On Saturday, July 21, the Marion Recreation Department hosted their Second Annual Classic Car Show on Silvershell Beach.  Check out the pictures below!  Photos by Katy Fitzpatrick.

The Marion Art Center, located at 80 Pleasant Street in Marion, MA is pleased to announce the opening of two exhibitions on Friday, July 20.  An opening reception will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 pm.

 Marion artist Joan DeRugeris will be exhibiting her paintings in the Cecil Clark Davis Gallery and Bess Woodworth, will be exhibiting in the Patsy Francis Gallery.  The two exhibitions will run from July 20 through August 21.

A member of the Copley Society, DeRugeris will feature a new collection of recent work which is a departure from what she has shown in earlier exhibits.  The past year and a half has been devoted to creating a series of landscapes, marsh scenes, walled cities, open fields and inlets, which are still in the impressionist style but with an atmospheric mood.

Of her work, DeRugeris says, “I believe that artists cannot exist without influences, it is however, how they use them to form an individual approach that separates one from the other.  Many strive to paint what they see, their hand and eyes becoming a camera. I like to see how far I can go from what I see or recall and break down the elements into pattern and design while still keeping the feel of what drew me to the subject to begin with.”

DeRugeris started her commercial art career in New York City’s garment industry. She received her degree from the State University of NY, Fashion Institute of Technology.  Joan then went on to head the art department of a leading textile consulting firm where she designed prints for the ready to wear and home furnishings market.

Joan’s commercial career continued with freelance design for Corning Glass, consumer products division. Upon leaving NY Joan taught watercolor painting through Delaware Technical and Community College, while also pursuing an exhibiting career.  After arriving in New England, Joan continued her studies in advanced painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

DeRugeris has been a Marion resident for more than 20 years and has exhibited widely throughout the East Coast.  Her paintings are in corporate and private collections throughout the US.

Boston artist Bess Woodworth’s watercolors will be exhibited in the Patsy Francis Gallery.  Bess grew up in the countryside outside Philadelphia, PA. As a child she attended a Waldorf School. The curriculum revolved around art. “Although I was unaware of this influence at the time, I began to develop my artistic talents twenty-five years after a successful career as a reading specialist.”

Of her work she says, “My strength is in color, form and value. In watercolor feelings from my heart can be expressed through the brush and medium to the sensitive paper surface, transforming my expression into the most direct, honest and true vision of the subject. My compositions produce an emotional mood. I am exploring relationships- in nature and between people. I have portrayed these relationships in shallow space often fracturing the images. I simplify shapes in order to make the gesture important.”

The themes of her paintings cover a variety of organic subjects; fog, birch trees, sea shells, plant life, reflections in water, mountains, atmosphere. She has also worked on a series of conceptual paintings about relationships.

She is an alumnus of the School of the Museum of Fine Art of Boston. She has been a volunteer in the education department of The Museum of Fine Arts of Boston touring groups of children through the museum.

Woodworth is a member of a number of art councils, and associations in the Boston area including the Copley Society, the New England Watercolor Society, the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild and Tubac Center for the Art.

The Marion Art Center Gallery is open on Tuesday through Friday from 1:00pm to 5:00pm and on Saturdays from 10:00am until 2:00pm.  Admission is free and open to the public.

In just about a week, the world’s best athletes will travel to London to compete in the most prestigious athletics competition in the world. Despite training for their entire lives, the Olympic Games is an event that only a small fraction of athletes will ever get to experience. Geoff Smith, a Great Britain native and Mattapoisett resident, is one of the few elite athletes who has had the opportunity and honor of representing his country at the Olympics.

“I was overwhelmed,” said Smith about qualifying for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. “I was over the moon.”

Smith isn’t your typical Olympic success story. While he grew up playing and excelling at most traditional sports, he never received formal training. He was around the age of 19 and working as a firefighter when he joined his first running club in 1976.

