Great Falls A year ago, Tracy and Karen Ingram abandoned their car for the electric scooters they have PRSRT STD recently started to U.S. Postage PAID market as Elkton, MD NOVA Scooters. PERMIT #31 Postal Customer AttentionECR Postmaster: WSS Time sensitive material. Requested in home 7-24-08 Classifieds, Page 17º ❖ Sports, Page 15 ❖ Opinion, Page 8 ❖ Schools, Page 12 ❖ ReliefRelief IsIs Faith, Page 14 SpelledSpelled N-O-V-AN-O-V-A News,News, PagePage 33 insideinside Great Falls Businesses Promote Arts People, Page 6 While Thelma’s Store is gone, the memory of her, the store and the ice cream lives on. Photo by Mikle DiCicco/The Connection e www.ConnectionNewspapers.comc n e r w a L t l a W y b o t o h P www.C onnectionNewspapers.com Great Fa www.connectionnewspapers.com lls Connection ❖ Newcomers & Community Guide 2008-2009 ❖ 1 July 23-29, 2008 Tollhouse, ❖ Volume XXII, Number 30 It Tolls For Thee Great Falls Connection www.connectionnewspapers.comNews, Page 4 ❖ July 23-30, 2008 ❖ 1 MaslandMasland Wall-to-WallWall-to-Wall CarpetCarpet Sale!!!Sale!!! Custom Stair Runners Custom In-Home Fabrication ou Serving Y Since 1998 EXCELLENT REPUTATION FOR OUTSTANDING SERVICE & SUPERIOR CRAFTSMANSHIP Great Falls OPEN Leesburg Floors GREAT FALLS Calico SUNDAYS . Rt. 193 o Georgetown Pike Rte. 7 and Georgetown Pike (Route 193) C . y x Rd. McLean w Old Dominion Dr ranesville k irfa . Seneca Square (Next to Calico Corners) P D R a t. 7 F 703-759-9200 1025-N Seneca Road RestonPkwy Monday through Saturday 10-6 • Sunday 12-4 • VISA • Master Card • Discover • AMEX Herndon Reston Tysons Corner 2 ❖ Great Falls Connection ❖ July 23-30, 2008 www.ConnectionNewspapers.com Great Falls Connection Editor Kemal Kurspahic News 703-917-6449 or [email protected] “We were looking for a Relief Is solution to needing the car.” Spelled — Karen Ingram N-O-V-A Great Falls couple establishes NOVA Scooters. Photo by Photo By Mike DiCicco The Connection t started as a whim. Then it became a Mike DiCicco hobby. Now, Tracy and Karen Ingram Iare poised to take a sizeable chunk out of the emerging electric scooter industry. /The Connection The Great Falls couple, licensed since March as NOVA Scooters LLC, ordered their first electric scooter online almost exactly a year ago. “I bought it as a joke. I figured, it doesn’t cost that much,” said Tracey Ingram. See Scooters, Page 9 Tracy and Karen Ingram, now NOVA Scooters, have been rebuilding Chinese electric scooters for the last year. Krop’s Crops Donates To Great Falls Optimists nce again this year, Krop’s Crops Odonated a percentage of its Great Falls Optimist Club Christmas tree, wreath and poin- The Great Falls Optimist Club is a child-centered settia sales to the Great Falls Optimist Club. non-profit organization that focuses on supporting, Since 1991, the Krop family has supported encouraging and challenging children to reach greater heights. A voluntary organization, the club the local Optimist Club with donations that is always interested in welcoming new members help fund the organization’s many child- and volunteers. Among the many annual family- centered programs and activities. They also oriented events sponsored or assisted by the club donate trees to needy families who are un- are the Spring Festival and Egg Hunt, the Fall Spooktacular at Halloween, and the Fourth of July able to purchase them. celebration in Great Falls. The Krops’ donation, the Located at 1110 Georgetown Pike in Great annual Spring Festival, and proceeds from photo- Falls, the family-owned and operated busi- graphs taken by Hill Signature Portraits at the ness offers pre-cut and cut-your-own trees annual Fall Festival and the Fall Barn Dance are the club’s primary fundraisers. as well as hand-made wreaths, roping, poin- If are interested in joining the Great Falls Opti- settias and other plants, gift and centerpiece mist Club or volunteering at specific events, contact baskets, lights and bows. Santa Claus makes President Lisa Jackson at 703-421-7125 ([email protected]) or Membership Chair Joda himself at home in a giant sleigh on week- Coolidge at [email protected]. Contribu- ends, weather permitting. Hours are daily tions can be mailed to P.O. Box 233, Great Falls, from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., “or until we have VA 22066. helped the last person load his tree on top of his car,” said founder Larry Krop. 11:30 a.m. until the Festival was over at 4 The Krops raise Scotch and White Pines, p.m.,” he said. “Kids, adults, everyone en- Douglas and Canaan Firs, Norway and Blue joyed riding around the Village Center, wav- Spruce for people to cut from their 16 acres, ing at their friends from the wagon.” and also sell