The Chincoteague Cultural Alliance will present three concerts this fall from September through November. Concert goers will have the rare chance to hear outstanding professional, touring musicians in an intimate setting.

The series launches on Saturday, September 25 with a performance by the duo Jennings & Keller. From the Broadway musicals of New York to the honkytonks of West Texas, the music of Jennings & Keller is called “Fusion Folk Americana’ – a blend of many different elements that comes from their vast and wide-ranging musical backgrounds. A former Shakespearean actress, Laurie Jennings has been a singer and songwriter for many years. Dana Keller is a veteran pedal steel, dobro, and guitar player has spent years performing on stage with such luminaries as Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye.

October brings bluesman Ernie Hawkins to the stage. For many years Hawkins has played concerts, clubs, blues and folk festivals, workshops, colleges, museums, and celebrations in the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe. At every stop in the road from A Prairie Home Companion to Antone’s to the Madrid Jazz Festival, Ernie Hawkins has thrilled his audiences. He has performed with blues greats including Son House, Mance Lipscomb, Fred McDowell, Jim Brewer, Rev. Gary Davis and many others. Hawkins will also offer a guitar workshop prior to his concert.

The fall series concludes on Saturday, November 20 with Maggie Sansone and Grammy-nominee Andrea Hoag. Maggie Sansone brings a unique beauty and vision to the ancient music of the Celts. Her albums ring with a Renaissance spirit, Celtic melodies, and a jazzy new crossover into what she calls “cool Celtic.” It’s a fusion of ancient sounds and modern sensibility, fueled by the innovative use of old and new instruments. Sansone is known throughout the U.S. as a performer, producer and teacher of the hammered dulcimer. She has recorded nine albums including AFIM Indie winner, MIST AND STONE, and is author of eight music books.

Grammy Nominee, Andrea Hoag has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and at festivals, colleges, and folk clubs across the U.S., Scandinavia, and the British Isles. Hoag is one of North America’s foremost performers of traditional Swedish music, and is a highly respected fiddler in several American, English, and Celtic styles. “Call it a fiddle, call it a violin— in [her] hands it is simply a marvelous string instrument that fits into myriad traditions and fuels many cross-cultural fusions,” wrote Richard Harrington of The Washington Post in a review of Andrea’s 1999 solo/collaborative CD, Fire & Water.

All performances of the Chincoteague Cultural Alliance Spring Concert Series will be held in the Chincoteague Senior Center on Church Street. Performances begin at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $18 at the door, $15 for advance purchase, or $40 for a season ticket that provides admission to all three concerts. Student tickets are $5 for each concert. Tickets may be purchased online through www.ChincoteagueCulturalAlliance.org. Two weeks prior to each concert, tickets will be available at these outlets: Egret Moon, H&H Pharmacy, and Sundial Books. Season tickets are available online, through the mail, at the March concert or at Sundial Books. Seating is limited. Advance ticket purchases are recommended. To order tickets by mail, send a check to Chincoteague Cultural Alliance at P.O. Box 257, Chincoteague Island, VA 23336.

The Chincoteague Cultural Alliance is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization formed to enhance community life by fostering and promoting the growth and vitality of arts and culture on Chincoteague Island and Delmarva’s Eastern Shore. The Alliance is the sponsor of the popular Second Saturdays Art Stroll on Chincoteague.

Suzette Stitely has celebrated her first year as Executive Director of the Dorchester Humane Society with the implementation of many successful programs. The community now has access to weekly low-cost spay/neuter clinics, a pet food bank and assistance with behavior problems.

“One of my goals is to help people keep their pets rather than surrendering them to a shelter,” explains Stitely. “Sometimes it’s as easy as spaying the cat so she stops having kittens and we’re here to help.”

Stitely has also had success with community involvement. There has been a 60% increase in members of the society and a 262% increase in donations.

“All the wonderful ideas in the world won’t make any difference if we don’t have the resources to implement them,” adds Stitely. “I have been overwhelmed with the outpouring of support from our community and thank them from the bottom of my heart.”

