Washington Informer

Wolfpack runningback Romeen Lindsey (8) evades his opponents in the first half of Pop Warner Youth Football (125 lbs.) action on Sat, Sept. 24 at Cardozo High School. / Photo by John E. De Freitas

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Howard Bison quarterback Greg McGhee(7) avoided defensive back Khamari everrett and connects on his third down pass to Brandon Flanagan tor 15 yards that led to the overtime win on a Terrance Leffall 34-28 win on Sat.Oct.22 at Greene Stadium./Photo by John E. De FreitasHoward pulled out a thrilling 35-28 win over North Carolina A&T in a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference game before an overflow homecoming crowd at Greene Stadium on Sat.Oct.22.

Howard led 13-0 at halftime, then came 30 minutes of homecoming activities.

The Aggies took the lead 14-13, at the end of the third quarter.

Both teams scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but it was in overtime that Bison Terrance Leffall scored from three yards to give the Bison their second win in the last six homecoming games.

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Vernon Davis, (#85) a product of Dunbar High School and Maryland University is tackled by London Fletcher and Josh Wilson (#21) in the third quarter of NFL action at FedEx Field on Sun.Nov.6.in Landover, Maryland./Photo by John E De Freitas.Another woeful offensive performance led to another loss for the Washington Redskins as they fell to the San Francisco 49ers, 19-11 in front of 78.032 fans at FedEx Field. The Redskins have now lost four in a row.

After scoring no points in their loss last week, the Redskins came dangerously close to repeating the feat. A Graham Gano 59-yard field goal (that set a team record for longest field goal) and a fourth quarter touchdown pass from John Beck to Jabar Gaffney made the game look closer and more competitive than it actually was.

Bowie guard Travis Hyman (#4) uses his height to steal a rebound from George Washington's Darren Clark during the Atlantic 10 exhibition basketball at George Washington Charles E. Smith Center on Sun. Nov.6. "We never gave ourselves a chance to win the game because we turned the ball over so much", said Brooks. "I thought we played pretty hard, the rebounds were even and I thought when we ran our offense we got good stuff out of it, "said Bowie Head Coach Darrell Brooks. /Courtesy photo by Wallace Barron.

There are some who say the issue of whether student-athletes get paid is gaining momentum, while others like writer Seth Davis believe that any such momentum is media-driven.

My colleague, Charles Sutton, argued quite persuasively in these pages last week that student-athletes should not be paid while in school. To his credit, he introduced the idea of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) setting aside 15 percent of money generated from Division 1 athletic programs – $1.3 billion – for players to access upon graduation. While this is a worthy concept, I believe that student-athletes should be paid more than anything they receive now.

To be clear, I'm not one of these people who think the free education offered to these athletes lacks worth. For all of us saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans that we'll be paying back until we're 85, we wish we had the athletic ability that took us to the promised land of a free education.

In return for their services on the gridiron, basketball court and other fields of play, student-athletes receive free tuition for at least four years, textbooks, a place to sleep, food, and per diems for meals on the road. Some get stipends of a few thousand dollars a semester, but otherwise are prohibited from taking money from other sources.

The Washington Redskins lost their seventh game in their last eight tries at FedEx Field falling to the New York Jets, 34-19. However, the immediate future may end up being even murkier heading into the final four games of the regular season.

It became very ironic that the Redskins's offense faltered in the second half being outscored 24-6, because it looks like two important members of the offense will not be able to play for the rest of the season. Various media reports say that tight end Fred Davis and offensive lineman Trent Williams have been suspended for four games by the NFL for violation of their substance-abuse policy.

Redskins Head Coach Mike Shanahan made no comment regarding the possible suspensions preferring to focus on the game itself. Shanahan also had no real answer as to why the Redskins offense fell apart after a strong first half.

"I was disappointed in the way we finished," said Shanahan. "We came out the second half and went three-and-out three times. We had to seize the opportunities to score and we didn't. We were very average on offense. They made the plays and we didn't."

The Redskins are now 4-8 and will host the New England Patriots at FedEx Field this Sunday. The Patriots (9-3) kept the Indianapolis Colts winless by defeating them 31-24 in Foxborough, Mass.

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Wynton Marsallis performs at the Kennedy Center on January 30.

