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The 12th annual Montgomery County Thanksgiving Parade will begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday in downtown Silver Spring. The parade steps off from the intersection of Sligo and Georgia avenues in Silver Spring, proceeds north on Georgia and turns right onto Ellsworth Drive.

ABC 7 Meteorologist Brian Vandergraff will serve as master of ceremonies introducing more than 100 parade units. Debuting at the Silver Spring Parade is a 50-foot helium balloon of Stewie, from the Fox sitcom "Family Guy," dressed as Darth Vader. To watch the inflating of the parade balloons, spectators should gather at the Georgia Avenue underpass near Sligo Ave. in Silver Spring at 7:30 a.m.

Floats will include a Rock-n-Roll Christmas Float, with sparkly décor and a gigantic juke box; a Thanksgiving Parade float with an oversized turkey; a winter wonderland float; and of course, Santa's sleigh. Other units include the Washington Redskins Marching Band, nutcracker characters, mounted police, fire engines, trained dogs, classic cars, costume characters, and a variety of other marching and dancing groups including Montgomery Blair and James Hubert Blake high school bands.

The parade will be held rain or shine. For more information, call 301-565-7300 or visit

www.silverspringdowntown.com.

The northbound lanes of Georgia Avenue, from East-West Highway to Colesville Road, will close at 7 a.m. and re-open after the conclusion of the parade at about 1 p.m.

Free parking will be available in the public garages throughout the downtown area or at any of the public lots in the downtown area. Organizers urge parade goers to take the Metro Red Line to the Silver Spring station.

The public parking garage at Sligo Avenue and Fenton Street will close at 2 a.m. Saturday morning to accommodate the formation of the parade. The Gateway Plaza lot at Colesville and Georgia will close at 7 a.m.

The parade will be broadcasted live on News Channel 8 and aired again on Thanksgiving Day.

The parade is always looking for volunteers to be elves, pilgrims and penguins on floats or leading a balloon. Volunteers aged 10 and older are also needed to toss candy to the crowd, dress up in costume to be on the floats, to act as unit leaders and to be balloon handlers. The hours are from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and volunteers need to be present the whole time. Volunteers meet at the new fire station at 8110 Georgia Ave. in Silver Spring.

Open house for new performing-arts center

Montgomery College will hold an open house for its new Takoma Park/Silver Spring Performing Arts Center from 6 to 8 p.m. today at the center, 7995 Georgia Ave. in Silver Spring. The open house will showcase local entertainment, including performances from Montgomery College dance and arts groups, the Maryland Youth Ballet, Class Acts Arts and others.

For directions to the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus and parking at the Fenton Street garage, visit www.montgomerycollege.edu and go to the maps and directions page.

For more information, contact Linda Frazier at 240 567-1312 or linda.frazier@montgomery

college.edu.

Silver Spring resident to be

in Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

Silver Spring resident Lauren Harkins has been selected to join high-profile celebrities, iconic floats, giant balloons and elite marching bands in performing at the 83rd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City on Thanksgiving Day.

Harkins attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in Loch Sheldrake, N.Y., this summer, a program with alumni including Natalie Portman, Zach Braff, Josh Charles and Robert Downey Jr.

She will join 60 fellow performers from that program in a first singing/dancing finale for the famous parade. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, celebrating the holiday since 1924, is viewed live by more than 2 million spectators along the route and an estimated 65 million NBC viewers nationwide.

Harkins, 15, has attended Stagedoor Manor for one year and has appeared locally in the Imagination Stage Acting Conservatory production of "The Realm." She is a 2009 graduate of Imagination Stage's Acting Conservatory.

More than 400 singer-dancers auditioned and applied for the Macy's performance troupe. There are 22 states and three countries represented in the cast, ages 10 to 18.

Take an ‘Enchanted tour'

of Forest Glen

Join the Save Our Seminary group beginning at 1 p.m. Nov. 28 for the last guided walking tour this season of the historic Silver Spring Seminary district in Forest Glen. The tour will meet at 2755 Cassedy St., and parking signs will be posted along Linden Lane.

The tour will highlight the seminary's many historic buildings, including the ballroom and other interesting landmarks in the district. Registration is not required, but there is a suggested donation of $5 per person.

For more information, please call the Save Our Seminary nonprofit group at 301-589-1715, or visit the group's Web site,

www.saveourseminary.org.

Local resident receives national science distinction

Silver Spring resident Capt. Craig McLean (Ret.) was designated a Fellow of the Marine Technology Society during a gala luncheon at the Ocean '09 MTS/IEEE Biloxi Conference in Biloxi, Miss.

The international society recognized McLean for his dedication to the field of marine technology and to MTS. McLean served 24 years in the United States Navy and is now deputy assistant administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, where he oversees programs for climate, national sea grants, and ocean exploration and research. For the last five years he has served as chair of the MTS Marine Law and Policy Professional Committee.

