New inductees to the Arlington Sports Hall of Fame (courtesy of Mark Van Bergh)
Peter Weilenmann, an Arlington Sports Hall of Fame honoree (via Arlington Sports Hall of Fame)
Mary O’Connor Schade, an Arlington Sports Hall of Fame honoree (via Arlington Sports Hall of Fame)
The Arlington Sports Hall of Fame has added four new inductees, including a decorated gymnastics coach, some track stars and a jack-of-all-trades triathlete.
The organization, which has recognized Arlington athletes since 1958, welcomed the new members last Wednesday (Oct. 10). The honorees include:
Joe D’Emidio
William Duryee
Mary O’Connor Schade
Peter Weilenmann
D’Emidio is described as a “force in Arlington gymnastics for over 46 years” in his Hall of Fame biography. He’s coached gymnasts at all three county high schools over the years, and worked for a decade as the head coach for the Virginia High School Mens’ Gymnastic Team, where he won a national title in 2002. D’Emidio also founded YMCA Arlington Woodmont Gymnastics Center.
Schade is honored as an “Arlington women’s sports legend over the past 37 years” in her bio. As a competitive swimmer, Schade earned 25 gold medals at the Virginia Senior Games, repeatedly qualifying for the National Senior Games, and swum across the Potomac River and even the San Francisco Bay. She’s completed 16 triathlons since starting the races at age 50, and is even a 36-year youth soccer coach.
According to the Hall of Fame, Duryee was a record-setting track star at Bishop O’Connell High School, where he graduated in 1961. He went on to receive a track scholarship from LaSalle University, where he led the team to a series of Mid Atlantic Conference (MAC) track championships from 1964 to 1966, and participated in the Penn Relays Invitational.
Weilenmann, a lifelong Arlington resident, became a track stand-out during his time at the Landon School in Maryland, according to his bio. He won a series of cross country conference championships in his time at James Madison University, then competed on five U.S. national teams from 1991-1996, including two World Half Marathon Championships.
The new inductees bring the total number of Arlington Sports Hall of Fame members to 44.
Photos of Joe D’Emidio and William Duryee via Arlington Sports Hall of Fame
Verizon workers install 5G equipment on an Arlington office building (via YouTube)
5G equipment on an Arlington office building (via YouTube)
5G equipment on an Arlington office building (via YouTube)
Arlington is gearing up to embrace the arrival of the next generation of cell network technology, though some observers worry county officials aren’t acting fast enough to expand access to 5G in the area.
Telecom companies are slowly, but surely moving to deploy equipment for 5G, the fifth generation of network tech, in communities around the country, in order to realize the new network’s promise to drastically increase mobile internet speeds and enable all manner of new innovations, from driverless cars to virtual reality video games.
Workers typically have to attach antennas and other equipment to street poles or traffic signals as part of that process, meaning that local governments (and, often, concerned neighbors) can have a say in how companies handle the installation.
While some utility companies are working directly with network providers to allow 5G tech on street lights, many localities are increasingly moving to craft zoning regulations to allow telcos access to government-owned street poles. Arlington hasn’t gone quite that far, but the county is at least dipping its toe in the water with 5G tech.
After state legislators passed a new law last April, the county began allowing companies to attach “small cell facilities” on privately owned structures in the public right-of-way. Even more recently, Arlington’s begun accepting applications for companies looking to attach the equipment to “cobra-style street lights” — smaller poles named for their snake-shaped heads — in public areas, according to Department of Environmental Services spokesman Peter Golkin.
Golkin expects the change “will allow for deployment of 5G infrastructure in dense areas throughout the county,” and Arlington leaders see the move as an incremental step for the county to take to meet the demands of the telecom industry.
“We’re trying not to be a hindrance to this, while still balancing community concerns,” said County Board Vice Chair Christian Dorsey. “Before, this sort of thing required a County Board review and a long process. Now, within a couple of months, it can get approved administratively. Whenever a carrier company is looking to deploy small towers anywhere, this is a predictable and affordable way to get it done.”
Even still, the change doesn’t seem drastic enough to Jonathan Kinney, an attorney at the Arlington firm Bean, Kinney and Korman, who works with developers and business owners on land use and zoning matters.
He laments that the county still won’t allow 5G tech on larger, 30-foot-high poles in urban neighborhoods along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, which he sees as a key step for the county to achieve full 5G coverage in its most populous areas.
