7/29/2019 Dedham Transcript March 4, 2010 Not your average beauty pageant

1/2

SPORTS, 11

Boys hoops, girlshockey bow out

GROWINGUP, 2

Author to sharetips on raisingkids in the city

TOWNHALL, 4

Selectmenapprove liquorlicense for Greekrestaurant

EDUCATION,18

Kids get shockout of lesson

NUMBERTO KNOW

16Approximate num-

ber of minutes that

Anthony Hopkins was on

screen in Silence of the

Lambs, the shortest

amount of time on screen

for a Best Actor winnersrole.

INDEX

Arts & Entertainment 15

Cable Schedule 5

Education 18

News 3-5

Our Town 2

Opinion 6-7

Police News 3

Sports 11-13

SEE PAGE 6

MARCH 4 10, 2010 wickedlocaldedham.com | GateHouse Media New England Vol. 1 No. 20 75

KNOW WHERE

IN TOWNTHIS IS?

By Edward B. Colby

STAFF WRITER

As Dedham officials have worked theirway through demanding fiscal times the lastfew years, the 2011 budget has loomed as aneven tougher obstacle. So when Town Ad-

ministrator William Keegan presented his planfor the upcoming year, this was a somewhatsurprising takeaway: 2011 should not be so bad.

Giving his annual budget message lastweek, Keegan said that by and large fiscal 2011has indeed turned out to be one of the mostdifficult years to prepare for. But through con-servative planning by many boards, depart-ments and his administration, Dedham is inone of the more enviable positions headinginto the year, Keegan said.

We anticipate having a balanced budget onJuly 1, 2010. Many of our collective bargain-ing agreements will be settled. The town iscontinuing to improve its capital infrastruc-

By Edward B. Colby

STAFF WRITER

Abby Jenest says she was al-ready making bead braceletsat home with her mom be-

fore an earthquake struck Haiti butthe tragedy prompted her to take hercraft to another level.

After the mid-January disaster, I

watched a video (online), and I got re-ally upset, so I asked my mom if wecould do something, said Jenest,10, who is in fourth grade at the Oak-dale School.

Two weeks of brisk recess sales lat-er, that something a temporarybracelet shop set up in the Oakdaleprincipals office added up to one bigdonation, topping $850, for Haiti re-

lief efforts.Besides the video, which she

watched on Yahoo, the youngfundraiser was motivated by the re-ally pretty bracelets she saw hermoms friend selling at UniquelyGlobal. Those were $10, so Jenest andher mother thought of selling theirs

Fourth-grader raises over $800 for Haiti relief

PHOTO BY SEAN BROWNE

Oakdale Elementary School Principal Holli Armstrong, top left, helps fourth-grader Abby Jenest, top right, sellher handmade bracelets to students. All money collected will go to a Haiti relief organization.

OAKDALE OUTREACH

Beaded BenefitFISCAL 2011

Budget

outlookpositiveKeegan says town has beenefficient with spending

BUDGET, PAGE 9

BEADS, PAGE 9

DEDHAM TRANSCRIPT PHOTO BY ERIN PRAWOKO

A Dedham mans auto repairs went awrylast Tuesday when a car he was trying tojump-start caught fire, with the blaze spread-ing from his garage to a room above it, adeputy fire chief said.

The fire at 87 Booth Road started at 10:30a.m. in the garage, which is attached to thehouse. When it was over, it had left roughly$200,000 in damage to the building and itscontents, including two vehicles that were to-taled, said Deputy Fire Chief John Fontaine.

He said the man doing repairs was the onlyperson home when the fire began, and thatno one was injured. The man is staying withrelatives, Fontaine added.

Edward B. Colby

87 Booth Road

By Edward B. Colby

STAFF WRITER

As a bill targeting schoolbullying advances through theLegislature, the Dedham SchoolCommittee has committed to anew review of its bullying pol-icy, beginning this comingWednesday.

John Healy said the policysubcommittee would get theball rolling looking at the cur-

rent policy at its meeting March10 at 6 p.m. in the lower con-ference room of Town Hall.The full School Committee re-convenes there that night at7 p.m.

Cyberbullying has become ahot-button topic after a

15-year-old girl in westernMassachusetts committed sui-cide in January, reportedly af-ter being taunted with textmessages and on Facebook,

By Andrea Salisbury

STAFF WRITER

Her eyes danced from word to word as she recit-ed, in one breath, her introduction speech.

I know every day will bring another challenge, butI am ready for whatever comes my way and I wouldbe honored to be your 2010 National American Miss,Miss Massachusetts Junior Teen representing this stateat the national pageant. I am Laura Diraffaele and I

am a girl with dreams, the 14-year-old Dedham Highstudent smiled and closed her purple binder with theNational American Miss label.

