Karen ReMine of southwestern Roanoke County are headed back to Zambia with a group of medical volunteers to provide clinics for the people there.

Mark and Jodi Henrickson are also leaving this Saturday, April 3 to go to Zambia for ten days with Orphan Medical Network International, a nonprofit founded by nurse Karen ReMine and her husband Dr. Stephen ReMine. The ReMines and a group of medical volunteers will provide clinics for the people there during their 14-day stay.

This is Mark’s second trip over and Jodi’s first trip. (Salem Rotarian June Long has been three times, and ODAC commissioner and Salem Rotarian Brad Bankston has been once – he’s in the photos above)

They’ll help with the clinics, but also with the OMNI village – it’s a compound that provides education, medical attention, and food for nearly 175 orphans. We’ll have more on the story once they return!

Last time Mark went, the group returned with a hand-carved, six-foot-tall, wooden sculpture of Jesus. Jesus stayed in the lobby of College Lutheran this winter, and he’s recently gone to visit the First United Methodist Church in Salem.

The photos above are from Mark’s January 2009 trip.

For more information on OMNI, visit their website.

The 3rd Annual Juice Drive was launched with a noteworthy start as Juice Drive sponsors and supporters gathered inside a local Kroger store to kick-off this year’s Juice Drive. Sponsors WSLS10, Kroger, Nestle, Acquisition Title & Settlement, and supporter Miss Roanoke Valley Madison VanDuyne are all excited to start another exciting Juice Drive!

Thanks to new Juice Drive sponsor Nestle, this annual event launched today with Nestle’s donation of an entire truckload of 100% Juicy Juice! “Nestlé Juicy Juice is pleased to donate thousands of bottles of 100% juice to help Southwestern Virginia Second Harvest Food Bank kick off its annual 100% Juice Drive. One six ounce serving of Nestlé Juicy Juice 100% juice provides one serving of fruit and can be a healthy part of a well-balanced diet,” stated a Nestle representative. “Nestlé USA has partnered with Feeding America for more than 20 years, donating more than 36 million pounds of product to 127 food banks nationwide in the last four years alone.”

All Juice Drive sponsors and supporters are lending a helping hand. Acquisition Title & Settlement also donated 100% juice at today’s kick-off and for the third year in a row, Kroger announced the offering $1 and $5 Juice Drive icons at each register in its stores in Southwest Virginia in an effort to make it convenient for residents to participate in the Juice Drive as they check out.  Every penny of those icon sales is dedicated to providing 100% juice to the Food Bank’s Children’s Programs.

“We consider ourselves so lucky to have such wonderful supporters of the Juice Drive teaming up with us,” said Pamela Irvine, President & CEO of the Southwestern Virginia Second Harvest Food Bank. “It’s estimated that more than 77,000 children struggle with hunger in Southwest Virginia. Our Food Bank alone provides food for more than 504,000 meals and snacks for Children’s Programs in this region annually. The need is significant and that is why we have set our goal at 200,000 servings of 100% juice this year and we know that with the communities support, we can reach that goal.”

About the Southwestern Virginia Second Harvest Food Bank

The Southwestern Virginia Second Harvest Food Bank was founded in 1981 and is an affiliate member of Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest). The Food Bank’s ultimate mission is to eliminate hunger in the region. The primary function of the Food Bank is to secure large quantities of food for the hungry. More than 13-million pounds of food is channeled through a network of more than 340+ partner feeding programs (in a 26-county and 10-city region) that provide food or meals to those in need annually. Visit www.swvafoodbank.org for more information.

Submitted by Southwestern Virginia Second Harvest Food Bank

Music writer Tad Dickens has the month’s line-up of acts in this post on his cut’n'scratch music blog.

West Riverside Drive will be closed today and tomorrow  (March 30 and March 31) from Mill Lane to Mountain Ave.

for sewer work. 

Detour signs will be posted at both Mill Lane and at Mountain Ave. to help traffic flow through this area.

Submitted by Mike Stevens

Our Anniversary is April 1, 2010. 34 happy years together.

Submitted by Curtis and Teresa Howell.

The Salem city school board and Salem Education Foundation honored teacher of the year Andrew Lewis band director Chris Wilkes as well as the teachers nominated from West Salem, East Salem, South Salem, GW Carver Elementary schools and Salem High School on Tuesday, March 23.

