Free e-book captures kids' hopes for Obama

This undated photo provided by kidthing, inc. shows a letter and drawing for President Barack Obama by Anthony Pape, 10, of Dubois, Pa. (AP Photo/kidthing, inc.)

By LEANNE ITALIE
Associated Press Writer


NEW YORK (AP) — End war, forever. Make the planet greener. Please help my dad find work. Make it rain candy!

Thousands of kids detailed their hopes and expectations for President Barack Obama in letters and drawings as part of a worldwide project, with 150 chosen for a free e-book being released on Presidents Day.

Most had tall orders for the new guy in the White House.

Anthony Pape, 10, of Du Bois, Pennsylvania, offered: "I hope that we will have no war ever again. I mean why are we fighting why can't we all be friends."

Fellow 10-year-old Sasha Townsend of Soquel, California, had a similar request, and then some.

"I would appreciate it if you would try to make this a greener planet and try to bring home the troops and end the war," the fifth-grader wrote. "I am very luckey because I am not part of a military family, but it saddens me to hear about all the people who die in Iraque and know that somewhere In the world people are greiving over a lost family member."

Seven-year-old Aaron Van Blerkom's letter was simpler — but no less problematic.

"Dear Mr. Obama," the Pasadena, California, first-grader began, "Please Make it rain candy!"

The "Dear Mr. President" project was a joint effort between the National Education Association and kidthing.com, which is putting out the book for use with its downloadable media player. A special hardcopy edition of the book will be sent to the White House for Obama, who has done wonders to bring the office of the presidency to life for young people.

The letters were written in January amid Obama-mania at inauguration time as schools scrambled to bus kids to special viewing events and come up with computer screens and TVs for them to watch in classrooms and auditoriums.

Kids ages 5-12 were eligible to participate. Submissions flooded kidthing, including some from other nations.

Lawrence Hitchcock, chief executive officer of the Web site, said more than 4,500 letters were considered for the book on a heart-wrenching range of topics that don't stop at an end to the war and climate change.

"We had, 'My dad's out of work, fix the company, please get more jobs,' Hitchcock said. "There were Latino kids saying, 'Please change the immigration laws so my dad can come back from Mexico.' This is a profound snapshot of a social narrative of young kids during an important moment in history. It really kind of stunned us what came in through the front door."

Another of the winners, 12-year-old Destiny McLaurin, a sixth-grader from Medford, New York, had friendship on her mind.

"I hope Mr. Barack Obama will one day create a holiday for children from around the world" she wrote.

In interviews, some of the letter-writers remained optimistic that "Yes We Can" was more than just a campaign slogan.

"I feel very proud because I know he'll be able to make a change in the country and we'll be a lot more happier," Destiny said. "I think he should make people feel more welcome, people who don't really get along with other people."

Aaron's wish is a little more specific. If Obama makes candy drop from the sky, he's hoping for his favorite: candy canes! And if the president showed up at his school, he'd have these requests:

"Make fires and earthquakes not exist. Make no tornadoes or any of those things that break things."

An 11-year-old boy from Ohio drew himself in tears at the side of a relative. His dream, he wrote, is that a "cure for cancer will be found" with Obama in the White House, "Because it took my aunt to a better place on father's day."

Another child drew Obama as the "new sunrise of America." One made Earth and labeled it "Obamaland," and still another created the president's face as half dark and half light skin tones with the words: "United We Are One."

Sasha's drawing is an all-green globe. Her enthusiasm for Obama and his ability to get the job done speaks volumes: "I just think he's really, really awesome."

___

On the Net:

Free "Dear Mr. President" book, beginning Monday: http://www.kidthing.com/dmp

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Retiring doctor delivered 16,000 babies

By SHELLEY HANSON
Wheeling Intelligencer


WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) — Dr. John Battaglino has counted about 320,000 fingers and toes during the past 47 years.

He's also gazed into 16,000 pairs of eyes and swaddled a total 64,000 tiny arms and legs, all belonging to the 16,000 babies he has delivered during his career.

That's nearly an infant for every day he's worked as an obstetrician/gynecologist at Wheeling Hospital. And now Battaglino, 78, is retiring.

"That's almost the population of Wheeling," Battaglino said of his deliveries. "All of them are memorable. ... It never gets boring to do a delivery. Every day a baby is born, it's a miraculous event.

