Press Release

On Sunday, September 20, 2015, the Virginia Leadership Institute will host a reception to honor and recognize the achievements of Dr. Michael Otaigbe, the Prince William County School Board Member representing the Coles Magisterial District. The community is invited to attend and celebrate the contributions of Dr. Otaigbe as his service on the Board comes to end.

The reception will be held from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Northern Virginia Community College Woodbridge Campus Lakeside Theatre Auditorium (15200 Neabsco Mills Rd, Woodbridge, VA). To RSVP, email [email protected] by Wednesday, September 16. The program will include short remarks from Prince William leaders and students, and refreshments will be provided.

The 22 Prince William County residents who lost their lives at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, will be honored and remembered during a ceremony on Friday, Sept. 11, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.

During the month of August, the Prince William Republican Committee conducted a
back-to-school supply drive to benefit some of the County’s neediest students. The Committee collected
enough supplies to fill 10 large boxes, and delivered them to Occoquan Elementary School and Rippon Middle
School.

Items collected included backpacks, pens, no. 2 pencils, water-based markers, glue sticks, three-ring binders,
pocket folders, and loose-leaf notebook paper. Community service has been a focus for the Prince William
GOP this year, and this project was the Committee’s latest activity. Any Prince William County resident can
participate in the Committee’s Community Service Initiative no matter what their political affiliation is.
Last year, the Committee collected 9 large boxes of school supplies and delivered them to Vaughn Elementary
School and Fred Lynn Middle School, both Title I schools.

Stafford County Fire and Rescue’s newest arson investigator is a two-year-old yellow lab named Duchess who was acquired through a grant from State Farm Insurance. Duchess and her handler Deputy Fire Marshal Ben Gouldman recently completed 200 hours of training at State Farm’s Accelerant Detection Canine School, located in Maine. Ben and Duchess will assist during fire investigations in determining whether or not ignitable liquids (accelerants) were present at the time of a fire. She may also be used to detect ignitable liquids on a suspect’s clothing or inside of a vehicle used to transport such liquids.

Duchess is the department’s first accelerant detection canine; the members of the department are excited to have her join the Stafford County Fire and Rescue family.

Today, the National Headquarters of the United States Air Force Auxiliary, located at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, announced that Del. Richard L. Anderson, a former national commander of the organization from 1993-1996, will be inducted into the organization’s Hall of Honor.

Anderson is also a former chair of the Civil Air Patrol Board of Governors, the organization’s governing body that provides policy oversight of the Air Force Auxiliary on behalf of the Secretary of the Air Force.

On Saturday, September 12, local Boy Scouts, Prince William County Solid Waste Division and Keep Prince William Beautiful will celebrate the grand opening of another American Flag Collection Center in Prince William County.  The Balls Ford Road Yard Waste Compost Facility, 13000 Balls Ford Road, Manassas flag collection service will be available for citizens and businesses to retire American flags with respect.

The Balls Ford Road collection site will be operated by The Bull Run District Committee of the Boy Scouts.  It is the second joint project between the Boy Scouts of American Occoquan and Bull Run Districts, Keep Prince William Beautiful and Prince William County Solid Waste Division.

More than 300 teachers, counselors, administrators and PWCS staff showed up at Forest Park High School on Friday, August 21st, 2015 for “Educational Intelligence: Think, Act and Spread Kindness to Achieve Success for All Student.”

This school safety symposium was a collaborative effort between the PWCS Office of Student Services and the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety run by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). The symposium featured two motivational speakers: Gary Xavier, a former Marine Sniper and Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. The Office of Student services included the Forest Park High School students to help run the symposium. Erik Del Cid, a junior at FPHS served as the MC while the FPHS JROTC presented the colors.