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ALONG THE WAY: David Dix

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David Dix
February 7, 2010

 By David Dix

Record-Courier Publisher

Last week, we reprinted dispatches from Ravenna’s Dr. Greg Gaski, who’s doing an orthopedic surgery residency at the University of Miami, about the heroic efforts of doctors from his University to treat hurricane victims in Haiti in which he volunteered.

This week, here’s a story about a happy adoption outcome of a 1-year old Haitian boy by an American lady.

I learned from my dentist, Dr. E.A. Mastroianni, that the daughter of one his colleagues from dental school is adopting one of the 51 orphans flown from Port-au-Prince into Pittsburgh three weeks ago.

His dental school classmate, the late Dr. Bob Moore, practiced in Denver and Dr. Mastroianni has been close to the family. Dr. Moore’s daughter, Suzie, a school teacher in the Denver area, had been in the process of adopting a little boy living in the BRESMA Orphanage in Port-au-Prince, run by two sisters from Pittsburgh. As such, she was one of more than 100 Americans attempting to adopt at the orphanage.

Adoption is a slow process. Suzie started paying for the care of her prospective son, 1-year old Jakob, and visited him at the orphanage last October. Then the earthquake struck.

Soon out of supplies, the orphanage sent out an appeal. The two Pittsburgh sisters, Jamie and Ali McMutrie, who run the orphanage, e-mailed pleas to anyone they could think of for help and caught the attention of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who worked with the Haitian ambassador to intervene. 

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American authorities speeded up the adoption process. Governor Rendell flew with a staff of 25 from Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital and two and half tons of medical supplies commercially to Miami and then on to Haiti where he made arrangements to take 51 of the orphans back to Pittsburgh. There, after release from Children’s Hospital, they would be cared for by Catholic Charities until prospective parents could arrive to pick up their children.

The American military loaned the governor a C-130 transport plane to fly the children to Pittsburgh.

Alerted that little Jakob would be in Pittsburgh, Suzie Moore, Dr. Mastroianni said, flew from Denver with others from the Colorado area undertaking the same adoption process. Both Suzie Moore and little Jakob, Dr. Mastroianni said, are back in Denver where Jakob, once an orphan, now has a loving home.

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Thursday afternoon, Ravenna Schools Superintendent Tim Calfee generously gave department heads and administrators at the Record-Courier a walk-through of the new high school scheduled for completion some time this spring.

What a magnificent building and how special it will make Ravenna students feel!

 I know a new building does not guarantee high test scores and academic achievement, but the new high school will build pride and self-esteem and that certainly can help spur a drive for academic excellence.

 The new building is not luxurious, but it is well thought out and provides amenities currently unavailable. Improved window technology enables it  to utilize lots of natural light without heat loss. It uses geothermal heat, which will cut operating costs. Its gabled rooftops will enable it to better weather Ohio’s snows and rainfalls.  All on one floor, it’s accessible to all.

The building consists of an academic wing facing North Chestnut Street, with a general purpose area to the west that holds the auditorium, cafeteria and commons, and administrative offices. Proceeding further west one enters the athletic complex with its gymnasium, wrestling room and field house with two full-size practice basketball courts.

The academic wing has three halls running east from the general purpose area with classrooms on both sides. The science wing is in the center so that the utilities those classes require can be consolidated. Between the wings are courtyards where in good weather students can sit comfortably. The wings are accessible east and west so students will be able to walk between their classes with a minimum of down time.

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The central science wing runs into the media center, a room that used to be known as a library, but due to technology is now more than that.

There is adequate parking for students and faculty with the entrance roads separating for each of the two categories.

Located on the 88-acre parcel the school district purchased more than 30 years ago, Ravenna Schools have created a handsome campus for the students, the football stadium and tennis courts having been completed some years earlier.

Designed for nearly 1,000 students, Ravenna High, minus the students who attend at Maplewood, has fewer than 900 students all day in the high school. A member of our group, also impressed with the new building, speculated Ravenna may gain a number of students through open enrollment from neighboring districts, once they realize the educational opportunities to be had in this wonderful facility. The ones who do enroll, of course, bring the state student subsidy with them.

I am sure the citizens of Ravenna and Ravenna Township will be extremely proud of this building and deservedly so.

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Portage County Auditor Janet Esposito has  the best political antennae of anyone I know so when I saw she attended the local Republican Party retreat a week ago at Maplewood Career Center where TEA Party advocates participated, I asked her about this new citizen movement.

“They’re mostly everyday people who think taxes are too high,” Mrs. Esposito shrugged.

The New York Times and the New Yorker in recent articles said American elites have shortsightedly dismissed the TEA Party, some like Nancy Pelosi, calling it the tool of corporate fatcats, despite many Tea Party populists saying the banks and automakers should’ve had no bailout.

The articles describe the TEA Party as an anti-tax citizen network comfortable with modern technology.  Some members have far-out agendas, but the common goal of most is tax reduction.  Politically savvy, the Tea Party wants take over the Republican Party, precint by precint. That may be what is underway in Portage County.

If a takeover does not work, the articles say, the Tea Party may form its own political party as surveys have shown it may have wider appeal than the Republican Party.  

The GOP leadership, the New Yorker said, dismissed Scott Brown’s candidacy, but the TEA Party citizen network rallied to his cause and by the campaign’s end was raising $1 million a day via the Internet on his behalf.  That plus his good looks and appeal to the South Boston Irish Catholic vote helped him upset Martha Coakley.

Can you blame Massachusetts’ new senator if he throws in his lot with the Tea Party?

 




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