Cavs headed to College World Series

After beating Mississippi 5-1 this afternoon in the super regional series, the UVA baseball team has earned its first trip ever to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.  The Cavs set a school record this season with 48 wins and 13 losses.  (1)

John Kase helped make D-Day possible

One Charlottesvillian who didn’t survive all the way to the 65th anniversary of D-Day but who help make it possible was John Kase (right in photo shot in 1996) who died May 24 at the age of 94. A career theater man, he got his first such job at 15 as an usher at the Jefferson Theater for 25 cents an hour. He rose to larger roles within the company, Dominion Theaters, which also owned the Lafayette and University Theaters, the latter of which he was managing in 1942 when he joined the Army to became part of the 831st Aviation Engineers, which built an Allied airfield near the village of Willingale, and he lamented the destruction of gorgeous pasture. Kase got back his job as manager of the University Theater upon his return in late 1945. He later worked as a “troubleshooter” for Neighborhood Theaters across the state, eventually settling into a spartan little office (now the Flat crepe stand) at the back of the Jefferson Theater along Water Street near the mammoth popper that supplied popcorn for most of the Charlottesville theaters. Among his tasks were demolishing the Lafayette to build a Rose’s in the 1960s and building and then demolishing the Ridge Drive-In, which is today the site of the Hydraulic Road Kroger. He continued work until Neighborhood was purchased in 1988 by Canadia-based Cineplex-Odeon. (0)

Monticelllo not the only mansion

A few hundred supporters turned out on a rainy Thursday evening to show that Monticello isn’t the only house Thomas Jefferson loved to visit. A giant tent kept the rain off the black-tie-clad diners who assembled June 5 at Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson’s secluded getaway house on the southwestern outskirts of Lynchburg. Of course, the crowd also wanted to hear famed actors Robert Duvall (Tender Mercies, The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now) and Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights, 24, and The Brothers McMullen) read early19th century letters. In Duvall’s case, the letters came from TJ himself, while Britton, who grew up in Lynchburg and whose late father served on Poplar Forest’s governing board, read excerpts from letters penned by Jefferson’s granddaughters. Among the attendees at this event celebrating 25 years of restoration was Dale Harris, a former judge who earned her 1978 UVA Law School degree by commuting from Lynchburg and whose family used to own Poplar Forest as a summer house. An up-and-coming writer/director who grew up in Abingdon and went to college at Hampden-Sydney, Scott Cooper introduced Duvall. Nobody strayed too far from their script, but Northern Virginia resident Duvall made the crowd smile when he remarked that his wife thinks Virginia’s a stopping point to heaven. “If this is the last station before heaven,” said Duvall, then what a great launching pad this is.” (3)

McIntire opens for wading

It seems the only thing that might keep your toddlers from McIntire Park’s wading pool tomorrow will be the weather; the pool plans to open its gates Saturday, June 6, two weeks after the area’s other aquatic centers opened (with the exception of the Onesty Family Aquatic Center at Meade Park, which is under construction and expected to open mid-month). The wading pool was about to be another victim of ousting at McIntire before public outcry led City Council to step in and save the waders. According to acting Parks and Rec director Brian Daly, the city hired Roanoke-based company National Pools to install a new drain cover and additional safety system for approximately $15,500– $4,500 less than the City’s initial estimate of $20,000.
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Med school dean does GQ

Fashion house Geoffrey Beene LLC is trying to make science sexy. Thus the “Rock Stars of Science” spread in the June GQ that features UVA medical school Dean Steven T. DeKosky (third from left) and 10 other distinguished scientists on a shoot with Sheryl Crow and Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, among others, to raise the stereotypically dweeby profile of science researchers. “Plus,” says DeKosky, “everybody needs to rock out, now and then.”

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