"I used to complain about getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning, but it was always a happy thing. But there's nothing sadder than a stillbirth and to go through it with the parents. There's nothing you can do but cry along with the parents. God gives and God takes."

Originally from Bluefield, W.Va., Battaglino is the son of Italian immigrant parents, the late John Sr. and Filomena Pastor Battaglino.

He attended medical school at West Virginia University and the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Va. He interned at a hospital in Worcester, Mass., did his residency at the Mayo Clinic and his fellowship at the University of Minnesota. Battaglino also served in the U.S. Army in Berlin, Germany.

"I was there when they put up the wall," he said of the structure that was built to separate East and West Germany and since has been demolished.

Battaglino conducted his first delivery at St. Phillips Hospital in 1953 when he was a medical student in Richmond. He was more nervous than the mother.

"She told me everything to do," he added.

Eight years ago Battaglino decided to phase out his obstetrics practice because of the rising cost of malpractice insurance premiums. But he continued gynecology.

Battaglino's final delivery held an ironic twist: the father had been a baby that he delivered years earlier, marking the second generation of that family that had come into this world under his care.

"There are seven or eight doctors now in Wheeling that I delivered," Battaglino said, noting he also taught them as medical residents. "They were very at ease, very respectful. They were all good students and good doctors. They've all done well - some of them are the most prominent in town."

Battaglino himself never married or had children.

"I thought no woman would put up with that life," he said of being a doctor. "Although I did come close a couple times. ... I have missed out not having my own children. I do have regrets. God's plan was for me to be a doctor."

Battaglino never ceased to be amazed in his job.

"To think they start out as a microscopic egg and nine months later there's a perfect human being," he said. "How a person could ever be an atheist, I don't know."

Battaglino said after vacationing in Florida, he plans to come back to Wheeling and continue serving as medical director at the Good Shepherd Nursing Home and Welty Home. He also plans to continue working with the Wheeling Hospital's cancer commission and teaching program.
___

Information from: The Intelligencer, http://www.theintelligencer.net

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Alabama students eat barbecue for grades

From left: Will Foster, Jr., Jeff Vaughan, Matt Lee and Art Richey sample the sauce at Dreamland Bar-B-Que in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Thursday Jan. 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Jamie Martin)

By JAY REEVES
Associated Press Writer


TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Four college students walk into a smoky restaurant, sit at a table under a blaring TV and order up their class work for the day — two slabs of spare ribs dripping with reddish sauce, white bread on the side.

But this isn't lunch. It's writing about barbecue for an A.

The four spent January visiting some of the South's best barbecue restaurants for course credit from Birmingham-Southern College in a self-designed class that combines heaping mounds of meat with academics, all spread across five states.

After cleaning their plates and licking their fingers, the group would leave each joint with bulging bellies to document their experience with stories, photos and video posted on a blog and the Web site they built, southernbbqboys.com. Those components, along with a final essay each one is currently finishing, are being graded by the English instructor who helped them design the class.

So what do you learn in such a course? Eat enough barbecue and you'll gain weight, get sick or both. And 3,100 miles is a long, long way to drive for dinner in a 1998 Ford Expedition with a plastic pig's nose attached to the front.

"It's been great," said senior Art Richey, who came up with the idea for the epicurean odyssey. "But I'm definitely not going to have barbecue for a while after this."

Richey, of Russellville, Ala., wanted to take a road trip and write reviews of restaurants during Birmingham-Southern's monthlong interim period, which lets students propose out-of-the-box projects and complete them for credit.

Working with English instructor Robin Mozer, Richey developed a course contract with Will Foster of Alpharetta, Ga.; Jeff Vaughan of West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Matt Lee of Cullman, Ala.

They sketched out a trip through Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. They stuck to places that specialize in pork because Southerners know pork is the only real barbecue.

The group had a few places in mind, but they also created a Facebook group and took suggestions for other stops. They were soon overwhelmed with hundreds of recommendations, many from complete strangers.

The point of the endeavor, at least academically, was for the students to develop their writing, and they say that their storytelling and descriptive skills have improved as a result. Richey said he learned that it wasn't enough just to say a restaurant's barbecue sauce tasted good. "You have to describe it, say it's sweet as molasses or spicy hot."

"They've really put a lot of effort into it," said Mozer. "They're all focused on improving their writing; that's one thing I heard from all of them."

