Newspapers / The Morrisville & Preston … / June 21, 1995, edition 1 / Page 1
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The Morrisville & Preston ress GETTING IT TOGETHER-The Ward family--Kim, Mike, little Brianne, and Blair--are putting their lives back together and learn ing about themselves since last September when train smashed into their moving van and demolished all their household ^ sions. Household reconstruction A community’s outpouring helps Wards recover from mishap By SUZETTE RODRIGUEZ It’s been eight months since a train collided with an Allied moving van at a Morrisville rail road crossing and obliterated a family’s possessions. Tlie accident catapulted Mike and Kim Ward, who had been moving from New Jersey to the Preston Forest subdivision in Cary, into the spotlight as a sympathetic com munity rallied around them. Since that Sept^ber 23 morning, the Wards and their two children, Blair, 6, and Brianne 3, have been putting their lives back together- one couch, one appliance, one toy at a time. And although the sights of the crash are still vivid, the Wards re member most the outpCHuing of community concern that followed. "We were amazed that people wanted to help—even two, thr^, four weeks after the accident. We still marvel at it," the Wards said during a recent interview from their home. Still, as if it h^pened yesterday, Kim remembers the call she received that morning. She and her daughtm- had gone to their new home early to wait for the movers to arrive. "Mrs. Ward, we have some bad news " she remembers the repre sentative from the Allied Corpwa- tion in Chicago saying. The Wards would later team that the driver of the moving van bad attempted to cross a steeply pitched railroad crossing at the intersection of N.C. 54 and Morrisville- Carpenter Road when he got stuck on the tracks, mid-axle. For several minutes, he tried working the vehicle back and forth to free it. But within minutes a train ^^oached and with no time to Slop, plowed through the van. "When I pictured it in my mind, I thought (the van) had gotten pushed off the road. I was sure a ton of stuff was still there, like pots, pans," Kim recalled. She phoned Mike, who bad taken their son to school, to tell him the news. Ironically, he answaed the call while stop^ in traffic for the train. What the couple saw when they arrived at the tracks shocked them. Strewn about were chips from her fme China, swmches of singed clo thing, teddy bears with melted fur. Canceled checks swirled about in the air like leaves; tax returns and VISA statements littered the grass. But among the scene of destruc tion were a tremendous numbCT of local pec^jle-firefighters, police of- ffcers both on and off-duty, nearby residents, passersby—wbo were picking up shoes, pictures, toys and offering other kinds of help. "No one had to guess who we were. We were standing there as white as sheets," Kim recalled. Hie debris collected over the next few days filled five tractor trailers. Allied unloaded it at their depot in Morrisville ten days later and notified the Wards they could begin picking through the piles. Mike said at first he and Kim plucked out anything that appeared whole, a CD although scratched, a cassette t^ aldiough clogged with dirt. "Looking back on that first day, I Teacher eyes multi-level classes at Morrisville Elementary School ByJUDYCREGAN After teaching them for two years, Sharon Fomaro said good bye to her first-grade students in early June. No, she didn’t fail the entire class. Instead, it was the ccmpletion of a concept call "loop ing." Fomaro was instrumental in laun ching a looping program at Morris ville Year-Round Elementary School. Together, she and her entire kindergarten class rnttdf. the move into first grade. She’ll go back cmce again and pick up a new kindergarten class for the coming year. It takes two teachers to initiate the process. One replaces the posi tion vacitted by the other, and vice vCTsa. The 42-year-old Fomaro had been interested in starting a looping program for some time, and she eventually discovered a partner in Ruth Ann Hamilnm, another K-1 teacher who joined the Morrisville staff last year. Fomaro has used the last two years to achieve an in-depth under standing of the develofment of ex- cq)fionaI students from kindergar ten through first grade. And now ^’s hoping that she and Hamilton eventually will teach the first (and probably for a while, the only two) multi-level K-1 classes at Moris- ville. Multi-level education, which Fomaro has been researching for three years, places kindergarten and first-grade students in the same class. The Pennsylvania native says the idea can be hunting to parents at first, but tiim "it’s a program wh»e everyone involved benefits." The new kindergartners would have older models to watch and learn from every day. And because of this, they would develqp more quickly in verbal skills and bebav- iw, Fomaro says. What about the shier, less socially developed child? At the kindergar- iea level, the child would have the security of the "buddy system" at work. Whether it be a trip down the haUway or help with tying a shoe, there always will be a "family" of substitute older siblings ready to help, Fomaro points out. The second year of being in a multi-level classroom can be the most rewarding and dramatic in the development of a slow or shy diild. The