Manheim Central townlively.com
JANUARY 22, 2025
SERVING THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES SINCE 1954
VOL LXV • NO 52
Promoting environmental stewardship BY CATHY MOLITORIS
The Chiques Creek Watershed Alliance (CCWA) turns 25 this year, and the organization hopes to expand its public offerings to continue its mission of environmental stewardship. The group’s first event of 2025 will be a Walk in the Park at Mummau and Logan parks. The
walk will be held on Saturday, Jan. 25, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. and will begin at Mummau Park, 446-498 Chestnut St., Manheim. “This is a great way to vanquish the winter blues or take a break from busy schedules,” shared Paul Duncan, CCWA president. “Get out there in these lovely parks with friendly folks and appreciate the ‘wild’ See Environmental pg 2
Kendall Achen prepares for a luge run.
Racing toward her dreams BY CATHY MOLITORIS
“Give it a shot, because you’ll never know how much it could mean to you until you put time and effort into it.” “She was the first American singles slider, male or female, to win an Olympic medal in the sport of luge,” Kendall said. Kendall started on her Olympic path after competing in 2019 in a “slider search,” where Team USA looks for potential lugers. From there, she was selected to
attend a screening camp in Lake Placid, N.Y., in January of 2020 before learning in May of that year that she’d been selected to Team USA’s Development Team, the starting rung on the ladder of teams to progress to the Olympic Team. Currently, Kendall is a member of the Candidate Team. “The Candidate Team is the team an athlete is promoted to based on their performance on the Development Team, and it’s the level between the Development Team and the Junior National Team,” Kendall explained. “Athletes are promoted to the Candidate Team at the age of 14, or earlier if the coaches decide they are ready to move up because of their ability. I was promoted to the Candidate Team when I was 13.” Kendall trains mainly in Lake Placid, but she’s also been traveling to Park City, Utah, to practice.
People enjoy a previous Walk in the Park.
An alliance of artists BY ADRIAN ESCHENWALD
Lancaster County has a longstanding and deep connection to visual art and creatives in the community. Lancaster city’s historic downtown area is rife with art galleries and painters’ exhibitions, the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design and distinguished museums such as Lancaster Museum of Art and the Demuth Museum. Lancaster-born artists such as Charles Demuth, whose life and work are immortalized in the Demuth Museum, have become nationally renowned for their artistic
careers. In modern times, new generations of budding artists such as JJ Roach continue Lancaster’s artistic legacy by achieving recognition across Pennsylvania and beyond. The Lancaster County Art Association (LCAA), a nonprofit organization headquartered in Strasburg, is a countywide network of paintbrushes and sketchbooks. LCAA’s members hail from ever y part of the county, as well as areas as far as Chester County, Philadelphia and Maryland. The nonprofit’s mission is to celebrate and promote visual arts in the local
See Racing pg 5
See Artists pg 3
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sk a high school student what her favorite sport is, and she might say soccer, basketball, softball or any of the other mainstream activities available to teenagers. Talk to K end all A chen, a sophomore at Manheim Central High School, however, and you’ll get a different answer. Kendall, the daughter of Stacy and Mike Achen of Manheim, loves the sport of luge. What does she love about it? “Everything - the speed, the training, my teammates,” Kendall said. And she has high hopes for her participation in the sport, setting her sights on competing in the Olympics. “I am hoping to go to the 2030 Olympics, but I’m even more excited about the 2034 Olympics being in Salt Lake City, where I’ve
trained multiple times already,” she shared. Kendall was introduced to luge through her cousin, Erin Hamlin, a four-time Olympian who won a bronze medal in the sport in Sochi in 2014.