Sound Shore

Fox 5 news anchor Ernie Anastos will be the guest speaker at a breakfast sponsored by the Brotherhood of Temple Israel of New Rochelle, Sunday, May 9. The breakfast set for 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. is free and open to the community. Ernie Anastos is an Emmy-award winning news anchor for New York City’s “FOX 5 News at 10:00 p.m. He has won more than 30 Emmy awards and nominations, including “Best Newscast in New York” and the prestigious Edward R. Murrow award for broadcast excellence. He has also been a  substitute host for “The CBS Morning Show” and ABC’s “Good Morning America.”Reservations are required; call the Temple office: 914- 235-1800. Temple Israel of New Rochelle is located at 1000 Pinebrook Blvd.

Iona College pitching coach James LaSala played in the Yankees’ minor-league system before returning to his alma mater to coach. The New Rochelle native was photographed at Richmond County Bank Ballpark in Staten Island. Keep an eye out on Lohud.com for more on this story.

There’s been plenty of talk in Mamaroneck after the school district denied tenure for Jennifer Rosenzweig, a popular high school English teacher.

Now, students are organizing a walk-out Friday to continue their support for her. Jessica Guenzl, 15, is one of Rosenzweig’s students who sent petitions to her peers around school and started a group on Facebook called “Support Mrs. Rosenzweig.”

She said the walk out is to send a message to district officials to at least consider reversing Rosenzweig’s tenure denial.

“They’re showing no signs of reconsidering, which is all we really wanted them to do,” she said.

It’s official. The Rye school board race will be uncontested, a footnote to the slew of heated school races around the region.

Incumbent Kendall Egan and newcomer Katy Glassberg have no opponents for the two open seats. That’s a sharp contrast to last year when the Rye Teachers Association, which has been battling with the district over a new contract since 2007, recruited candidates for three seats.

Last year a crowded field of seven candidates, including Gwen Hughes, a retired Rye teacher, Susan Hendler, a Scarsdale teacher, and Chris Repetto, a parent, challenged incumbents Laura Slack and Joshua Nathan, board president (at right).

The newcomers sparred with candidates over denied tenure to several teachers and the teachers expired contact. Just days before the election, records revealed that Hendler and Repetto had failed for several years to vote in school elections or on the budget.

Slack and Nathan held  their seats, and Ray Schmitt, a member of the district’s finance and budget committees, also won.

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New Rochelle schools several events to celebrate Earth Day April 22. Here is info about two. In the first photo, New Rochelle High School students Danny Marshall, Aleesha Rogers, Shaq Evans and Nadja Costa cleared debris to water drained freely from the Twin Lakes on North Avenue near the school. Several high school science classes joined the clean-up project organized by the high school Green Club. In the second, children in first grade at the Barnard Early Childhood Center performed a “Going Green” show for parents on Earth Day.

Three people are running for two open seats on the New Rochelle School Board in the May 18 election. Board member Jerome Smith is seeking re-election. Two newcomers are also running — Valerie Orellana, who is co-president of the district-wide PTA Council, and Lianne Merchant, a former member of the New Rochelle Library Board of Trustees. Board member Cindy Babcock Deutsch is not seeking reelection. Members serve five-year terms. For a library Board of Trustees seat, also a five-year term, only incumbent George Walters has filed to run.  Candidates still have 30 minutes left to file, but no new candidacies are expected.

Update: School district clerk office reports no last-minute filings, so this is the complete list of candidates.

Editor’s note: This is the latest post from Lynda LaMonte Garmong, our guest blogger from Larchmont:

It’s Tuesday morning at the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Hunger Task Force Food Pantry. A big truck loaded with food pulls up to the curb, and my fellow volunteers and I are ready to spring into action. Down the ramp comes cereal, eggs, mac & cheese, soup, canned pineapple, peanut butter and lots and lots of produce. An assembly line is formed and each volunteer grabs a box to bring to a designated area in the room. In the middle of this organized chaos, you’ll find the Food Pantry President Melinda Lehman and volunteer Abby Katz directing volunteers and counting boxes. They need to make sure there is enough food for the estimated 350 families that will walk through the pantry doors that evening. As demand grows for the services of the Food Pantry during this economic downturn, there is a need for more volunteers. The Food Pantry distributes food twice a month, usually the second and fourth week. Volunteers are needed to unload on Tuesday mornings, pack that same afternoon and distribute both Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings. If you are interested in volunteering your time at the Food Pantry, send an email to volunteer@LMFoodPantry.org or visit the website (http://LMFoodPantry.org/) for more information.

New Rochelle has a national Emmy winner. City resident Fredric Cambria was part of the team that won a Sports Emmy in the category of Outstanding Sports Documentary. Cambria, 46, served as executive in charge of production for the film “Assault In The Ring,” a critically acclaimed HBO sports documentary. Produced by Live Star Entertainment, the film revisits the infamous 1983 Billy Collins Jr.-Luis Resto boxing scandal. In that fight, Resto’s gloves were found to be missing padding, an illegal move that allowed him to seriously damage Collins. The film focuses tells the story of the fight and the impact on Resto and his family.

The award was announced at the 31st Annual Sports Emmy Awards in New York City on Monday, presented by The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. For more information on the film, visit www.assaultinthering.com.

View the trailer here:

Rummy 500 used to be the game of choice among residents at the Port Chester Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre. Now the place is caught up in a full-blown domino fever — and there’s a story behind that.

My colleague Jorge Fitz-Gibbon noticed the game being played there when he covered Harold Ford’s visit in February. It turns out that the staff used dominoes to draw a depressed patient out of his room. The patient, a Yonkers cabbie originally from the Dominican Republic, emerged and wound up sharing his love of the game with the rest of the residents.

Above are Diahan Mendez and Lillian Teska with Angel Castillo. Read on for the story.

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