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At Friends Meeting School, preschool students are learning to count to 100 in a meaningful way.

Jane Mabry, who teaches a class of 16 preschoolers at the private Quaker school in Ijamsville, said that for the 100th day of school, students in each class have to do a project involving that number. Her class decided to collect 100 cans of food as a class, and for each student to collect 100 pennies, which the class will donate to the Frederick Food Bank.

Because the school also instills the Quaker value of helping others, Mabry said a charitable project would have more meaning and teach a lesson beyond knowing how to count to 100.

"Counting out 100 pennies [for charity] was more meaningful than making a poster with 100 Cheerios," Mabry said.

Today is the 100th day of school for Mabry's class – preschool classes run on a slightly different schedule at Friends Meeting School – and the class will take a field trip to the Frederick Food Bank at 1:30 p.m. to drop off their food and pennies.

Mabry said that each student had to collect 100 pennies from his or her house, and six cans of food. By Monday morning, the class had already gathered 70 cans, and she was confident that they would be up to 100 by this morning.

The project did include a counting component, and each student had to stack his or her pennies in groups of five, 10 and 20 to make sure the amount was right.

While the each student will present 100 pennies to the Frederick Food Bank, Mabry said she would likely take the $16 worth of pennies to a coin counter, and return with a lump sum for the actual donation.

Guardsman, New Market native participates in inauguration

Steven C. Hartman, a New Market native and sergeant in the Army National Guard, participated in the 56th Presidential Inauguration Jan. 20.

More than 7,000 Army and Air National Guard members from 31 states and territories, the largest contingent of National Guard members ever to serve in an inauguration, provided military working dogs, planning, medical, ceremonial and logistical support to the ceremony.

National Guard members were also active in crowd and traffic control and provided emergency services in coordination with local authorities in Washington, D.C.

The secretary of defense convenes the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee every four years to coordinate various branches of the military to prepare for and support the presidential inauguration. Hartman is an infantryman, in the 1st Battalion of the 175th Infantry Regiment based in Frederick. He has served in the military for seven years.

Hartman is the son of Jenny Hartman of New Market.

He is a 2000 graduate of Linganore High School, and graduated from York College of Pennsylvania in 2005.

Ijamsville residents

make deans' lists

Several Ijamsville natives have been named to deans' lists at various colleges for the fall semester of 2008.

- Frederick Community College named Gerald M. Burge, Thomas P. Carroll, Mark T. Casagrande, Aimee S. Cheng, Barbara C. Conrad, Lanita M. Goodman, Earl C. Jones, Laura M. Jones, Brittany M. Kline, Pamela A. Manstof, Micah Parsons, Shaina B. Parsons, Michael W. Reed, John W. Roche, and Timothy R. Smith to its fall 2008 dean's list.

- Salisbury University in Salisbury, Md. named Daniel Lefever and Robert Roche II, both of Ijamsville, to its fall semester dean's list.

Scout earns Eagle rank

Hank Binzer of Myersville has been a scout since he joined Tiger Scouts in the first grade.

January marked the culmination of his scouting career, as Hank officially attained Eagle, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America.

For his Eagle service project, which he completed early last summer, Hank, 17, installed four exercise stations along a one-mile loop in Wiles Branch Park in Middletown.

The stations – a chin-up bar, push-up bar and stair set, parallel bars, and a sit-up bench and another stair set – were modeled after a similar loop at Baker Park in Frederick.

As with all Eagle projects, scouts from his troop, 217 in Middletown, did all the physical work on the project, which Hank organized and planned. A key purpose of an Eagle project is to help scouts develop leadership, organization and other skills they will be able to use later in their lives.

"It is definitely the culmination of a lot of planning and effort to get people to assist on the project. He had to learn a lot about planning which was a great process," Hank's mother, Margie Binzer, said. "He's had a lot of great experiences through, and because of, scouting. He stuck with it and I think he really got the benefits of doing that, and it's taught him a lot about leadership and himself and what he's capable of."

Hank, a senior at Middletown High School, has his sights set high now that he has completed one of the greatest tasks of his youth.

He plans to either attend college for international relations or to join the Air Force once he graduates. He participates on both the track and cross-country teams at Middletown High.

The community seems to already be enjoying and using the project, according to his mother.

"I know that friends of his who live there have thought it was really great, and that it was really well planned and a big asset," she said.

City wants to know what you like about Frederick

The City of Frederick is looking for residents to show them through pictures what they like and don't like about their neighborhoods and communities in Frederick.

The City of Frederick's Planning Department is urging residents to highlight various structures and concepts throughout the city for development or preservation ideas.

Photos should include captions explaining the structures. E-mail photos to Nick Colonna, with the City's Comprehensive Planning Division at ncolonna@cityoffrederick.com or contact the office at 301-600-1248 for further questions.

Do you have an item for News & Notes? Contact reporter Chris Brown at 301-846-2132, e-mail chbrown@gazette.net or fax news to 301-846-2124.