WAYNE CREED: Thank You Clelia — You Woke My Soul
Retiring Arts Enter Director Clelia Sheppard
By WAYNE CREED
Cape Charles Wave
March 9, 2015
Some years ago, fairly new to Cape Charles, I walked into a cold Palace Theatre to take part in a poetry slam that was being hosted by Chris Bannon and the Friends of the Cape Charles Library. As usual I was unshaven, probably a bit hung over, and dressed in flannel and a wool beanie — I must have looked like one of the dock worker extras from On the Waterfront.
As I took a seat and waited for the reading to begin, two elegant, beautiful women entered and sat down. I thought to myself that they must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, or just had the time and place confused with some other. This was my first encounter with Sheila Cardano and her daughter, Clelia Sheppard.
I remember that afternoon well, as I read a story I had written about an odd Russian street performer and his beloved pug dog, and Ms. Cardano read one of her stories about a crazy squirrel. Life is serendipitous, contingent, and I always think of two events that actually saved my life: meeting my beautiful wife, and meeting Clelia Sheppard.
Growing up in West Haven, Connecticut, I remember my mother and grandmother taking me to the great New Haven theaters, and a love and fascination (appreciation) of the stage, whether drama, musical, or dance (Mom actually took me to NYC to see the great Edward Villella) stayed with me through high school and into college. After school, though, the passion kind of seeped away, replaced by other things such as work and career. In all, I had not thought of stepping onto the stage in close to 20 years.
How did Clelia Sheppard and her mom save my life? After meeting that first day, they somehow talked me into taking on a few roles in their Eastern Shore epic A Piece of Eden. By bringing me back into the fold of the theater, they woke up something that even I had forgotten how much I loved. In the years since then, I have had the pleasure to work with and learn from Clelia, but also meet some of my most wonderful friends (Dianne, Susan, Michael, Don, Mary Ann, Sherri, Keith, Amy, and the beautiful David Glowacki). I wish I could say my story is unique, but it is not. In fact, once you get to know Ms. Sheppard and her entire family, you will realize that it’s really quite common. [Read more…]
ANDY ZAHN: Remembering a REAL March Storm (1962)
From the book “Great Storms of the Jersey Shore” © Down The Shore Publishing
By ANDY ZAHN
Cape Charles Wave
March 9, 2015
Long Beach Island, NJ, “14 miles of beach 6 miles at sea.” That’s what the sign says. Connected to the mainland by a causeway and a high level bridge. The bridge was built in 1957-1958 and replaced the old drawbridge. The drawbridge, no longer in use, was shipped to Chincoteague where perhaps millions of people used it to see the Pony Penning and enjoy the ocean as well as enjoy the Oyster and Seafod Festivals.
In 1962 we were new to the area and very broke. We rented a house in Manahawkin for $75 a month and were about eaten alive by the Jersey mosquitoes. Manahawkin is on the west side of the causeway, so logically we crossed over the bridge and bought a 60′ x 100′ lot from the town of Ship Bottom for around $2,500. There were several lots for sale in an area created by material dredged from the bay, and we selected the one with the highest elevation.
We joined the Teachers’ Credit Union, hocked the title to the car, wheeled and dealed and finagled (I was a math teacher), and had a tiny three bedroom house erected on our lot for around $9,000, bought a washer, dryer and refrigerator, and for about $13,000 we were homeowners! The mortgage was 20 years at 6% and principal with interest came to $65 a month! My first monthly payment reduced the principal by 10 cents and so we made extra principal payments to speed thing up.
Ship Bottom is about a mile wide from the ocean to the bay and we were a few houses from the bay. On the 5th of March we walked on the beach by the ocean and it was flat calm. I never saw the ocean so calm with not any breakers. Wally Kinan, the weatherman on TV, gave no hint of any unusual weather the next day.
