Street was a major relief to the police department.
Showing off a private interview room, something the old station
lacked, Police Lt. Scott Lane said the new facility is "light
years" ahead of the old building.
"It's got all the little things some people take for granted," he
said.
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Ground was broken on the new facility July
21, thanks to the March 2003 approval of a $2 million bond. The
Pembroke Safety Center was officially open on Monday, April 19,
though the police department was still moving items into the
building.
The project expanded the existing fire station from a roughly
8,000-square-foot building to a 27,154-square-foot complex housing
both departments, an emergency response center and plenty of
room for both police and fire to expand.
Not only did the old building fail to meet
certain new requirements it did not have a public bathroom
and was not handicap accessible Lane said it was unsafe
in many ways.
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BIGGER AND BETTER Replacing
an aging and out-of-code building on Union Street, the new 27,154-square-foot
Pembroke Safety Center became the new home of the town's police
department on Monday, April 19. (Russ Choma Photo)
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Some of the new safety improvements include a sally port allowing
for the secure unloading of prisoners, and new, more secure cells,
equipped with toilet facilities.
Items as seemingly trivial as a sally port that closes or toilets
in cells make a notable difference, Lane said, because they reduce
the time prisoners are unsecured.
"You can't deny someone's request to use the bathroom, but
it can create unsafe situations by taking them out of the cell," Lane
said. "The less you have to move people, the better. It's
a lot safer now."
Lane also proudly showed off the new evidence holding and processing
area, including room to do lab work. This, he said, is a must
for a modern department.
"The backlog at the state (labs) is such that if you don't
do it yourself, it doesn't get done," Lane said, pointing
out that in the old station a janitor's closet had been used
for evidence.
In the upper floor of the new facility is a large area set aside
specifically for a joint emergency response center so all town
departments can respond to any major incidents.
Having all the emergency services in one complex will help make
response more efficient, Lane said.
"More and more as we talk about response to emergency, it's
a multi-agency response," Lane said. "Cops and firefighters
are sometimes like oil and water, but it's a great group of guys
in Pembroke."
Although the safety center connects the police and fire departments,
it also ensures they have "separate but equal" facilities.
"There will be some facilities used by both of us, but we
will not be tripping over each other and getting in each other's
way," Lane said.
The new complex also provides ample room for storage and expansion
for both departments.
"It's not that we're extravagant (with all the space),
but we built it so it's in use for 20, 30 or 40 years out," Lane
said. "There's plenty of space to expand. It'll be a long
time before we need more space."
COLOR="#ff0000"Candia
Damaged statue one step
closer to repair
By JUDITH DIONNE
Staff Writer
jdionne@yourneighborhoodnews.com
Driving along High Street,
Route 27 in Candia, people might notice a statue common to many
small towns, the Civil War monument across from the town's old
library. The monument really doesn't stand out, but since it
was vandalized last winter, more residents are noticing it.
Rika Smith-McNally of Framingham, Mass., who specializes in bronze
conservation, visited the monument on Friday, April 16. She said
this statue comes from a more generic source rather than an artist's
studio.
"It's a statue that was mass produced," said Clark
Thyng, Candia selectman and chairman of the committee to fix
the statue. "It wasn't commissioned by a sculpture to build,
but a piece the town purchased."
"This doesn't make this sculpture less important, it just
tells us more about the local economy," said McNally in
her report following her visit. "This sculpture was the
best that Candia could afford at the time."
Being mass produced will work to the town's advantage though,
said McNally. She said her company should be able to find another
gun like the one broken on Candia's statue and replicate the
missing piece.
Thyng wants to raise the money privately to fix the town icon,
rather than use the town's insurance policy.
McNally doesn't have any hard costs to offer yet, but Thyng estimates
it will probably be around $10,000.
"A statue similar to ours was recently restored in Raymond
and it cost them around $40,000," he said. "Their statue
had considerable water damage. However, ours is in relatively
good shape."
"The monument really is well taken care of," said McNally
in her proposal to the town.
She said it had some obvious repair work around 1957 to 1958.
There's some turquoise paint on his shoulder, said Thyng, and
some seams that had split had been soldered back together, which
McNally said is a common way to fix these monuments.
Overall, McNally was pleased with the condition of the monument.
It is still well fastened to its base and except for flaking
paint from the 1950s restoration, showed no outward signs of
deterioration.
Beyond the generic beginnings of the town's historic monument,
McNally was most impressed that the town erected the monument
in such a timely manner after the war.