“You name a sport and I’ve done it. Rugby, cricket, track and field,” said Smith. “When I joined the running club, they saw me as a potential racer.”

After joining the club, the coaches put Smith on a four-year training plan in order to prepare him for the Moscow Olympics. The goal was to take 30 seconds off his time each year. Smith was out running every day, competing in races both locally and in Europe, and making a name for himself on the running circuit.

“I walked in off the streets and suddenly I was the best guy in the club,” said Smith. “I just tried my best. I’m super competitive at everything.”

By June of 1979, Smith was the fastest racer in the world in the 10,000-meter event after finishing with the fastest time at a dual meet in Northern England. But shortly after that race, Smith’s progress came to a screeching halt when he got shin splints prior to racing in the European Cup Semifinals.

Smith took the rest of the summer off from training, and in August, he went to see a specialist about his pain. The doctor recommended an exploratory surgery, and after the procedure was finished, he concluded that Smith has Compartment Syndrome, ultimately landing him in a cast from his foot to his hip until October.

“My leg was completely withered,” Smith said. “I went on vacation and sat on the beach with socks filled with sand doing leg raises every day for two weeks. When I got back, I started to run and got myself back quick.”

Smith’s hard work during rehabilitation paid off. When he attended the Olympics trials in 1980, he won his event with flying colors.

“It all sort of came together for the trials,” Smith said. “No one expected me to win, but I won by more than half of a lap.”

The 1980 Olympics marked Smith’s first large international race.

“You’re just excited,” he said. “I was just walking around looking at the stars.”

While Smith didn’t win a medal at the 1980 Games, he did walk away with a plethora of experience and only continued to grow as a runner. In 1983, he participated in the New York City Marathon, finishing in second place by just nine seconds off the leader. He won the Boston Marathon in both 1984 and 1985. In 1985, despite having to walk and stretch out due to cramps, he still won by five minutes with a time of 2:14:30.

Smith made one last trip to the World Championships in 1987. In 1989, he made the decision to reduce his races to 5K’s and 10K’s. While training one day, he fell and hurt his hip. When he went to the doctor’s office, the news he heard was startling. He had developed Arthritis.

“He told me I wouldn’t run anymore,” said Smith. “I went from being one of the top five runners in the world to being told I wouldn’t run anymore. I didn’t believe it.”

But by Christmas of that year, Smith knew he had to hang up his professional running career.  Luckily, he had completed a degree at Providence College, so he was able to work as a stockbroker for ten years before becoming a teacher in Mattapoisett. While he is not running competitively, he still coaches and serves as a motivational speaker to local groups.

Although he hasn’t run competitively in over 20 years on the elite level, the reason Smith fell in love with the sport still remains fresh in his mind.

“You feel so good,” he said. “Going out and running and feeling like you’re flying through the air. It’s like you’re invincible. That’s the best thing about running.”

For more information on Geoff Smith, visit www.geoffsmithrun.com.

By Katy Fitzpatrick

Readers of all ages converged on the Mattapoisett Free Public Library on Tuesday, July 17 to meet historical fiction author Krista Russell. Russell, whose young adult novel Chasing the Nightbird was named a Massachusetts Book Award 2012 Must Read selection, read three excerpts and fielded questions from her captivated audience. Her book tells the nineteenth-century story of Lucky, a 14-year-old Cape Verdean whaleman from New Bedford who becomes involved in the Underground Railroad.

Two young readers were especially excited to meet Russell.

“The author is from Atlanta and that’s where I live,” said Maddy O’Neill.

O’Neill was joined by her 11-year-old friend, Abby DaCosta, also from Atlanta.

“I like books about kids, not about adults,” DaCosta said. “I’m in a book club. We’re reading The Hunger Games.”

A past Tri-Town resident, Russell is well-versed in the history of New Bedford due to her childhood visits to the New Bedford Whaling Museum. She brings that information to her readers.

