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‘Junkie to Judge’: a triumph over trauma
SPORTS
Scotties’ Poinsett awarded top Del Val scholarship
BY DAHRIA CHARADNICHENKA
BY RICH FISHER It’s tough to talk about Michael Poinsett without bringing a bag full of superlatives to use as descriptions. What is Poinsett like on the football field? “Coaching Mike,” said Bordentown High head man Skip Edwards, “was an awesome experience for all of the coaches.” And in the classroom? “Michael Poinsett is easily in the top five percent of mathematically gifted students that I have taught in my 22 years of teaching,” BRHS math teacher Beth Bokop said. It’s no wonder Poinsett was the Scotties honoree at this year’s 61st Annual George Wah ScholarLeader-Athlete Awards Dinner, hosted by the Delaware Valley Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame on March 12 at the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal. But the distinction did not stop there. Aside from the $1,000 See POINSETT, Page 10
Bordentown’s Ann Darlington has an exhibition at Tulpehaking Nature Center in Hamilton through May 5.
Photographer connects to nature and history through art BY SUSAN VAN DONGEN The more natural beauty photographer Ann Darlington discovers, the more she wants to share what she sees with others. That search for splendor has taken her around the United States and the world — from the Adirondack and Great Smoky mountains to Yosemite National Park, to Turkey, Italy, Greece, and Iceland.
Some of her most sublime photos, however, were taken in the Abbott Marshlands between Trenton and Bordentown, adjacent to the Delaware River, and not too far from Darlington’s home, also in Bordentown. In addition, she has photographed various aspects of the former Point Breeze property, the home from 1816-1839 of Joseph Bonaparte, the exiled King of Spain and oldest brother
of Napoleon. “While I love travel and photographing nature and landscape all over, I gravitated to the natural beauty of Point Breeze and the Abbott Marshlands,” Darlington says. “Both locations are nearby and provided me mini respites from the day to day.” In late 2020, the former Point Breeze property was acquired from Divine Word Missionaries See DARLINGTON, Page 6
“How the heck did I do this, go from teenager shooting meth [and in pure agony over trauma] to a federal judge?” said Mary Beth O’Connor when asked to reflect on her inspirational journey leading up to the Saturday, April 8 promotion of her memoir, From Junkie to Judge: One Woman’s Triumph over Trauma and Addiction, at the Bordentown library. Sober for 29 years and counting, O’Connor spent a considerable portion of her early adulthood battling methamphetamine addiction. “There was a flood of meth in the [Philadelphia] area, and it happened when I was in high school,” O’Connor said in a recent interview. However, the author stressed how her childhood trauma and unstable family life contributed to her battle against the intravenous drug. Living with an abusive stepfather, both O’Connor and her sister suffered emotional, verbal, See JUDGE, Page 8
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