THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603150195
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: By Susan Smith and Eric Feber
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
When it comes to helping spread a little home-grown cheer for our boys overseas, nobody does it better than Casie Heitkemper of Etheridge Woods.
For a special Girl Scout community service project, the 11-year-old daughter of Susan and Duane Heitkemper recently collected about 200 postcards, all containing positive messages of support and well wishes from Chesapeake residents for the American service personnel helping keep the peace in unfriendly, muddy, snowy and cold Bosnia.
``She and I talked about several things she could do for her project,'' said Casie's mother.
After Casie and mom decided on the postcards-from-home idea, they contacted Cards Unlimited, a Keysville postcard outlet that provides department stores, newsstands and convenience stores with those cards that say ``Greetings from Virginia Beach'' or ``Greetings from Chesapeake'' or salutations from any other South Hampton Roads locale.
The company donated 200 colorful cards.
``They also sent us a nice letter that said they were glad to help,'' Heitkemper said. ``They were very receptive to the idea.''
With those donated cards in hand, Casie then received permission from her school principal to set up a booth at a recent PTA meeting and then obtained permission from her church pastor Father Chris Haydinger at the Prince of Peace Catholic Church to set up a sign-up booth after Sunday mass.
With a banner above her that proclaimed ``Write a Message for the Troops In Bosnia,'' Casie was able to interest close to 200 people who gladly lined up to write greetings to the men and women in Bosnia. When does it start?
Oscar F. Smith girls' varsity softball team was scheduled for its first scrimmage game of the season Tuesday against Granby's varsity team.
A helpful secretary at Granby informed callers that the game was scheduled to start at 3 p.m. An equally helpful staff member at Oscar Smith was confident that the game was to be at 7 p.m.
By 4 p.m., both teams had arrived at the playing field, but it seems the confusion over the starting time may have confounded some fans. Only three Oscar Smith supporters showed up.
But then again, it's hard to bring out the fans when the game takes place in the middle of a work day. And the strong late winter wind whipping down the field made it seem as if it were being played in Antarctica.
As it turned out, maybe it was good most Oscar Smith fans stayed away. The Granby girls won 6-4. by CNB