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From left at the piano, Shawn Stewart, Cierra Chapman, Carleigh Studtmann, Eunjin Lee (seated), Jenny Hellier (standing in back), Sarah Beamer, Ashton Ledbetter, and Harlee King. Photo Miranda Adkins, So Salem

For the second year in a row, Aaron Garber has spent his Election Day with a group of Andrew Lewis Middle schoolers to compose an original piece for the Salem Choral Society's November concert. The workshop is called "I can create music," and eight students nominated by their music teachers spent the morning and part of the afternoon of Tuesday, November 3 creating the tune "Before the Dawn."

By the afternoon, the students and Garber had selected the title, the melody, and the key, and they'd started to create the innuendos and phrases.

The Salem Choral Society will perform the piece at their Sunday, November 15 concert at Andrew Lewis Middle School. The show "Love me tender: Great popular music from the 20th century" will begin at 3 p.m. and tickets can be purchased at the door, but to get them before they're sold out, call 761-4727.

March 6, the SCS will perform Garber's own original composition, with Richard Bansemer as the librettist "Jesus Son of our Father (The Gospel According to John)" at Shaftman Performance hall in the Jefferson Center. The oratorio will be performed with a full orchestra and professional soloists.

For more information, visit www.salemchoralsociety.org.

Salem's Living Well Church of the Nazarene has a member with a God-given talent, and he's looking to help his church grow by putting it to use. Bill Dalton, a retired barber with a knack for woodworking, is hoping to sell his handmade pie safes for a billboard lease and to put towards their building fund."We're looking to expand to another location," said Dalton. "We have lots of children and members in their 30s and 40s. I don't know when we'll go, but the Lord will give us a place somewhere."

So he's doing what he knows best in order to help.

"Even as a child I'd pick up a board and make a bench or a box or something," he said. He made most of the furniture for the home he shares with his wife of 60 years, Freddie, and says that he can make just about anything you'd see at a furniture store or an antique mall as long as he has a sketch or a picture and some measurements.

The only formal training he's had was at his high school woodworking class. He's a member of the Blue Ridge Woodturners and the American Association of Woodturners. He started making furniture at the request of other people when a Snap-On Tools representative saw his work and asked Dalton to make him a cedar rocking chair.

Dalton grew up in West Virginia in a small town between Bluefield and Welch. In 1943, his family moved to Floyd, Virginia just before he went to be a machinist in the Navy at age 17. But even before the Daltons moved out of coal mining country, he knew that he didn't want to have anything to do with the deadly profession that his neighbors and family were in.

"I wrote an essay in high school that I could be a barber and move anywhere that I wanted to. I wouldn't have to worry about coal dust and so forth," he said. So after he left the navy in 1947, he went to barber's school in Roanoke and then ended up working in Bill Littrell's barber shop on Main Street in Salem where Macado's stands now.

Life in Salem drew him in even as a boy, when he came first to visit Lakeside Amusement Park and then came for a boy scout camping trip at Dixie Caverns.

Dalton is giving all of the proceeds from his woodworking to the Living Well Church of the Nazarene in Salem. For more information or to order a pie safe, call Dalton at 389-0581. He can also do custom work that will also go towards the church.

After much needed growth, Bethel Baptist Church Preschool is excited to announce that we once again have openings in most classes!!  The Preschool is in it’s 4th year of operation and growing each year.  This year the Preschool has grown to 5 days a week, Monday – Friday and meets from 9-1.  The benefit of Bethel Baptist Church Preschool is there are different attendance options, from 1 day a week to 5 days week and they accept children as young as 12 months old!  Offer your child the advantage of a GREAT Christian Preschool as early as 12 months old!!   Offer your child the advantage of attending a caring, academic, Christian Preschool.  Their experienced staff provides a loving environment for preschoolers to learn basic and necessary skills. Call today, space is limited!!  Bethel Baptist Church Preschool can be reached at 540-389-0550 or bethelbaptistchurchkids@verizon.net.

Submitted by David and Kelly Reese.

EPIC is THE Valley Wide Teen-Gathering for all 9th - 12th grade students and it is currently being held in the gym at FCC every Sunday Night at 6:23.

Each week we have a lot of fun....games....challenging messages and praise and worship music...and special guest speakers from time to time, and did I mention a lot of FUN !!!

On November 29 we are having the choir from Patrick Henry High School come in and lead our music for that night

Submitted by Becky Walls

Our paparazzi photo crew was at the Positively Pink Parade over the weekend -- and so were lots of people from Salem.

You can see all the photos in the slideshow above or in this gallery format. Or, you can go straight to the photos of these Salem folks:

* April Witt, Traci Foster and Sondra McCray
* Candy Crotts
* Margaret Brown and Tina Bailey
* Peggy Meadows
* Priscilla Delp
* The Altice family

Do you have photos involving people or events from Salem or western Roanoke County? If so, you can share at news@sosalem.com.

