Newark Life Fall/Winter 2023

Newark Life Fall/Winter 2023

Letter from the Editor:

In his story, “Tales about trails with the Trail Spinners,” writer Ken Mammarella looks at the three-decade history of the Trail Spinners, and how the group has created, maintained, and improved miles of off-road trails in Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

The work of the Trail Spinners is just one example of how Newark residents are making a positive impact on the community.

The subject of the Newark Life Q & A is Anne Marie Wilkinson, the owner of Applied Advocacy. As they navigate the education of their special needs children, parents are swallowed up by either a glut of information or a profound lack of it. As a certified education teacher, Wilkinson helps these families seek resources, solutions and peace-of-mind. Recently, Newark Life met with her to talk about what drew her to special education, the challenges her clients face, the services she provides them with, and the influences in her life that she would like to have around a dinner table with her.

Big changes are underway for the University of Delaware theatre, onstage and off. We take a look at the cost-conscious and commercially savvy season for the Resident Ensemble Players. The 2023-24 season includes two plays that have familiar titles – John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night and Deathtrap – and two that probably don’t – Vita and Virginia and Pass Over.

This issue also features a look at the rich history of E-52, a history that covers the alphabet, with hundreds of shows going from Absurd Person Singular to The Zoo Story.

Gene Pisasale, a writer and local historian, offers a fascinating look at the history of two storied universities, and how one man played a role in the beginnings of two major educational institutions. That man was Francis Alison, and the two schools are the University of Pennsylvania and Newark’s University of Delaware.

Now in its eighth season, the unified flag football program at Newark Charter School has become one of the most successful in Delaware. It’s built on teamwork, commitment and inclusion. Unified sports have seen enormous growth in recent years.

The photo essay features the Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research, which is a great organization that Newark can be proud of.

We hope that you enjoy these stories that shine a spotlight on a few facets of Newark. We’re already hard at work planning the next edition of Newark Life, which will arrive in the spring of 2024. Sincerely,

Cover design: Tricia Hoadley Cover photo: Jim Coarse

Anne Marie Wilkinson

Owner, Applied Advocacy

As they navigate the education of their special needs children, parents are swallowed up by either a glut of information or a profound lack of it. As a certified special education teacher, Anne Marie Wilkinson of Applied Advocacy helps these families seek resources, solutions and peace-of-mind. Recently, Newark Life met with Anne Marie to talk about what drew her to special education, the challenges her clients face, the services she provides them with, and the influences in her life that she would like to have around a dinner table with her.

Newark Life: You have an extensive background in teaching, particularly in the field of elementary inclusion and special education, as well as a master’s in education with focus on working with children with autism and severe disabilities. What first drew you to this sector of education?

Anne Marie: I know I wanted to be a teacher from a very young age. Growing up with a neuromuscular disease, I really struggled as a child and never really believed in myself until I met my third-grade teacher. She was the first teacher who helped me really believe in myself, and I knew then that I wanted to give that feeling to others. When I was ten years old, I went to a local muscular dystrophy camp, and it was my first time being exposed to others with disabilities. I knew I was only ten years old, but I knew that my life was going to be dedicated to giving children equal opportunities and an equal playing field.

Let’s talk about what led you to start Applied Advocacy in the fall of 2022. Over time, you began to see the parents of children with Individual Education Programs (IEP) become overwhelmed with information and in many cases, not being introduced to the many resources that

can help them navigate this challenging task. Too often, it’s a lonely journey. Talk about the challenges that these parents experience.

Anne Marie: The whole idea that you get one hour, one day a year to talk about your child’s educational plan with five- to ten-plus specialists spewing data, jargon, and acronyms to parents (without a background in specialized education) is insane to me. That is not nearly enough time to talk about how the child is achieving the goals that are derived from all the data.

While decisions are arrived at through data, these meetings too often focus solely on the data, which leaves no time to talk about how they are obtaining these goals. Parents aren’t learning the specialized classroom strategies being used to help their children reach their educational goals. Some very common accommodations are access to a graphic organizer, a task analysis and a visual menu. Parents struggle to balance all this information overload, and they don’t know what to ask or how to ask it. That’s where I come in.

You created Applied Advocacy in an effort to bridge that massive gap. Give me a broad overview of the services that you provide.

Anne Marie: I do all kinds of tutoring – from pre-K to sixth grade and sometimes at higher grades depending on the student’s ability level. I also do social and emotional tutoring that covers coping skills, pre-learning skills and a lot of the social and emotional skills that do not come naturally to children with disabilities – such as voice level, tone and personal space.

I also offer ADHD tutoring for students from 6th to 12th grade, who have an intrinsic motivation to manage themselves and their time better. I provide a plethora of

executive function support and focus a lot on wellness/how to manage ADHD symptoms. We work on things like how to stop negative thoughts and “ADHD paralysis,” as well as analyze patterns of behavior and reward blindness. We also review schoology/google classroom and create to do lists, time block and practice self-advocacy.

An important component of Applied Advocacy is your consultations and parent behavior support sessions. What are some of the frequent topics discussed at those meetings, and how and where do you direct them?

Anne Marie: Too often, parents are struggling to establish homework, reading and play routines with their children, so I teach them how to establish a routine that not only benefits them but their children. They need to understand that their children have also just had an eight-hour, exhausting day, so they should have at least a 30-minute window of down time or screen time. Equally, parents need that same 30-minute time period for their own - think about all the times you’ve parked your car and sat on your phone just scrolling.

