Celabrating Christmas

Brightly colored packages of Christmas gifts surrounded the tree. The voices of singers echoed in the air. The sound of laughter filled the room. You could feel the spirit of Christmas as the people gathered for dinner and fellowship. A prayer was said for those who are alone at this time of the year and for those who are in need..

”This community does so much for the children of this area at Christmas time,” said Shon Gress to the members and guests of the Cambridge Lions Club. Gress is the director of the Senior Citizens Center. “Sometimes our senior citizens get overlooked. Some of them have outlived their relatives and there is no one left in their family.”

“For some of our senior citizens, this is the only gift they will receive,” Gress said. “We appreciate the gifts that members of the Lions Club give to them. You should see the smiles of appreciation on the faces of those who receive these gifts.”

The club was then treated to the musical gifts of the Trail Singers from Buckeye Trail High School. The talented Singers presented a program of Christmas music that set the mood for the season. The choir then invited the Lions and their guests to join in singing several Christmas songs and carols. The Trail Singers are directed by Tonya Biggins.

Guests of the club included several members of the Cambridge Lioness Club and wives, mothers, children and grandchildren of members.

Cambridge Mayor Tom Orr speaks about state of the city

“We care about making Cambridge a better place to live,” said Cambridge Mayor Tom Orr to the Cambridge Lions Club. “We have an open door policy at my office because we want to be accessible. The complaints we get about our sixteen square miles tell us what’s going on.”

“We want to make Cambridge an attractive place to live,” Orr said. “The passage of the property maintenance code will help us with keeping up our neighborhoods. Neighborhoods have changed. People are starting to respond positively to implementing the code.”

“We got a lot of positive feedback with our spring clean up,” Orr said. “People appreciate our leaf pickup. We’re proud of our clean up efforts after (the remnants of Hurricane Ike) passed through here. I assure you we will continue picking up leaves and sticks.”

Orr discussed the challenges of maintaining city services in the face of budget cuts. “We expect 2009 to be as hard as 2008, Orr said. “We expect cuts from state funding. Press reports of the tough economic times messes with our minds. We are trying to be as positive as we can.”

“We had to lay off people,” Orr said. “We are faced with the need for more funds. We will lay out the facts for the people and the voters will have to decide whether to increase the income tax to a rate closer to what other surrounding cities have. We want to go to council early so that there can be lots of discussion of what needs to be done.”

Orr cited the high cost of salt for snow removal and asphalt for patching potholes. “We have tried to make the spreading of salt more efficient so we can use less and still get the job done. Each snowfall is different. We have filled potholes wider and deeper to try to make the patches last longer.”

Orr praised previous administrations for laying the groundwork for projects that were completed in his administration. He also praised the work of city engineer Paul Sherry, code enforcement officer Kim Conrath and city services director Bob Ley.

“People have said that the Brookside Drive realignment project has taken too long,” Orr said, “but at least it is finished now.” Other projects completed or underway include the sanitary sewer along Route 40, the Campbell Avenue Bridge, the Will Creek valley project, sidewalk replacement, water line replacement, and the ongoing reservoir repairs.

Orr complimented citizens who have come forward with donations and ideas for improving the city cemetery and restoring tombstones. “The city can’t do everything. It makes Cambridge a better place when citizens step up and take the initiative.”

“Cambridge is one of four cities in the country to have a light display like the one on our courthouse, thanks to Grant Hafley. The Dickens Victorian Village displays have brought in tourists from all over. Lots of volunteers have helped with this. I think it’s great that a community of this size can do all this. These are the things what separate Cambridge from all the others.”

In other club business Ben Cahoon reported that auditions for the March variety show have been completed and a few new people will be featured as soloists as well as many returning soloists. Matt Dolan reported that the club will help clean up the FOP shooting range in the spring. David Piatt was a guest.

Funds raised by the Lions Club are used to help those in need with the costs of eye care and eye glasses and to assist the local diabetes support group. Applications for assistance are available on-line at www.Cambridgelions.com under the Lions Links tab

Meadowbrook Golf andLions District Governer

Guest speakers at the Cambridge Lions Club were Mel Pesuit, golf coach at Meadowbrook High School, Cordell Brown, founder of Camp Echoing Hills, and Lions District 13G Governor Robert Buxton.

Pesuit introduced members of the 2008 Meadowbrook golf team. Seniors are Justin Haught, Trent Lasko, Anthony Neff, and Nick Yakubik. Underclassmen are Eli Pesuit, Cole Pennington, and Matt Miller.

The Meadowbrook golfers participated in the state tournament placing eighth in the state. There are two hundred thirty-three teams in the state. “We got to play on the Scarlet course at Ohio State,” Pesuit said. “It’s quite an honor to play on a course where such golfing greats as Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskoph played.”

“We’re losing four seniors this year, but we have high expectations for our other team members,” Pesuit said. “I have seven players who are interchangeable. They are all highly motivated.”

Cordell Brown is the founder of Camp Echoing Hills located in Coshocton County. The camp provides a place for children with disabilities and special needs to have a great outdoor experience. More information is available at www.echoinghillsvillage.org.

Brown is also youth coordinator for Lions district 13G. “We plan to send a youth band to the 2009 international Lions convention in Minneapolis. We are still recruiting students to participate in June and July,” Brown said.

Buxton regularly visits one of the fifty Lions Clubs in the nine-county district. “Thank you for your support of Camp Echoing Hills,” Buxton said. “Several of your members helped put a new floor in a trailer there.”

“You are an active club and have added several new members,” Buxton said. “As Lions we tend to pull through when there is a need.” Lions clubs provide support for eye care and eye glasses for those in need. Local funds also help the diabetes support group.

“We plan to send a band to the Rose Parade in 2010 from the School for the Blind in Columbus,” Buxton said. “We will also have to send a sighted person to accompany each of the band members. We are recruiting others and hope to have a band of twenty five members. They will need support for uniforms, air fare, and hotels and food.”

Dan Mumma talks about Ohio Valley Service Center

“We focus on providing educational services to school districts that they might not be able to do by themselves,” said Dan Mumma to the Cambridge Lions Club. Mumma will be the superintendent of the Ohio Valley Educational Service Center beginning in January. The center serves Guernsey and Noble County schools and other school districts from Marietta to Barnesville.

“We can provide the staff for students with special needs,” Mumma said. “One district may have eighteen students with special needs and another may have fifteen. Each district could not afford to hire its own specialist but by serving several districts we can meet the needs of all the students.”

“We get state funding for specialists,” Mumma said. “We can provide speech and hearing services, special education intervention teachers, textbook evaluation, coordination of curriculum and instruction, psychological services, talented and gifted support and preschool intervention.”

“We are required to identify and serve pre-school students (ages 3-5) with developmental disabilities,” Mumma said. “We currently serve two hundred fifty to three hundred pre-school students.”

Services provided to pre-school children include speech and hearing, psychological services, nursing care, physical and occupational therapy and the early learning initiative.

“We see the worth of our students and staff,” Mumma said. “Teachers touch lives in different ways. They can be a positive role model.”

Educational service centers were created by the state legislature in the early 1990’s to address the needs of schools in Ohio’s eighty eight counties. They came about as a result of studies by the state that showed that compliance with state standards was a problem.

Mumma reviewed the history of county school boards. In 1913 there were one thousand five hundred fourteen township school districts. “Some had a strong curriculum, others did not. Some had unsanitary conditions. Too many were exceedingly small.”

“Some schools had teachers who had not graduated from high school. Some had teachers who had only completed elementary school. There were thirty one township districts in Guernsey County.”