The 15-member Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with famed jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis returns to perform at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 7 p.m. The band will perform a wide variety of music, from original compositions to newly-arranged music by Chick Corea as well as selections from its most recent two-disc set CD release, Vitoria Suite, a new extended work by Wynton Marsalis that uses the impulse of the blues as a foundation to jointly explore the music of two worlds and two cultures: the jazz and blues of North America and the indigenous music of the Basque region and flamenco of Spain.

Led by the group’s artistic director, Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JALC) is the resident jazz orchestra at New York City’s Lincoln Center and spends over a third of the year on tour, performing a vast repertoire from rare historic compositions to Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned works. They recently visited Cuba for a six-day series of concerts and workshops in Havana. Last summer alone featured tours of Germany and the United Kingdom, where they spent their first residency at The Barbican. Said London’s Telegraph, “Marsalis has created a magnificent instrument over the years. Does there exist anywhere in the world a band so finely balanced across every section, so virtuoso in all its individual parts, and with such an invigorating blend of discipline and joy? The striking thing about these performances is how subtly they honored the originals, by insinuating original touches into them.”

The orchestra’s members for this tour are: Music Director and Trumpet: Wynton Marsalis; Trumpets: Ryan Risor, Marcus Printup, Kenny Rampton; trombones: Chris Crenshaw, Vincent Gardner, Elliot Mason; Reeds: Walter Blanding, Victor Goines, Sherman Irby, Ted Nash, Joe Temperley; Piano: Dan Nimmer; Bass: Carlos Henriquez; Drums: Ali Jackson.

The orchestra regularly premieres works commissioned from a variety of composers, as well as current and former Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Ted Nash and Ron Westray. A nine-time Grammy winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient, Marsalis was recently nominated again for an award in the category of Best Improvised Jazz Solo, for “Van Gogh,” a track on the Orchestra’s “Portrait in Seven Shades” CD.

JALC Orchestra has performed collaborations with the world’s leading symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic; the Russian National Orchestra; the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; the Boston, Chicago and London Symphony Orchestras; and Orchestra Esperimentale in São Paolo, Brazil. The orchestra appears on numerous recordings and has been featured in several education and performance residencies and radio and television broadcasts in the United States, Europe, South America and Japan. Said one reviewer for El Universal/The Herald, the audience was “weak from applauding and shouting and jumping up and down with the joy of the great music it had heard.”

Jazz at Lincoln Center is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to inspiring and growing audiences for jazz through educational programs and performances at a multitude of venues, all of which are designed to “bring people together for a profoundly good time.”

Wynton Marsalis was born in New Orleans in 1961 and began his classical training on trumpet at the age of 12. He entered the Juilliard School at age 17 and joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He has recorded more than 30 jazz and classical recordings. In 1983, he became the first and only artist to win both classical and jazz Grammy Awards in the same year and repeated this feat in 1984. Marsalis’ rich body of compositions includes Sweet Release, Jazz: Six Syncopated Movements, In This House, On This Morning and Big Train. In 1997, Marsalis became the first jazz artist to be awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in music for his oratorio Blood on the Fields, which was commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center. Wynton Marsalis’ new symphonic work, “Swing Symphony,” conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and the Berlin Philharmonic, was digitally broadcast live from Berlin to a worldwide audience. Commissioned by the Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and the Barbican Centre in London, “Swing Symphony,” which he describes as “two orchestras coming together and swinging the swing,” is Marsalis’ third symphonic work. The symphony also served as the basis for a new dance work choreographed by Rhys Martin and performed by 170 Berlin schoolchildren at the Arena Berlin in Treptow.

An internationally-respected teacher and spokesman for music education, Wynton Marsalis has received honorary doctorates from dozens of universities and colleges throughout the U.S. He conducts educational programs for students of all ages and hosts the popular Jazz for Young People® concerts produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has also written several books, most recently Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life with Geoffrey Ward, which was published in 2009. “In the Swing Seat with Wynton Marsalis,” a weekly radio program taking listeners on a journey through the world of jazz, can be heard on Saturdays at 1 p.m. on Sirius XM Radio.

On June 25, 2010, Wynton Marsalis was a recipient of an NEA Lifetime Achievement Award. He was appointed Messenger of Peace by Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations in 2001, and he has also been designated cultural ambassador to the United States of America by the U.S. State Department through their CultureConnect program. Marsalis was instrumental in the 2005 Higher Ground Hurricane Relief concert, produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center, which raised over $3 million for the Higher Ground Relief Fund to benefit the musicians, music industry related enterprises and other individuals and entities from the areas in Greater New Orleans who were impacted by Hurricane Katrina.
Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
WPAS is committed to making every event accessible for persons with disabilities. Please call the WPAS Ticket Services Office for more information on accessibility to the various theaters in which our performances are held. Services offered vary from venue to venue and may require advance notice.

