Luke Judge

There’s a new chef at the Galaxy Restaurant in Wadsworth.

Chef Angus O’Hara has taken over as executive chef, replacing chef John Schulze.

O’Hara attended the University of Iowa and Kendall Culinary College and previously served as sommelier and chef for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and as executive chef at RJ Bolands in Cleveland. He previously owned his own restaurant in Hermitage, Pa.

Speaking of chefs, Glenn Gillespie, executive chef and co-owner of Edgar’s Restaurant at Good Park Golf Course in Akron, recently was honored at an assembly at Betty Jane Community Learning Center, where his children attend.

Gillespie finished third in a competition for the top local chef in America sponsored by ABC’s Nightline program. The late-night news show regularly features nationally known chefs in its Platelist feature. The show sponsored an online contest for the ”People’s Platelist” and Gillespie was one of 20 chefs nominated who competed in the online poll.

Gillespie spoke at the assembly, telling students about a career as a chef and answering their questions, before the school presented him with a certificate for his achievement. Later he and I sampled the students’ healthful snack creations, which they made as part of a school project.

Lock 3 food events

Foodies may want to head to downtown Akron on Saturday for some events at Lock 3 Park.

At 4 p.m., chef Louis Prpich, owner of the Chowder House Cafe in Cuyahoga Falls, will conduct a cooking demonstration, showing visitors how to make appetizers and party treats for the holidays.

The demonstration will be in the basement of the O’Neil’s Building, next to Lock 3. it is free and open to the public.

In keeping with Lock 3′s gingerbread theme this holiday season, there will be a children’s craft activity in which kids can decorate their own gingerbread cookies.

The cookies, which are made by Hattie’s Cafe downtown, sell for $1. Icing and toppings for decorating are supplied for free. Gingerbread decorating is from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m.

On Sunday at 3 p.m. at the O’Neil’s cooking stage, the baking team from Hattie’s will demonstrate how they make Lock 3′s gingerbread cookies, and will offer tips to home bakers who want to improve their skills making holiday cutout cookies.

Also at Lock 3, mark your calendars for Dec. 11 and 12 for the winter farmers market there, also in the O’Neil’s basement space. Saturday hours are set for 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

Holiday wine taste

Vaccaro’s Trattoria, 1000 Ghent Road, Bath Township, is hosting a Holiday Wine Extravaganza from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday

For $20, there will be more than 100 wines, beers, and champagnes for tasting and purchasing. Reservations are required; call 330-666-6158.

Firestone cookie walk

The Firestone High School Band is holding a Chili Winter Band Concert and cookie walk on Dec. 9, to help raise money for the band boosters.

A supper of chili, corn muffin, beverage and cookie will be sold for $5 for adults and $3 for children 12 and younger in the high school cafeteria.

At the same time, the boosters will hold their cookie walk, in which homemade cookies will be sold for $7 a pound. The band’s free winter concert will follow at 7 p.m.

Pajama party in Bath

Mustard Seed Market and Cafe is holding its annual Early Bird Pajama Sale on Dec. 11 from 9 a.m. to noon.

There will be breakfast foods for sampling, and customers who come in their robes or pajamas will receive 15 percent off all non-sale items.

Mustard Seed is at 3885 W. Market St. in Bath Township, or at 6025 Kruse Drive in Solon. For more information on this and other events, visit www. mustardseedmarket.com.

Gift certificate sale

The Tri-County Restaurant Association, which represents more than 180 restaurants in Stark, Tuscarawas and Carroll counties, will be extending its office hours for the holiday season for its gift certificate sales.

The certificates are redeemable at association member restaurants.

Extended office hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 14-23, and 9 a.m. to noon on Dec. 24. The office, at 100 30th St. NW, Suite 102, Canton, will be closed Dec. 31. Call 330-499-7007 for more information.

Lisa a. Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or labraham@thebeaconjournal.com.

Childrens Crafts chefs, co owner, good park, john schulze, news show

Henke Says Children Should Not Be “Abruptly” Taken From HimTonya Craft Says Henke Has “Alienated” Children From Her posted May 14, 2010

Joal Henke says in a petition filed in Hamilton County Circuit Court that the two children he fathered by his marriage to Tonya Craft should not be abruptly taken from him despite Ms. Craft’s acquittal in Ringgold of child molestation charges.

But in her own court filing, Ms. Craft says she wants the children back and says Mr. Henke and his current wife have been “alienating” the children’s affections toward her. She said there should be supervision in place at times when the children are with the Henkes.