“My point has always been that 5G is going to come here, but it really doesn’t do us any good as a community to act otherwise,” Kinney said. “With all the defense contractors and cybersecurity companies here, we shouldn’t be one of the last communities to do this. We should be one of the first.”
Kinney believes the county’s failure to act more aggressively on 5G tech will hamstring its chances to lure all manner of big companies to the area, most notably Amazon. He points out that the company singled out access to advanced network tech in its list of requirements for picking a second headquarters, and he feels the county just hasn’t lived up to the pace set by other HQ2 contenders like those in Texas or California.
“It just seems like this is low hanging fruit, this is something we could do pretty easily,” Kinney said. “But there’s not any strong advocate on the County Board pushing it forward… it just needs a little bit of leadership.”
Dorsey, however, argues that the Board has indeed tried to provide that leadership, and claims that 5G is “not something where we think we’re behind at all.” He says the county “just hasn’t had much unsolicited interest [from the private sector] that’s evolved beyond exploration and discussion at this point,” but that the county has been responsive when called upon.
For instance, Golkin notes that the county has “approved several permits over the last year for vendors to attach small wireless facilities to private structures.” That includes Verizon, who worked with some county apartment owners to install some 5G equipment on several large buildings to test out the tech in a residential setting.
Verizon spokesman John O’Malley says the test “was part of a series of trials” the company did in 11 large localities over the course of 2017. The company’s since removed that equipment, and moved on to testing 5G broadband service in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento.
Dorsey says the county “would be open to exploring” additional partnerships with telecom companies moving forward. He suggested that, as the technology evolves, Arlington could agree to buy a new round of street lights that already have 5G equipment installed on them, instead of retrofitting it to existing poles.
“I would argue that we’re an ideal community for that kind of partnership, because we’re so small and so dense,” Dorsey said. “We are well aware that, if the potential of all the lab tests are realized, we’re talking about an incredible expansion of productivity, which will be incredible for our businesses.”
Yet Kinney cautions that Arlington’s ability to experiment with 5G could soon be constrained by new regulations the Federal Communications Commission is mulling, which would require states and localities to quickly approve 5G deployments, eliminating some discretion in setting personalized standards.
Those changes may be a ways off yet from going into effect, but Kinney notes that Arlington’s lengthy public engagement process for any policy change means the county can’t afford to wait much longer.
“It could take a year to get through the whole process,” Kinney said. “But they could make the legal changes pretty quickly and then come up with the specific policy, and just move it along… We just need to start now.”
National Chamber Ensemble concertmaster Leo Sushansky, after breaking his hand (photo via NCE)
Dietrich Paredes will take over for Leo Sushansky at the National Chamber Ensemble (courtesy of the NCE)
Leo Sushansky (right) and Carlos César Rodríguez with the National Chamber Ensemble (courtesy of the NCE)
Just eight days before the start of its 12th performance season, the National Chamber Ensemble was faced with a potential disaster — the group’s concertmaster and violin soloist broke his hand.
Leo Sushansky, who doubles as the NCE’s artistic director, suffered a “freak accident” Friday (Oct. 12), the group said. Mary Anne Ellifritz, a member of the NCE’s board, says Sushansky was rushing to answer a phone call when he made a perilous decision to avoid a disassembled harpsichord on his living room floor.
“He thought he would hop over it and make it to the phone in time,” Ellifritz wrote in an email. “He tripped on the music holder and went down… He wasn’t aware that he had gotten hurt at first, just bruised. When he went to put the hand under cold water, he saw it the fingers and hand were oddly shaped.”
And to make matters worse, Ellifritz says Sushansky subsequently learned that the call was from the front desk of his building — staff thought they’d received a package for him, but it was actually for another tenant.
“That’s quite a traumatic wrong number,” Ellifritz said.
With the ensemble’s opening concert set for Saturday (Oct. 20) at the Gunston Arts Center, the group desperately needed to find “an eleventh hour replacement” for Sushansky, and fast.
Luckily, the ensemble seems to have managed to have done just that. Another violinist with the NCE, Jorge Orozco, managed to come up with a solution to suggest to the group’s leaders; he had a friend who he thought might be up to the job.
Orozco happened to know that Dietrich Paredes (a touring conductor, violinist and the music director of the Caracas Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela) lives in D.C. and would likely be in town for the concert. After what the group described as “an urgent phone call,” Paredes agreed to fill in for Sushansky.
He’ll now lead the ensemble for the group’s “Masters of the Italian Baroque” program, which will feature work from composers including Vivaldi, Corelli, Albinoni and Pergolesi.