You will be amazed at the amount of buy in you have for homework/other responsibilities after this. Be sure to have another highly preferred, incentivized activity at the end of the responsibilities. I help make schedules and visualize expectations, so all members know what is expected of

them and when, and what that leads to. More and more, educational progress is measured not through the development of curiosity and a passion for learning, but by test scores masked as quantifiable results.

In terms of your work with Applied Advocacy, how do you measure success? Where are the breakthroughs found?

Anne Marie: What I urge parents of students with IEPs to do is not just to evaluate their child’s progress through their standardized test scores. It is very important for parents to not just look at test scores and report cards, but also at the progress reports that assess their child’s IEP goals, because that’s what measures deficit areas. Teachers should be taking very detailed data on this, and parents have a right to see the data sheets and what the teacher is tracking.

I continually tell parents to ask their teachers for the data sheet for each marking period, because that is really the best barometer of their child’s progress. Sometimes solely a percent is reported for a goal, not each trial’s data. This one number does not give insight on open-ended goals like “task completion.” Maybe your child is great at math tasks but then greatly struggles with reading tasks; that one number does not tell you this. If you’re confused by the progress report, ask to see more.

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Anne Marie Wilkinson

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If you could share just one piece of advice for parents who are struggling with managing the pathways of a child with special needs, what advice would you share?

Anne Marie: For children to truly master skills, they need to be generalized across various platforms and settings. It is important for parents to work on those same skills at home and it is incumbent upon parents to ask for the resources to help establish a routine. After working with students over the last ten years, I’ve come to learn that language is so important, and so I emphasize to parents that they should never talk about themselves in any negative fashion in front of their child, because that voice becomes their child’s voice. Children will believe these qualities to be true to themselves - innate and unchangeable. It will shape how they approach every new task. Rather, children need to hear growth mindset and mindfulness statements. It’s not, “I can’t, I am too tired.” Rather, it’s “I am tired, so this might be a little hard, but I can still do great things even when I am tired.” It takes a lot of self-work to do that, and I still catch myself at times, but this plays such a role into how a

child views themselves and initiates any new task.

What is your favorite spot in Newark?

Anne Marie: I would probably say the trails along White Clay Creek Preserve. I love a nature escape, and I go there to hike and practice my hula hoop choreography all the time.

You throw a dinner party and can invite anyone – famous or not, living or not. Who would you like to see around that dinner table?

Anne Marie: I will definitely be inviting my dad who passed away a few years ago. He was my number one fan. He always said I was born with a natural gift and passion to help children with differences. I would love to show him all I have built and the many I’ve helped. I would also invite my immediate family -- my mother, my sister and my boyfriend. I would also like to invite the people who have helped me most through podcasts and books. One would be Shelby Sacco, who hosts a podcast called “Sad to

Savage,” and Jay Shetty, a British podcaster, author and life coach. They have both helped me do a lot of internal work to maintain self-positivity and give me a lot of strategies to implement in my ADHD coaching.

I would need to have Laura Flick at the table as well, the creator of youarelovedtemplates. She is a neurodiverse adult that has become famous for making spreadsheets to support adults with neurodiversity. Her tools are amazing; we have worked together to simplify her templates to meet the needs of middle/highschool students that need support with executive function. Lastly, I would also invite Robin Fabiano, Abby Hanscom and Angela Smagula, who host the podcast “A Special Education Teacher, an Administrator and a Lawyer Walk Into a Bar.” I have learned a lot from them, and their minds all inspire me.

What item(s) can always be found in your refrigerator?

Anne Marie: You can always find some version of oat milk in there, as well as energy drinks.

To learn more about Anne Marie Wilkinson and Applied Advocacy, visit or e-mail www.appliedadvocacy.org, or call (302) 455-7378.

E-52: 100 years of U

The rich, 100-year history of the E-52 theatre program at the University of Delaware covers the alphabet of the stage, from Absurd Person Singular to Zoo Story to Much Ado About Nothing, as well as generations of collaborations.

“My strongest friendships and skills came from E-52,” said Jenna Cole, a 1996 UD alumna. “It was such a crucial part of my life. I still think of it fondly because it was so much fun.”

“For me E-52 was when I really found my place at UD,” said Courtney Lynahan, who earned her bachelor’s degree in 2005 and graduate degree in 2010. “I joined sophomore year after spending my freshman year kind of non-social and feeling slightly adrift.

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UD student theatre

E-52 Student Theatre

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Suddenly I found myself part of a group of people who I might otherwise have never crossed paths, getting to do theater again. I still speak to a lot of them two decades later, and almost all of my closest friends from college are E52 alumni.”

E52’s first alumni newsletter, in 1990, noted at least 16 couples who met via E-52.

Anne (Harman) Chappelle, a resident of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, who often worked publicity for E-52, shared a Christiana Towers quad her senior year with three friends from E-52. She married an E-52 alum (Todd Chappelle) and passed along their love of theatre to both of their children, Jack and Echo. “Todd’s first show was in a night of oneacts in early 1989, and I remember one of his lines fondly: ’Knife, knife,’ which is how we pass the silverware around the table,” she said.

“What I enjoyed most about my time with E-52 was the energy and creativity around the productions,” said Scott F. Mason, a former president. “It was a time of change when the group grew from being a small club within the theatre department to a bigger Registered Student Organization

the Student Life, which enabled it to have a budget, an office space, a dedicated advisor and the ability to perform in Wolf Hall and Bacchus. The group and its reputation

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E-52 Student Theatre

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increased campus-wide and it was a thrill to be a part of those changes that has kept it thriving til this day!”

