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Fifth-grader Jake Roberts ponders a move during a practice session at the Castlehill Country Day School. The chess team recently added the K-5 State Chess Championship to its large collection of state and national honors.
Dean Knuth / arizona daily star

Neighbors

Neighbors roundup

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.15.2008
east
Empire HS club going to S. Africa
Members of an Empire High School community service club will travel to South Africa to meet their pen pals.
The Making Others' Voices Essential Club members will leave on March 9 and spend almost a week in Pretoria, South Africa, attending school with their pen pals, serving at an orphanage for two days and going on a safari.
Twenty-seven people, including 17 students, will make the approximately 26-hour trip and stay with host families when they arrive in the country, said club adviser and English teacher Krista Gypton.
The trip is part of a pen-pal program the club began in fall 2006 after Gypton reconnected with a high school friend who does missionary work in the country, she said.
"I got back in contact with him and wanted to connect the kids with their pen pals," she said. "Then the kids said it would be so good to meet them, so I said, 'Let's go.' "
The Making Others' Voices Essential Club hopes to make an impact in another part of Africa on Feb. 29 when it hosts a benefit concert to raise money to build a school in Kenya.
A battle of the bands concert will begin at 7 p.m. at Empire High School, 10701 E. Mary Ann Cleveland Way.
The club will donate the money to Free the Children, an outreach organization that has built more than 500 schools around the world.
For more information, contact Krista Gypton at gyptonk@vail.k12.az.us.
northwest
Thornydale project hurting businesses
Mounds of dirt. Torn-up blacktop. Orange-and-white-striped barriers. Long lines of traffic.
These all-too-familiar sights associated with road construction have led to plenty of headaches for drivers trying to drive along a stretch of North Thornydale Road between West Orange Grove Road and the Cañada del Oro Wash. The road is being widened there from four to six lanes with a divided median.
But while the slow going and added drive time surely causes angst for some drivers, it's causing even more distress for area businesses.
Stress, they say, they'll have to grin and bear through the end of the year.
"As of right now I've just got to sit back and deal with it," said Chris Amadori, owner of the Luke's Italian Beef restaurant in the Northpointe Village Centre at 6741 N. Thornydale Road.
Normally bustling during lunchtime and around dinner, Amadori's shop has been short of customers since work on Thornydale began requiring lanes to be closed and limitations to be put on making left turns. Though he says the hit to his business the construction has caused isn't as bad as eight years ago when major work was last done on Thornydale, Amadori is feeling the effects.
"My dinner people, they usually show up around 5 or 6, but now it's just impossible to get in and out of here," Amadori said last week after ringing up an order for a lone lunch customer. "As you can see, lunch isn't much better."
foothills
Castlehill pupils have chess knack
When visitors walk through the administrative building at Castlehill Country Day School, they quickly discover that the elementary school is a breeding ground for young chess players.
Almost 200 trophies sit atop bookcases and bookshelves and on tables in three rooms, including the principal's office, with most of the awards representing the school's dominance in state and national competitions.
Last month, Castlehill won the 14th annual Arizona State Grade Championship for fifth-graders, sponsored by the Southern Arizona Chess Association.
The championship is one of 12 state titles the school has won since 2002, as well as a national championship in 2004, said Levon Altounian, Castlehill chess coach.
Chess is an integral part of the school's culture, with about 45 students who participate in the after-school chess club. Some children are as young as 3, Altounian said.
About 15 of the 45 students play in chess tournaments, he said.
Chess also is part of the curriculum for pre-kindergarten through first-grade students, said Principal Arline Schlossberg.
"Team spirit is a very important concept to many schools. Having an intellectual team sends a message to people who think about coming to our school," Schlossberg said.
SAhuarita
Expansion of park is due — eventually
After years of wrangling, Sahuarita and the town's biggest developer have OK'd a deal to make the town's newest park bigger and better — eventually.
Town Council members on Monday voted to accept a donation of 32 acres from the developer of Rancho Sahuarita to add to North Park, in the northeastern portion of the development.
The deal would boost the size of the park to 42 acres and allow more space for a playground, more ball fields, restrooms and other facilities.
And unlike the previous offer by The Rancho Sahuarita Co., the deal does not require the town to spend more than $2.5 million to develop the park or restrict uses of the donated land, said Cort Chalfant, a senior vice president with the company.
The agreement gives the town a free option for seven years to develop the property and "places no obligation on the town to expand the park or to budget additional funds for that purpose, according to a letter sent last week from Chalfant to Sahuarita Mayor Lynne Skelton.
Chalfant said that Bob Sharpe, president of the development company, dropped the previous conditions because he wanted to secure a deal with the town to make a bigger and better park than the 10-acre facility the town had planned.
The company first proposed the park in 2004, he said.
Sharpe was traveling last week and unavailable for comment.
● Adapted from this week's zone editions.
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