For more information on any of the society’s programs, please contact them at 410-228-3090 or www.dorchesterhumane.org for details.

Ned Sublette, the 2010-11 Patrick Henry Writing Fellow at Washington College, will explore the cultural heritage of New Orleans in a performance titled “Kiss You Down South: An Evening of Music and History” September 21 at 6:30 on the College campus. Combining musical performance and history in a coffee-house setting, the event will take place in Center Stage, an intimate space in Hodson Hall Commons. It will include a book signing and reception; admission is free and open to the public.

Sublette will share stories of America’s most unique city, home to a vibrant cultural heritage that has endured in the face of crippling poverty, endemic racism, and rising floodwaters. New Orleans’ history is, in many ways, best told through its music, a product of centuries of interaction between diverse groups: Africans, West Indians, Creoles, Native Americans, Cubans, Haitians, and European-Americans. Through that diversity, the city has birthed or nurtured many of America’s great musical traditions, including jazz, blues, gospel, zydeco, hip hop, funk, Cajun, and rhythm & blues.

Sublette is an internationally renowned musician and cultural historian who brings a special perspective to the study of early America. A native of Texas, he has spent most of his working life in New York City. He is the author of several well-received books, including The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans (2009) and The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square (2008), both published by Lawrence Hill Books, and Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo (Chicago Review Press, 2004).

The Guardian (U.K.) has called his writing “astonishing work that explains much about our modern world,” and the Boston Globe has lauded The World That Made New Orleans as “an energetic and fascinating read … the best argument yet for why we need to save New Orleans.”

The Patrick Henry Writing Fellowship, provided by Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and supported by the Rose O’Neill Literary House (the College’s center for literature and creative writing), offers a yearlong residency to authors doing innovative work on America’s founding era and its legacy. It is permanently endowed as part of a $2.5 million challenge grant package that the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded through its nationwide “We the People” initiative.

Sublette will use his residence at Washington College to continue work on a history of the American “slave coast” and the vast but little-known black migrations that shaped American history and culture from the 18th century to the present. Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the C.V. Starr Center, describes Sublette’s approach as “groundbreaking,” and explains that, “while several excellent monographs have chronicled the role of specific mid-Atlantic port cities in the oceangoing domestic slave trade, none have explored the region as a whole as a ‘slave coast,’ similar in character and function, if not in scale, to the West African coast.”

As part of the fellowship, Sublette and his wife, the writer Constance Ash, are living in a restored 1735 house in the heart of Chestertown’s colonial historic district. Sublette will co-teach a course at Washington College in the spring.

He is a previous recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University. He is also a classically trained guitarist and a songwriter. His albums as composer and vocalist include Cowboy Rumba, Monsters from the Deep and the forthcoming Kiss You Down South. He has been a producer for Public Radio International’s Afropop Worldwide, co-founding that program’s scholarly Hip Deep series, and was co-founder of the record label Qbadisc, which distributed Cuban music in the United States.

Intent on making information about vital services and resources more accessible to the public, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and Delaware Health and Social Services’ Division of Public Health (DPH) today jointly launched a new drinking water quality website. Delawareans now can find comprehensive drinking water information by visiting www.waterquality.delaware.gov.

The new site provides easy access to drinking water quality data, including water system reports, violation notices, well test information, and the location and status of contaminated sites. An interactive map enables visitors to locate annual water quality reports for public water systems, from which 82 percent of Delawareans get their drinking water. The website, created with help from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, also links to EPA websites and databases.

DPH’s Office of Drinking Water enforces the federal Safe Drinking Water Act by testing public drinking water supplies, reviews water system plans, certifies water system operators, and manages the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, a loan program for infrastructure improvements. DPH regularly monitors 490 public water systems for more than 80 chemical and bacterial contaminants. Private well owners, advised to test their water annually, can learn how to purchase test kits from the Delaware Public Health Laboratory.

DNREC’s Division of Water regulates surface water quality, administers a source protection program, evaluates the location of private and public wells for potential contaminants during well construction, and conducts and oversees groundwater cleanups.

