http://www.spotlightnews.com

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MOHONASEN COMMUNITY DAY SET

Posted on: 05/15/08
Written by: Ross Marvin, Spotlight Staff
email: marvinr@spotlightnews.com

As the warm weather continues this spring, so do the outdoor community activities.

Residents, local businesses and organizations will join the Mohonasen school community on Saturday, May 17 to celebrate academics from childhood to
adulthood at Community Day: A Learning Celebration.

The day-long celebration will be held on the Mohonasen High School/Draper Middle School campus, 2072 Curry Road, Schenectady.

Activities kick off at 8:15 a.m. with a one-mile walk in conjunction with the

Amber Teta Memorial 5K Run set to begin at 9 a.m.

The fun continues all day with a fireworks display at night.

http://www.dailygazette.com

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ROTTERDAM
Community Day merges with school fair

BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

    Thousands of students and residents once flocked to the Mohonasen School District campus each fall for the annual Community Day.
    But the event was canceled because of budget constraints in 2006. And it was left without a home after Mohonasen began the last phase of its $8.5 million improvement project later that year.
    Organizers are now hoping to revive the celebration of Rotterdam’s heritage by merging it with another popular school event this weekend. Mohonasen’s Community Day will be hosted at the district campus on Saturday and will incorporate Mohonasen’s Academic Fun Fair, an annual event hosted each spring at the middle school.
    The event will feature all of the fair’s events in addition to some of the musical performances and displays that were traditionally part of Community Day. Any proceeds will go to benefit the Mohonasen Foundation for Excellence, a nonprofit organization aimed at enhancing educational opportunities and promoting partnerships between the school and community.
    Event co-chair and foundation trustee John Mahan Jr. said the new event will focus on both education and the arts at Mohonasen. He said hosting the event is a good method of fostering the relationship between the district and the community.
    “Now what we’re doing is combining the two events for one big event in May,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is refocus [Community Day] onto what schools are all about.”
    The event will lead off with the Amber Teta Memorial 5K, a race that was originally a hallmark of Community Day. Teta and her mother were both killed in a car accident in November 2002, just five months after the standout art student graduated from Mohonasen.
    The race was originally intended both as a fundraiser for a scholarship in Teta’s name and as a way to promote exercise among the community. Organizers said this year’s race is expected to draw several hundred participants.
    Following the run, the middle school will host its academic learning fair, which will feature nearly four dozen interactive displays throughout the middle school during the afternoon. Displays include everything from a ham radio operator talking to people across the globe to a live animal demonstration featuring reptiles.
    Community Day will also feature an antique car show, which will pull classic cars from around the Rotterdam area. During the afternoon, the Duanesburg Skydiving team will parachute onto the campus athletic fields.
    Live musical acts will perform throughout the event, which will also feature an eclectic array of vendors. The festivities will conclude after dusk with a fireworks display.
    For more information and a full schedule of events, visit the district’s Web site at http://www.mohonasen.org.
    “We anticipate a really large number of student and community members,” said Mike Johnson, the district’s assistant superintendent, who helped organize the event. “There’s something for just about anybody across the community.”

This is OK, I guess, but I thought that it really was standing for people standing together as a community when it was scheduled originally for 9/11.  My personal feeling would be to move the date back to when it was originally for the future.  I realize that's only 4 months away if they're doing it once each school year, but I thought that it really meant something extra.

I disagree that dates and things like 9/11 should be 'celebrated' over and over and over......community is alot more than what happened in NYC, at the Pentagon  or in a field in Pennsylvania.....our 'togetherness' should never be stirred or kept alive by fear mongering or anger, but by seeking Truth.....

remember--- the rest of the 47states didn't have plane crashes(Paris Hilton and her family dont seem to be effect, nor do the rest of the jet setting group).....I'm not one for conspiracy theorys(interesting as they are) but, I do have a tendency to wonder why politicians use certain phrases at certain times and not in other times and what folks (the masses) reactions are........

JMHO

I agree, I don't see it as a "celebration," but more as a rememberance and thought of it as a time that the entire community came together, just as the entire country did immediately after this happened.  The other reason is that this is the date that these originally started out on.  It's fine having it another day, but I just see 9/11 as something that will be swept under the carpet and I don't want to see that happen...ever.

9/11 will 'disappear' as a tangible truth in 40years---just like WW2 and WW1......no one in the next 2generations will have a tangible feeling of the day and it's consequences.....only what the school books state.......I hear WW2 stories alot in my line of work and it is/was NOTHING like the effects of 9/11.....Pearl Harbor was on the west coast and 9/11 was on the east coast.......that is about the closest to similarities we shall get---the rest is filled in by each persons crayon color......

I'm not sure what to 'remember' or 'commemorate' on 9/11-----what exactly was it??? Today we are commemorating high oil prices and the decrease in the value of our money.......... the elephant in the room......