But that’s not to say that Sushansky will be completely sidelined due to his injury — the NCE says he’ll take over as conductor in the second half of the concert, leading the ensemble as it performs Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater.” The NCE will be joined by soprano Sharon Christman and Washington National Opera mezzo-soprano Anamer Castrello for the performance.
After its performance Saturday, the group will hold four more concerts this season. Its next performance is slated for Dec. 15 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington.
Season subscriptions to the NCE cost $145 after. General admission is $36 for adults and $18 for students. Group discounts for 10 or more are available by calling 703-685-7590. Tickets are available online.
An Arlington man is now facing a series of charges after he allegedly got into a scuffle with police following a heated argument during a traffic stop.
County police say officers pulled over 20-year-old Charles Contreras along the 900 block of N. Burlington Street in Bluemont around 2 p.m. Friday (Oct. 12).
They say they noticed him driving with a cracked windshield, then he committed a “traffic offense” of some kind.
Once police pulled him over, Contreras and other occupant of the car, 19-year-old Lamar Contreras, “quickly exited the vehicle and allegedly advanced toward the officer, while yelling expletives,” police said. The officer ordered both men to return to the car, and they eventually agreed.
When more police arrived at the scene of the incident, officers noticed a child in the back seat of the car “in an improperly secured car seat,” and both men “continued to yell and exhibit disorderly behavior inside the vehicle” as police evaluated what happened.
Officers eventually asked Charles Contreras to leave the car, and he “became physically combative and pushed an officer.” Police were eventually able to arrest him after the brief scuffle.
He’s now facing charges of assault and battery on a law enforcement officer, traffic lane violation, defective equipment, and child restraint violation. Contreras is set for a Wednesday (Oct. 17) hearing on those charges in Arlington General District.
Full details from a county crime report:
ASSAULT AND BATTERY ON POLICE, 2018-10120161, 900 block of N. Burlington Street. At approximately 1:55 p.m. on October 12, an officer on routine patrol observed a vehicle with a cracked windshield commit a traffic offense. The officer initiated a traffic stop, and upon the vehicle stopping, two occupants quickly exited the vehicle and allegedly advanced toward the officer, while yelling expletives. The officer issued lawful commands for the occupants to return to the vehicle, which they obeyed. The officer then observed a child in the backseat of the vehicle in an improperly secured car seat. The suspects continued to yell and exhibit disorderly behavior inside the vehicle. After additional officers arrived on scene, the driver was asked to exit the vehicle, however, upon exiting, became physically combative and pushed an officer. With the assistance of additional officers on scene, the driver was taken into custody. The child was not harmed during the incident. Charles Contreras, 20, of Arlington Va., was arrested and charged with Assault & Battery on Law Enforcement, Traffic Lane Violation, Defective Equipment, and Child Restraint Violation. The passenger, Lamar Contreras, 19, of Arlington, Va., was issued a summons for Obstruction of Justice.
Democratic County Board hopeful Matt de Ferranti raised slightly more campaign cash last month than independent John Vihstadt, the second straight fundraising period that the challenger has pulled in more contributions than the incumbent.
Even still, Vihstadt has persistently maintained a larger campaign war chest to draw on over the course of the race for the lone Board seat on the ballot this fall, with a roughly $73,300 advantage in cash on hand over de Ferranti through Sept. 30, according to campaign finance reports released Monday (Oct. 15).
De Ferranti, who is running to restore the Board to unified Democratic control after Vihstadt won a pair of upset victories back in 2014, managed to raise nearly $30,600 over the month of September, slightly less than the $39,600 he pulled in over the course of July and August. The independent wasn’t far behind, recording nearly $30,200 in contributions last month.
The bulk of the Democrat’s haul came courtesy of a $10,000 check from the Leaders in Education Fund, the political giving arm of the advocacy group Leadership for Educational Equity. The organization works to “end the injustice of educational inequity,” according to its website. Its board members and donors include former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and his daughter, Emma, and members of the Walton family, of Wal-Mart fame.
Vihstadt’s donations tended to come in the form of slightly smaller checks, with six contributions of $1,000 tied for his largest campaign checks. The independent pulled in a total of 77 contributions under $100, for a total of $5,211, while de Ferranti managed 62 small-dollar donations for a total of $4,228.