Washington Performing Arts Society has created profound opportunities for connecting the community to artists, in both education and performance. Through live events in venues that criss-cross the landscape of the D.C. metropolitan area, the careers of emerging artists are guided, and established artists who have bonded with the local audience are invited to return. In this way, the space between artists and audiences is eliminated, so that all may share life-long opportunities to deepen their cultural knowledge, enrich their lives, and expand their understanding and compassion of the world through the universal language of the arts.

January 30th, 1930 - December 14th, 2010

Roy Donahue Peebles, Sr., longtime resident of the District of Columbia and father of millionaire real estate developer R. Donahue Peebles, died recently at the age of 80, in Conyers, Georgia due to complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. Mr. Peebles lived in the District for over 50 years; he moved to Conyers, Georgia in 2005 with his second wife, Ann Odom Peebles.

Mr. Peebles was born January 30th, 1930 in Emporia, Virginia to Roy and Virginia Peebles, the eldest of their five children. Mr. Peebles, an Army veteran that served in the Korean War, settled in Washington, DC in 1952 upon the completion of his military service. He married Ruth Yvonne Willoughby in 1957 and the couple had their only child, Roy Donahue (Don) Peebles, Jr.  Mr. Peebles was a great inspiration to Don and to all who knew him.

JANUARY
A 7.0 seismic earthquake hits Haiti, Jan. 12, causing massive devastation and death. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake: with an estimated 230,000 left dead, 300,000 injured and more than 1,000,000 left homeless. Locally, an outpouring of support came from residents who provided relief donations of clothing, non-perishable foods, and financial contributions. Prayer services for those who died and survivors of the quake took place throughout the city.

The Washington Informer co-sponsors the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Walk

FEBRUARY
A major snowstorm, nicknamed, “Snowpocalypse”, hits the metropolitan area Feb., 5. The storm stranded many motorists and caused thousands to lose power. Area grocers and supply stores quickly ran out of staples after two days of non-stop snow fall. The region was blanketed with more than 36 inches of snow.

MARCH
The health care bill that President Barack Obama vehemently fought for since Day One at the White House finally passed both houses of Congress and is headed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for his signature. As Congressional Black Caucus members celebrated the 219-212 vote, the President put the historic moment into perspective on Sun., March 21.

Political and religious leaders in Prince George’s County endorsed a bill in the Maryland House of Delegates that will force lenders to meet with homeowners on the brink of losing their houses and devise a plan so that residents can stay in their homes.

Avery Coffey, an eighth grader at the Howard yUniversity Middle School of Mathematics and Science in Northwest won first place during the Washington Informer City-wide Spelling Bee. He successfully spelled the word “Plankton” to clinch the victory in this year’s competition.

APRIL
D.C. Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) officially kicked off his mayoral campaign, Sat., April 24 before hundreds of enthusiastic supporters who gathered at the Historical Society of Washington on K Street in Northwest. Gray resurrected his successful campaign slogan “One City” and called himself a leader who will bridge the racial and economic divide in the District.

Dorothy Height, the former chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) died on April 20.

MAY
D.C. Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) has proposed a one-cent tax per ounce of soda and other sugary beverages sold in the District, with the intent of funding her recently passed Healthy School Acts of 2010 legislation. The legislation seeks to improve the nutrition and health of public school students by providing more affordable, healthier meals to students, establishing farm to table programs, and funding wellness and physical fitness programs.

JUNE
Washington Informer Speller, Avery Coffey, advances to Round 3 of the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, June 2 through Fri., June 4. The intense competition and media attention did not rattle the Washington Informer’s speller, Avery, an eighth grader who attended Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science in Northwest.

The D.C. budget process, coupled with a host of new fees levied upon District residents, but required to balance the 2011 budget, have many crying foul and speculating about the possible return of a control board. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty (D), attempted to close the budget gap for Fiscal Year 2010 by instituting a number of fees on residents and businesses that will carry over to the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. The fees include increasing the fine for passing a school bus while double parked from $50 to $500 and bumping the price of a barber or beautician license from its base fee of $75 by 10 percent, to name a few.

JULY
As British Petroleum’s deepwater well continues to discharge oil into the Gulf, the economic and public health effects are already being felt across coastal communities. From the bayous of southern Louisiana to the city of New Orleans, this disaster came to represent not only environmental devastation, but also cultural extinction of people who have made their livelihoods on the Gulf for generations.