The Fourth of July weekend will be Lauras thirdNational American Miss competition, and she hasbeen planning for almost a year.

COURTESY PHOTO

Dedham teen Laura Diraffaele will com-pete in July in the National American Misspageant. This will be her third pageant.

NATIONAL AMERICAN MISS

Not your averagebeauty pageant

Dedham teen sets eyes on state

Schools to reviewbullying policyLevels of punishmentare supposed to beused, so that the samebully cant continue towreak havoc on fellowstudents without theconsequences reach-ing a higher level.Laurie Reisner

BULLYING, PAGE 8 LAURA, PAGE 8

7/29/2019 Dedham Transcript March 4, 2010 Not your average beauty pageant

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When the pageant ended(last year), I was like, I want todo this next year, she said,opening her binder again andpointing to her speech. Thatnext week I was already writingall this.

Looking back, Laura said itwas on a whim that she evengot involved in National Amer-ican Miss.

One day we got a postcard inthe mail that said, would youlike to join the pageant? shesaid. It was a $20 entrance feeand if you didnt get in youwould get $20 back. We fig-ured, might as well see whathappens. So we sent it in andwe got a letter back saying,Congratulations, you are astate finalist.

The first year, everythingwas rushed, said her mother,Linda Diraffaele. They got theacceptance late and had to

fundraise to cover the $440sponsorship fee, hotel cost andadditional fees for each com-petition. But the friendshipsand confidence gained fromthe whirlwind weekend, Laurasaid, was worth the stress.

When we first started it wasa $20 fee and I was like, oh,what the heck, Linda said.And its turned into some-thing that she really, really

I love it, Laura said, takingover. It is the best thing thathas ever happened to me. It hashelped me to build confidenceand I am not afraid to speak upin front of people. People usedto bully me a lot. Now its like,

No, I am done with this, I amnot taking this anymore.Laura insists that National

American Miss isnt a beautypageant.

It is about being yourself andit shows you how unique youare, she said. Who you are onthe inside and not just beautyon the outside.

The confidence gained is thebig perk of participating in thepageant, Laura said.

The statewide competitionis spread out over three daysand is held at the Marriott inBurlington. National Ameri-can Miss has six differentpageants depending on age,

but the competition format isthe same. The required com-

petitions include formal wear,personal introduction, inter-

view and community involve-ment. In addition, girls can

enter different competitionsfor a $50 fee, including casu-

al wear and talent. Prizes in-clude cash, passes to Disney-

Land and college scholar-ships.

With this being her thirdyear, Linda said they only hadto pay half of the $440 for thesponsorship fee, but Laura stillneeds to raise $600 to cover

the hotel, a new dress a for-mal purple number fromDavids Bridal and the addi-tional contest fees that are$50 each. Laura is doing it allherself.

She wants this. I said youvegot to raise the money, Lindasaid. So that is what she is do-ing. She is sacrificing everySunday to help sell raffle tick-ets.

From going door to doorwith a donation cup, to sellingflowers and raffle tickets atthe Dedham Square CountryMarket, to putting donationcups out at local businesses, theRiverside Drive teenager has

been hard at work.Ive made about $100-

something so far, just doing allthe fundraisers Ive been do-ing, Laura said. Last yearwe put out donation cups at afew businesses and I got $50last year from that. We putthem out at (places like) TheBlue Bunny and DedhamHouse of Pizza.

Every little bit helps, Lindaadded as Laura jumped fromthe table to search for her con-test ribbons from the previousyears.

Her trophies are proudlydisplayed on her bedroomshelf next to a giant poster ofEdward Cullen from the movieTwilight. She couldnt findthe ribbons, but explainedwhile her mom went on thehunt that the trophies andthank you cards were fromher first year as a contestant.She was awarded the Nation-al American Miss sash and

tiara last year for selling apage of ads. One page of ads,

Laura said, means youvereached the gold level. Thisyear, she plans to reach dia-mond level nine pages of ads.

For the state competition,the National American Missprogram book is divided byregion and contestant. Thegirls have until May to sell adspots for local businesses.The ads start at $60 for abusiness card size a nd go upfrom there. Every page inthe book can fit 10 businesscard-size ads.

Laura explained that busi-nesses can also combine theirsponsorship efforts for a single

ad and the National AmericanMiss design staff can customizethe advertisement. Pointingto an ornate quarter-page adfrom last year for Dedhams50s Diner, Linda explainedthat the diner gave them thelogo and the words and the de-sign team did the rest.

Laura hasnt started sellingads for this years program yet,but plans to hit up businessessoon.