The incumbent’s real advantage is in his campaign war chest, where his more than $142,500 in the bank dwarfs the Democrat’s $69,200 in cash on hand. Yet de Ferranti will also benefit from the deep pockets of the Arlington County Democratic Committee, which reported having more than $104,000 in its coffers as of Sept. 30.
Vihstadt has now raised nearly $169,200 to support his re-election bid since January, compared to the nearly $137,000 the Democrat has managed over the same time period. The independent also out-raised Democrat Alan Howze when the pair squared off in back-to-back special and general elections in 2014, when Vihstadt became the first non-Democrat to sit on the Board since 1999.
In the county’s lone other race for local office, School Board member Barbara Kanninen reported raising a little over $2,000 last month, with about $17,000 in the bank. As the candidate running with the Democratic endorsement in the nominally nonpartisan race, she’s viewed as the heavy favorite over independent Audrey Clement, a perennial candidate for local office.
Clement reported receiving $3,700 in contributions last month, all but $100 of which came from Clement herself. She now has roughly $1,200 left in the bank.
Candidates will report on their finances again on Oct. 29, their last reports to be filed before the Nov. 6 election.
Crystal City’s biggest property owner is now testing out a new pavement sealant in a bid to bring down temperatures and reduce the “heat island” effect increasingly plaguing urban areas.
JBG Smith just sealed a pair of its parking lots in Crystal City, in front of an office building at 241 18th Street S., with a new product dubbed “CoolSeal,” which is designed to bring down temperatures on the asphalt by as much as 10 degrees during even the sunniest months of summer.
The reflective pavement treatment is gaining popularity in the Southwest as a way to reduce the amount of heat bouncing off of wide swaths of pavement, though JBG officials believe this is the first time any company has tested out this particular asphalt coating on the East Coast. The company plans to study the impact of the treatment on the roughly 18,000 square feet of pavement over the next year or so, and could someday starting using at its bevy of properties across the D.C. region.
“One of the benefits of being a larger property owner with a diverse portfolio is the ability to try new things,” Brian Coulter, JBG Smith’s chief development officer, told ARLnow. “We think a lot about, ‘How do we improve the built environment and the experience of people on the ground?’ And this could really make a difference in that respect.”
Coulter says he’d never heard of CoolSeal until reading about it in a landscaping magazine a few weeks back, and the product instantly struck him as a good fit for his company.
Researchers have increasingly found that D.C. has some of the most intense urban heat islands in the country, with the high concentrations of parking lots and buildings driving up temperatures in more developed neighborhoods when summer rolls around. Coulter says he never saw the heat in Crystal City as especially problematic, but because the company owns so much property in the neighborhood, he felt it was a natural spot to test out CoolSeal on as large a space as possible.
“It’s a big enough area where you’re not just dealing with a couple parking spaces,” Coulter said. “It just felt like a continuation of some of the other experiments and interventions we’ve done there before, particularly around public art.”
JBG ended up using about 550 gallons of the coating, with workers applying it to the parking lots over the course of the first two weekends in October. The company estimates the effort cost about $50,000, in all.
Yet Coulter believes the experiment could end up being well worth the expense if it works as intended. He says the company plans to measure the sealant’s impact on the temperature on the parking lots, and the surrounding area, through the end of next summer to see how it works in practice.
Should it have a notable impact, Coulter expects JBG could use CoolSeal all throughout its properties in both Crystal City and Pentagon City, as part of the developer’s continuing efforts to link the neighborhoods together. The company has all manner of new projects underway in Crystal City, fueling Amazon HQ2 speculation with its dominance in the area, and is also backing the major PenPlace development in Pentagon City.
“We see those two areas as part of the broader neighborhood, and one way to better establish that is with the pedestrian experience,” Coulter said. “If this is done well, it will work well for the people who visit and the people who live there.”
He doesn’t think CoolSeal needs to be limited to just parking lots, either. He envisions everywhere from basketball courts to bike trails to the roofs of tall buildings being ripe for the heat-reducing treatment, and that goes for all of JBG’s properties around the D.C. area.
“We’re really excited about the possibility and potential of this,” Coulter said. “Because, clearly, if this has the type of impact we’re looking for, it really does fit in nicely with everything we’re trying to do.”
(Updated at 12:25 p.m.) Summer may be fading in the rearview mirror, but there are still plenty of public pools open for anyone looking to hit the water around Arlington.
The county doesn’t operate any indoor pools on its own — something that will change when the Long Bridge Park aquatics center opens a few years from now — but three pools in Arlington high schools are open for public use.
