Features

After a year and a half of work, the Los Alamos Cooperative Market has some big news to share. The announcement will occur during its first annual cooperative membership meeting at 6:15 p.m. Sunday at the Betty Ehart Senior Center.Besides the announcement, the meeting will provide live music by the Roaring Jellies and a potluck dinner.Along with a dish, participants are encouraged to bring the recipe, which will be put into a cooperative cookbook. The public is welcome to attend.So what is the big news?

Playschool gets ValentinesLittle Forest Playschool wishes to thank the following individuals and businesses for their donations to the “For Your Valentine” silent auction.

“The Joy Luck Club” may be a work of fiction, but readers can uncover universal truths within its pages and may even glimpse aspects of their own lives in the story.The book has several themes, said Charlie Kalogeros-Chattan, library manager. The relationships between mother and daughter, wife and husband, and old and new generations are just a few.Because of its many themes, Kalogeros-Chattan believed it would be a perfect book to discuss with the community.

For the past 20 years, several churches have spent Wednesday nights together during the season of Lent. The Rev. Colin Kelly of Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church (TOTH), said, back in 1987, he and the Rev. Calder Gibson of Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church (BELC) and the Rev. Gus of Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church (IHM) created Ecumenical Lenten Wednesdays in Los Alamos.The five-week shared program has been a tradition for many churchgoers in Los Alamos, a part of the life cycle of Christian practice for them and a 20-year habit.

Los Alamos High School student Tess Montoya plays the girl of Eli Barnes’ dreams in the National Dance Institute of New Mexico’s ballet, “An American in Paris.”Montoya plays a flower girl who falls in love with Eli Barnes’ character, who is an American living in Paris.

The Boy Scouts of Troop 222 recently completed a new tricycle track for the preschool program at Barranca Mesa Elementary School.The project, which took five weekends to complete, involved cleaning and preparing the playground area, meeting with the preschool teachers to design and layout the new track, obtaining the necessary materials and painting the new roadway.“The preschoolers will use the track as a guide for riding their tricycles.” Carrie Johnson, a Barranca preschool teacher, said.

While working through parent/teacher conference week, the community is making sure the Pion Elementary School staff does not go hungry. The Hill Diner, Ruby K’s and Bandelier Grill are donating soup while parents are providing bread, fruit and side dishes. Even the sixth-graders are joining in on this effort.Feeding the staff was also held last year, however, they ate their meals out of disposable bowls.

The Musical Fireworks continue Feb. 23, when the Los Alamos Concert Association brings the Imani Winds, a wind quintet to Los Alamos. Imani Winds will present a master class at 11 a.m. at the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos and a concert at 8 p.m. in Duane Smith Auditorium. A reception will follow the concert.Imani Winds, founded in 1997, is an American wind quintet based in New York. The quintet comprises flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, and bassoon, and is known for its adventurous programming.

The Catholic Church originally recognized 10 or 11 Valentines (some of them Bishops), although several of them could have been the same person.Eight hundred years before the establishment of Valentine’s Day, the Romans had practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men’s growth to maturity. The celebration required men to draw the names of young girls from a box.