Features

Look up in the sky! Its a bird! Its a plane! No, its one of more than 20 rockets launched by members of the Pion Rocket Club during an early morning assembly at the school. Students at the school participated in the countdown for each launch, which featured rockets with names such as Big Bertha, Big Daddy and Screaming Eagle.

There was also a three-stage rocket, a rocket that measured more than 5 feet and one less than 5 inches tall.

Kokopelli, a fertility and agriculture deity who chases away winter and ushers in spring with his flute playing, traveled to Barranca Mesa Elementary School this week.

The fourth-grade class worked since January to prepare for his arrival. In fact, the whole staff, from physical education instructors to social studies teachers, got in on the action. They helped students not only study this Southwestern Native American god, but write and illustrate books about the deity, create puppets for a puppet show, rehearse a song about Kokopelli, and learn a Kokopelli dance.

Twenty years ago, there was no year-round community pool in Los Alamos. The community shared a small pool with Los Alamos High School, but the public’s use was restricted because of the high school swimmers’ busy schedules.

A group of citizens decided to change the situation. So, in 1984, a group of Los Alamos residents talked to the county recreation board about building a community pool, said Frederica Smith, aquatic center sub-committee and parks and recreation board member.

Local Orthodox Christians are joining all Orthodox Christians across the world in the celebration of Holy Week and Pascha (Easter). This preparation began last weekend with the end of Great Lent Saturday, and the Saturday of the Raising of Lazarus from the grave. For Orthodox Christians, this year Pascha (as Easter is called) falls several weeks later then the Western Protestant and Roman Catholic observance.

Mozart started composing music when he was 5 years old. At 7, Thomas Chadwick of Los Alamos isn’t too far behind the famous composer.

Chadwick is one of 16 finalists in the Hey Mozart!, a statewide program that encourages children who are 12 and younger to create an original melody. The program is now in its third year.

“Soft fried chicken cubes.” “Fungus with onions.” “Fried fish in squirrel shape.”

Even when translated into English, the menus don’t read like a list of entrees so much as a table of contents in a book of poetry: “Fried celery with salty pork.” “Mixed green stuff.” “Local snack.”

Spring break, for me, means the ballet studios are closed and I have to find some other way to contort myself. Thanks to the suggestion of a friend, I found one in Los Alamos’ newest, hottest thing: Bikram yoga.

Day One

I went in kind of cocky. I can touch my toes easily. I can do the splits. But Bikram’s Yoga College of India – Los Alamos, the new studio located in the old Ed’s Market, offers something I’d never done: yoga in a humid, 105-degree setting.

The temperature makes the news more often than owner Melissa Theesfeld wishes.

Forgetting about electronic toys and video games, the parent teacher organization at Aspen Elementary School is turning to simpler, more old-fashioned methods to generate family fun.This return to the olden days will occur during the Spring Fling, which will be held from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday at the school. Admission costs $3 for children older than age 3.

The cost of the war in Iraq has been estimated at more than $463 billion. At 10:30 a.m. Sunday, the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos will ask “The Cost of Iraq: Who Pays the Price?” in a special worship service as part of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s annual Justice Sunday program.The Rev. John Cullinan will examine the costs of war and their effect on our society’s values from a liberally religious perspective in his sermon titled, “Being the Change We Wish to See.” The service will also draw from the work of the Rev. Dr.