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Show 4 VenMl Expfatt Fridoy, Morch 2, 1984 XXprSSDnl stowirD ami her himdls Mary Ellen Gardiner says she is "a Jack of all trades and master of none," but the evidence shows she has mastered several skills. According to her, her main motivation for the things she does is her family, especially her grandchildren. . "I never knew any of my grandparents, grand-parents, nor my aunts or uncles, except ex-cept one aunt I met when I was 14," Mary Ellen said. "I really miss that, and I want it to be different for my grandchildren." And it is. Her 16 grandchildren all know and love their grandmother. She and her husband live in Bonanza, but she makes two or three trips to Vernal Ver-nal each week, usually for some reason that has to do with her children or grandchildren. Besides the time she spends with them, she is always busy making gifts for them. She made each of them Christmas stockings that are appliqued and beaded. bead-ed. Each year she makes each grandchild grand-child a Christmas tree ornament. She has crocheted them all teddy bears and made all the girls rag dolls. She made them all ceramic Easter eggs one year. Each of the grandchildren have afghans she made them. She has made all her granddaughters ceramic dolls and dressed them in beautiful dresses she sewed. These are merely a few of the many handmade gifts she has given. Besides the quilts she made each of the grandchildren, she has nine or ten on hand and has made several in the last few years for friends. Mary Ellen frequents all the rummage rum-mage sales and garage sales to pick up material and odds and ends for her numerous projects. She loves to sew and does any kind of handwork. She learned to sew when she was very young, and never used patterns. "I always just made up my own," she said. Still, she seldom buys patterns, she usually designs her own from ideas she has gathered. If she sees something she thinks would be fun to make for her grandchildren, she just makes it that simple. Mary Ellen learned to embroider and crochet in a 4-H group. "I did my first crocheting with store string, you know, the kind they tie packages with," she recalls. She just saved it, rolled it in a ball and used it to learn to crochet. "I made an apron with a windmill on it." As one of 14 children, her mother didn't have time to teach her all these different types of handwork and skills, so much of what she has learned she has just picked up on her own. And her endeavors are not limited to just handwork. She loves to refinish furniture. In the summer she loves to grow and arrange flowers. She makes porcelain dolls and dresses them. She even has her own kiln in Bonanza. One of her prize possessions is her thimble collection. She has thimbles from all over the U.S. and China, India, Mexico in all, 263 thimbles. When Mary Ellen decides she wants to make something, she doesn't worry about whether she knows how to do that particular thing, she just does it. She and her daugher made doll houses and furniture for some of her grand- - I sw- ln X - ! , wh k 1 ' ; s 1; 'A T -' ' " ' . , , - ' '' ' ' 1 ' ''VMW. , I 23 KELLY RASMUSSEN listens as her grandmother, Mary Ellen, explains ex-plains how her doll was made as Rebecca Cook, another granddaughter, grand-daughter, watches. The grandchildren have many handmade h A . 1 - ' V tTT- A itlir . imi MARY ELLEN looks over her book containing the records and genealogy of her family. She has two children. They recall with a chuckle the different types of furniture they made and their experiences in completing com-pleting this project. Among her varied endeavors are her trips to the auction each year to buy a calf, bring it home and raise it for meat for the family. At various time during her life Mary Ellen has been employed, and as in most facets of her life, there is quite a diversity. When she was young she worked in California. Her first job was at the Oroville Hotel working in the beauty shop "rolling pincurls." While in California she also worked packing Sunkist oranges and at the Santa Cruz cannery. At one time she worked making cinches cin-ches at Newtons and at Cooper's Drug Store. Later, other jobs included working work-ing at Ben Franklin, the Petal Shop, and the Commercial Hotel and a neighborhood store in Naples. She also worked at the sales barn. While she was working there, she remembers, she found out one day her son had bought a pony that was blind in one eye without her knowledge. Although she was busy with her children, she still spent a lot of time in making things for them. She sewed all her children's clothes, made their baby quilts and blankets and their doll clothes and furniture. As her children grew, she still used her talents for them. She made all the cakes for her children's weddings, and she made many wedding cakes for their friends, a total of 31. Her home was the one in which all the friends and the neighborhood congregated. Not only is Mary Ellen interested in t k 1 V f 1 , 7 "i i ii i r """'of r J S? " - ,-',.-"!s" J sV:.M ,. J, O'lHi A COMMON sight at the Gardiner home is Mary Ellen surrounded surround-ed by grandchildren and this is only some of them. her posterity, but also in her ancestors. She has gathered and lovingly lov-ingly compiled three huge books which contain geneaology sheets, histories and records of her ancestors, her own family and her posterity. Her father and mother came from England after they were married and had four children. The way her home is decorated and much of her handwork hand-work reflects the traditions of her parents. She is presently working on quilt tops that are in a crazy quilt design and made from old ties, pieces of ribbon rib-bon and small pieces of velvet. These pieces are patterned after old English cushions she grew up with in her home. She first sews the pieces of fabric together by hand, they are then backed with an old piece of sheet or some other fabric to reinforce the gifts given them by their grandmother, and they love to go visit her as often as possible when she is in town. ill , . -r cs a in i 11 I Aft . . ' 's ' ' ; f00 . '2 more books the same size which she has carefully careful-ly compiled. piece. Then she embroiders on each seam with a different stitch. On some of the pieces she has embroidered designs that she has copied off the old cushion which is now threadbare. There are usually around 20 different embroidery stitches on each quilt piece. These pieces will eventually make a beautiful quilt, or she is considering giving one piece to each family for a cushion. She is making them so that her children and grandchildren will have something that shows the type of work her mother and aunt had done and will