“It’s so much fun,” said Gianna Sacca, the group’s current president and a theatre participant since sixth grade. “Every meeting I thought that I was talking to old friends.”

From a class to a club

E-52 is one of the oldest student groups at UD, and it all began with drama classes called E-51 and E52 that were first taught in 1923. In 1930, the E-52 Players produced their first extracurricular show.

Since then, drama education at UD has changed classes, departments and majors, and E-52 has changed names, venues and offerings. But the group has not changed its welcoming outlook (except for a “war” in the late ’80s with another student theatre group).

E-52 today has about 50 members, Sacca said, with an ambitious production schedule of three shows each semester.

“Everyone switches roles all the time, and E-52 takes pride in being a close-knit group to allow these transitions of roles to

on www.e52theatre.com.

The fall season begins Oct. 13-14 with SAST XX: Back to the SAST, the 20th rendition of one-act plays, which the group calls Short Attention Span Theatre. It will be performed in Bacchus in the Perkins Student Center on Academy Street on the main campus in Newark.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a musical by Rachel Sheinken and William Finn, runs Oct. 19-21 at Bacchus.

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E-52 Student Theatre

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The One-Act Play That Goes Wrong, an insider comedy that intentionally falls apart on every theatrical level, follows Nov. 9-11 at Pearson Hall on Academy Street.

Tickets are $5-$10, Sacca said, and details will be posted on www.e52theatre.com.

E-52 participants meet, audition, rehearse, store supplies (like costumes and props), create their sets and perform in both buildings, a relatively convenient quarter-mile apart. They have also performed outdoors on campus and online during the pandemic in productions that live on on Spotify (Hamlet) and YouTube (Skywalker, which retells the Star Wars prequel trilogy to the music of Hamilton).

Although there’s such a bonhomie, in the end, Sacca reminds participants that it’s a student theatre group. “Being a student come first,” she said.

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Historical highlights of student theatre at UD

Adapted from www.e52theatre.com, University of Delaware Archives and Records and other research.

1873: The first theatrical production performed at the University of Delaware (then called Delaware College) is The Rivals.

1901: UD’s first theatre group is the Mask and Wig Club, which consisted of the Glee Club, the Banjo and Mandolin Club and College Orchestra.

1923: Earnest Canfield Van Keuren, an assistant professor in the English department, starts teaching two drama courses, called E-51 and E-52. E-52 is continued the following semester by C. Robert Kase, producing two plays per year.

1930: The E-52 Players branch off and produce their first extracurricular show, Outward Bound.

1934: Kase’s wife, Elizabeth, founds the University Drama Group, later renamed Chapel Street Players.

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E-52 Student Theatre

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1946: With the creation of the dramatic arts and speech department, chaired by C. Robert Kase, the E-52 Players are renamed E-52 University Theatre.

1948: Elizabeth Kase founds E-52 Children’s Theater, and she directs Cinderella.

1951: E-52 produces its first Broadway musical, Finian’s Rainbow.

1952: E-52 is renamed E-52 Laboratory Theatre.

1958: The United Service Organizations and American Educational Theater Association select E-52 and seven other university theater programs to perform at military bases in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii. E-52’s production of The Tender Trap is followed in 1961 and 1965 by The Boyfriend and Kiss Me Kate, both at military bases in Europe and America.

1971: E-52 Laboratory Theatre became a full student group, giving students, rather than faculty, the opportunity to direct, design and produce shows.

1974: Sophomores Bill Berryhill and Robert Higgens found

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E-52 Student Theatre

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the Harrington Theater Arts Company, named after the dorm where both resided, to produce musicals to counter E-52. In 1980, HTAC performs A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum as their first musical.

1986: E-52 became an independent student organization open to all majors and is renamed E-52 Student Theatre. “We owned nothing – no props, costumes, or technical supplies,” the group writes. “E-52 began sharing 100 Wolf Hall with HTAC, and a five-year ‘war’ began between the two groups that included stealing costumes and lightbulbs before shows started.” Denise Stark creates the group’s logo, based on the comedy and tragedy masks cut in half.

1987: The undergraduate theater performance major is abolished, with the new Professional Theatre Training Program for graduate students based at Hartshorn Hall.

1988: Jack Stergle, director of the Perkins Student Center, offers his basement for costume storage. After a flood hits the basement, costumes move to Perkins, but the costume chair is still nicknamed Jax.

1990: The first alumni newsletter notes at least 16 alumni met their spouses in E-52.

1992: Sophomore Lowell Christopher Matthews founds the Khulamani Theater Troupe, the first Black student theatre group at the university “as a way to honor and represent the artistic culture and contributions of African Americans, not as a race, but as people with a different lens.”

1993: Three alumni from the theatre department –Michael Gray, Tom Shade and Jon Cooper – found City Theater Company in Wilmington.

2005: E-52 launches annual productions of one-act plays as Short Attention Span Theatre. “Each show in SAST is student-written,” an E-52 page says. “Every year SAST has a different (usually punny theme).”

2008: The Resident Ensemble Players form, presenting plays studied in various classes and teaching theatrical courses.

2012: E-52 performs the Delaware premiere of The Phantom of the Opera, Broadway’s longest-running production.

The fascinating history of two storied universities

“Knowledge is the light of the mind.”

- University of Delaware motto

Most people are not aware that one man played a role in the beginnings of two major educational institutions well known throughout the region. Those venues—the University of Delaware and University of Pennsylvania— stand today among the oldest and most respected in their

states. This individual was a highly renowned classical scholar, an authority in both Greek and Latin studies, considered an expert in his field.