Washington-Lee, Wakefield and Yorktown high schools all have pools open to swimmers of all ages. Anyone interested in swimming can buy a pass for a single session, or purchase monthly passes. Full information is available on the school system’s website.
Those pools are open seven days a week, though each one has slightly different hours of operation. (The 2018-2019 schedule is pictured here.)
As for the county’s private, community pools, all five of those have closed for the season. In case you’re already dreaming of next summer, those include:
Former Highlander Motel sign, now taken down (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
The owner of the Highlander Motel in Virginia Square has secured a key legal victory, potentially allowing the property’s redevelopment to move ahead, and now he’s vowing retribution against county officials for tying up the process in court for years.
The Virginia Supreme Court declined last Wednesday (Oct. 10) to consider an appeal from the county in a case challenging local businessman Bill Bayne’s plans to replace the aging motel with a CVS Pharmacy. That means Bayne should be able to push forward with the redevelopment of the hotel, located at 3336 Wilson Blvd, after a judge twice tossed out legal action from county officials seeking to block those plans.
Bayne, who also owns the Crystal City Restaurant and co-owns the Crystal City Sports Pub, believes the county’s challenges were simply an attempt to scuttle his latest business venture, all at the cost of thousands in taxpayer dollars. With this latest legal victory in hand, he fully plans to renew talks to knock down the 55-year-old hotel in favor of the pharmacy, and then take the county back to court for his trouble.
“It’s not right what they’ve done, and it’s not right for them to do it to anybody,” Bayne told ARLnow. “But there’ll be a day of reckoning in court and a judge will decide if it’s right.”
County attorney Steve MacIsaac did not respond to requests for comment on the court’s ruling. But, in past legal filings and hearings, county lawyers have portrayed Bayne’s plans as not only a violation of some complex zoning laws, but also a “noxious use” of a property that sits quite close to some residential neighborhoods.
Even still, judges have twice disagreed with the county’s arguments in the case, and the Supreme Court ruled that there was “no reversible error” in those decisions for the high court to consider. Bayne believes the court declined to take up the matter for a simple reason: “Would you want to hear a joke case?”
“Why do you have to get told you’re wrong three different times?” Bayne said.
Bayne says his original plans for the pharmacy, as first sketched out roughly three years ago, would’ve netted him close to $45 million over the term of the 50-year lease for the property (which has been in Bayne’s family since at least 1985, county records show).
He hopes to revive a similar deal with CVS now that the court battles seem to be over, but he can’t be sure that the company will look kindly on the delay.
But with the legal wrangling over the years, Bayne expects he’s lost as much as $1.8 million while the project has stalled. He fully plans to recoup those losses by taking the county to court, and he says he’s contemplating legal action against everyone from the county zoning administrator to County Manager Mark Schwartz to current and former County Board members.
“It’s not OK to do this to somebody,” Bayne said. “There will be ramifications for this.”
Bayne says he’s not quite sure on the timetable for any potential litigation just yet. County court records don’t reflect any evidence that Bayne or one of his companies has filed suit against county officials, as of Tuesday morning.
Arlington officials could soon tell the Westover Beer Garden to turn down the volume, with a new round of bickering over live music at the restaurant set to go before the County Board this weekend.
County staff believe musicians at the Westover Market and Beer Garden, located at 5863 Washington Blvd, have gotten a bit too loud on Friday and Saturday nights in recent weeks. With the restaurant’s live music permit up for review once more, they’re recommending that the Board restrict the beer garden from offering any “amplified music” at its outdoor patio for the foreseeable future.
Staff argue in a report prepared for the Board that doing so would “mitigate noise impacts on the surrounding neighborhood,” but add that the beer garden’s owners disagree with that characterization.
This is far from the first dispute over the restaurant’s outdoor seating area, which has frequently attracted scrutiny from county zoning officials. Arlington even briefly barred the beer garden from welcoming live music outdoors in 2010, before lifting its ban a few years later.
Yet, over the last few months, staff wrote that zoning officials warned the restaurant that music was exceeding the agreed-upon decibel limits for the outdoor space. They added that several neighbors had called police to complain about the noise, particularly in June, though those calls all came in before 9 p.m., the time limit imposed by county permits for the beer garden to cut off loud music.
The staff report added that some neighbors have already contacted the county to support the restaurant, reasoning that a ban on amplified music would be “a more balanced approach than revoking the use permit completely.” Westover would still be allowed to offer live, un-amplified music both indoors and outdoors under the terms of the proposed permit arrangement.
