Features

Name: Sybil Blakely

Age: 77

Address: Hampton Grace Avenue

Family: Husband, William, 77; two daughters, Gina Warren and Robin West

Job: Retired

Church: White Springs Baptist Church

Hobbies: Visiting the nursing home and with people in their homes

Favorite book: “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom

How does being overweight affect children?

It’s widely known that being obese and overweight leads to health problems in adults.

Health issues that were once thought only to affect adults are now known to impact our children.

Obesity has long-term consequences in children, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, increased risk of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, musculoskeletal problems, fatty liver disease and gastro-esophageal reflux.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons, students who pass by Room 412 at Lancaster High School Career Center can count on one thing – a chorus of blow dryers will be singing out.

The 20 members of Jan Williamson’s senior cosmetology class won’t be talking to each other much and Williamson won’t be lecturing them from an adjacent classroom.

In 1972, Arlo Guthrie recorded a song about a nightly passenger train that travels the 934-mile stretch from Chicago to the Big Easy.

I can’t recall all the lyrics of “The City of New Orleans,” but the chorus  makes reference to the train going “500 miles when the day is done.”

You know, I can identify with that these days. I have to travel 500 miles to get to my granddaughter’s Maryland home.

Most days, a labor and delivery nurse goes home smiling.

“We get to share in the happiest days of people’s lives,” said Cathy Montgomery, who is the nurse manager for labor and delivery and newborn nursery at Springs Memorial Hospital.

But there is a flip side to that happiness coin, when things go wrong and pure joy turns to unspeakable sorrow.

 Those are the days when infants are stillborn or die.

“I always say we have the best job in the world or the worst,” Montgomery said.

Having a successful career means a lot to Stephanie O’Dea. 

But in the big picture, being a successful mom means more, especially when that family includes three children under age 10, including one with Celiac disease (gluten intolerant).

But can you have both? 

Absolutely.

How else can you explain a cookbook on the New York Times best-selling list for six weeks and national TV appearances, as well as feature stories in “Real Simple Magazine and “Woman’s World?”

I reckon time does heal old Sears & Roebuck wounds. Me and my secondhand bicycle became almost inseparable. 

It sure made running to the store for Mama a whole lot faster. 

Through the years that old bike had several paint jobs. Shucks, right after the war, it sported shiny chrome fenders and chain guard.

Maybe I was getting carried away by those Saturday morning cowboy movies.

Mama was no longer makin’ Bill Whitesell go to the picture show with me. 

I was getting older. 

If you want to celebrate the tremendous lifetime accomplishments of highly acclaimed performance artists, one of the best programs to watch is the annual Kennedy Center Honors, which was televised Dec. 22. 

The Kennedy Center Honors have been awarded annually since 1978 by the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. 

On occasion, I’m a little jealous of W.B. Evans. This is one of those times.

When it comes to looking back, “Mr. Bill,” as we call him in the newsroom  doesn’t have to pick and choose when looking for what stands out. Choosing the top features stories of the year is hard.

I went through 157 issues making a few notes and was stunned to recall the people, places, events and organizations that make a difference. 

To cull the list to 10 was almost impossible.