JANUARY
Sports are always a big deal in Verona, and sometimes they get even bigger. On January 12, Amanda Langan became the first Verona High School girls basketball player since 1995 to score 1,000 points in her varsity career. The loud crowd that day included family, friends, fans and a few people with ties to previous 1,000-point milestones: Jennifer Hansen, who hit it in 1995, had been Langan’s basketball coach in middle school, and had had a premonition of Langan’s talent. (See: Langan Tops 1,000 Points).
Verona also hit a high note in music in January, when H.B. Whitehorne music teacher Dan Halpern used a grant from the Verona Foundation for Educational Excellence to bring in an internationally recognized musician, Joseph Turrin, to help middle school students learn to compose.