The five-page Henke petition filed by attorney Charles Dupree says, “It would not be in the children’s best interest to be abruptly taken from their home with him.”

He requested that Judge Marie Williams commission home studies, counseling with the children and a report to the court “for the best interest of the children” prior to a hearing in the highly-publicized case.

Soon after the not guilty verdicts, Craft attorneys had filed an “emergency petition to set aside emergency custody order, to restore contact with minor children and require supervision of plaintiff’s contact with the children.”

An emergency custody order had granted custody of the children – a boy now 11 and girl 8 – to Mr. Henke on June 3, 2008.

The petition by Ms. Craft says, “Since that time, defendant has been acquitted of all charges in the Catoosa County, Ga., criminal matter. As such, there are no longer any criminal charges pending against the defendant and she is under no restrictions or bond conditions whatsoever.”

Judge Williams was asked to restore the parenting plan from 2004 that had the children living with Ms. Craft.

Ms. Craft also is requesting “immediate visitation” with her children.

She has had some contact with her son, and she asked that this contact be unrestricted and without supervision.

The Craft petition says mediation has already been tried in the case “and further mediation will not be fruitful in this matter.”

It also says, “Several experts that have reviewed the situation as they testified during the criminal trial strongly believe that plaintiff (Mr. Henke) and his wife have manipulated, influenced and/or aliented the children’s affections toward the defendant through the use of negative comments since such time as they have had custody of the children.”

It says Ms. Craft “is gravely concerned for the safety of her children.”

She requested that Judge Williams “review the situation and modify the parenting plan so as to require that all contact be plaintiff (Mr. Henke) and the children be supervised by an appropriate supervisor” until further court order.

The Craft attorneys said they consulted with attorney Linda Hall, guardian ad litem for the children. They said Ms. Hall is in agreement that all restrictions on visits with Ms. Craft and the son should be removed.

The petition says Ms. Hall is in favor of contact “under certain conditions” between Tonya Craft and the daughter, who testified during the Ringgold trial that Ms. Craft had molested her.

Mr. Henke said in his court filing that since the charges were brought against Ms. Craft that the children have been living with him and have attended sessions with a court-approved counselor. He said they have attended school in Hamilton County “and have flourished in grades and activities during the time they have resided with the father. They have maintained contact with the mother through limited parenting and with her parents.”

The Henke petition said there “has been significant changes of circumstances since the initial parenting plan was executed and that in the two years the children have been living with him they have prospered and developed eductionally, spiritually and physically and they have developed a full and well-nurturing environment.

“Because of the change of circumstances and the development with father and his family during the last two years, father says he is the proper person to have full residential time with his children and to remain as the custodial parent of his children. He alleges that the parenting plan should be amended and the court order that he would be the primary residential parent subject to the shared parenting time allotted to the mother.”

The Henke petition says that “would be in the best interest of the children for their future development and growth. It would not be in the children’s best interest to be abruptly taken from their home with him, and requests that the court commission home studies, counseling with the children and a report to the court for the best interest of the children prior to the hearing of this petition.”

Childrens Crafts defendant, mediation, ringgold

SOUTH SIOUX CITY — No Orpheum Theater? No Tyson Events Center?No problem.

South Sioux City Public Library offers a regular schedule ofprograms that entertain, educate and involve patrons of all ages.Library director Dave Mixdorf said he likes to think of the libraryas a place of “cultural moments” and strives to make themhappen.

Misdorf said he grew up poor in “a very multiculturalneighborhood” in Waterloo, Iowa, and understands how uncomfortableit can be to visit a venue such as the Orpheum for the first time.Or to not be able to afford to go there at all.

“Most of our patrons are not going to go over to the symphony,the art center,” he said. “This is a way they can get a culturalmoment. They’ll be walking through the library and see somethingthey wouldn’t get a chance to see otherwise.”

The library also hosts more active arts, such as a house concertby Grammy Award nominee Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike; aworkshop and contest for kids (and adults) on better building withLegos; a program on Mexican cowboys and how their work differs fromtheir American counterparts’; poets, authors and a “Real to Reel”monthly movie based in real life, such as “Up in the Air”; also achildren’s movie series.

And don’t rule out quirky stuff. On May 24, for example, poet,oral memoirist and traveler Michael Czarnecki will show photos ofhis journey across the country on U.S. Highway 20, “the longestroad in America,” narrating the program partly in haiku.

Earth Day

Kenzie Kornegay, 5, was among kids who went on the CamouflageHike and participated in other 40th anniversary Earth Day events atthe library on Saturday. “I looked for books, pop bottles, pencils,pipe cleaners,” Kenzie said, naming some of the items Mixdorf hadcamouflaged to hide in plain sight.