status of the first grader auto matically changes with the entrance of a new group of kindergartners. A socially less developed child, Fomaro says, now has a chance to become a leader, something the child would nevCT have the chance to do in staying with the same age groiq) throughout school. And the Sm TEACHER, p«g»2 tWi L 'T'-' Crossing upgrade expected to ease local traffic snarls think our hearts needed anything We just wanted to grasp onto any thing that used to be ours," be said By the fifth day, the Wards had found enough pictores, though tom, blotted and scratched, to feel they were "geoing back some of their hearts." Hie Wards could identify among the he^s, splinters of Kim’s grand mother’s bedroom suit, a piece of wood that appeared carved out of a heavy bodccase, a flattened silver pancake that once bad been her grandmother’s tea service. Some things vanished without leaving behind any pieces. Like the video camera that contained a t^ of Blair’s birthday party and his friends the day before die family moved. "What meant most was my wed ding gown," Kim said. "1 wanted my daughter to wear it I wanted her to have the silver tea s^ice in her house. It’s like our lineage stc^iped on the railroad tracks in Morrisville that day." Thus began the Wards’ monu- See COMMUNITY’S, page 4 By Beth Land! Visitors to New York are fainiiiar with the seemingly ebeneograpbed movements of traffic cops as they work to keep thousands of vehicles (raveling smoothly through the ci^. But these guys have nothing on Morrisville officers Chris Rhew and Oth GeOTge Jr. Since late October the two have regulated msh-hour traffic on Ch^l Hill Road (N.C. 54) at its intersections with Morrisville- Caipenter Road and Aviation Park way. And they will continue to w(^ ttiis beat until a new four-way intersection with traffic signals renders their services obsolete. While traffic congestion and a dangerously steep railroad grade at Morrisville-Carpenter have long concerned town leaders, the enormous increase in traffic volume in recent years has changes imperative. McuTisville Police Chief Bmce Newnam cites a North Carolina State University study that shows a 79 pCTcent increase in traffic flow between 1991 and 1993. "The study showed an average 36,318 vehicles passed through the Morrisville corporate limits pa day in 1991," he says. "That figure was up to 64,900 by 1993." Accidents are up too, Newnam says. Comparing records from Aiml of last year to April 1995, he says, "the number of accidents we’ve responded to is iq) to 15 from six." "We’ve had several [accidents] where Morrisville-Carpenter crosses Chapel HUl...a lot of trucks getting stuck on the railroad. But having the officers out directing has cut down on that." A busy CSX corridor runs paral lel to N.C. 54 on the Moirisville- Carpenter side and high-speed Am- trak trains use the tracks several times a day. Rhew and George, part-time of ficers with the department, are scheduled to work between 6-9 a.m. and 4;30-6:30 p.m. during the week, Newnam says. "But that can vary. An accident on 1-40, for example, could affect traffic coming through Morrisville. And they’ll stay exit tbCTe until the flow is back to normal." Weather conditions can also make for longer hours, he says. The officers work together as a team to keep the traffic moving, Newnam explains. "And they’re real good at what they do." The chief has watched the growth in the area fix' the past 10 years. He joined the police department as its only employee in 1985. Now there are 17 full-time and part-time staff members serving the department. Increased traffic — and the prob lems associated with it — has been one of the primary effects of area growth on Newnam’s department. He’s looking forward to the new in tersection and the relief it’s ex pected to bring. Sm crossing, page 3 ■ OFFERING DIRECTIONS-Oth George, a Town of Morrisville traf fic officer, gives a motorist directions to an area business. At first, the officers drew criticism from passing motorists, but now drivers stop to exchange pleasantries. Town toughens appearance rules By BILL KIRKLAND When Morrisville was a rural community, businesses operated by people on their henne sites would spring up from time to time. Goods and equipment dotted the road sides. In November of 1985, the town adopted a zoning ordinance creat ing zoning classifications for com mercial businesses and establishing strict requirements for all new businesses. That ordinance, how ever, did not cover established businesses, five of which continue to survive and operate in residential areas. The Town Board of Com missioners sent a message this month to the non-conforming businesses still in operation: hide those eyesores. An addition to the zoning ch*- dinance, adopted at the board’s June 12 meeting, demands that all non-conformiiig businesses bide from what is now visible along road right-of-ways and adjoining properties. The owners have two choices: construct an opaque fence six feet high use natural screening such as trees and other landscape vegeta- $mTOWN, page 2 HEACHER OF THE YEAR-Sharon Fomaro, the Teacher of the Year at Morrisville Year-Round Elementary School, takes time out on the playground with her first-grade class. In the foreground are Jay Robinson, left, and Whitney Farrington.
June 21, 1995, edition 1
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