September 14, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local Life

Mt. Airy bodybuilder, 86, muscles in on fame
by JENNIFER KATZ

Dressed in a black tank top and stretch pants with gold Diesel sneakers, 86-year-old bodybuilding champion, Morjorie (correct spelling) Newlin, makes a striking appearance at just 5 feet tall. She is noticeably slim for her frame, creating a striking contrast between the world-class bodybuilder and great grandmother.

Since 1992, when Newlin began lifting weights at the age of 71, she has won over 40 trophies in the masters class in just as many competitions.

Slain student saved her life
Hill artist tired of losing students to violence
by MARIE FOWLER

“I wish we could put our children in cocoons,” says Chestnut Hill artist and educator Marsha Meketon Schamber, “and protect them from violence so they can all emerge as butterflies.”

Practically a one-woman Save the Children organization, Schamber has lost five students to gun violence. “I think people have the idea these kids who are getting shot are thugs,” Schamber laments. “Too many children wake up in the morning feeling they have no future. Until we bring rich and poor together, we won’t have a good world.”

Cells, Wombs, and Cocoons, Schamber’s lively, rainbow-hued mixed media textiles, drawing, paintings and collages on view at The Sedgwick Gallery through September 25, reflect the exuberance and passion of an artist who is highly attuned to the needs of our children and to issues of nurturing.

Exhibit at Allens Lane of the beloved Lieberman sculptures
by AMY MASTERMAN

Small torso and bust are two of the many sculptures by the much-admired and beloved art teacher at Allens Lane Art Center, Richard Lieberman. The exhibit will open this Friday and remain up until early November.

For nearly 50 years, sculptor Richard Lieberman could often be found in the downstairs studios of Allens Lane Art Center, surrounded by his works in progress and the work of his dedicated students. In August, at almost 94 years of age, Lieberman died. He worked up until the end, and the morning of his death called his protégé Girard Cerini to discuss some ideas he had for the younger student’s new sculpture series. When Cerini called him back, it was too late, and his ideas will never be known.

Allens Lane is honoring Lieberman’s long and prolific life with an exhibit that spans five decades and features the many styles and materials in which he worked. The opening reception for Richard Lieberman, sculptor (1912 – 2006) will be on Friday, September 15, from 6 to 9 p.m., with a short ceremony at 7:30 p.m. The exhibit will remain up in the gallery until renovations begin on the building, expected to be early November.

Hiller takes a bite out of restaurant consulting
by MELISSA HUNSBERGER

Tonya plans to go hog wild as a restaurant consultant. (Photo by Marjorie Hirshorn)

Early in 1995 Philadelphia Magazine published an article called Walnut Street vs. Main Street that piqued the interest of a Temple University student and led to a life-changing decision for Tonya Breslow, 39. The article depicted a comparison between restaurants in the two areas. Both had excellent chefs and were known for their attention to service. At the time Breslow was working at the Korman Suites, but it was merely a way to earn money. She was about to make a bold move, which would eventually lead her to an entrepreneurship.

Mt. Airy author’s ‘Body’ traces U. of P. murders
by BARBARA L. SHERF

The Mt. Airy author (pen-name D. H. Dublin) has written a fascinating novel about a Philadelphia crime scene investigator who, while investigating a crime, discovers secrets about her own troubled past.

By day he works full-time at the Weavers Way Cooperative in Mount Airy. Usually he’s editing The Shuttle newsletter or working on publicity and other communications items there, but sometimes you’ll still see him behind the register, checking out items for members. At night and on weekends, he is a writer — and he has just published his first novel, Body Trace, the first in a mystery detective series set in Philadelphia.

McGoran, 42, will be signing copies of Body Trace, a gripping, tightly written crime scene investigation novel, this Saturday evening, September 16, at Big Blue Marble bookstore on Carpenters Lane off of Greene Street in West Mt. Airy.

Writing as D.H. Dublin, a pseudonym he uses to differentiate this new series from his other, as yet unpublished novels, McGoran’s work has been published by Penguin Press as a Berkley Original Mass Market Paperback. The second in the series, Blood Poison, has a tentative release date of September 2007.

Penn Valley: fine dining at neighborhood pub prices
by LEN LEAR

Penn Valley Pub owners David and Jeannine Hamilton are proud of their executive chef, Frank Sugo, 43, who helped win the “Best Pub on the Main Line” designation in a Main Line Times’ readers’ poll.

For many years the Mainliner Pub at 863 Montgomery Ave. in Narberth was the quintessential neighborhood tavern. A shot and a beer, meatball and steak sandwiches, a cigarette haze, men so exercised in debate over sports teams that they’d begin to sweat like a hot dog on the grille; such a thick crowd at the bar, you felt like a crouton in a Caesar salad. Discussions about inner feelings as welcome as large insects. In other words, a clone of a million other testosterone-laced bars where many flavors of pie-in-the-sky are served.