Press release from Phoenix Productions
Phoenix Productions, the community theatre company of the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, has announced auditions for its autumn production of ‘HAIR,’ to be presented at the Basie Center’s Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre Friday, September 23 through Sunday, September 25.
With supporters standing on the porch outside, drag queen Harmonica Sunbeam, above, entertained about two dozen families who packed a children’s story time at the Red Bank Public Library Monday evening.
A handful of protesters shouted “pedophile” and other slurs at Red Bank Public Library patrons as they arrived for a childrens’ “Drag Queen Story Hour” event Wednesday morning, library Director Elenyi Glykis told redbankgreen.
By JOHN T. WARD
Three men have been charged with assaulting a 16-year-old Red Bank athlete in what he claimed was a racially motivated attack outside a party in Oceanport last month.
Police, however, made no allegation of racial bias in complaints filed June 10 and obtained by redbankgreen Friday.
Among those charged were two Red Bank Catholic High School football players, including Alex Brown, the quarterback who made national headlines for his onfield performance just a day after his mother died last November.
Raymond Jackson suffered a bone fracture above his eye that will require surgery, his father said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A 16-year-old Red Bank athlete was badly beaten in a racially charged attack in Oceanport Saturday night, he told redbankgreen.
Police, however, say they have found no racial motivation in the alleged assault, which remains under investigation.
Press release from Phoenix Productions
Phoenix Productions, the community theatre company of the Count Basie Center for the Arts, has announced auditions for its summer production of ‘School Of Rock – The Musical,’ being presented at the Count Basie Center for the Arts Friday, July 22 through Sunday, July 24.
National Honor Society members read to young students and gave each a care packages of books. (Click to enlarge.)
Members of the National Honor Society at Red Bank Regional High School recently completed a drive to provide Read Across America care packages to students at Red Bank borough preschools.
The project was “amazing,” said TJ Eyerman, a senior who serves as NHS president. But it also underscored the needs of the Rumson-based Bridge of Books Foundation, he said.
The members of Tower Hill Boy Scout Troop 67 of Red Bank were honored to visit Red Bank Elks Club #233 Sunday to provide service in a flag-folding ceremony.
Throughout the year, older United States flags that have become worn, dirtied or damaged are dropped off at the Elks Club.
These flags having flown with pride were honorably folded by both Elks and Scouts to be retired.
More than 100 flags were folded. (Photos courtesy of Troop 67. Click to enlarge.)
Suubi Mondesir with Fortune Foundation co-chair Gilda Rogers last month. Below, Mondesir, second from right, on a 2016 tour of the Fortune house led by builder Roger Mumford. (Photos by Chris Ern, above, and John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By CHRIS ERN
In the summer of 2016, Suubi Mondesir was a rising junior at Red Bank Regional High School when she participated in a tour of a crumbling Red Bank house.
At the time, preservationists envisioned the building on Drs. James Parker Boulevard as a cultural center in honor of its onetime owner, the civil rights journalist T. Thomas Fortune, and Mondesir was present as a participant in the Hugh N. Boyd Journalism Diversity Workshop at Rutgers University.
Flash forward to 2021: The house has been fully restored as the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center, and Suubi (pronounced SOO-vee) manages its media outreach efforts as an intern. But it’s not just a job. Her work at the center aligns with a personal passion for social justice, inspired by Fortune’s work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she told redbankgreen in an interview last month.
“What he did is what I am hoping to do as well: to inspire people with my writing, and to speak truth to power,” Mondesir said.
Alexander In Ho Pane, John Franklin Cadamuro and Roman Devlin, with Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli, were cited by the borough council Monday night for recent work leading to their designation as Eagle Scouts.
The owners of Fair Haven’s Dunkin’ coffee shop presented $5,000 Monday to Compañeros de Comida, a student-run volunteer organization that has provided more than 144,000 meals to children and families in need since April, 2020.