When I awoke on March 6 the wind was from the northeast and howling. Driving rain mixed with snow. The new high school was already overcrowded and the 7th and 8th grades came in on a late shift, so I just watched the storm and waited to go to work. [Read more…]
EXTRA: Arts Maven Clelia Sheppard Bids Adieu
After 18 years of dedicated service to the arts in Cape Charles, Clelia Sheppard has announced her resignation as Executive Director and Artistic Director of Arts Enter, the organization she founded.
March 4, 2015
EDITOR’S NOTE: To our great surprise, yesterday we received the letter below from Clelia Sheppard, whose name is synonymous with the arts scene in Cape Charles and, by extension, the entire lower Eastern Shore. Ms. Sheppard is resigning as director of Arts Enter, but promises that she will remain a board member “ad infinitum.” Here is her eloquent and breathtaking letter:
DEAR COMMUNITY MEMBERS,
As I step down from my role as Executive Director and Artistic Director of Arts Enter Cape Charles, I have a question. I want to know—what inspires you? An Eastern Shore sunset? A work of art that grabs you and won’t let go? Perhaps it’s seeing your child perform on stage for the first time, or hearing the right chord just when you need it most.
When I first stepped inside the Historic Palace Theatre, with her worn seats and dark, quiet stage, I found my calling. To bring this gem back to life. To shine a spotlight on the people of Cape Charles and the lower Eastern Shore. To share my love of the arts. And to test my own limits and abilities: it was a personal challenge. [Read more…]
Oyster Farm at Kings Creek Launches Operations
March 4, 2015
When the Wave broke the news that Aqua Restaurant was being renamed The Oyster Farm at Kings Creek, the story quickly became the most read of the year. Everyone was interested to hear about the changes — although the majority of commenters turned thumbs down on the new name. Now the restaurant has launched, heralded by the magnificent photo above. CLICK for the Oyster Farm website, which includes new menus for the renamed restaurant.
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
County Schools Hit by Shrinking Federal, State Aid
By WAYNE CREED
Cape Charles Wave
March 2, 2015
With more snow and colder temperatures looming, the Northampton Board of Supervisors met February 23 to conduct a joint meeting with the Northampton County School Board to discuss the FY 2016 Requested Budget. A joint meeting with the Planning Commission, along with the Town of Nassawaddox, was also conducted. At the forefront once again was the need to raise salaries for County teachers and staff. The School Board is looking for a 1.5% increase, on top of the step increase from last year. Superintendent Charlie Lawrence, pointed out that even as there was a 1.5% increase last year, the 1.5 % increase in healthcare completely wiped it out.
In all, of the $19.8 million the school board is requesting, over $8.5 million is to be funded locally. This is a $500,000 increase from last year. Lawrence pointed out that back in 2008-2009 the budget was $8.4 million, which adjusting for inflation would be $9.3 million today. “It just goes to show how far we have fallen behind,” he said.
Lawrence observed that “25 years is considered a generation. Twenty-two years ago, Northampton had high achieving schools. Fast forward and we now have just one school clinging to accreditation. I know it’s a lot of money and it won’t solve all our problems. The citizens of Northampton County deserve better or average schools. The students of Northampton, economically . . . we cannot afford to have average or better schools.
“During your last meeting, I was told that the morale of our teachers was low. That is just not true. Look, the men and woman of our county schools come to work each day and toil before and after school, doing all they can to move this division forward. Are they frustrated and feel that they need better working conditions? Yes. In the end, it is the taxpayers and children that deserve better schools,” he declared.
Even as Lawrence emphasized the need for the budget increase, he also spoke to important parts of the budget that would have to be dropped, like much needed repairs to schools (such as painting the bathrooms at Kiptopeke, which have never been painted), a teacher of alternative education, additional math and science teachers (even as we expect our children to compete globally on a technological scale, due to staffing constraints, we cannot offer a full year of science in 4th and 5th grade, and the math classrooms are still considered overcrowded).
