Local Events

Doug and Darinda Sherbert will be performing a concert of Christmas music entitled "Celebrate Christmas" at Faith in God Chapel of Berkeley Springs on Sunday evening, December 16 at 6 p.m. The program will feature a wide variety of both vocal and instrumental Christmas music. Also featured will be several poems and recitations written by Darinda Sherbert.

Included in the instrumental portion of the program will be "Christmas Sonata," "Island Noel," "Little Drummer Boy," "Christmas Time Is Here" and "The Christmas Song." Vocal selections to be performed will include "He Started the Whole World Singing," "Mary, Did You Know," "It's Still the Greatest Story Ever Told," and "The Blessed Dawn of Christmas Day." All selections for this concert were arranged by Doug Sherbert.

The Church on the Hill Concert Series presents the second annual Winter Solstice Concert on Friday, December 21 at 7:30 p.m. in The Berkeley Springs Presbyterian Church on South Mercer Street.

Seasonal music will be performed by Madeline MacNeil, singer and hammered dulcimer player and Linda Whitesitt, violist. They will be accompanied by Lydia Walker, organist and Patricia Springer, pianist. The multi-media program of photography, seasonal music and readings from classical spiritual literature and contemporary poets will offer something for all faith traditions.

Word of Deliverance

Word of Deliverance Youth ministry will be presenting this year's Christmas program "Christmas Rescheduled," Sunday, December 16, at 7 p.m.

The Most Reverend Michael J. Bransfield, Bishop of the Wheeling Diocese, will join Father Cyprian Joseph Mercieca, Pastor at Saint Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Berkeley Springs on Sunday, December 16 for the dedication ceremony of the new church.

The dedication ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. with the bishop, pastor, parishioners and guests gathering at the church doors and processing into the newly built church.

Morgan County Chapter 2263, of the National Active and Retired Employees Association, will meet on Thursday, December 18 for the annual Christmas Party, at Cacapon Lodge. A buffet luncheon will be served at noon.

Harry Street will be calling active members for reservations. Anyone not contacted may phone 258-4405. All members, families and guests are welcome.

The Morgan Arts Council is holding auditions for William Shakespeare's "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" on Monday, December 10 at Berkeley Springs High School auditorium. Times are 3:30 to 5 p.m. for high school age actors and 5:30 to 7:30 for adults and children under high school age. If necessary, call backs are scheduled for December 12 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Ice House.

All roles are open to be cast.

West Virginia's six-day muzzleloader deer season opens December 10 and continues through December 15, in all counties open to firearm hunting for deer, according to Curtis I. Taylor, Chief of the Wildlife Resources Section of the Division of Natural Resources.

Hunters are reminded that muzzleloader hunting for antlered deer is legal in all counties open to muzzleloader season. However, a hunter may take no more than three antlered deer per calendar year in all deer seasons combined.

A concert of Advent and Christmas music will open the 13th annual luminaries display for the three historic Hancock cemeteries this Saturday, December 8, beginning at 5:30 p.m. The concert will feature music by the Potomac Crossing Consort, a group of Hancock and Berkeley Springs area musicians who play recorder and strings. Daniel Weatherholt will close the program with selections from St. Thomas' M. P. Moller Pipe Organ. The short concert is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, which owns one of the cemeteries, the luminaries display will include gravesites in St. Peter's Catholic Cemetery and Hancock Presbyterian Cemetery.

Two weekends of Art Saturdays classes from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ice House in downtown Berkeley Springs are devoted to making holiday ornaments and gifts. All four classes are designed so that attendees take home what they make. Enrollment is limited to 15 in each of these popular classes so registration is advisable.

On Saturday, December 8, one choice is Lynn Lavin's Clay Ornaments class where attendees can make tiles and ornaments. It is open to adults and children if they are accompanied by an adult. Mary Ann Haines teaches the youth class which also welcomes adults and is devoted to making embossed metal ornaments and votive candle holders of aluminum, copper and brass.

Students in the Morgan Arts Council's fall semester of after-school art classes are scheduled to show the results of their eight weeks of work in both dance and the visual arts on Friday at 6 p.m. at the Ice House. Parents, families, friends and the general public are welcome to attend the free event.

A show of work created by the students in Jenny McBee's visual arts class is displayed on the first floor of the Ice House; refreshments will also be served there. Audience then moves to the second floor dance studio for MAC's first performance of work from the afterschool dance class taught by Jodey Eliseo. "The dancers are excited about showing their skills," said Mary Hott, MAC's Executive Director. "Most of them never had a dance experience before this class."