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FEBRUARY 14, 2025
County council hosts workshop on housing
THE LOCAL VOICE OF YOUR COMMUNITY.
Volume 22, Issue 7
FREE
‘It was love at first sight’
By Susan Canfora Staff Reporter
By Susan Canfora Staff Reporter
After listening to details about the ongoing problem of availability of affordable and workforce housing and homelessness — the focus of a threehour workshop hosted by the Sussex County Council this week — Councilman John Rieley posed a question. “All morning we have heard, ‘We need more housing. We need more, we need more. But can we jam more people in?” he asked, referring to heavy traffic and the burden on infrastructure in Sussex County as rapid growth continues. Mike Riemann of Home Builders of Delaware — one of the three presenters at the Tuesday, Feb. 11, workshop — said gridlock is due to sprawl, and he suggested the County work with DelDOT officials, who approve traffic studies and can ease the problem. “We can think about that all we want, but we don’t get to make the call, so what can we do?” Rieley asked. “It seems to fall on deaf ears. DelDOT does what it wants to do. … It’s very frustrating. Other states don’t do it
In the early 1960s, Emily Hocker was a quiet seventh-grade student, poring over her lessons, when she caught the eye of a blueeyed 10th-grader in study hall. “Some way, I was scheduled that same period as she was. She was at a table, and she looked up at me. I winked at her and, as they say, the rest is history. She wasn’t allowed to date yet, so I waited for her,” a smiling state Sen. Gerald Hocker said, remembering that day at Lord Baltimore school — at that time, attended by students in first through 12th grades. “I just happened to look up. I was reading over my books, my lessons and things. He was looking at me. I was kind of shy,” Mrs. Hocker said. “I looked back down at my book and went on reading, and then I looked back up. He had dark hair then, and those blue eyes. “I liked him after I got to know him and talked to him some. We would meet each other in the hallway when classes were changing, then at lunchtime, he was usually in the lunchroom. He gave me his class ring. At that time, girls would wear them on a necklace,” she said. Her father died when she was a child and her mother’s rule was that she couldn’t date until she was close to 16. “It seemed like forever. It was a long time,” Mrs. Hocker recalled. Their first date was at the movie theater, Coastal Point • Susan Canfora where they watched a western, and Hocker Emily and Gerald Hocker have been married for ‘55 and a half years,’ have most likely bought popcorn. presided over family businesses, five children and 14 grandchildren — and “If I wanted it, I’m sure he did,” she said. a pretty succesful political career in the process. Emily and Gerald Hocker were married on Flag Day, June 14, 1969 — “55 and a half especially with meals — except once, when she served a years ago,” he was quick to say — and raised two sons and sweet-and-sour chicken selection. three daughters. The first was born in 1971, then the others “Somebody had given me a recipe. He was never fond of came along about every two years. Even with a big family, mayonnaise, and this particular dish had mayonnaise mixed the couple worked at the family grocery stores together. in it and sour cream. He ate it, but then he said, ‘Please don’t “The children would come with us a lot of times. Then, fix that again.’ For him, I cook roast beef or pork, which we as they grew older, the older ones would stay here with the had tonight, and he likes rabbit. He’s really not hard to younger ones. But we were just down the road,” their mother please at all. He likes everything I put on the table. Our ensaid, referring to the distance from the Clarksville store to tire family also ate just about everything I made. Even today their Cedar Neck-area home. they never turn their noses up at anything. We had a lot of “It was a lot of work raising a big family, but I enjoyed it. chili, Italian, stir fry. I remember fixing them that. They eat I even miss all those days with them coming home from almost anything,” Mrs. Hocker said. school and showing me their work and looking for that potato chip bag,” she said. As a husband, Hocker has been easy to please, she said, See HOCKERS page 3
See HOUSING page 3
Local backyard flock hit by ‘presumptive’ case of bird flu By Kerin Magill Staff Reporter The Delaware Department of Agriculture announced on Tuesday, Feb. 11, that the first “presumptive” case of H5 avian influenza in poultry in Sussex County had been identified. Late Tuesday afternoon, the agency announced that testing of a backyard flock in Sussex had returned a preliminary positive result. The exact location of the flock was not given. The testing was done at the University of Delaware’s Lasher Laboratory in Georgetown. The lab is part of the NaSee FLOCK page 6