From a Financial and Operations perspective, Director of Finance E. Brook Thomas offered an elegant presentation which provided a granular level insight into the issues and challenges of the operations budget. Of note, 65% of the budget goes to instruction, and breaking it down further, 78% goes toward salaries and benefits. This is critical because, as the Board looks to make cuts, “it is very difficult since you would be cutting people whose lives are dedicated to serving children,” Thomas said. [Read more…]
WAYNE CREED
Supervisors Missing Chance to Lower Flood Premiums
By WAYNE CREED
Cape Charles Wave
March 2, 2015
As the wonderful photography of Gertraud Fendler has documented, this winter has changed much of the Bay into a frozen pond. Despite the clean, white appearance, the actual condition of the water tells a different story. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s latest State of the Bay report (2014), the Bay is showing minor improvement, with Water quality indicator scores going up slightly. The problem with even this minor improvement is that the baseline has shifted so far towards the negative that incremental improvements such as this will hardly ever make a dent in the “real” health and quality of the Bay. The report also notes that Blue crabs and striped bass are showing signs of severe stress (due to pollution, diseases, overharvesting); again, these “metrics indicate a system still dangerously out of balance.” According to data from ChesapeakeBay.net, the abundance of spawning-age female blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay decreased to 68.5 million in 2014, compared with 147 million in 2013.
Even as data continues to indicate an unhealthy Bay, and much of it pointing to the effects of human activity, it appears the Northampton County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors are once again looking at removal of the Chesapeake Bay Protection Act from Seaside, using the rationale that it does not apply to the Seaside. This notion seems inconsistent with the original intent of the CBPA, which was envisioned to cover the Chesapeake Bay, its tributaries, and “other state waters.” According to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the Bay Act program is designed to “improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and other waters of the State by requiring the use of effective land management and land use planning.” At the heart of the Bay Act is the concept that land can be used and developed to “minimize negative impacts on water quality.”
The first sentence of the Bay Act serves as a theme for the entire statute: “Healthy state and local economies and a healthy Chesapeake Bay are integrally related; balanced economic development and water quality protection are not mutually exclusive.”
The eloquent nature of the Bay Act is that it perceives that land should be used and developed to not just generate wealth for a few, but to minimize negative impacts on all water quality, which would benefit the majority of citizens (and even incubate economic development in the form of aquaculture and clean water tourism). In Virginia, the state designed the Bay Act to enhance water quality while at the same time allowing “reasonable development.” I guess this is the semantic argument, where a balancing act between state and local economic interests and water quality improvement is required. In Virginia the Bay Act puts the onus on local governments (who have the primary responsibility for land use decisions) to manage water quality, and “establishing a more specific relationship between water quality protection and local land use decision-making.” This quiet notion seems to be glaringly absent in the current proposed zoning. [Read more…]
PETA Breaks Silence after Killing Parksley Pet
Example of a citizens group’s reaction to PETA’s kidnapping and killing of Maya, a pet chihuahua belonging to a young Parksley girl.
COMPILED FROM NEWS SOURCES
February 27, 2014
When PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) workers removed a Parksley child’s pet from the porch of her home on October 18, 2014, and euthanized the dog the next day, the news travelled around the world. It was certainly the biggest story of the year coming out of Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
But perhaps the most surprising element of the story was that PETA, a large, international organization, gave no response whatsoever. Even as citizens groups demonstrated in Accomack County against Commonwealth’s Attorney Gary Agar for his refusal to press charges, PETA remained mum. Only now, more than four months later, has PETA broken its silence and offered an explanation for what happened.
Although Parksley falls outside the Wave’s area of news coverage, the story is so remarkable that we are reprinting portions of an interview with a PETA spokesperson appearing in today’s Virginian-Pilot. Tim Eberly reports from Norfolk that just as a state investigation “is about to become public record, [PETA] is breaking its silence on the bizarre ordeal. It’s our fault, the agency acknowledges. We’re very sorry. And we’ll do whatever it takes to keep it from happening again.” [Read more…]
BEACH PHOTOS: The Agony and the Ecstasy
Reader submissions on the coldest, snowiest week of the year include the stark reality of the Cape Charles beach, documented by Frank Wendell, and a fantasy of sugarplums dancing through the head of Gertraud Fendler and her Photoshop. (Published February 23, 2015)