Rosecroft Raceway, the 61-year-old racetrack in Prince George’s County, closed July 1 after struggling for years due to a lack of financial backing and a revolving door of owners. Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) expressed regret at the news, saying he has asked Secretary of State John McDonough to work with stakeholders to find a way to protect positions at Rosecroft.

AUGUST
The “Restoring Honor” rally which took place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., brought the issue of race back onto the national forefront. Spearheaded by Glenn Beck of Fox News, the event was viewed as racially divisive as Tea Partiers took to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of the historic March on Washington, which was also held there in August 1963.

Civil rights and progressive organizations held a rally at Dunbar High School in Northwest and marched to the site of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the historic March on Washington on Sat., Aug. 28.  The activities, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, were designed to “mobilize for political and social action. Young people should also know the history of the civil rights movement,” the minister said.

SEPTEMBER
Dorothy Height, the former chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) who died on April 20, was the focus of the 25th annual National Black Family Reunion Celebration on Sat., Sept. 11 on the National Mall in Northwest. The Black Family Reunion is the signature program of the NCNW -- which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.


OCTOBER
Longtime health advocate and WOL–AM radio talk show host Brother Bey died on Sun., Oct. 2 at Stoddard Baptist Home in Northwest, surrounded by family and friends. He was 70.

Controversial D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee will step down from her job at the end of October and will be replaced by her deputy, Kaya Henderson as the interim chancellor. Rhee confirmed her departure at the Mayflower Hotel in Northwest on Oct. 13. Rhee said that D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, the presumptive mayor-elect, has the right to select his own team.

NOVEMBER
Residents of the District of Columbia voted to elect the chairman of the D.C. Council as its next mayor during the general election on Tue., Nov. 2. D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray officially became the sixth elected mayor of the city since the advent of Home Rule in the 1970s.

The recent arrest of the Prince George’s County Executive and his wife has sent shockwaves throughout the jurisdiction as residents seek to understand what’s going on and what it means for the county. Jack Johnson, the Prince George’s county executive and his wife Leslie, who was recently elected to the Prince George’s County Council representing District 6, were arrested by FBI agents at their Mitchellville, Md., home on Fri., Nov. 12 for evidence tampering and destroying evidence in an ongoing investigation.

The District of Columbia City Council is considering a bill to outlaw cyber-bullying on public property. The Council joined a growing number of legislative bodies at the local, county, and state levels to address the problems of minors who are being harassed by their peers. The bill, “The Harassment and Intimidation Prevention Act of 2010” is sponsored by D.C. Council member Harry Thomas (D-Ward 5) and would mandate that the D.C. public schools, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the University of the District of Columbia, the charter schools and library system establish policies and prevention programs to discourage and address cyber-bullying and similar offensive behavior.

DECEMBER
The incoming county executive of Prince George’s County wants to build a stronger partnership with the District of Columbia and improve the economic viability of his jurisdiction. Prince George’s County Executive-elect Rushern Baker III, in an interview with the editorial staff of the Washington Informer Newspaper on Thu., Nov. 18 at his law office in Greenbelt, said that the District and Prince George’s County have not worked together. “We in Prince George’s County and in the District treat our border like it is the Berlin Wall,” Baker, 52, said.

The newly-inaugurated county executive of Prince George’s County used one word consistently throughout his address to county residents and interested observers: “greatness.” Rushern Baker addressed a crowd of hundreds on Mon., Dec. 6, who gathered in front of the County Administration Promenade in Upper Marlboro, Md., on a sunny, yet windy and cold morning to attend the swearing-in ceremony.
A controversial member of the Prince George’s County Council took the oath of office despite having to face serious federal charges sometime in the future. Prince George’s County Councilmember Leslie Johnson (D-District 6) took her oath during the inauguration of the new County Council which took place at the same time as the swearing-in of the new county executive, Rushern Baker III on Mon., Dec. 6. The Prince George’s County Council has since barred Johnson from chairing committees.
One of outgoing D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s most successful department heads decided to join the new mayoral administration. D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has agreed to stay on her job. Her new boss, D.C. Mayor-elect Vincent Gray, was enthusiastic about keeping Lanier in her position and said so during a press conference at the Reeves Center in Northwest on Thu., Dec. 16. Gray said that Lanier, 43, has been charged with making community policing “an even higher priority.”