carry the tradition of her ancestors to her posterity. "All my grandchildren are loved," Mary Ellen said. And it is obvious that she has spent her time and talents, which are considerable, in making sure they feel loved. ; Ullp f I" '4 TERESA RICH (left) and Elina Higley (right) are students in Mrs. Romney's gifted and talented class at Vernal Junior High. The girls are currently working on individual projects in the subject area of English. Gifted program addresses needs By Traci Menke Express Assistant Editor Editor's Note: This is the third article in a series about gifted and talented programs. Several eighth and ninth grade students at Vernal Junior High are currently involved in a gifted and talented program. Selection of the students for the program pro-gram was based on several areas of academic achievement which included includ-ed IQ tests, creativity tests and Stanford Stan-ford Achievement Tests (SAT). Another aspect of selection includes evaluations by teachers, parents and students. A committee made up of counselors and parents selected the students who scored well on their tests and evaluations. evalua-tions. The student's identities were not included on the test scores to reduce the possibility of biased opinion. Criteria for the program which includes in-cludes 15 ninth grade and five eighth grade students was designed by Lynne Romney. In addition to teaching the gifted program, Mrs. Romney also teaches science. Prior to the formation of the class, Mrs. Romney submitted a proposal outlining what would be included in the semester to the gifted and talented committee for approval and funding. Members of the gifted and talented committee consist of parents representing several schools within the district and Dr. Robert Vincent, with the district office. The gifted and talented committed received a grant from the school district and federal government to fund gifted and talented programs. To be eligible for funding, proposals must be submitted in writing to the committee commit-tee by instructors selected to teach gifted and talented programs. The first phase of Mrs. Romney's program concentrated on individual projects in several academic areas. Projects are in the subject areas of science, social studies, English, math and art. Each student chose and designed their project. They were required to pick a subject area and what would be included in the project. Students are graded on the progress of their projects pro-jects on a weekly basis. In addition to working with Mrs. Romney on their projects, students also meet with instructors in-structors who teach the subject area of their project. Other instructors that aid in the program pro-gram include Kim Brewer, Leon Hoyt, Dean Blair, Shelley Hatch, Bob Chandler, Rick Bowman. Three days of the school week are dedicated to the project and two days to future problem solving and thinking skills. The students were given eight weeks to complete their projects, which are nearing deadline. After the projects are completed, the students will present pre-sent their results to the gifted and talented committee and other interested in-terested persons. Elina Higley, an eighth grade student, stu-dent, is working on a project in the field of English.Jjhe plans to perform a one woman show of the play, "A Star Spangled Girl." Under the terms of her project she will be required to memorize all the parts and design and construct scenery and costumes. i Y V TT.:, . She will also film the play and dub in the sound effects to present to the gifted and talented committee. When Elina first started the project she planned to write an original play, but decided against it because of the limited amount of time. Teresa Rich is also an eighth grade student working on an English project. Her project is writing an original touch and feel children's book which has been tentatively entitled, "The Day Brooster Slept In." The book is about a rooster and the consequences he suffers suf-fers when he oversleeps. The book has been written, but Teresa is still locating the materials for the actual construction of the book. After the construction of the book has been completed, she will present it to kindergarten classes to see how it is received. Ninth grader Troy Peterson's project pro-ject is in the field of social studies. He is polling students and adults on their views of the main areas of the federal budget, 1984 campaign issues democratic hopefuls. Troy has already given the poll to several classes in the school and plans to administer it to the adults in the community. After completion of the poll he will compare the results to see how student's views differ from adults. Julie James, an eighth grader, is working on a science project. The purpose pur-pose of her project is to determine whether students feel stress while taking tak-ing tests. Julie will take the student's blood pressure during a test and then after the test. The student's will also be given a brief questionnaire on study habits. Other individual projects that the students are working on include air pollution research on particulate matter mat-ter in the Uintah Basin, the effect of alcohol on learning in mice, polling of veterans, and the study of American artists and development of the craft of portrait painting. In addition to the individual projects the student are required to work in groups on future problem solving and thinking skills. In this phase of the program pro-gram the teams of students are each given a hypothetical situation that is vaguely explained. The teams must work together to identify the possible problems the situation may present. After identifying identify-ing the problems, teams must develop at least 20 solutions to the problem and then evaluate their solutions. The problems pro-blems are then submitted to the state for competition. The eight grade team placed sixth in the state on their second se-cond problem. Last week several girls in the class attended a convention at the University Univer-sity of Utah in Salt Lake City. The convention con-vention dealt with the changing career roles that are now available to women. Most of the students in the class said they really like the program because it is a different way to learn. They said they felt the class was exciting and they weren't as easily bored. "The purpose of the program is to help students use their potential and create new knowledge as opposed to just learning from textbooks," said Mrs. Romney. With the junior high program well underway, efforts are being made to begin a program in the middle school. Principal John Childs and George Kazlusky who is a counselor at the school, are in the process of identifying identify-ing students for the program. H |