The trip wasn't without snags, though: Lee got food poisoning after a stop in Raleigh, N.C., but he remained on the trip.

Foster's pants are fitting a little tighter — he thinks he gained as many as 7 pounds — but he said it was worth it.

"We actually calculated that my GPA is going to go over 3.0 because of barbecue if I make an A," said Foster, a junior majoring in business administration. "Who'd have ever thought it?"
___

On the Web: http://www.southernbbqboys.com

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Arizona high school starts mariachi program

By SUSAN RANDALL
Casa Grande Dispatch


CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (AP) — When Steve Heil moved to Casa Grande several years ago, he wondered why its public schools had no programs for stringed instruments like those in some other states.

Heil, who is principal of Casa Verde High School, was talking to students in September about the kind of electives they would like to have, and they told him they wanted a music program.

"How can we be involved?" they wanted to know.

Kim Calderone, a Casa Verde parent and the owner of Accelerate the Arts mobile music store, suggested that he call Maureen Berger, musical director at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church and School and president of Golden Corridor Center for the Arts, a nonprofit organization that provides string classes to adults and children, puts on concerts and is developing youth and adult orchestras in Pinal County.

Heil, Berger and Calderone met last fall with about 20 Casa Verde students who said they would be willing to give up their lunch break to start a mariachi band, playing traditional Mexican music.

There was no money in the budget, but Calderone volunteered to begin working with the violin players in October so they could learn how to play before they tried mariachi music.

Berger volunteered to coach the trumpet players. Jazz musician and guitar teacher John Sutton volunteered to work with the string players. They started teaching the young musicians in January.

Berger said she, Calderone and Sutton are all part of the Golden Corridor and are volunteering to bring this program alive.

"The reason we are so successful," Calderone said, "is our love and passion for music and for the students. And they want so badly to learn."

Calderone said some of the students played by ear when they started the program but could not read music. Others had not played an instrument since elementary school.

"We want our students to learn how to read music, write music, understand the elements of music, experience the different genres of music — and not just learn to play by ear," she said.

Even though the class and teachers are volunteers, they are following the general national standards for music defined by the Music Educators National Conference.

"I am so proud of these young people," Berger said. "They're dedicated to making this a success and taking ownership of the program. I think it will be highly successful because the kids definitely want to do it. They are motivated and they have the ability. They just so impress me with how far they have come in such a short time."

And mariachi music is enjoyable, she added.

"It has a lot of joy in it. It's not easy. There are musical challenges — in particular with the trumpets, because they are in all the sharp scales and keys."

Last week, an audience piled up in the hallway outside the open classroom where the group practiced "De Colores," ''La Valentina" and "Las Golondrinas" (the swallows).

"There are two things that are really hard to play," Sutton told the group as he conducted the rehearsal, "slow and soft."
___

Information from: Casa Grande Dispatch

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Cancer researcher Stephen Williams dies at 62

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Dr. Stephen Williams, who led Indiana University's Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center since its creation in 1992, has died of melanoma at the age of 62.

Williams, who died Sunday, was diagnosed with melanoma in 2006, and the cancer returned in 2008.

Under his leadership, the cancer center experienced tremendous growth and last year opened a $150 million facility at IU's medical complex in downtown Indianapolis, one of only 63 accredited cancer centers in the nation.

Dr. D. Craig Brater, dean of the IU School of Medicine, said Williams was successful in building the center because of his ability to focus people on common goals.

"He's just a nice guy," Brater said. "If somebody says they can't get along with Steve, you just instantly know it was their problem; it wasn't Steve's problem."

Williams wrote more than 150 medical articles. His research included ovarian and testicular cancers.

He was born in the central Indiana city of Shelbyville and grew up in Bedford. He graduated from DePauw University and received his medical degree and performed his residency and fellowship through IU.

Survivors include his wife, Kathryn, and their children, Thomas and Caroline.

A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday at Zionsville United Methodist Church.

Williams spoke about his fight against cancer as he received the IU President's Medal of Excellence in August when the Simon Cancer Center celebrated its expansion.

"In the last couple of years, I myself have become a cancer survivor and recently completed a very difficult treatment," Williams said. "As I reflect on the last few months and how difficult it has been for me, it is absolutely clear that treatment, while important, is not good enough. I can say definitely that it is easier to prevent and detect cancer than it is to treat it."

___

Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.