“Protecting and improving water quality is among the most important responsibilities of the State,” said DNREC Secretary Collin O’Mara. “Whether served by a public system, a public well or private well, Delawareans have a right to know that their drinking water is safe and healthy. This new website will serve as an easily accessible one-stop shop where Delawareans can review statewide water quality monitoring data collected by DNREC and Public Health, and learn about the state’s efforts to clean up contaminated ground water sites as we redouble our efforts to improve water quality across the state.”

“Delawareans depend on clean, safe drinking water, using about 101 million gallons daily for drinking, cooking and bathing,” said DPH Director Dr. Karyl Rattay. “People deserve to know the quality of the water they drink, and this website compiles helpful information for them.”

“These user-friendly improvements provide timely and localized information on environmental conditions that could impact drinking water sources,” said EPA Region III Administrator Shawn M. Garvin. “Delaware’s new electronic efforts coincide with EPA’s ongoing efforts to use the best human resources and cutting-edge technology to keep residents and local communities informed of publicly-available environmental information.”

For more information about drinking water testing, contact the Office of Drinking Water at 302-741-8630. For more information about surface water or groundwater, contact DNREC’s Division of Water at 302-739-9949.
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Visiting Franklin & Marshall got a match-high 23 assists and team-best nine digs from Caitlin Krutsick as the Diplomats swept host Washington College, 3-0, (31-29, 25-19, 25-19) on Tuesday night at the Cain Athletic Center in Centennial Conference volleyball action.  It was also the home opener for the Shorewomen.

In the opening set, Washington had five set point chances to win the first set, but could not close out the set.  With the Shorewomen leading 29-28, Sydney Seydel recorded a kill to level to set at 29-29.  F&M would grab the lead at 30-29 on a hitting error by the Shorewomen and captured the set Nicole Morano kill. 

In set two, WC jumped out to a 5-1 lead on an ace by sophomore defensive specialist Rita Rivera (Plymouth Meeting, PA/Plymouth-Whitemarsh).  But the Diplomats won 17 of the next 21 points to take an 18-9 lead on a service ace by Krutsick. 

In the third and final set, WC took a 7-5 lead on a kill by senior middle hitter Maria Whitman (Galesville, MD/Southern) on a pass from freshman setter Lauren White (Huntingtown, MD/Huntingtown).  The Diplomats would go on a 19-8 spurt to take a 24-15 lead on a ball handling error by the hosts.  The Shorewomen cut it to 24-19 on a kill by senior defensive specialist/libero Traci Daelemans (Tracys Landing, MD/Southern), but a service error by Washington ended the set and match.

For the visitors, Seydel pounded out a match-topping nine kills and tied for tops in the contest with three blocks.  The Diplomats served up 10 aces in the win.

For Washington, White handed out a team-best 21 assists, while Rivera led all players with 11 digs.  Whitman tied for Seydel in blocks with three.

Washington is back on the road on Thursday night with a 7:00 p.m. non-conference tilt at Stevenson.

DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife Enforcement agents are investigating two hunting accidents that took place over Labor Day weekend, both on Sept. 4.

The first was related to dove season, which opened Sept. 1, and involved a husband and wife who were accidentally shot by another member of their hunting party. The group was dove hunting on private property east of Dover when one of the hunters put his gun on the ground to fix a decoy. Apparently the safety was left off and when the gun was picked up, it fired, striking the victims about 35 yards away.

The 27-year-old woman was struck by 18 pellets in her hand, chest, leg and lower lip. The 28-year-old man was struck by nine pellets with four penetrating his scalp and neck. Both were treated and released at Bayhealth – Kent General Hospital in Dover. Agents are continuing their investigation.

The second accident was related to archery deer season, which also opened Sept. 1, and took place on private property near Woodside. A 44-year-old man was climbing into a wooden tree stand when the top step of the stand’s ladder broke. He fell approximately 15 feet to the ground and required surgery to repair his broken left arm.

For further information, contact Sgt. Gregory Rhodes, Fish and Wildlife Enforcement, at 302-739-9913.