That man was Francis Alison.

Francis Alison was born on January 1, 1705 in County Donegal, Ireland. He was likely first educated in a little-known Presbyterian academy in Dublin, but is believed to have attended both the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a Master’s Degree in 1733. Alison emigrated to America in 1735, going first to Talbot County, Maryland and later to the village of New London in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Alison was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1737 and became pastor of a church in New London. Early on, he served as a tutor to the Dickinson family, whose son John Dickinson, would study law and become known as the “Penman of the American Revolution” through his many writings. Dickinson’s “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania” were instrumental in formulating colonial opposition to British policies, printed in newspapers throughout the colonies.

In 1743, Alison founded the New London Academy, today considered one of the oldest schools in the American colonies, where he was a tough but effective taskmaster and an inspiration to his students. One can judge the effectiveness of a teacher by how well their students perform later in life. Some of Alison’s students would influence the future course of our nation. Historian John Munroe wrote that Alison’s first graduating class was “possibly the most distinguished in terms of later achievements of its members … of any class in any school in America…” Charles Thomson would serve as the Secretary of the Continental Congress for its entire existence, from 1774- 1789. Three of Alison’s other students – Thomas McKean, George Read and James Smith – would become signers of the Declaration of Independence. McKean would also serve as Governor of both Delaware and Pennsylvania. Two historic markers in New London highlight many of these accomplishments.

Alison’s expertise became well recognized around Pennsylvania. He impressed another scholar – Benjamin Franklin – who wrote a letter about him to Joshua Babcock, saying “I beg leave to introduce you to the Revd. Mr. Alison… a person of great Ingenuity & Learning… and what is more, an Honest Man.” Alison’s New London Academy became the Presbyterian seminary for Philadelphia’s “Old Style” synod from 1743 to 1752 during the early years of “The Great Awakening,” a period of religious revival in America. In 1752, Alison was asked to become rector of the Academy of Philadelphia and leading teacher at its Latin School. Even though Alison was an Irish Presbyterian, the Anglican trustees of the Academy overcame their hesitance and hired him due to his outstanding abilities as a Latin scholar. Ezra Stiles, at one time the President of Yale, called Alison “… the greatest classical scholar in America, especially in Greek.” Alison was later made vice-provost of the Academy after it was granted a collegiate charter in 1755 and became the College of Philadelphia, precursor to the University of Pennsylvania.

|Newark Life|

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In 1767, New London Academy moved to Newark, Delaware, becoming the Newark Academy. An historical marker standing at the intersection of Academy and East Main Street in Newark states “Founded at New London, Pennsylvania… by Dr. Francis Alison, removed in 1752 to Cecil County, Md., and in 1767 to Newark. Chartered by Thomas and Richard Penn 1769. Closed from 1777 to 1780 on account of Revolutionary War. Merged with Newark College (now University of Delaware) 1834… Many famous men were educated in this school.” Although Alison was in England when news of the Declaration of Independence reached their shores, he was known to support liberty for the Americans – exemplified by the actions of his students. He passed away on November 28, 1779.

Newark College was renamed Delaware College in 1843 and in 1867, it was designated as one of America’s Land Grant colleges. A women’s college opened in 1914 with 58 students. In 1921, the two schools merged to become the University of Delaware. The main campus is in Newark, with branch campuses in Wilmington, Dover, Georgetown and Lewes.

The University of Delaware’s “blue and gold” have an interesting history. According to the University website, the faculty of Delaware College chose blue and gold as the school’s colors in 1889, right before their first football season. Reflecting the hues shown on the Delaware state flag, they represent the colors of General George Washington’s uniform—blue and buff—and also the colors of Sweden, whose

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Universities

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settlers were the first permanent colonists in Delaware. Since the 1950s, the University of Delaware has quadrupled its enrollment, adding dozens of faculty members and numerous academic studies. Many people know their athletic teams as the “Fightin’ Blue Hens,” who have won 22 Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) Championships since 2001. The women’s field hockey team won the NCAA Division 1 Championship in 2016.

After automotive operations ceased, the University purchased a 272-acre plot which had been the location of the Chrysler assembly plant. Today the site hosts the University’s Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus and is also home to the Health Sciences Complex. Current plans include further development of the venue for business, research and other educational activities.

So, if you wonder whether knowing Greek or Latin can help achieve great things, look no further than the campuses of two of the region’s finest universities, which came to life partly because one man believed strongly in the diffusion of knowledge- and doing so, helped chart the course of American history.

Gene Pisasale is an historian, author and lecturer based in Kennett Square. His 11 books focus mostly on the history of the Chester County/mid-Atlantic region. Gene’s latest book is Heritage of the Brandywine Valley, a beautifully illustrated hardcover book with over 250 images showcasing the fascinating people, places and events of this region over more than 300 years. His books are available on his website at www.GenePisasale.com and also on www. Amazon.com. Gene can be reached via e-mail at Gene@ GenePisasale.com.

wit

th the Trail Spinners

This is a story about an excavator named Diggy, a rock and dirt hauler named Dumpy and a Bobcat named Pushy. It is also a story about the creation of a pump track – a thrilling circuit for mountain bikers – that involved 70 tons of stone dust, 45 tons of clay and 300 volunteer hours to create.

This is a story about the Trail Spinners – dozens of volunteers who for three decades have created, maintained and improved miles of off-road trails in Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Yes, members of the Trail Spinners enjoy riding on these trails, too.