Wilkes is the band director at ALMS and an assistant band director at the high school, where he also supervises the jazz band, indoor drum-line, and basketball prep band. He’s been teaching at Salem since 2001. His father, Carlton Wilkes, was a longtime band director at SHS and actually taught Chris there.

“Every one of us can remember a good teacher that brought out the best in us,” said former Salem city schools superintendent Wayne Tripp. He said that while times are tough for schools, “it’s people that transcend those difficulties.”

Nominees from the other schools included Jenny Kidd (South), Debbie Stanley (East), Lewis Armistead (Salem High), Vickie Trumbower (West), and Sheri Smith (GW Carver).

Andrew Lewis Middle School also garnered the 2010 Governor’s award for educational excellence – the highest honor under the Virginia Index of Performance incentive program created by the state board of education to encourage advanced learning and achievement in public schools. At least one Salem city school has earned the award in the last three years.

South Salem, West Salem, GW Carver, and East Salem, along with the Salem City school division, earned the Board of Education Excellence Award. Salem High School earned the Competence to Excellence award.

We have more photos from the Easter Egg hunt. Katy Hening shares this photo gallery of her nephews, Davis and Starke Griffith. She advises that Davis is the bigger of the two boys. In the pictures of the two of them, he is on the left and Starke is on the right.

This is the third gallery of Easter Egg hunt photos we’ve posted. Earlier, we posted galleries by Miranda Adkins and Carole Tarrant.

Do you have photos from around Salem? You can share at news@sosalem.com.

Firefighters and policemen, 53 total, from Roanoke city, Roanoke county, Salem, and even a few from Blacksburg, Montgomery County, and Radford, are part of “Roanoke Rampage,” a full-contact football league in the National Public Safety Football League.

Their first of two home games is at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 3 at Salem Stadium. Tailgating will begin around noon or 1 p.m.

Their second home game is April 24, tentatively at 6 p.m., maybe a little bit earlier. (They’re trying to accommodate Virginia Tech fans who may be going to the spring scrimmage that day.)

Tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for five- to twelve-year-olds, and five years and under can come for free.

This is their first year of existence, and all of the proceeds from their games will go to charities and non-profits like the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the American Cancer Society. Colleges and universities have donated or deeply discounted gear – pads, helmets, pants, and gloves. The Salem Red Sox have also helped the Roanoke Rampage with some informative mailings, said Kevin Bell, a Roanoke Fire Captain who resides in Salem.

“I think that’s the best thing that’s happened thus far: the friendships we’ve made with guys out at Blacksburg and Virginia Tech. It’s created better working relationships with the different departments involved,” Bell said.

Join us For the PHASE II A Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

DATE: Friday – April 2nd

TIME: 10 a.m.

WHERE: Rotary Park, Route 419 in Salem

This week, Roanoke College made the “Sweet 16.” Unfortunately for the Maroons, this doesn’t mean our basketball teams are in the big dance. The Sweet 16 designation is recognizing Roanoke’s academic rigor. A Web site dedicated to watching grade inflation at American colleges and universities named Roanoke among its “A” the Hard Way, 2010: GradeInflation.com’s Sweet Sixteen of Tough Graders.

The Web site says “Liberal arts colleges tend to be an easy A heaven. That’s not so at Roanoke where B is still the most common grade and A’s are earned less than 30 percent of the time.” About the Tough Grader list, the Web site says, “These are rare schools, but if you look long and hard, you can find them. Just like tough D wins basketball games, tough A’s help to create an environment for a rigorous education.”

Roanoke’s peers on the list include Princeton University, Boston University, MIT, Auburn University, Harvey Mudd College, Hampden-Sydney College and Virginia Commonwealth University.

It’s well known at Roanoke that the faculty expects students to work hard and earn their grades. At the same time, faculty members are accessible to students and form relationships to help students succeed at Roanoke and afterwards in their careers or graduate schools. Roanoke alumni know the value of a Roanoke degree. In this season of March Madness, alumni and students can now expect even more from their Maroon pedigree.

The sweet 16 is online at http://www.gradeinflation.com/sweet162010.html.

Roanoke College, an independent, co-educational, four-year liberal arts college in Salem, Virginia, combines firsthand learning with valuable personal connections in a classic, undergraduate setting. Roanoke prepares students for their futures through its commitment to providing a true classic college experience. Roanoke is one of just 280 colleges nationwide with a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society. The Princeton Review names Roanoke as one of the “best in the Southeast.”

For additional information, call the Roanoke College Public Relations Office at (540) 375-2282.