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HERALD Teen takes on ocean’s beasts
County discusses congestion plan
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Vol. 25 No. 34
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AUGUST 18 - 24, 2022
Student-made film wins a top prize at festival By JoRDAN VAlloNE jvallone@liherald.com
Courtesy Preston Bowman
“loVE iS BETTER Blind,” a short film created by Preston Bowman and filmed by students in the Cougar TV program, was named best comedy at the American Film Youth Festival in Atlanta. It starred Ryan Garcia, left, and Samantha Schneider, center. Amanda Ham, at right with Bowman, worked behind the scenes.
Preston Bowman, a rising junior at John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, has always envisioned himself in a career in filmmaking. Even before he entered high school, he was putting his creativity to the test. When he was stuck at home at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, he created a movie with his family about escaping quarantine. Kennedy’s principal, Gerard Owenburg, saw Bowman’s
movie, and was impressed. He reached out to Bowman before the start of his freshman year, and asked if he’d be interested in helping build a television program at Kennedy. When he was the school’s assistant principal, Owenburg oversaw student activity organizations. “For many years, we had always talked about some sort of media-type club, and we gave it a try a couple times,” he recalled. “It just had trouble sticking. We were in need of a student who was passionate about it and could help make it Continued on page 18
Extended School Year students put on a ‘Wicked’ show By JoRDAN VAlloNE jvallone@liherald.com
Every summer, students in the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District’s Extended School Year program put on a play, but with a unique twist. For the past six years, the production chosen by the district’s summer school program has been recorded and made into a movie, thanks to Kathy Brickmeier, a paraprofessional at Sanford H. Calhoun High School, and her son, Vonn. The Extended School Year program is for students with Individual Education Programs who have been deemed in need
of schooling during the summer so they do not regress educationally, socially or emotionally. ESY ran this summer at Merrick Avenue Middle School, and there were eight classes, for students ranging from seventh-graders through age 21. Beth Johnson, a teacher at Calhoun for 28 years, has taken part in every production, and spoke highly of their importance to ESY students. “The theater piece became such an important part of this summer prog ram because it really allowed kids to find that voice, to learn to act, to become more selfconfident, and to follow directions,” Johnson said. “It’s all of
the skills we look to provide them.” Kathy Brickmeier, who has worked at ESY for the past seven years, said the program’s teachers and paraprofessionals found that the students liked acting, and at first she suggested they put on a play. “It was good,” she said, “but we found that not all the students could participate in it, because many of them had difficulty memorizing lines, and a lot had stage fright.” So Kathy spoke with her son, Vonn, who has experience in acting and production work, and they toyed with the idea of creating a movie instead. “This way, they’d be more comfortable,” she
said. “There wouldn’t be an audience, so they’d just be comfortable with us.” ESY students have since taken part in a variety of film productions, including “Suessical the Musical” and “Cinderella.” The Brickmeiers formed the company Autotroph Films after the success of ESY’s early pro-
ductions, with the goal of perhaps eventually branching out and helping other districts and special-education students create productions of their own. For now, Autotroph mainly works with Bellmore-Merrick. This year, the students filmed a version of the musical “Wicked.” The final flick was about 45 Continued on page 12