Talk of the Towns: 6.1.16

richmond heights
Boys Hope Girls Hope, a nonprofit that helps at-risk youth achieve their full academic potential, opened a residential campus last month in Richmond Heights, consolidating its homes and administrative offices in one location. Previously the boys home was in Creve Coeur, the girls home in Kirkwood and the admin offices in Creve Coeur. At 19,248 square feet, the new complex will enable the nonprofit to increase the number of children it serves by 43 percent, BHGH officials say, while reducing operational costs by 25 percent. The residential program provides promising students in middle and high school a value-centered, family-like home and a strong network of support services to help them excel both inside and outside the classroom. Since 1991, every Boys Hope Girls Hope student completing the program has gone on to postsecondary education, and 74 percent of those have completed college or are on their way. Boys Hope Girls Hope’s mission is to guide academically capable and motivated, disadvantaged kids in setting and achieving goals by providing them a place to live, as well as opportunities and education through the college years. Today, the local program serves 11 middle and high school students in residence, 55 in its non-residential Hope Prep Academy in the Ferguson-Florissant School District, and 11 college kids. Founded in St. Louis in 1977, Boys Hope Girls Hope has affiliates in 14 other U.S. cities and four other countries. Its international HQ is in Bridgeton. Many alumni lead productive careers and serve as BHGH board and committee volunteers. Most important, they ‘pay it forward’ as tutors and mentors to kids now in the same straits they themselves were in way back when.

kirkwood
Fifty years to the day after the running of the last streetcar in St. Louis, one of the most well-traveled cars on the line was reintroduced to the transit-loving public when it was unveiled May 21 at the Museum of Transportation in southwest Kirkwood. It took nearly 10 years to restore the car and include it in the museum’s ‘fleet’ of three operating streetcars. This particular beauty, manufactured in St. Louis (way before manufacturing went to the Pacific Rim), had a long journey to its semi-retirement. It joined the streetcar system in 1946, frequently carrying passengers on Grand Boulevard and Broadway. Then it left town … for San Francisco, where it became part of that city’s fabled line in 1957. After that it was moved to a museum in Wisconsin, whereupon enthusiasts here labored since the 1990s to bring it home to run again. A donation-supported corps of volunteers builds and maintains track and overhead wires that power the cars, plus keeps them in tip-top shape for visitors to enjoy short trips on the museum grounds. Does it have a romantic moniker like Desire … or maybe even Stella? Alas, it’s merely No. 1743. (You wanna yell out that number when you visit?!) The Museum of Transportation, running for two years longer than this refurbished ol’ car, opened in 1944. It’s officially been a county park since 1979.

central west end
You wonder why all the buzz about honeybee survival? I mean, they sting you as you run barefoot through the clover! Well, they and other insects will be celebrated June 21 at The Zoo as part of National Pollinator Week, the 20th through the 26th, and stop your snickering. Pollinators are responsible for one in every three bites of food you eat (which tells us you’re eating way too many Snickers bars). Honeybees, bumblebees and other insects, birds and small mammals pollinate more than 90 percent of the planet’s flowering plants and one-third of human food crops! If you love meat, cows eat clover, you know. All this is something we really need to wrap our minds around. Anyhow, indulge yourself and your family with a fun, meaningful visit to The Living World a few Tuesdays from now, 6 to 9 p.m., where you’ll be able to taste honey and even sample hard cider along with locally sourced salads and dishes derived from members of the pea family (including lentils, kidney beans, navy beans, chickpeas … and black-eyed peas … of which your humble scribe could eat a whole bowl. But no cow parts likely will be served). Tickets will feed you and also entitle you to ‘Crossing the Corn-Bean Desert,’ a U. of Iowa biologist’s talk exploring the farm as a natural habitat and presenting ways to reconnect food systems with ecosystems. It’s a big deal, as is the research The Zoo is undertaking to develop more user-friendly ways to establish pollinator habitats, from your backyard to roadsides everywhere. Do sweat bees (pictured) annoy you? You know, they’re not interested in you, unless you’re, say, a corn tassel. Those little buzzers are a big deal, too, as they and other critters help pollinate wheat and soybeans. And hey: got apples?

webster groves
Kristin Denbow has been named an assistant superintendent of Webster Groves School District and will be one of the right hands to John Simpson, who became topper upon the retirement of the super Sarah Riss (two possible meanings intended). Parents of kids who attended Steger Sixth Grade Center (and Elementary Computer School) only had one year to get to know Dr. Denbow, but as the father of at least one child who spent a year at Steger, I can vouch for her poise and professionalism as principal at that school (which at times was like herding cats, as this dad has observed). Angela Thompson, first a teacher of English and since 2011 an assistant principal at the high school, has been named interim principal at Steger. Dr. Denbow assumes her duties as the district’s assistant superintendent of learning July 1.

university city
Where can you ride a mechanical bull without having to go to, say, Amarillo, Texas? Why, at Fair U City, of course, a celebration of the unique town and its mix of cultures. Bull rides are part of a carnival weekend (June 10 through 12) that is organized and run by volunteers for the enjoyment of residents and the wider StL community. It includes carnival rides (of course), food from all over, a full musical lineup throughout the weekend (including the University City Jazz Festival on Saturday), and a car/motorcycle show put together by the Just Us Street Rod Club on Sunday. Carnivals are a step back in time that recall anything from the 1890s to the 1950s and ’60s, like the days of Grease and American Graffiti. But be aware that this one will suck on your wallet for a good cause: University City Community Foundation (UCCF), a new nonprofit organized to provide small grants to individuals, agencies and groups working for the greater good of U. City. UCCF is so brand-spanking new that it’s in the process of setting up its inaugural board of directors.

frontenac
A lecture series on culture and art is premiering June 23 at Reliance Bank in Frontenac, with the first in the series featuring a noted architect, artist and lecturer from Washington U. Iain Fraser, professor emeritus in architecture at the Sam Fox School of Visual Arts and Design, will present ‘Expanding the Ideas of Traditional Architecture’ at the bank, 10301 Clayton Road in Frontenac, from 5 to 7 p.m. Complimentary appetizers and beverages will be provided. Fraser has done everything from design a ski resort in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to explore the expressive potential of building materials with creative speculation and experiment with fabricating 3-D constructions in steel, wood, glass and concrete. Several will be on exhibit. The free lecture series, planned for every other month, is presented by Reliance Bank and Faith Berger Art Consultants.

Pictured: Kirkwood