"Most towns didn't erect any sort of monument to its Civil
War veterans until the early- to mid-1900s," said Thyng.
"The fact that Candia got ours in 1893, while most of the
veterans were still alive to be honored, speaks volumes about
the town."
The cost to have McNally visit was $800, said Thyng, $500 of
which was donated from the Candia Snowmobile Slickers. The balance
of the bill, $300, came from the money the fourth-grade class
at Henry W. Moore school had raised to restore it.
COLOR="#ff0000"West
High School at the Georgia Dome
FIRST robotics team finishes
in top 15
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By GINGER KOZLOWSKI
Staff Writer
editor@yourneighborhoodnews.com
Gracious professionalism
defined the performance of the local students who just returned
from the world FIRST competition.
The Hooksett, Bedford and Manchester students on West High School's
FIRST robotics team battled to a respectable 15th-place finish
in their division at the world finals on Saturday, April 17.
FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science
and Technology, is a competition meant to foster interest in
the sciences by having competitions much like sporting events.
It was begun 12 years ago by Bedford inventor Dean Kamen, the
man who brought us the Segway Human Transporter.
"FIRST is not about
robots," said West High School teacher Ed Forcier. "It
is about teaching all involved about what it takes to become
active and responsible members of society.
"The Woody Flowers mantra of gracious professionalism is
extending beyond the FIRST community." he said. " As
for me, FIRST is what school ought to be regarding interpersonal
skills, responsibility and the integration of academia with real
life connotations and responsibility."
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HAULING HERMES John Slebodnick
of Manchester and Chris Grimes of Bedford pick up the West High
School robot, Hermes, after a match in Atlanta. The team drove
the robot to a 5-2-0 qualifying record in Atlanta. (Kelly Kozlowski
Photo)
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With 292 teams competing,
there were four divisions on the playing fields at the Georgia
Dome in Atlanta from April 15 to 18. Only the top eight teams
in the division were eligible to go on to the quarterfinals,
but each team had to choose two other teams to form an alliance.
The West High Powerknights/FCI team was chosen by the second-ranked
team, and played in the second round of the quarterfinal, winning
that round, but the alliance was eliminated in a tie-breaker
round in which West was on the sidelines. It initially appeared
their teammates had won, but judges disqualified one of their
teammates' robots for hanging on a connector instead of the required
bar, eliminating the alliance from competition.
"It was frustrating to stand there with no control, watching
everything that you had worked so hard for slip away right in
front of you," said student team captain Chris Grimes. "In
the end though, the judge's call was right and fair. By the rules,
our alliance partner's robot was not hanging. It was a disappointment
to end the season that way, but I have no regrets."
Grimes credited business partner FCI with making it possible
to even get to the competitions, as well as the general community
for helping so much with fundraising.
FCI mentor Jefferson Hall echoed those thoughts.
"The robot performed better than we could have ever imagined,"
said Hall. "The students worked so hard building the robot,
raising funds, making signs, scouting robots, and still got good
grades. The parents worked tirelessly to plan for the Nationals
in such a short period of time. The robot truly represents team
excellence and I am very proud to be a part of that. FCI is proud
to be a part of it as well."
The best part of the event actually happened before the trip
to Atlanta, said Grimes, knowing how much the community had pulled
together so much support for the team.
"I think the trip was one of the best our team has ever
taken," he said. "We were able to really take pride
in the competition we were competing in, knowing that at home
the school and our community was behind us. It was phenomenal
to compete in the same venue where the 1996 Olympic games were
held. It really gave evidence to how big the program has become
since it started here in Manchester 12 years ago."
Forcier is clearly proud of his students.
"Our robot, Hermes, did fantastic. It competed in 10 matches
at the championships and only lost twice," said Forcier.
"Torin Volk's driving was flawless and the combined efforts
of Torin, Chris Grimes, Jon Slebodnik and engineer/coach Jefferson
Hall proved to be a dynamic combination. Their effort allowed
us to be chosen as an alliance for the elimination rounds. We
played our round flawlessly and won. We lost the quarterfinals
only because of ineffectual play by our alliance partners. It
was difficult to accept, but that's how it goes."
Forcier also credits students Julie Hitchcock for organizing
the students and Ashley Cowall for being a chaperone for a day
in Atlanta.
Hermes the robot will be shipped back from Atlanta soon. It will
compete in a few local competitions this summer.
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