“She’s a naturalist like her daddy,” her mother, JackieKornegay, added. “She knows how to pinpoint deer tracks and lovesto read books and see birds.”

Her father, Reggie Kornegay, said he and Kenzie visit thelibrary at least once a week.

Always the mission

Becoming a cultural center has been the mission of the SouthSioux City library since the library board began defining itsvision for the programming it could do if it had enough space. OnOct. 9, 2004, the library reopened in the new $3.77 million, nearly16,000-square-foot building that fills the 2100 block of DakotaAvenue, leaving its former home, a 3,200-square-foot, 1935 vintageCarnegie Library, to other uses.

Fighting to keep the project affordable, the City Council hadpressed the library board to scale back the building’s size. Theboard refused to yield and instead cut out some furnishings anddesign elements and scrimped on the parking lot .

“My philosophy has always been that the library is not what’sinside of four walls,” Kathy Jacobs, the library director at thattime, said recently. “A library is a community.” She, the board andstaff set out to make it so.

As it happened, the new library’s timing coincided with thestart of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration. Jacobssaid the bicentennial prompted the start-up of an adult book clubusing Stephen Ambrose’s book “Undaunted Courage” and a long-runningchildren’s program built on expedition themes, ranging fromkeelboats and American Indian history to old-time crafts andpioneer-style cooking.

“That lasted quite a few years and got us on the map with otherorganizations,” Jacobs remembered recently. The spacious displaycases in the library’s entryway also helped. Jacobs arranged aquilt show. Exhibitors were reluctant the first year. But itquickly became an annual two-day event, attracting quilters from awide region and expanded with speakers, workshops anddemonstrations.

Organizations ranging from the Council on Sexual Assault andDomestic Violence to the Alzheimer’s Association began takingadvantage of the display space to inform and educate the public,too.

Coffee is stimulus

The new library was built with a coffee shop. “I saw it as avenue for performers,” longtime assistant library director DanNieman said. He was also motivated by a video from the ClevelandPublic Library of a performance of light-punk band High Strung,which favors performing in libraries, where people actually listento them, rather than bars.

And Nieman remembered a 2007 article in the Journal about aSiouxland couple who open their home to house concerts, chargingneighbors $10 each to attend. He signed the library up withConcerts in Your Home, a web-based company that connects venues andacts interested in doing house concerts, usually at stops inbetween their booked concert sites.

Unlike some bookers, the library can promise the acts onlydonations at the door, although it occasionally gets a grant to payperformers. Mixdorf said he sometimes pays for their hotel roomhimself and always seeds the donation jar with a $20 bill.

Lakota medicine, Dewey, top list

The two best-attended programs to date were a Lakota Siouxmedicine man speaking on the life of Crazy Horse from a Lakotaperspective, sparked by the book “Crazy Horse: Strange Man of theOgalala” by Mari Sandoz; and Vicki Myron, of Spencer, Iowa, authorof the best-selling book “Dewey: The Small-town Library Cat WhoTouched the World.” Not every act draws a large audience,though.

“We really haven’t figured it out,” Mixdorf said. “It’s a freeservice, a chance to listen to a performer.” Mixdorf said thelibrary applies for grants from the Nebraska Humanities Council,which can offer artists — poets, musicians, dancers, writers –from across the globe. But the grants can require a match of asmuch as $10,000.

“We’re starting to figure out how to get money built up to dothis stuff,” he said.

The goal is to have a special cultural offering once a month.Better would be once a week, he said.

Repeat customers

For Diane Boyd, who served on the library’s board for 25 yearsand now sits on the Nebraska Library Commission, there is nosubstitute for a public library. “If you can get people there, forany reason, they’re going to come back,” she said. “They’re goingto bring their grandchildren.”

South Sioux City will always have a library and it will keepchanging as the world changes, Boyd said. For example, she said,she thinks the library is busier these days because it offerspatrons webcam visits with family members in the military.

And don’t forget fun. Eleanor Likes, 74, of South Sioux City,said she had a great time attending Saturday’s Earth Day programs.”I saw some rain barrels and learned how to save the water,” shesaid. “I’m glad to know they’re trying to bring that back.” Shealso saw an Audubon Society video about native birds and birds newto the area, and learned about the city’s new community garden.

Likes said she’s a regular patron of the arts and other programsat the library. “They’re free,” she said. “I enjoy them, they’reinteresting.”

Childrens Crafts michael czarnecki, waterloo iowa