When members were asked at a recent meeting at Wooden Wheels – a bike shop north of Newark – what was most important to know about the group, the answer was fast and clear: They provide incalculable values to everyone.

“We love everyone who loves the outdoors,” said Caleb Meredith.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Ken Robinson, who with Brent Biddle and Steve Kopf in 1992 founded the Delaware Valley Mountain Bike Association. The Trail Spinners were founded in 1993.

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Trail Spinners

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“Our main concern was that many of the off-road trails in the area were in danger of being closed to mountain bikers, thought to be irresponsible destroyers of nature,” Robinson wrote on the history page of Trailspinners. org. “We decided that one of the ways to improve the public perception of off-road cycling was to volunteer our help in improving and maintaining the trails in the local parks.”

Their first project was in Iron Hill Park, south of Newark, where they drained, filled and narrowed mud holes; erected barricades to keep ATVs off trails; and removed the trash from the pond.

Their second involved building a log bridge and maintaining trails at the Carpenter Recreation Area in White Clay Creek State Park. They hit their stride in their third, in 1993, planning and constructing trails in the Middle Run Valley Natural Area. Over the years, they’ve created most

of Middle Run’s 13 trails – with evocative names like the Corkscrew and Double Horseshoe – and that pump track.

Middle Run, Fair Hill and Susquehanna

The Trail Spinners today focus on Middle Run, 37 miles of trails on 850 acres northeast of Newark; Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area, 64 miles of trails on 5,656 acres in Cecil County; and Susquehanna State Park, 18 miles on 2,753 acres in Harford County. They started working in Fair Hill in the mid-1990s when new manager Ed Walls was tasked with opening it up beyond equestrians.

“Prior to this, Fair Hill was largely un-mowed, unmaintained and barely rideable,” the history said. “Within a few years, Fair Hill had become a destination for mountain bikers in the Mid-Atlantic.”

With 200 members in the tri-state area, their work reaches into other natural areas, too.

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“Celebrating National Trails Day in a BIG way today at Susquehanna State Park!” the Trail Spinners wrote on Instagram last year, on the first Saturday in June. “A rock bridge rebuild on the Red Ridge, erosion repair on the blue trail just off Wilkinson Road, and the never-ending project of trimming. Thank you to our volunteers and Maryland Conservation Corps for leading!”

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It is sweaty work, even with the construction equipment they have acquired, and so they are eager to increase their membership, with the $50 membership supporting the club and its projects, and the International Mountain Biking Association.

The exciting stuff is creating trails and building bridges.

The important, day-to-day responsibilities involve drainage and trimming, said Ken Cox, a member since 1997. The Newark area is clayey, and wet clay easily forms ruts.

“Eventually it feels like you’re riding on a rumble strip,” he said. So a big, recurring job involves keeping water off the trails and reconfiguring the landscape so it drains more easily.

Those rumble strips are even worse when 1,500-pound horses share the trails, Robinson said, so they’ve convinced Fair Hill’s managers to separate trail uses.

“The majority of the trails we work on are packed earth

(in our case, mostly the white kaolin clay everything around here is named after), and the curse and blessing of that surface means a trail can be re-naturalized easily by breaking up the soil and dragging some brush over it,” Cox added. “A year or two later it would be hard to tell that the trail was ever there. While a gravel or asphalt trail would require a lot less maintenance, it would make a much more permanent change to the land and give park users an experience that wasn’t as close to nature. Those narrow dirt trails also happen to be the most fun to ride mountain bikes on, so the ecological aspect dovetails nicely into what we do for fun.”

The trimming includes anything that’s growing into the trails, particularly invasive plants.

“Anyone can just take hand-trimmers out and improve trails,” member Lauri Webber said.

Have mountain bike, have fun

Mountain biking is something of a lifestyle. Robinson

bought his house near the Judge Morris Estate because of the potential the site offered for biking. There weren’t any trails, so he built them. Chris Shaw, who handles the club’s social media, bought his house near Fair Hill for the same reason.

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Club members have become good at networking. One reason is that the areas they ride in are run by multiple jurisdictions (municipal, county, state) with differing rules and staffing.

“With a property like Middle Run which has no rangers or day-to-day park staff, having a well-maintained trail system is essential to the health of the property,” Cox said. “Good trails attract recreational users, which push out people who might want to do less-than-legal or destructive things in secret. It also makes it harder for an open green space to be repurposed or developed.”

Another important connection involves what other people can provide, including Boy Scouts looking for service projects and University of Delaware engineering students who designed bridgework, Robinson said. Peter Brakhage, UD’s resident technical director, used his skills to design another bridge, and Trail Spinners used the UD scene shop after hours to cut and partially assemble it.

And then there’s Tri-State Bird Rescue, which had just emptied a shipping container in Middle Run when the Trail

Spinners were looking to buy one to store Diggy, Dumpy, Pushy and the rest of their equipment. Ownership changed, and they didn’t even have to move it.

Trail Spinners members also imagine the creation of safer conditions for those on bikes and on foot in natural areas, as well as developing hyper-intense sites like those at the Patapsco and Phoenixville bike parks – the latter boasting rollers, double rollers, berms, bridges, kickers, a whale tail and a wall ride.

“Seeing a bird free again is the greatest gift I know.”

