Youth Group

The All-Star Duals junior wrestling tournament will be held Sunday at South Hagerstown High School. Wrestling begins at 9 a.m. It will include wrestlers through the eighth grade. Admission costs $5 for adults and $2 for students. Those 8 and younger will be admitted free. Birthday wish Dorothy Smallwood is celebrating her 90th birthday.   While Dot might not be getting out much, she said she prays for her church family at Bridge of Life Church.

If you drove by Trinity Lutheran Church in Boonsboro Saturday evening, you might have seen an interesting sight. The youth group (grades six to 12) participated in a Social Justice Night, designed to increase awareness and empathy for those less fortunate.   The youth, under the supervision of Laura and Mike Schnackenberg, Chip Rockwell and Jacob Rockwell, slept in shelters they made from cardboard boxes.   They participated in a soup kitchen-style meal and watched a film about homelessness.

When you read this article, we will be four days into this year's Ag Expo & Fair. Many of us are nostalgic about this annual event and remember the Great Hagerstown Fair of old. Fair time is as much a social event as it is a competition. It is a combination of a carnival, picnic and family reunion rolled into one. For a lot of folks, the fair is generational; they showed, their parents showed, their grandparents showed and maybe even their great-grandparents showed. There are livestock shows, horse shows, tractor pulls, horse pulls and food.

A crab luau will be held Saturday, Aug. 27, at Hager Hall Conference and Event Center to benefit two local youth wrestling groups. Doors open at 4 p.m. for the Williamsport Wrestling Club/Police Athletic League Youth Wrestling Crab Pickin' Luau. It will include all-you-can-eat Maryland blue crabs and a full buffet. Tickets cost $40 per person. There will be music, dancing and karaoke. There also will be prize drawings and giveaways. A canned food drive raffle will be held.

After a week of sleeping in a classroom crowded with air mattresses and waking up to go to work at 5:15 a.m., 16-year-old Amie Efting has learned the art of using power tools. "I'm not the best construction worker, so I've learned a lot," she said earlier this week. Efting, from Wilmington, N.C., is one of 190 volunteers who spent this week doing community service projects in the area. They wrapped up their work Friday and were to head home Saturday. The church groups work through Mission Serve, a nationwide program that organizes churches for community-service projects.

In loving memory of Charles Eugene “Gene” Wiles, we celebrate his 12 years on this Earth. Born Nov. 1, 1998, Gene was the son of Bradley Lynn Wiles and Cathy Sue (Martin) Wiles of Hagerstown, Md. He is survived by Charles Austin Wiles and Martha Jean (Pryor) Wiles, paternal grandparents of Boonsboro, Md.; Arlan Eugene Martin and Doris Louise (Shafer) Martin, maternal grandparents of Hagerstown; Alta Elizabeth Martin, maternal great-grandmother of Hagerstown; two sisters, Tessa Elaine Wiles and Macayla Gracelyn Wiles, both of Hagerstown; and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.

Greenbrier Baptist Church will celebrate an accomplishment on Sunday, May 15. During the 11 a.m. service, congregation members plan to acknowledge paying off the loan on their recent expansion project. Pastor George Snyder will lead the congregation's celebration. "It was an expansion to put in a whole new Sunday School wing, a kitchen and social hall and remodel the sanctuary," he said. "It cost about $200,000. The mortgage was paid in a little more than three years. " Snyder praised Greenbrier's previous pastor, the Rev. David Coblentz for initiating and overseeing the building project.

The youth of Haven Lutheran Church will host a fun, family-friendly social event Saturday at 6:30 p.m., Anyone who loves to laugh will not want to miss Extravaganza 2011. The community is invited to come and enjoy a dish of ice cream while being entertained by the Haven Lutheran youth group.   There will also be items available for a silent auction, including gift baskets, a quilt, original watercolor painting and NASCAR collectors’ items.   Proceeds will help support the youth mission trip to West Virginia in June.

Slow-cooked pork and sauerkraut, a New Year’s Day traditional meal in Stephanie Baker’s family, quickly has become a successful fundraising draw for the youth group at Calvary Temple in Williamsport. “We’re always looking for good fundraisers and this was a really good one last year,” youth group leader Stephanie Baker said as a steady stream of people arrived Saturday at the church for the second year of the fundraising dinner. The inaugural event last year attracted close to 150 people, according to worship leader Lisa Harrell, who collected money as people arrived for the dinner.