Morning Announcements February 28, 2014

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY TO GUS HORKAN, ETHAN GWINN, CAMERON LOMAX, KJ VOLLMECKE, AND NASMA AL-HUMADI. ON SATURDAY TO RONNIE CASTRO, DIANA HENRIQUEZ, JOE SHAFFER, SABRINA LUZ, ADDISON NEMER, AIDAN NEMER, ETHAN NUNEZ AND ANGELINE SCHWEIZER AND ON SUNDAY TO SERENA FARMER.

MRS. ROBBINS IS CELEBRATING HER BIRTHDAY TODAY AND MR. NAWROT IS CELEBRATING ON SUNDAY.

Help Potomac Falls Junior Class book drive that benefits children in local hospitals by donating gently used books. If you have a contribution, please place your books in the box located near the main office.

Don’t forget to read 4 Virginia Readers Choice Books for this year.

Reading 4 books makes you eligible to vote for your favorite book.

Voting Invitations will be sent to Your Language Arts/ English Teacher.

Check your record in the library.

Attention All Teacher and Students: There are so many students with food allergies that effective immediately, there will not be any food of any kind allowed in the classrooms, halls, or locker area.

Attention all Habitat Club members. Habitat Club will be meeting Monday, March 3rd at 3:30 in room B-8. If it is your first time coming this year, bring a signed permission slip.

There are two Arbor Day Contests you can participate in. One is a poster contest and the second a photo contest. Check the River Bend website for more information.

Today’s Famous African American is: Sidney Poitier

Poitier made his film debut in the 1950 feature No Way Out, portraying a doctor tormented by the racist brother of a man whose life he couldn't save. Director Joseph Mankiewicz had identified Poitier's potential, and the film bore out the filmmaker's instincts.

It was in the 1960s, however--with the civil rights movement spearheaded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others gathering momentum--that Poitier began to make his biggest mark on American popular culture. After appearing in the film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun, in a role he'd developed on the stage, he took the part of an American serviceman in Germany in the 1963 production Lilies of the Field. This role earned him a best actor statuette at the Academy Awards, making him the first black actor to earn this honor

At a 1992 banquet sponsored by the American Film Institute (AFI), a bevy of actors, filmmakers, and others gathered to pay tribute to Sidney Poitier. Superstar Denzel Washington called the veteran actor and director "a source of pride for many African Americans," the Los Angeles Times reported, while acting luminary James Earl Jones ventured that his colleague had "played a great role in the life of our country." Poitier himself was typically humble in the face of such praise, but he has acknowledged that his presence on film screens in the 1950s and 1960s did much to open up larger and more nuanced roles for black performers.