Palos South Middle School

Last night I saw the Palos District 118 middle school performance of "The Wizard of OZ". I am here to report that it was incredible. The school's musical performance was moved to A.A. Stagg High School, District 230 in Palos Hills this year because they were no longer able to accommodate the huge audience that these performances were attracting. Ali A. of Palos Park, the student that played Dorothy did an outstanding job of both singing and performing. She has a bright future in High School Drama, I hope she chooses to use it. I would love the opportunity to watch her grow as a performer. She was accompanied by Paul G. as the scarecrow, Alyssa T. as the tinwoman, and Nick M. as the lion who were also outstanding. Tori L. played Glinda the Good Witch and Lizzy S. played the Wicked Witch of the East. The cast goes on and on, and each was as talented as the next. I can't imagine the difficult decisions that went in to casting such a talented group of students.

The people that were charged with these difficult decisions are all teachers in Palos 118. Katie McDonough, a Palos South resource and special services teacher was the Director. She was accompanied by Linda Frigo, the Palos East Art Teacher as Art Director and William Hansen, the Palos South Band teacher as the Musical Director. They did an incredible job with the play and also with adapting to the challenges of a much larger stage and theater than they have used in the past. They were assisted by Brandon Lewis, the Stagg theater director, a gracious host as always.

Accolades to everyone involved in this production. You were a credit to your school and the Palos community.

Palos Heights Restaurants

I ate at Bon a Pit Tuesday night with my family. I LOVE their BBQ Brisket of Beef. I try to order other things, but I can't. As always, the food was great, the service attentive and the price reasonable. Service for me is always touchy. I drink hot tea which requires hot water refills and at Bon a Pit, I always need extra BBQ sauce. Their servers haven't failed me yet. As for the price, they have a coupon on there website www.bonapit.com for 10% off your bill. They also have a Valentine special that looks interesting. Take your sweetie there and let me know what you think.

Palos Half Marathon

Excitement is building for the 1st Palos Bank and Trust Half Marathon. The race will be held Sunday May 4th, the day after the Palos Chamber of Commerce Health Fair and Expo on Saturday May 3rd.

A pasta dinner is also being offered at 7pm for $10.00. Our own local runner and owner of Running for Kicks, Mel Diab has been instrumental in getting this project off and "running".

The official website is www.palosbankhalfmarathon.com

Congratulations to everyone that is participating and thanks to everyone that has helped this incredible event become a reality.

Northpoint Development

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Palos Chamber of Commerce 'Fashionable Lunch Series' with many of my fellow Chamber members. Each of these meetings features a speaker that shares information relevant to Palos Heights and the Chamber members. The topic at this meeting was the Northpoint development at the corner of Harlem and Rt. 83, the site of the long gone car dealership. The presentation was extremely well done and the plans look beautiful, if not ambitious. The site actually includes property much farther east than is apparent now. It will offer diverse professional and retail business opportunities.

One of the highlights of the plan to me is the senior living facility that is included. I questioned why we need more space of this type when we are surrounded by similar facilities in Palos Park and Lemont, and Orland Park among others. I have recently been in need of information on senior living and visited Sunrise on LaGrange, Peace Memorial on 104th Ave. and a facility in Homer Glen. All of these facilities had availability, so my question; why do we need more? I was assured that the potential facility operators have done a thorough needs analysis and they want to provide a facility that the residents of Palos Heights will want to and will be able to afford to live in while staying in the community.

Some of the other highlights include a restaurant/banquet facility and an access point for the bike/walking trail that runs along the channel. There will be retail space and professional space. Whatever the final building design, it will be much better than the boarded and broken building that was recently demolished.

This is my first ever blog entry. I am terrified that I won't have anything to say. If you know me, I realize that is hard to believe. Somehow words come out of my mouth much more easily than out of my keyboard. I have been working on this blog to compliment my new website www.palosheights.com

The website isn't finished yet, but I figured I would just jump in and maybe you will help me with the content. I hope to make it something that you will want to visit often. To get started, I am offering a Free Starbucks® Gift Card to website visitors that register in my Guest Book. Of course this is not purely out of the goodness of my heart. I would like to gather your email address so I can reduce my postal mailing costs. If I can send you my monthly newsletter by email instead of snail mail, it will be worth the cost of some coffee for my visitors.

Back to the content of my website. If you would email me or comment on this post with any ideas or suggestions for the website, I would appreciate it.

Take Care until next time.