The Board is set to review this matter at its meeting Saturday (Oct. 20).
Arlington police arrested a man last week after he allegedly ran naked through an East Falls Church neighborhood, breaking into several homes and damaging property along the way.
Police say Kahlil Martin, 25, was spotted running nude along the 6700 block of 19th Road N. around 5:30 a.m. last Wednesday (Oct. 10).
Officers received reports that Martin tried to break into several homes in the area, and was successful in some cases, and damaged some property. When police tracked Martin down along the 2100 block of N. Westmoreland Street, he then ran into a home “where he locked himself inside a bathroom with a male victim,” police said.
The man inside the bathroom was able to unlock the door, allowing officers to arrest Martin, who was then transported to the Virginia Hospital Center for a medical evaluation. Police charged him with two counts of burglary and destruction of property, and one count each of attempted burglary and abduction.
The incident was not connected to another instance of a naked man running near Claremont Immersion School earlier that same day, according to police spokeswoman Ashley Savage.
Martin is set for a Nov. 15 hearing in Arlington General District Court on those charges.
Full details from a county crime report:
BURGLARY, 2018-10100050, 6700 block of 19TH Road N. At approximately 5:35 a.m. on October 10, police were dispatched to the report of suspicious circumstances. Upon arrival, it was determined that the victim heard noise originating from the backyard and upon investigating, located damaged property. As officers canvased the neighborhood, they began receiving reports of a naked man observed in the area. Officers located the suspect in the 2100 block of N. Westmoreland Street and commanded him to stop. The suspect fled on foot into a residence where he locked himself inside a bathroom with a male victim. The male victim was unharmed and able to unlock the door at which time officers took the suspect into custody without further incident. As the investigation continued, officers located additional victims and determined the suspect had allegedly attempted or successfully gained entry into residence as well as locations where property was damaged. The suspect was transported to Virginia Hospital Center for medical evaluation. With the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the suspect was identified as Kahlil Martin, 25, of No Fixed Address. He was charged with Burglary (x2), Attempted Burglary, Abduction and Destruction of Property (x2).
Arlington Agenda is a listing of interesting events for the week ahead in Arlington County. If you’d like to see your event featured, fill out the event submission form.
Learn about home-buying essentials with a free workshop. The Orange Line Living Team and Keri Shull Team will be teaching all of the acronyms and definitions you will need, what happens at each stage of your transaction, real strategies on how to negotiate a lower purchase price, the different type of loans available, and much more.
Tuesday, Oct. 16
VA Wine Tasting
Ms. Peacock’s Champagne Lounge (929 N. Garfield Street)
Time: 7:30-9:30 p.m.
Celebrate Virginia Wine Month, and taste and learn about four different varietals/styles of still and sparkling wines. Appetizers are included, with tickets at $45 per person. Reservations required.
Meet with 50 plus businesses in a wide variety of industries including IT, healthcare, government services, finance, food and hospitality Services, education and more.
Join TGR for a premiere of a new feature length ski and snowboard film, “Far Out,” presented by REI. There will be prizes available from The North Face, Atomic, Volkl, Outdoor Research, TGR and more, plus everyone in attendance will have a shot at the tour grand prizes – including one of three different trips this year.
Saturday, Oct. 20
A Sidewalk Stroll
Encore’s Main Campus (4000 Lorcom Lane)
Time: 10-10:45 a.m.
Encore Stage & Studio presents “A Sidewalk Stroll”-starring professional artists who bring park adventures and friendly animals to life, all the while teaching little ones about navigating through life’s surprises. Recommended for ages 1 and older.
The Animal Welfare League of Arlington’s fundraiser features a pop-up pet festival, including unlimited craft beers, live music, doggy costume contests, doggy games, a dog rest park, food trucks, and much more.
D’Emidio is described as a “force in Arlington gymnastics for over 46 years” in his Hall of Fame biography. He’s coached gymnasts at all three county high schools over the years, and worked for a decade as the head coach for the Virginia High School Mens’ Gymnastic Team, where he won a national title in 2002. D’Emidio also founded YMCA Arlington Woodmont Gymnastics Center.
According to the Hall of Fame, Duryee was a record-setting track star at Bishop O’Connell High School, where he graduated in 1961. He went on to receive a track scholarship from LaSalle University, where he led the team to a series of Mid Atlantic Conference (MAC) track championships from 1964 to 1966, and participated in the Penn Relays Invitational.
