Jeffrey & hood

Jeffrey Robb (Burke ’10) was a lotta fun while at Burke.  Such fun included his excellent Burke-themed comic strip – The Organization, which you can find right here on Burke.Word (he’s still waiting on those royalty checks).   Unnamed sources (meaning I can’t say who’s mom told me) now tell your humble scribe and school yenta, that the tradition of fun continues as Jeffrey concludes his second year at Muhlenberg College.  Jeffrey is a company member of a somewhat rogue comedy troop called “Fun With Science” (you can tell their roguishness by the number of beards in the troop).  In one of their recent videos, Fun With Randy, they somehow extorted the President of the College, Peyton Randolph Helm, to come play with them outside.  Like most things Jeffrey does – you’ll love it.

2012 Middle School Softball Champs!

With apologies to Queen:  We are the champions, my friends.  We kept on fighting ’til the end.  We are the Champions.  We are the Cham….” Well, you get the picture.

2012 is a banner year for the Burke Middle School Softball Team!  Last year, this scrappy team came in a promising second place in what turned out to be a harbinger (AP English word) for this year’s run through the playoffs.  From spring training, until the final out on a long throw from Valerie to Sophia filling in for Esme, this team and this season has been special.  So special, in fact, that Sports historians, softball sabermatricians, and Burke graybeards are all looking into whether this is the first Sports Banner ever for a Burke Middle School team.

Final out on a long throw from short to first!

The wind-up… and the pitch…

With seven strong innings by pitcher, Catherine W…. and

She’s in 6th grade?!?!

Patient, solid hitting against a very strong Sandy Spring pitcher…and

Clockwork-like fielding, Burke played it calm and cool, like it has all season, to bring home the win, 6-1.

The season-capping win came before an SRO crowd comprised of parents, friends, many alums, and a bleacher-full of softball-loving faculty fans, including Bob K., Ginger, Monica, Susan, Guy, Judith, Michelle (and Chase), Wendell, and Daniel (channeling Casey Stengel).

Special thanks for such a special season go to all the coaches:  JD, Sam, Shala, and, of course, coach/team mascot Adam K.

Last, but not least, thanks for all the great action photos go to Holly Johnson!

Reggie!

In 1995 Reggie Wills, Burke Dir. of Equity & Inclusion, was teaching in a local elementary school.  One of his 5th grade students was Nathan Fleming.  This January, nearly 20 years later, Nathan somehow found Burke.Word, saw an article about Reggie that had been written a year earlier in 2011, and took the time to write a comment about Reggie on the blog.  Regrettably, I overlooked Nathan’s comment, and didn’t see it and post it to the site until today.

Here’s what Nathan had to say:

Reginald Wills is by far the greatest teacher I have ever had. It is truly noble for a man of his capability to dedicate his life to teaching others and promoting principles of equality and justice. If you ever read this Mr. Wills, please know that you forever changed my life, and I’m sure the lives of countless others.

Nathan Fleming
Former 5th Grade Student (1995?)

Pride can come in many forms, earned and unearned.  But, Nathan’s comment is a reminder about the nature of  lasting pride, the kind of pride that actually produces an almost physical reaction in your heart or catches your breath or tingles your skin.  And that pride is not just about words you hear, or a score you might get, or an award you earn, but is about the acts one does that live on in the lives of others who have been changed for the better.  Nathan’s comment, the work that Reggie has done/is doing – and the work that Burke (and other schools) does in the lives of people in the building and outside of it is something to be proud of.

PS – Reggie is among the humblest of men… so, I’m probably in a heap of trouble w/ him about now…

Burke MS Softball Bengals ’12

The Capitals beat the NY Rangers last night to deadlock their Eastern Conference Series at 3 a-piece.  Ho-hum.

The Nats dropped one to the Pirates, but still stand a-top the National League Eastern Division…. zzzzz.
The real buzz among the DC sports cognoscenti from Capitol Hill to Capitol Heights is the continuing march of the Middle School Softball Girl Bengals to the PVAC Championship Finals with a breath-taking playoff win over a very strong Covenant Life team.

With storm clouds threatening, and the game see-sawing back and forth, these Tigers pitched and hit their way to the final.  Kate S. and Catherine W. continued their solid performance off the mound this season, by holding down a powerful CovLife lineup that defeated Burke in the Finals last year.

All 10 Burkies contributed at the plate and on the basepaths.  Albert Pujols may be struggling at the plate, but Sofia and Aya stayed hot at the dish with key drives during the game.  And Catherine, helping her own cause turned in what proved to be a game-winning triple toward the end of the game, driving in the go-ahead runs.  But for your humble scribe, the play that should be on Sports Center rotation today was the game-saving, championship-earning, all-star, last-second, breath-taking, running-catch by rookie Natanya S. of a  frozen rope fading liner that would have put CovLife back on top in the last inning!!  Last, but certainly not least, Esme won a spontaneously given Good Sportsperson Gatorade from Covenant Life for helping one of their teammates after a collision at First.

The Championship match is at home this coming Monday against Sandy Spring.  Come on out to the old ball yard, there may be a few seats left, and see the team that everyone in DC is talking about!!