The kids (and some adults!) at St. Paul Episcopal's in Salem went to the pumpkin patch at Layman Farms out in Bedford on Sunday -- and Kathryn Hanson shares this photo gallery.

Thanks, Kathryn!

You can view her photos in the slideshow above or in this gallery format.

Do you have photos of fall activities involving people or events around Salem? Or news or photos from your church? Whatever it is, if it involves people from Salem, we'd love to show it off at news@sosalem.com.

The Salem Minister's Conference is sponsoring this year's Community Thanksgiving Service, which will be held at Shiloh Baptist Church Sunday November 22 at 7:00pm. Ministers from 7 different denominations are currently participating, and others are encouraged to get involved. The service will feature a Community Choir. An offering will be taken to support the Salem Food Pantry. For more information contact Brian Gordon or Janet Denton at janet.denton@salempres.org.

Submitted by Rev. Brian Gordon.

Hazel Hash, esteemed member of Tabernacle Baptist, is still teaching Sunday school after 65 years. She sits next to one of her former students, still a member of the church, "Shorty" Jimmy Wright. Photo Miranda Adkins, So Salem

Hazel Hash has no idea how many children she's taught in Sunday school throughout the years, but if she'd kept count, nobody'd be surprised if the total topped a few thousand - or even twice or triple that. Hash, the eldest and dearest Sunday school teacher at Tabernacle Baptist Church in front of National College in Salem, turned 90 on October 1 and has been teaching Sunday school for over 65 years. The church celebrated her birthday on Sunday, October 4, and they hold her in the highest regard.Ever since she married her husband, Lewis Hash, she's been at Tabernacle. They were married for 58 years, and he was just as dedicated as she has been to the church.

"Somebody told me this week that some men played golf but Lewis played church," said Linda Coyle, director of children's ministries at Tabernacle.

"When anything went wrong or needed fixing in this church, they called Lewis," Hazel said.

Hazel and Doris Whitlow helped to organize the first preschool at the church. Hash did that for ten years. She even played the organ for a year.

She helped out a lot with Vacation Bible School, too, when Tabernacle and Edgewood were the only churches nearby. They had upwards of 500 children attend back then, and it was a weeklong program where the men cut up the wood for the crafts, and the moms, most who stayed at home, ran the school.

They painted plaster of Paris Indian heads, made birdhouses and keyracks and other useful knick-knacks.

"When I look around and see young women and men I taught being so active in church - it makes me feel good and so proud," she said.

Hazel's daughter Rosemary Blevin has been the church's financial secretary for some time now, and many other members were children in her Sunday school class, including Melody Cannon, Mike Duffy, Debbie Taylor, Linda Perdue, and Wanda Journell. Even to the people who weren't in her Sunday school class, Hazel has tried to be a loving "momma and grandmomm" to just about everybody.

Longtime retired Salem softball coach "Shorty" Jimmy Wright is one of her former students, and even in his smile, you can see just how much Hazel means to him. She's probably one of the few people that don't call him by his nickname.

"I don't think it's enough words in the human language to say about Hazel," Wright said.

In 2000, Tabernacle began awarding the Hazel Hash award. She was the first recipient, and each year since, it's been given to a member "who exhibit selfless love in His chosen ministry, whose works, through faith, are a living testimony..."

"I've really been blessed, I tell you. This church has been my second family, my second home really," Hazel Hash said.

***Tabernacle Baptist is holding a Children's Fall Festival from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 31. There will be trunk-or-treating, games, a hay ride, and much more! For more information, call the church at 986-0035.

The Joy Ministries group from the West Salem Baptist Church made a bus trip to Waynesboro on Tuesday. They visited a mall, had lunch at McAlister's Deli, then went on to visit The Cheese Shop in Stuarts Draft and the Little Debbie store. The Joy Ministries is designed to promote fellowship among the members and also friends and family.

Submitted by Barbara Krzysko

Scott Anderson will be speaking at EPIC this coming Sunday October 25,2009 at 6:23 pm. You will not want to miss his exciting story ... Invite all of your friends he has a special message for the Teen age crowd ...EPIC is hosted by Fellowship Community Church every Sunday night and is open to all 9th - 12th grade students.

Scott, by all accounts, should not be happy about his life. Scott was born with cerebral palsy, and has been in a wheelchair for most of his life. His home life in his early years wasn't much better with multiple divorces, domestic violence, suicide and drug use occurring in his home. Looking back on his life, Scott should have been bitter, angry, disgusted at life, and given up. But this is not Scott.

Instead of letting his past and present circumstances control his life, Scott has learned to embrace his life and use each of life's challenges as a springboard to help others. Through a positive outlook, tenacity, and above all, a deep faith in Jesus, he has overcome a lifetime of barriers to become a dynamic speaker.

Submitted by Becky Walls