Nine GWU Scholarships Announced
Nine public school seniors learned through surprise announcements yesterday that they will receive full scholarships -- each worth more than $190,000 -- to George Washington University.
The Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Scholarships, named for the university's president, are awarded to students in the District based on SAT scores, class rank and grade-point average, as well as community service. The recipients are Francesca Fisher, Christopher Stallworth and Thao Anh Tran at Benjamin Banneker Senior High School; Saba Fassil at Bell Multicultural Senior High School; Charles Conway at Eastern Senior High School; Marta Genovez and Mindi Schools at Roosevelt Senior High School; and Tiffany Edlin and Carmen Montopoli at Schools Without Walls.
Jacqueline Pegram, a guidance counselor for seniors at Banneker, said Trachtenberg and other university officials announced the awards for her three students at a senior assembly. "Each student was very excited and very surprised," she said. "It was very special."
VIRGINIA
Grant for Historic Shenandoah Tourism
The General Assembly has appropriated funds to help promote the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District.
The grant will help the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields foundation and its partners develop a coordinated marketing program to bring more visitors to the valley's Civil War battlefields and related historic sites.
The National Historic District is a constellation of Civil War sites managed and promoted by partner organizations. The program's development will be guided by a stakeholders' committee of local and regional tourism professionals and managers of Civil War attractions, who will study visitor profiles and the valley's tourism market.
Tomatoes Tied to 3 Salmonella Outbreaks
Contaminated Roma tomatoes caused three salmonella outbreaks last year, including one that sickened customers at Sheetz convenience stores in Virginia and eight other states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Tomatoes were long suspected as the cause but the test confirmed it, CDC spokeswoman Jennifer Morcone said.
Sheetz purchased the tomatoes from Coronet Foods Inc., which is based in Wheeling, W.Va., and got them from a Florida tomato-packing house. Coronet, which is named in a lawsuit in the case, closed in October.
The CDC said 429 salmonella cases were identified.
The second outbreak was linked to an unidentified restaurant chain, where 125 patrons in Virginia and 15 other states were sickened. The third was at an Ontario restaurant, where seven patrons were sickened.
Those restaurants also got their tomatoes from the Florida packing house, which was not identified by the CDC. The packing house appeared to be following food-safety guidance and no source of contamination was found there, the CDC said.
State Launches Anti-Litter Campaign
Virginia government is launching a spring cleaning campaign. Today through June 30, litter education, prevention, cleanup and law enforcement activities will be held across the state.
The activities are part of a three-pronged effort among several Virginia state agencies to make the best use of their resources to reduce litter.
The other efforts are to revitalize the Virginia Department of Transportation's Adopt-a-Highway volunteer roadside-litter cleanup program and to improve communications between the VDOT program's local coordinators and the litter-control coordinators for cities, towns and counties.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I felt he just deserved much better than that, and I feared for his life."
-- Cynthia Sargent, weeping, as she described in court why she abducted her 3 1/2-year-old grandson from her daughter-in-law in Gaithersburg. -- B1
Compiled from reports by staff writers V. Dion Haynes and John Wagner and the Associated Press.