Lynne Frink, founder, Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research

Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research:

Flying free again

In the parking lot at Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research in Newark on a recent morning, an injured Common Yellow throat, a type of warseat of a car. It had escaped from it in, but with gentle hands of a clinician, the bird was taken into the Frink Center for Wildlife, where its injuries were tended to, and where it regained its strength and was soon

released again into the wild. The bird was just one of betweentients” – 130 different species from as many as 40 counties throughyear at Tri-State’s clinic on Possum Hollow Road, in partnership with

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Tri State Bird Rescue & Research|

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decades of experience in wildlife rehabilitation, so they know how to approach a doors -- from hummingbirds to bald eagles

not only bring a depth of knowledge in rehabilitation, but they also know the natural efforts of those who attempted to rescue the animals who were trapped in the spill, tens of thousands of animals – including birds -- died as the result of oil contamination. Soon after the tragedy, Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research founder Lynne Frink formed a multi-disciplinary team of wildlife biolo-

and concerned citizens to study the effects of to treat affected wildlife.

The work of Frink and her colleagues

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internationally recognized for its rehabilitation and research and is the only federally permitted wild bird rehabilitation facility on Today, the Frink Center for Wildlife consists of animal care wards, surgery and the new L. Leon & Alice P. Cambell Wildlife

-

nization of its kind on the East Coast -- is affected by oil spills and other large-scale incidents from Canada to the Caribbean.

a window that we hold for a day of obserSmith said. -

teers to our partnering agencies to our dowhat they care about. Working together is birds and get them back into the wild.”

Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research is located at 170 Possum Hollow Road, Newark, De. 19711. To learn more, visit www. tristatebird.org. or call (302) 737-9543.

for the REP,

onstage and off

A cost-conscious, commercially savvy season for the Resident Ensemble Players, new undergraduate majors and a merger with the dance department highlight the changes under way or being considered for theatre at the University of Delaware.

Steve Tague, the interim producing artistic director for the REP and interim chair of the merged department, also promises a crowd-pleasing musical in 2024-25 – a first for UD’s resident professional acting company, which debuted in 2008.

The changes are part of massive thinking about the roles of theatre at UD, following the 2021 retirement of Sandy Robbins, announced after the theatre budget was cut from $5 million to $2 million.

“The atmosphere is scary,” Tague said, referring to how major theatres across the country are restructuring or closing. “Can’t you do plays with not very much money?” he asked, rhetorically. “And the answer is ‘yes.’ And lots of places are going to have to start thinking like that, including us.”

The 2023-24 season includes two plays that have hopefully familiar titles – John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night and Deathtrap – and two that probably don’t – Vita and Virginia and Pass Over.

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“All four of them are being produced as excellently as we know how, but two of them have reduced budgets,” he said. “They won’t look like some of the other visual extravaganzas that we’ve had. They will rely more on the storytelling and more on the acting.”

4 REP plays this season

The season opened with Vita & Virginia, a play about love and friendship by Eileen Atkins, adapted from letters and diaries written by “aristocratic novelist and poet Vita Sackville-West and aloof literary icon Virginia Woolf,” according to www.rep.udel.edu.

John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night runs in November. Matt Pelfrey adapted the play from Ball’s 1965 novel about injustice, which also inspired a 1967 movie that won five Oscars and a 1988-1995 TV series.

Pass Over runs in February. Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “mashup of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and the Biblical Exodus story … asks ‘What is the value of a young black man’s life?’ ”

Deathtrap in April closes the season. The 1978 Ira Levin mystery with touches of black comedy was made into a movie in 1982.

“We have to choose plays very intelligently that don’t feel underproduced and don’t feel cheap,” Tague said. He’s also chosen to financially favor John Ball’s In the Heat of Night and Deathtrap with bigger budgets and longer

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FLAGS FOR HEROES

Since 2015, Newark Morning Rotary has recognized HEROES with a public display of American Flags with hanging medallions displaying the names of those honored. Join us to help acknowledge the people, living and in memory, who have made a difference in our community, country and world.

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UD REP

Continued from Page 52

runs in the hopes that they will draw larger audiences. For instance, the set budget for In the Heat of the Night is $12,000, compared to $1,000 for Vita & Virginia.

“I want to move – and I say this delicately – in a more commercial direction,” he said. “If we want to do art, we have to do some other stuff that’s more commercial.”

What draws in crowds?

“Commercial” is loaded language in the theatre world. theatres face conflicting factors in picking productions: drawing crowds with popular works, exposing people to something new, staying within budgets, developing new works and offering variety during their seasons. University theatre programs have another challenge: training students on stage and off with a variety of work.

Pre-pandemic, the REP was selling about 72 percent of the seats in the 450-seat Thompson Theatre in the Roselle Center for the Arts on the main Newark campus. An adjacent black-box theatre seats 120.

The REP’s greatest commercial success was Murder on the Orient Express in 2019. “People went gaga,” Tague said.

Did people pour in because they knew the title? It’s Agatha Christie’s “most successful and well-known property,” critic Gail Obenreder wrote in the Broad Street Review. Was it the newness? The play was only two years old. The quality of the production? Obenreder’s rave used “perfect” once and “perfectly” twice and called the scenic design “a cunning piece of stagecraft.” Did word-of-mouth praise for the production or publicity lure people? Publicity, particularly for people who aren’t regular theatre patrons, is a problem, he said. “How can we get to people who don’t know us?”

And the best question of all: how does any post-mortem help the REP find similar successes?

Tague is temporarily running the show while he said the university decides on whether to conduct a wide search for department chair or offer him the traditional five-year appointment.

The REP once produced seven shows each season and may never return to that.

“It was really stressful for all involved,” he said. But he’s committed to producing the REP’s first musical in the 202425 season. “They sell well. I love them, and I teach musical theatre. Even if it kills us.”

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UD REP

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Peering into the future

UD’s theatre training has evolved over the last few decades.