Go Bengals!!!

A special thanks goes out to the Coaches: JD, Shala, Sam and Adam K. for an exciting, great season!

Thanks to photo-journalist and dad, Jeff Taylor for the action photo.  Thanks also to veteran sports reporter and conga player Danny Weiss for the reportage.

["50 More Years of Trotsky!!"]

Growing up I heard Jim McKay’s voice every saturday repeat the global sports clarion, like a prayer or haiku:

After watching so many practices and games at Burke, and knowing the players and the coaches, I’ve come to see that the ‘thrill’ is not just in the victory (though, don’t get me wrong, that ain’t so bad).  “Thrill” is defined, in part, as a sudden wave of keen emotion.  What is the feeling that comes from watching the players grow over the years; pick themselves up off the turf; summon the courage or effort or love to make the attempt?  Seems “thrilling” to me.

As you watch the Winter Sports video, don’t despair that the season’s over… Spring MS Softball began yesterday with a 14-9 victory!  Come on out for the rest of the games – and feel the thrill of the grass!

Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers magically weaves together the joy and pain of childhood, the meaning of kinship, the weight of love and loss, the power of imagination and dreams, and the promise and curse of the ticking clock – almost as if Dickens, Freud and Edward Gorey had helped ghostwrite.  The incredible cast brings these timeless themes to life – so much so, that they stay with you long after you leave the theater.

Great reviews are pouring in from the Washington Post, Maryland Theater Guide, DC Theater Scene, Metro Weekly, etc.  The play also just received a Helen Hayes Recommendation! If Helen says so, you and your family gotta go see it!.

Peter Pan is on stage now and runs through March 4 at DC’s H Street Playhouse.  You can buy tickets here.

Congrats to the entire NRTC team, including our very own Cory Frank, former Burke Theater Dir., and Joshua Morgan, who directed last summer’s The Davids.

In honor of this season of Festivals of Light – Bob Kulawiec, Chemistry teacher extraordinaire, offers the following Holiday Tale – On Strontium, on Lithium, on Copper, on Barium:

Most years, during the last class period of each section of chemistry before winter break, I share “celebratory holiday pyrotechnics” with my students.  The dishes contain metal salts dissolved in methanol, a highly flammable solvent.  When the methanol burns, the heat of combustion promotes the metal atoms to higher energy states.  When they fall back to their ground states, they emit the excess energy in the form of visible light.  Since each element has its own characteristic quantized energy states, each element emits light of different wavelengths, which we perceive as different colors.  The colors correspond to the classic “flame tests” used for centuries to identify elements.  They are, from left to right: lithium (bright scarlet), copper (green), strontium (reddish orange) and barium (green-tinged yellow).

Happy Holidays from the Edmund Burke School Chemistry Lab!

–Bob

Putting on a big holiday party tonight – means bringing out the heavy machinery and the right artists to make it happen, like Lucinda and Mel.  Thanks to them and to all the faculty, parents and students who are making the Burke Holiday Party the place to be tonight!

Stars & Stripes

Two Burke stars, Jennifer & still-recent arrival Ryan, lookin’ good in stripes (from the sun) and kickin’ back after a grueling breakfast meeting at the Metro Diner. Jen returns to the Development Office in January.  Before then, keep a look-out for some possible cameo appearances by Jen, Ryan, Ellie & Christian (if you’re nice and not naughty – they might even fly in for this Thursday’s Holiday Party).

Geralyn

A special thanks goes out to another star, Geralyn Lobel, who has more than held down the fort in the development office.  The parent of a Burke alumna, former development co-director, and always a relentless supporter of Burke in all ways, Geralyn came through again over the last 3 months+ in so many ways – including: helping the development trains run on time, orchestrating this year’s 100 Percent in 100 Days Annual Fund Campaign, organizing meetings between all new families and Andrew, supporting the early work on this Spring’s Auction, pulling together another great Grandparents Day, etc., etc., dayenu!  Along with Cathy Collins and Abby Kernan-Schloss, Geralyn has helped make sure that Burke development has continued to grow in a way that reflects the values of the community and insures that the school can continue to pursue its missions of academic achievement, diversity, personal growth, and service.

Thanks Geralyn!

Jump Shot

Roving reporter and 8th Grade parent, Mark Popovich attended Tuesday’s Girls Middle School B-Ball game against Waldorf and filed this report (and action photos):

The middle school girls basketball team tipped up the 2011 campaign with its first “midnight madness at 3:15pm” game.  Facing Waldorf, the gallant gals worked through the first game jitters and both teams produced little scoring in a first half dominated by strong defensive play.  Scoring picked up the pace in the second stanza and while the burke bengals showed signs of much of the hard work of the preceding practices, they came up short on the final score.  The team looked mah-vah-lus.   Get em next game — Thursday…

Update – true to Mark’s word, La Bengals “got ‘em” on Thursday with a great team effort (and btw – evening up their record at 1 & 1 with a strong “W” – and we’re not talking about G. Bush’s middle initial).

More Popovich original photos (from his new phone) at BurkePix!