A Milford man was charged with negligent operation of a vessel and failure to maintain a proper lookout after the boat he was operating struck a navigational aid between Bowers Beach and Cedar Creek on Saturday morning, Sept. 4.

According to DNREC Fish and Wildlife Enforcement agents, Kenneth G. Blakely, age 30, of 102 Causey Avenue, Milford, was operating a 21-foot Carolina skiff when he turned hard to port in an attempt to avoid a dayboard that he suddenly observed in front of the boat.

The vessel’s starboard bow struck the piling base of the navigational aid. The operator and three passengers were ejected from the boat, which continued running, turning left hand circles across the bay until it ran out of gas. It was recovered by fishermen on Sunday, Sept. 5 in the Delaware River shipping channel.

The operator and all passengers were pulled from the water by local fire company volunteers who also responded to the incident. No injuries were reported.

Mr. Blakely was issued a citation and fined for the two charges related to the incident.

For further information, contact Sgt. Gregory Rhodes, Fish and Wildlife Enforcement, at 302-739-9913.

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Men’s Swimming Captains
Senior Matt Violette (Westbrook, ME/Westbrook) and junior Johnny Helenek (Gaithersburg, MD/Gaithersburg) have been named the captains of the Washington College men’s swimming team for the 2010-11 season, head coach Kim Lessard recently announced.

Violette holds the school record in the 500 freestyle and is WC’s second-fastest swimmer ever in the 400 individual medley, fourth-fastest in the 200 backstroke, sixth-fastest in the 100 backstroke, and eighth-fastest in the 200 freestyle and 200 individual medley. He is also a five-time silver medalist in relay events at the Centennial Conference Championships and swam on the school-record 800 freestyle relay team.

Helenek is the Shoremen’s seventh-fastest swimmer ever in both the 100 and 200 breaststroke events.  He finished in the top 12 in both breaststroke events at both the 2009 and 2010 Centennial Conference Championships.  This past summer, he served as an assistant coach for the Lake Marion Lasers youth swim team in Montgomery County, MD.

The Washington College men’s swim team opens its regular season schedule November 6th with a Centennial Conference home dual meet against Gettysburg at 1:00 p.m.  The Shoremen will also host an intrasquad scrimmage, the Maroon & Black Meet, October 23rd at 9:00 a.m.

Women’s Swimming Captain
Senior Rachel Glasser (Silver Spring, MD/Springbrook) has been named the captain of the Washington College women’s swimming team for the 2010-11 season, head coach Kim Lessard recently announced.

Through three years, Glasser is already Washington College’s most-decorated swimming All-American in program history, having earned All-America first-team honors three times and All-America honorable mention twice.  A three-year NCAA Championship qualifier, her best-ever finish at nationals was a third-place and bronze-medal performance in the 200 butterfly in 2009. She has been named the female Most Outstanding Performer at the past two Centennial Conference Championship meets and has 13 career gold medals, four career silver medals, and three career bronze medals at Centennial Championship meets.

Glasser holds the school and conference records in the 500 freestyle, 1000 freestyle, 1650 freestyle, and 100 butterfly, the school record in the 200 butterfly, and is a member of five school-record relay teams, two of which are also conference record-holders. She was named her team’s Most Valuable Swimmer in 2009 and Co-Most Valuable Swimmer in 2010 and was tabbed as the female recipient of Washington College’s 2010 Elizabeth “Bo” Blanchard Memorial Sportsmanship Award.

The Washington College women’s swim team opens its regular season schedule October 30th with a Centennial Conference home dual meet against Bryn Mawr at 1:00 p.m.  The Shorewomen will also host an intrasquad scrimmage, the Maroon & Black Meet, October 23rd at 9:00 a.m.

The September meeting of the Delaware Advisory Council on Tidal Finfisheries that was scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 15 has been cancelled.

The Council’s next meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20 in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control auditorium, Richardson and Robbins Building, 89 Kings Highway, Dover.

For further information, please contact Fisheries, 302-739-9914.

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