The undergraduate theatre performance major was abolished in 1987 with the creation of the Professional Theatre Training Program, a graduate conservatory training program in acting, stage management and technical production. The introduction of the REP in 2008 allowed UD to add three minors in theatre, the university announced then. That master’s degree lasted only until 2010, with Tague believing that Robbins chose to allocate limited resources to the REP instead of the training.

Tague wants to create a bachelor of arts in theatre studies, starting in the fall of 2024. He’s also thinking of developing a dance major in the fall of 2025 and, “now moving into fantasy,” thinking about a bachelor’s degree in musical theatre and the return of a master’s program.

About 60 undergraduates are minoring in the-

atre in three tracks: performance (the most popular), production and theatre studies. Surprisingly, many are majoring in engineering or health sciences. About 60 students are minoring in dance.

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UD REP

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In addition, a minor in musical theatre started this fall, said Suzanne L. Burton, associate dean for the arts, noting that it combines courses in theatre, music and dance. There’s also a minor in healthcare theatre that “helps healthcare professionals develop communication skills through interactive scenarios presented by theatre students.”

Tague hopes that if the majors are approved, they will “generate an income stream of tuition dollars.” The majors would spur doubling the number of theatre courses, from about 20, he said, and increasing interaction with other departments by cross-listing courses already offered elsewhere, such as classes in playwriting, fashion history, communication, art and design.

“We didn’t interact with other departments, and truthfully we didn’t have much of a department,” he said. “The department was junior to the REP, which was the big dog. My hope is to to make them more equal dogs.”

Effect on the REP

One example of that new interaction is the production of Vita and Virginia, timed to coordinate with the 50th anniversary of the department of women and gender studies, Burton said, and the inaugural national conference of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Gender-Based Violence.

“There’s great collaboration across the university,” she said.

The new majors would have a ripple effect on the selection of REP productions.

UD lists 11 people in the REP company, with Tague at the top and Robbins at the bottom. In between are associate producing artistic director Sandy Ernst, production stage manager Matthew G. Marholin and seven actors (Hassan El-Amin, Lee E. Ernst, Michael Gotch, Elizabeth Heflin, Mic Matarrese, Stephen Pelinski and Kathleen Pirkl Tague), who also write and direct plays.

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UD REP

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The acting troupe lacks much diversity on today’s most talked-about demographics –Black, indigenous and people of color – and it also skews older, which limits the play selection.

“We just have to choose plays intelligently until the company composition changes a little bit, which is the next step we slowly but surely change as the older actors move a little bit more toward teaching, that will unburden the casting choices,” Tague said. “As we move in more people in their 30s, and we probably will only offer a one- or two-year contract, rather than a lifetime contract.”

Tague hopes that his plans will be accepted by the administration since they don’t demand much more in space (operations are now in four buildings) and faculty.

“In that regard, it’s a big win-win, I think, for UD and the state of Delaware, the students, the residents and the people,” he said.

“There’s a lot to be excited about,” Burton said. “The future is really bright.”

2O23 UPCOMING EVENTS

Fall Community Clean up

14 22 26 29 10 18 23 1 2

October 14 | 9AM-11 AM

City of Newark Municipal Building

Newark Symphony Concert

October 22 | 8PM-10PM

Independence School

Halloween Costume Party

October 26 | 4PM-5:30PM

George Wilson Center

Halloween Parade & Trick or Treat

October 29 | 3PM-5PM

Downtown Main Street

Flags for Heroes

Nov 10 | 11 AM | Newark Reservoir

For donation form

https://nmrde.org/flags-for-heroes/

Turkey Trot

Saturday November 18 | 9AM-11:30AM

Handloff Park

Thanksgiving Day Breakfast

Thursday November 23 | 8AM-10:30AM

George Wilson Center

Winterfest

Friday December 1 | 6PM-8PM

Academy Building Lawn Santas Secret Workshop

Saturday December 2 | 9AM-11:30AM

George Wilson Center

Now in its eighth season, the unified flag football program at Newark Charter School has become one of the most successful in Delaware. It’s built on teamwork, commitment and inclusion

Patriots in the huddle

If one were to assess the bell curve progress of any new sports team, be it professional, collegiate or at the high school level, it would be logical and historically accurate to start at the very bottom -- the cellar basement mulligan that awaits any newborn team as they learn the system and create a culture of winning.

Then there is the unified football program at Newark Charter School, who has singularly destroyed this wellestablished precedent.

In 2016, the team’s inaugural season, the Patriots won the Delaware State Unified Flag Football Championship. In 2017, they took home another state championship, and in 2018, they went to their third state championship game but were defeated late in the game. In subsequent years, they have remained competitive and have reached the final four in the state tournament every year.

Hidden in all the trophied-up accolades -- and behind the banners that hang in the school’s gymnasium -- lay the true purpose of what the unified flag football program at Newark Charter School has meant and stands for: the spirit of competition magnified by the power of inclusion.

It is all summed up in three photographs framed and mounted on the office wall of Athletics Director Greg Shivery that depict a student-athlete in flag football action, and in one photo, the athlete is flashing a triumphant earto-ear smile and is surrounded by his joyous teammates.

“Eric Anderson, a former student here who is also a

Special Olympics athlete, scored three touchdowns in those two state championship games,” Shivery said, pointing to the photos on the wall. “From the start, Eric just brought a lot to the table of those teams. I worked in special education for a long time, and the common misconception about special education is that much of the focus is on a person’s weaknesses.