The Marine Technology Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional society comprising ocean engineers, technologists, policy makers and educators. Incorporated in 1963, it provides the ocean community with forums for the exchange of information and ideas through its peer-reviewed MTS Journal, conferences, newsletters and Web site,

www.mtsociety.org.

Send Silver Spring news to Staff Writer Jason Tomassini and Takoma Park news to Staff Writer Jeremy Arias at The Gazette, 13501 Virginia Manor Road, Laurel, MD 20707. The fax line is 240-473-7501. Tomassini can be reached at 240-473-7559 or jtomassini@gazette.net; Arias can be reached at 240-473-7564 or jarias@gazette.net.

Master gardener Q&A and open forum in Takoma Park

The Takoma Park Horticulture Club is holding a roundtable discussion on gardening from 7:30 to 9 p.m. tonight in the Hydrangea Room of the Takoma Park Community Center, 7500 Maple Ave.

The event is free and open to anyone in the community interested in cultivating a green thumb with tips from the experts. The first part of the meeting will be a question and answer period with panelists including garden-guru Fran McClure, a master planner and landscape designer. An open forum will follow the Q&A.

Space in the Hydrangea room is limited, so attendees are asked to please RSVP by sending an e-mail of interest to cagalati@rcn.com.

Takoma Metro station

art designs on display

Come to the Takoma Park D.C. library, 416 Cedar St. in Northwest Washington, D.C., Thursday and Friday to take a look at some of the mural designs proposed for the Takoma Metro station.

The project, sponsored by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority's "Art in Transit" program, will display the work of five semi-finalists to the public from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday and all day Friday for community members to decide which design they would like to see decorate the station.

For more information or questions about the project, please contact Deirdre Ehlen of the D.C. commission on the arts at 202-724-5613.

New black hole event on the horizon at Montgomery College

If you experience a gentle tugging or barely perceptible attraction to the planetarium at the Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus of Montgomery College this weekend, please do not be alarmed:

The college's planetarium, located at 7651 Fenton St. in downtown Silver Spring, will host a presentation about Black Holes at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Titled "Black Bubbles: Gravity to the MAX," the presentation is free and open to the public and will feature input from specialists and movies made about the super-massive space phenomena with gravity strong enough to bend light and alter time.

For more information on how to get sucked into this mind-blowing, time/space-bending event, contact Dr. Harold Alden Williams at Harold.Williams@montgomery

college.edu or call 240-567-1463.

Get dribbling with the Takoma Park winter basketball league

There will be walk-in "work-out" dates for the Takoma Park Winter Basketball League at most area gyms from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Practices begin Sunday and games will begin later in January.

Participants ages 4 to 5 years old will play in a coed Pee-Wee league, 6 and 7-year-olds will play in a coed junior league, 8 and 9-year-olds will be split into boys and girls inter-league teams while 10 and 12-year-olds will play on boys and girls upper league teams. A coed senior league for participants ages 13 to 15 is also available.

Weekday practices will be scheduled after work-outs, and games will be played on Saturdays. Registration for Takoma Park residents will cost $50, while non-city residents will be charged $60.

For more information or registration details, please contact the city's recreation department at 301-891-7290 or visit the department's Web site, www.tprecreation.org.

Landlord certification

seminar in Takoma Park

The Takoma Park Department of Housing and Community Development will hold a certification seminar for city landlords from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Thursday in the Rose Room of the Takoma Park Community Center, 7500 Maple Ave.

Anyone interested in becoming a landlord in the city or current landlords due for recertification must attend the course in order to receive updated information about city laws, fees and codes. All participants must register for the course before attending by calling the housing department at 301-891-7119.

Primary school

to hold open house

Calvary Lutheran School, a kindergarten through 8th-grade school, will have a Children's Thanksgiving Service at 10:15 a.m. Nov. 25. Families are welcome to attend. Calvary will be collecting canned goods for Manna Food Center as an offering. Calvary is located at 9545 Georgia Ave. in Silver Spring. For more information, call 301-589-4001, Ext. 204, or e-mail mgall@celcs.org.

Free lupus support groups

at Holy Cross

The Lupus Foundation of America Greater Washington Chapter will offer free support groups for lupus patients in Private Dining Room 2 at Holy Cross Hospital on the fourth Wednesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. The next meeting is Nov. 25 at the hospital, 1500 Forest Glen Road in Silver Spring. The monthly sessions are led by trained professionals who understand the challenges of lupus, a chronic, autoimmune disease with no known cure that can damage any part of the body including the skin, joints, heart, lungs, blood, kidneys and the brain. About 75,000 people in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia have lupus — 90 percent of whom are women.

For more information, visit www.lupusgw.org or call 202-349-1167.

Washington area residents wondering if they may have lupus can check their symptoms and read actual patient accounts in both English and Spanish at

www.couldihavelupus.gov.