An app-in-development reported on by redbankgreen last September is now available, offering users its first history tour of Red Bank.
The tour spotlights significant places in the early life of William ‘Count’ Basie, the world-renowned bandleader who grew up in a Mechanic Street house on the site of the one shown above.
Fewer than 240 of the 653 students who might have attended classes did so Tuesday Moore said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Whipsawed students, parents and teachers at Red Bank Regional High are in for another schedule change starting Thursday.
With COVID-19 cases rising and absenteeism high, the Little Silver school will again suspend in-school instruction at least through December 11, Superintendent Lou Moore announced Wednesday.
After a month away, students and teachers are to begin their return to Red Bank Regional High for in-person classes Tuesday, Superintendent Lou Moore said Monday night.
Upending plans at the last minute, Red Bank Regional High will not reopen for in-person classes Monday, according to an announcement made shortly before dawn.
The Red Bank Regional building has been idle since November 2. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After four weeks of all-remote instruction, Red Bank Regional High plans to resume in-person classes Monday, Superintendent Lou Moore said in an announcement Wednesday.
Only two candidates formally sought three seats on the borough school board. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A write-in candidate expects to join the Red Bank Board of Education when it reorganizes January 5.
And as telegraphed by early results from the November 3 election, a newcomer has displaced Red Bank Regional High board’s president.
Red Bank Regional students won’t be back on the Little Silver campus for classes before November 30 at the soonest. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Regional High will stick with all-remote schooling through Thanksgiving because of rapidly spreading COVID-19, Superintendent Lou Moore said in an announcement Wednesday evening.
Separately, a plan to resume a ‘hybrid’ of in-school and at-home instruction for Red Bank’s primary and middle school students as soon as Thursday has been scrapped because of the resurging virus.
Amid rising COVID-19 counts, Red Bank Regional High will remain on remote instruction for at least two more days, school officials announced Monday.
“We learned today that a number of individuals at RBR have tested positive for COVID-19,” Superintendent Lou Moore wrote on the district website in late afternoon.
COVID-19 kept Red Bank Regional High closed for at least another day Monday.
The Little Silver school, which had been scheduled to reopen for in-person activity after a nearly two-week interval, instead remained in all-remote mode, per an announcement by the school Sunday night.
The high school, based on Broad Street, shares a parish campus with St. James School and church. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Catholic High School has shut down in-person instruction and canceled Friday night’s football game “due to COVID-19 exposure,” according to a published report.
The school has suspended all athletics and extracurricular activities through November 19 and will shift to virtual instruction, according to a report Thursday night by Shore Sports Network.
Superintendent Lou Moore in March, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Regional High will be off-limits to students and staff through next week over concerns about COVID-19, Superintendent Lou Moore announced Wednesday afternoon.
While there continues to be “no evidence of community transmission” of the virus on the Little Silver school’s campus, a defacto closure now in effect is being extended one week “to minimize the risk of possible spread,” Moore wrote on the school’s website.
The administration building on the Red Bank Regional campus in Little Silver. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Newcomer Stephanie Albanese appears to have displaced incumbent president John Garofalo from the Red Bank Regional High board of education in Tuesday’s election.
As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, the Monmouth County clerk’s incomplete vote tally showed Albanese (seen at right) leading Garofalo, 1,352 votes to 649.
Four students have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two more students at Red Bank Regional High have tested positive for COVID-19, Superintendent Lou Moore said in an announcement Monday evening.
That brings the total in the past week to four, though Moore said in the notice that the most recent cases involved two siblings who “did not contract the virus at” the Little Silver school, and “there is no evidence of community transmission of the virus within the school.”
An addition under construction at Red Bank Regional as seen last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two positive COVID-19 tests among students in two days have prompted Red Bank Regional to switch to all-virtual classes Monday, Superintendent Lou Moore disclosed late Friday.
But sports practices and games may continue, Moore wrote in an announcement sent to the school community Friday night.