“While not ignoring those weaknesses, we focus on an athlete’s strengths – like we did with Eric -- and the coaches who have been involved in unified flag football here have been very good at identifying the strengths of our students with disabilities and use those strengths to the benefit of the team.”

Enormous growth of unified sports

By the time Kylie Frazer, senior director of sports and competition at Special Olympics Delaware helped to bring unified flag football to Delaware schools eight years ago, the sport had already gained solid footing around the U.S.

With the help of legislation and the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the growth of inclusive educational models in the 1990s, laws began to open avenues of socialization for students with disabilities. Beau Doherty, president of Special Olympics Connecticut, began to work with Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver to develop what would become unified sports – a fully inclusive sports program that unites Special Olympics athletes

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Unified Flag Football

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(individuals with intellectual disabilities) and partners (individuals without intellectual disabilities) as teammates for training and competition.

By 2008, several states were joining the movement and unified sports programs were being established at high schools around the country, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education.

Worldwide, about 1.2 million athletes take part in unified sports, and to support its global reach, the ESPN network has served as the Global Presenting Sponsor of Special Olympics Unified Sports since 2013, supporting the growth and expansion of this program that empowers individuals with and without intellectual disabilities.

As a Special Olympics Unified Champion school, Newark Charter’s unified flag football program promotes social inclusion, and with football as its foundation, the model offers a unique combination of practical activities that equip young people with tools and training to create sports, classroom, and school climates of accep-

tance where athletes with disabilities feel welcome and are routinely included in and feel a part of all activities, opportunities and functions.

The idea of bringing the unified flag football – and unified basketball -- to Newark Charter in 2016 made a lot of sense to Shivery, who once coached a Special Olympics basketball team when he was a teenager.

“The formation of this program from the start was going to be about our athletes and their partners working together, but at the same time, we were going to teach all of them how to be competitive,” he said.

“As each season progresses, you really start to see our partners begin to take our athletes under their wings, and the higher caliber athlete and the lower-caliber athlete working together on the field,” said Theresa Repole, now in her third year as an assistant coach for the unified flag football team. “When a coach yells in a play, the partners take what is complex and break it down to the athletes, and to see that play go off without a hitch is awesome.”

Newark Charter School’s unified flag football team’s seven-game schedule continues at Appoquinimink High School on Oct. 19, followed by a game on Oct. 24 at Middletown High School and a road contest against William Penn on Nov. 2. The 2023 season concludes with a home game against McKean High School on November 9, beginning at 7 p.m. at the new Robert W. Gore Stadium on campus.

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Unified Flag Football

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More unified sports teams in the future?

Today, unified sports programming is in more than 8,300 schools across the United States, with a goal of being in 10,000 schools by 2024. As the unified flag football and unified boys’ basketball programs continue to thrive at Newark Charter, Shivery said that the possibility of adding additional unified sports at the school will be driven by outside agencies like the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association as well as the State of Delaware.

“In Delaware, we’re going to continue to see unified sports expand,” said Repole, who is a member of the unified sports committee for the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association. “It’s in many of the public schools now, and while some schools have dropped off, all it takes is to reignite these programs is someone to support it. Eventually, unified sports won’t just include flag football and basketball, but possibly track teams as well.

“We have the student population here at Newark Charter to develop that idea.”

As an athletic director for a school who fields two unified sports teams, Shivery is asked to describe the special moments he gets to see on the court or on the field during unified games. Again, he pointed to the photographs of Eric Andrews on his office wall.

“I have seen the pure joy that our student-athletes show when they are successful in competition,” Shivery said. “I love the moments when I see a student-athlete score a three-pointer and skip back downcourt dishing out high-

fives to his teammates.

“When Eric scored his first touchdown back in 2016, I got to witness the joy on his face and the joy of his teammates around him. Eric used to tell me every day, ‘Coach Greg, I haven’t had a bad day in my life.’ That sense of positivity is infectious. Our student-athletes bring that to their partners on our teams and they start to feel that positivity.

“Unified sports are about much more than just winning. It’s about getting kids with disabilities connected with their peers and accomplishing these moments, together. To me, there is nothing more important than that.”

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Unified Flag Football

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To learn more about the athletics program at Newark Charter School – including unified flag football and unified basketball – visit www.ncspatriotssports.com.

To learn more about the Special Olympics Unified Sports programs and how to get involved in your local community, visit specialolympics.org.

Newark Charter School’s Fall 2023 Unified Flag Football Team Roster

Cayden Anderson

Ajay Bonis

Logan Brown

Alex Burrows

Kendall Donahue

Luke Heseltine

Luke James

Bennett Johnson

Owen Mathias

Lucas Lutes

Logan Matthews

Aidan Nguyen

Jordan Nietfeld

Chase Polk

Lynell Tucker

Head Coach: Jake Schneider

Assistant Coach: Theresa Repole

state championships in 2016 and 2017.

Robert Abel, Jr., M.D.

Harry A. Lebowitz, M.D.

Andrew M. Barrett, M.D.

Jason A. Kaplan, M.D.

Jonathan S. Myers, M.D.

Tabassum F. Ali, M.D.

Elyse McGlumphy, M.D

Rachel L. Perry, M.D.

Ronald G. Young, O.D.

Jean M. Stewart, O.D.

Angela I. Pellegrini, O.D.

Jamie C. Wohlhagen, O.D.

Greta Steinbach-Wallis, O.D.

Jennifer E. Turano, O.D.

Sarah M. Nowicki, O.D.

Alex Quach, O.D.

Jean A. Astorino, O.D.