“I knew about whaling and New Bedford’s whaling history,” she said, “but I didn’t know about New Bedford’s involvement in the Underground Railroad. It seemed that at the time I was growing up, it wasn’t something that was publicized or known.”

Russell’s inspiration for the book came from her knowledge of the challenges of a whaleman’s life and the Cape Verdean ancestry of modern New Bedford.

“I thought it was very interesting there was a strong Cape Verdean population in New Bedford [in the nineteenth century]. They were people of color, but separate from the fugitive slaves,” Russell said.

Russell attributed her novel’s connection between whaling and the Underground Railroad to historical fact: fugitive slaves often found work as New Bedford whalemen, as Frederick Douglass once did.

Chasing the Nightbird was a long project for Russell, taking the better part of 10 years for completion.

“I don’t want to discourage anyone. It was kind of a long process, but it was long because I was learning to write at the time.”

The staff of the Mattapoisett Free Public Library highly recommends Chasing the Nightbird, which is aimed at middle school children.

“I’ve read it and I like it a lot,” Children’s Librarian Linda Burke said. “It’s a very good story. It’s very well-done, and I read it months ago.”

Russell said she has another book due for release next fall, which tells the story of Jim, a fugitive slave who flees to St. Augustine, Fla. from Charleston, S.C. during the early eighteenth century.

Susan Pizzolato, Library Director, promoted a number of upcoming library activities, namely the Annual Book Sale, which will be held on July 19 – 21 from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm on Thursday and Friday and 4:00 pm on Saturday.

“There will be a lot of bargains,” she said. “Rather than the church, come here for a great time.”

If the weather permits, the children’s section will be outside on the library’s lawn.

Pizzolato stressed that the Mattapoisett Free Public Library hosts new programs throughout the summer.

“As additional people come forward with great ideas, we keep saying yes, so you can stay updated on the website,” Pizzolato said. “We have many programs due to an array of talented volunteers.”

By Anne Smith

            On Tuesday, July 17, 2012, the Mattapoisett Women’s Club held their annual Taste of the Town fair, featuring over a dozen local eateries offering samples of their signature dishes.  The event was held under the big white tent at Shipyard Park and was attended by hundreds of people.

“We’re pretty excited about this event.  We had people line up at four o’clock, if you can believe it.  This is a spectacular event,” said Eileen Marum, president of the Women’s Club and co-chair of the Taste of the Town.

“It started out as a function to raise money for the library,” said Lois Ennis, Women’s Club member and Marum’s co-chair.

In more recent years, food fair is held to raise money for various scholarships the Women’s Club award to Mattapoisett students, where ever they may attend school, whether it’s Bishop Stang High School in Dartmouth or Old Rochester Regional High School in Mattapoisett.

This year, the Taste of the Town featured 15 local restaurants, serving pizza, salad, ice cream, cookies and tacos, among other things.

“I’m very pleased with our vendors.  They’ve been very generous with their time and their products,” Marum said.

Aside from being able to savor a variety of delicious local delicacies, the Taste is also about serving a good cause, which is important to many of the patrons.

“It’s nice to know the money is going to something good,” said Mattapoisett resident Doug Sewell.  He’s been to the Taste several times in the past.  “It’s great. If you live here, you’ve eaten the food,” he said as he enjoyed some boneless buffalo chicken.

The Taste of the Town is the biggest fundraiser organized by the Women’s Club and all 70 members participate in some way from helping to set up the tables and food stations to passing out beverages and selling tickets.

“I’m glad to have so many members of the Women’s Club helping here.  We have a very active membership,” said Marum.

In addition to the cornucopia of culinary treats, the patrons of the Taste of the Town enjoyed musical entertainment provided by the local youth singing group, the Showstoppers.  Members of the chorus sang a pops-style program, featuring songs from the 1950s through today.

Marum said their goal was to equal or surpass last year’s total donation of over $4,000.

By Eric Tripoli