The whole pageant theme isjust such a wonderful oppor-tunity to see her grow andmature. I would just love to seethe entire town get behindher, Linda said, pointing to the

various community efforts Lau-ra has done with the GirlScouts. It would be a good wayfor the community to help herout, because she is going to berepresenting Dedham.

Linda turned to smile at herdaughter who was thumbingthrough her National AmericanMiss binder.

There is really no one wordthat can describe this pageant,Linda said.

Laura chimed in, Its like Ima girl with dreams and I havesomething I want to work forand accomplish through thispageant.

Dedham Transcript editor

Andrea Salisbury can bereached at asalisbu@cnc.com.

PHOTOS BY ANDREA SALISBURY

Some of the awards Dedhams Laura Diraffaele won in pastNational American Miss pageants. Diraffaele will compete inJuly in the 2010 National American Miss pageant.

and bullied in school.What happened out there in

South Hadley, thats every par-ents nightmare, every com-munitys nightmare, but itsalso every school committeeand every superintendentsnightmare as well, saidThomas Ryan.

The Dedham school boarddevoted two hours of its meet-ing last week to bullying andcyberbullying, with nearlyevery principal speaking aboutthe programs they have inplace to prevent and deal withthe abuse.

After more than 90 min-utes of discussion, parent Lau-rie Reisner came to the podi-um, asking the board to con-sider forming another sub-committee to review the poli-cies that you have in place, takea very close look at them, andsee if there is anything that wecan do to improve them.

Reisner brought up bullyingat a School Committee meet-ing in July 2007, and thenparticipated in a subcommit-tee that put new policies inplace.

For example, each incidentof bullying is supposed to bedocumented. It seems likethat is being done, Reisnersaid.

Levels of punishment aresupposed to be used, so thatthe same bully cant continueto wreak havoc on fellow stu-

dents without the conse-quences reaching a higher lev-el, she added. That, I think,is a concern parents still have:what exactly is being done,how much do you really step itup, and whats the point whereit get stepped up?

School officials said repeat-edly that they use progressivediscipline as they respond tobullying with corrective ac-tions including detention, sus-pension, community service,and education for bullies to try

and ward off future incidents.The State House bill was

approved by the Joint Com-mittee on Education and isnow before the Senate Com-mittee on Ways and Means.The comprehensive measurewould prohibit bullying at allschool facilities; at school-sponsored or school-relatedfunctions; on school buses;through school technology andelectronic devices; and, im-portantly, at non-school-re-lated locations and through

non-school technology or elec-tronic devices, if the bullying af-fects the school environment.

Its noting that it isnt justdevices owned by the school,but through personal devicesif indeed the bullying affectsthe school environment, saidSuperintendent of SchoolsJune Doe. And, of course, Ithink every principal here canattest to the fact that thatswhat life in school is today, justan expansion of electronic de-vices. I think its good lan-

guage, and I wish a speedy voteon this.

State Rep. Paul McMurtry,D-Dedham, said the mostsignificant focus of the legis-lation is just the act of pre-vention, and reall y to helpchildren understand to bemore respectful of each other.

He said one negative aspectof the bill is that the schooldistricts will be required tohave and implement a bullyingprevention plan for every stu-dent every year.

The Senate passed an anti-bullying bill last session, but itwas never voted on in theHouse.

McMurtry said he hopedthe House would take a finalvote on this new bill in April .

Its something that thespeaker, Senate president andthe governor are all support-ing, and in favor of, and Iwould imagine that the ac-tion wouldnt be delayed, hesaid.

Dedham Transcript staffwriter Edward B. Colby can bereached at 781-433-8336.

FOR BREAKING NEWS during the week visit wickedlocaldedham.com.

FROM THE FRONT PAGE

8 Thursday, March 4, 2010Dedham Transcriptwickedlocaldedham.com

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LAURAFrom Page 1

Want to Donate?Checks can be made out to Na-tional American Miss, be sure towrite Laura Diraffaele on thememo line, and mail to Linda Di-raffaele, 277 Riverside Drive,Dedham, MA 02026.

BULLYINGFrom Page 1

ADDRESS TOWN BUYER PRICE DATE SELLER

Real Estate Transactions

WARREN INFORMATION SERVICES, BOSTON, MA.

13 Sherwood St #13 Dedham FHLM $354,132 02/11/10 Bautista, Lisandra

10 Hillside Rd Dedham Desjardin, Cheryl A $329,900 02/12/10 Cooper, Robert G

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DEDHAM

What happened outthere in South Hadley,thats every parentsnightmare, every com-munitys nightmare,but its also everyschool committee andevery superinten-dents nightmare aswell.Thomas Ryan

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