Valley Vines : Eagles landing at West Point Club in September! | Heads up!

Valley Vines

Eagles landing at West Point Club in September!

West Point cadet Color Guard welcomes 2006 Eagle Scouts at reunion last year. In keeping with tradition, the cadets were all Eagle Scouts.

Boys will be boys, and Eagle Scouts will always be Eagle Scouts, even when they are grown men: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. There’s no more fitting a place than the U.S. Military Academy’s West Point Club for these sturdy birds to roost. Festivities honoring three inductees into the Eagle Scout Hall of Fame will be held there Wednesday, Sept. 26, beginning at 6 p.m. Last year, more than 300 Eagles gathered at the same location, and new Hudson Valley Boy Scouts executive director Stephen Gray hopes even more will attend this year’s event.

2007’s honorees include Harvey Finkelstein, retired president and CEO of Tri-Seal Corp.; William Grogg, president of Net Publications; and Ed Ward, retired senior vice president and group leader of Brown Brothers Harriman. The trio has already achieved the distinction of receiving the national Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, joining such notables as movie director Stephen Spielberg and astronaut Neil Armstrong. Alvin Townley, “Legacy of Honor” author, will serve as the evening’s keynote speaker.

The Hudson Valley Boy Scouts is also readying to honor President-CEO David Cocks of Walden Savings Bank at its award dinner at Anthony’s Pier 9 in New Windsor on Thursday, Oct. 11. Be prepared!

Heads up!

September is almost upon us and kids are clamoring for the newest style before they show up for that important first day. Jack and Michele Scholls have been creating headbands with changeable designs at home and are rolling their headgear out to the public. Has this Thompson Ridge couple come up with a new “must have” for the younger set?

The couple spent one mid-August weekend at the Pine Island Craft Fair hawking their new product. Jack Scholls says, “We sold over 300 headbands, along with different shapes, colors and themes that can be attached to them. They were a big hit.”

The couple set out to produce a product that people of “all ages can have fun with,” say the Scholls, but there’s no doubt their product’s appeal will be to the under-18 crowd. “The idea is to put a smile on the faces of girls of all ages.”

Headbands come in 10 colors and one size fits all. Charms 125 now; more planned that can be attached can “make a statement, a hobby or just be for fun.” Visit them on the Web at www.fashionsnapz.com.

Brinkerhoff Elementary gets tech grant

State Sen. William Larkin; Flannery Denny, ninth-grade math teacher from Rondout High School, Kingston; first-grade teacher Amy McNamara, Brinckerhoff Elementary School, Fishkill; Frank Falatyn, president, Fala Technologies, Kingston, who is mentoring Denny; and state Sen. Steven Saland recently helped introduce two programs geared to pump up interest in existing and emerging technologies.

Call it a pint-sized version of “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” While Tech Valley initiatives and programs have been blooming in Albany area schools, two have actually reached the mid-Hudson and will be in place this September in Dutchess County.

A $150,000 grant from General Electric, along with $250,000 from New York state’s Senate, will bring two separate teaching programs one designed to reach first- through fourth-grade students, the other to set up a separate teachers’ program to expose instructors to potential career opportunities for their students in the math, science and technology fields will begin this fall. The “Love Sam” and the “Teacher Externship Program” will bring a new learning experience to both pupils and teachers.

State Sen. Steven Saland, who heads the Senate’s education committee, says both he and state Sen. William Larkin will continue to support funding of what they consider a key element in keeping the Tech Valley initiative growing, particularly south of the Capital region.

New businesses welcomed to the Hudson Valley:

New York’s Best ATM The kind that doesn’t charge you a fee for getting your own money?

Couch Potato Catering If only the remote would open the door and set the table.

Earthtongue Didn’t Listerine claim to have this licked?

Forever Fit What we all strive to be … just after that last piece of cake.

R&J Fishing & Touring If it’s Wednesday, these must be walleyes.

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