pre-cut Fraser and Douglas Firs “I’ve been assisting Larry Krop with tree grown in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. sales for the past nine years,” said George “The Optimist Club does a lot of good for Hersey, a member of the Optimist Club for the community,” said Krop. “Their hearts are 16 years. “It’s great fun watching families in the right place, doing things to help kids, come out to pick out a tree, especially when and we like being a part of that. It has been it’s snowing. The Krops usually have a fire a wonderful affiliation.” going in the wood stove when it’s cold out, Krop also donated his time, tractor and and they have hot cider on weekends so hay wagon to provide hay rides for this people tend to congregate around that to year’s Great Falls Spring Festival, which was warm up after traipsing around the fields organized by the Club. “We didn’t stop from looking for the perfect tree. Larry Krop and George Hersey at Krops’ Crops. www.ConnectionNewspapers.com Great Falls Connection ❖ July 23-30, 2008 ❖ 3 News Traffic Signal To Get Green Light Falls Citizens Association’s Transportation Residents support Committee, wondered about the possibil- ity of prohibiting left turns at the intersec- VDOT plan for light tion during certain hours. at Georgetown Pike “It’s sometimes difficult to prohibit turns,” said Dittberner, but VDOT Traffic Engineer and River Bend. Hari Sripathi said it would be possible with community support. Dittberner said the lights could be sus- pended off of a single pole in the southeast By Mike DiCicco quadrant of the intersection and that VDOT The Connection had considered painting the pole brown so it would blend in better with its surround- reat Falls residents can ings. “I think that’s about the minimum expect to be waiting at a impact we can have on an intersection like Gred light, rather than this,” he said. waiting for a courteous The light would be hooked to sensors so driver at the intersection of that Georgetown Pike would only get a red Georgetown Pike and River Bend light when someone pulled up from River Road sometime within the next year. Bend or Nethercliffe roads, at which time it At a meeting with Virginia Depart- would run through its cycle and go back to ment of Transportation (VDOT) offi- a green on Georgetown Pike. cials, Supervisor John Foust (D- He said he expected it to take about a year Dranesville) and Del. Margi to get the signal in place because it was Vanderhye (D-34) at the Grange last being built with federal money, “so there Wednesday, July 16, some residents are some strings attached.” expressed concerns about the impact Vanderhye told the crowd she wanted to a light might push through some of the steps concurrently “One issue with have at the so that the light could be useful for at least corner, but part of the winter, when driving would be courtesy is that comments most dangerous. like Moreg “The communications I’ve received from is where Lucas’s were the community have been overwhelmingly the ones in support,” Foust said after the meeting. accidents are so that seemed He said he appreciated VDOT’s efforts to to resonate minimize the traffic light’s inconsistency often created.” with the 40 with the road’s scenic character and that — Madonna Lyons or so citi- he liked the idea of painting the pole brown. zens at the “I think the people have spoken,” said meeting. Vanderhye, adding that she wanted to wait “This is a safety issue. It’s not an is- Photo by Mike DiCicco/The Connection a week or so before beginning the process sue of how long it takes you to get to Heavy traffic and a short line of sight currently can make turning left of obtaining the traffic light in order to af- work in the morning,” Lucas said, to from River Bend Road onto Georgetown Pike a risky proposition. ford the Great Falls Citizens Association and a round of applause. anyone who couldn’t make it to the meet- He said VDOT’s consultant had recom- as it would require widening the pavement. ing the opportunity to weigh in. “But we OTHERS WONDERED whether mended a signal in part because wait times want to move ahead with this expeditiously, traffic lights might eventually be in- at the corner met two of the department’s ERIC KNUDSEN, co-chair of the Great and that’s what I plan to do.” stalled up and down Georgetown Pike criteria — although just barely — and be- if the same criteria for warranting a cause the line of sight looking eastward signal were applied to other intersec- down Georgetown Pike was about 130 feet tions, and some pointed out that Great shorter than the nearly 500 feet that would Exposure about 6 feet tall Falls drivers were generally courteous be preferable.