On a spring day in 2013, best friends hunt for hermit crabs and soak up some sun down by the Navesink River in Fair Haven. Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Our Retro Pic of the Day is a warm look back on one of those seemingly perfect days down by the Navesink River.
It was just one of those days — a day that the picture there was worth about 5,000 words on why the Rumson-Fair Haven area is such a great place to live.
The sun was shining, the scene was serene and, a couple of best buds waded in the water, made friends with hermit crabs and shared the wealth of their elating experience.
There’s nothing quite like the happy faces of kids enjoying life down by the river.
NJ Gov. Chris Christie and Rumson women at a press conference announcing Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long’s endorsement of the governor. Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Our Retro Pic of the Day takes us back a couple of years to post-Hurricane Sandy days when Republican Gov. Chris Christie was endorsed by Democratic Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long and it was news.
A press conference was held at Woody’s in Sea Bright. Once it was over, the governor posed for photos with many people, including these two Rumson ladies.
Clean Ocean Action fall Beach Sweeps/Photos by Elaine Van Develde
Our Retro Pic of the Day is meant to warm you up in more ways than one.
It’s a reminder of cozy waterfront warmth at Sea Bright beach in the midst of this wicked winter chill. And it’s a warm-up and precursor of sorts to our coming feature on Clean Ocean Action’s recent 30-year anniversary, as the featured photo is from the organization’s fall Beach Sweeps.
With the non-profit spearheaded by lifetime Rumsonite, Cindy Zipf, The sweeps have become a twice-annual environmental mainstay in the area for decades now.
Clean Ocean Action loves to let people know some of the oddest things found on the Jersey Shore beaches during sweeps. What’s the strangest you’ve ever heard of?
Stay tuned for our story. Congrats to Clean Ocean Action and Cindy Zipf!
The ladies of the RFH library. Photo/screenshot of the RFH yearbook
We couldn’t possibly feature the Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) teacher aides without also posting a Retro Pic of the Day featuring the library ladies.
Remember these women circa 1977 or so? That had it rough in that library. Yet, somehow they managed to keep enough noses in the books and paper airplanes and pranks at bay — sort of.
Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School teacher aides of the 1970s. Photo/screenshot of RFH yearbook
Aides. They are the unofficial mentors of our school days.
In this photo are some special ladies who had the sometimes daunting task in the late 1970s of trying to assist, with patience, some annoyingly energetic, mischievous Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) students.
They were the RFH aides. In the center of the photo is Nancy Dexter, who passed away last year.
Those pictured around Mrs. Dexter, many of whom have passed, are: Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Cupples, Mrs. DiNicola, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Waldron.
Remember Mrs. Parker singing over the loud speaker around Christmas time? Did you ever hijack the mic from Mrs. Cupples to announce your party? And, I’m pretty sure one of these ladies, very kindly, told me to go play in traffic when I got busted sending messages via paper airplane (that never landed where it was supposed to) to my friends in English lab.
The 2014 Monmouth County Open Space Grant of up to $250,000 in matching funds was awarded only a few weeks ago.
What it’s been designated to do is to “polish the diamond” that is the Fair Haven open space on the waterfront, Mayor Ben Lucarelli said.
“Now that we’ve acquired DeNormandie, cleaning up and maintaining the rest of the open waterfront spaces we have is the next logical step. If we don’t do it now, we’ll have real headaches down the road.”
The “polishing” the mayor referred to is, more specifically, “resloping of two riverbank pocket parks at the end of Hance Road and Grange Avenue, so that people can access them easier and enjoy them more” and the refurbishment of bulkheads and passive recreation enhancements, such as benches.
Similar work, without resloping, is planned for the swath of land known as the home of the River Rats at the foot of Battin Road.
“It will make all those areas more user friendly,” he added. “The focus on these areas, I think, is a good use of this grant money. People I’ve spoken with who live on the west side of town have felt as if they haven’t gotten the total benefit of these projects. Now they’ll have it and the feedback I’ve gotten is that they’re very happy about that.”
The process for implementation of the county open space grant will soon begin.
Lucarelli said that the design drawings will first be completed. Then the project will be put out to bid; and “we’ll see where the cost comes in.”
Up to $250,000 will or can be funded by the matching grant money. In other words, if the cost of the project comes in at $300,000, then the county will pay $150,000 and the borough will pay the other half, and so on.
Sometimes bonding is necessary, or as a show of good faith to the funding entity, to fund such a matching grant project and set it in motion and pay contractors while waiting for the funded portion of the money to come in. In those instances, with such grants, the town bonds for the entire projected cost of the project and is then reimbursed by the county, or whichever agency is allocating the funding.
However, the mayor doesn’t think this project will require bonding. More likely, he said, “we’ll just bid and, if there’s enough (allocated) in the (capital improvements section of the) budget, pay as we go.”
All 53 municipalities in the county are eligible for the annual open space grant, which is designed to encourage open space acquisition and preservation as well as park enhancements and facilities by offsetting costs of such purchases.
In light of the cold snap and dusting of snow this week, our Retro Pic (or Pics today) of the Day gives a glance back at some warm sunset hues over a stark, cold, snow-peppered Sea Bright beach a couple of years ago.
Some of the photos, never before seen, also depict a post-Hurricane Sandy Donovan’s Reef.
The following is an edited press release from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School:
The recent fundraising efforts of Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School’s (RFH) Global Women Empowerment organization will facilitate the education of two girls in Uganda and empower others around the world in different ways.
The more than $2,000 raised will be funneled to Change A Life Uganda’s Tuition for Tots-to-Teens to help the girls, Daisy and Patricia, finish high school and Global Women Empowerment, a student organization at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, recently completed a highly successful fundraiser in support of Change A Life Uganda’s Tuition for Tots-to-Teens.
Claudine Henrie, Lisa Mazurek-D’Amato and Linda Stevens Olshan
Kathleen Grady and Linda Stevens Olshan
David Marx, Mark Jeffers, Bill Rannertshauser and Doug DiStefano
John Henrie and Ellen Sher
Chris Wood, owner of Woody’s
Greg Holland
Jerri Lynch, Mark Jeffers and Mike and Lisa D’Amato
Mike Grady and Duane Hutter
Evie Connor Kelly and daughter
By Elaine Van Develde
Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) grads and friends gathered once again on Saturday for the annual Grady party.
The Gradys, Mike and Kathleen, both RFH grads from Rumson and Fair Haven, respectively, have been hosting the annual reunion-like event for many years now. In addition to the touching base with the extended Grady family itself, it’s pretty much an annual guarantee that this is the place and time to catch up with RFH alumni, their spouses and friends.
Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect caught up with RFH friends there, some dating back to kindergarten.
Take a look at the gallery above. Just click on any photo and scroll. Know anyone?
And many thanks to the Gradys for their generosity and a fabulously festive evening!
A production of Bye Bye Birdie at The Barn Theater, Rumson, circa 1977. Photo/Sally Van Develde
Our Retro Pic of the Day brings us back to shows at The Barn Theater, formerly on Avenue of Two Rivers in Rumson, in the late 1970s.
Pictured are a bunch of area high school students, from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional and other area high schools, performing a scene in Bye Bye Birdie.
It’s a bit blurry, due to the lack of focus, and perhaps unsteady hand, on the instamatic camera with the rotating flash cube, but it was one of many moments at the popular theater.
You must be logged in to post a comment.