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Poetry winners, an Irish icon, a civic-minded child, and a veteran cop all honored by township leaders

The Spirit - 3/21/2017

Upper Darby Council member Sekela Coles recently thanked her Council colleagues for supporting her effort to conduct a Black History Month poetry contest for the second consecutive year.

Coles, a Seventh District councilwoman, proposed the event last year.

"I wanted to engage the youth of our community in recognizing and celebrating Black History Month," Coles said. "I am humbled that my Council colleagues unanimously agreed to support my initiative again this year."

According to Coles, the contest was open to fourth and fifth grade children in the community.

The top three poem submissions were invited to present their poems at the March Council meeting and received a monetary prize. They included: first place Angeles Peralta, of Charles Kelly Elementary School; second place Haris Ghurman and third place Andrea Garcia-Castillo, both of Garrettford Elementary School.

Children that received an honorable mention and a gift card for water ice were Meerab Nasir Qazi, of Stonehurst Elementary School; Madison Dubuisson, Paris Holiday and Alice Dobbins, all of Garrettford; and Leni Verghese and Keziah Brewington, both of Bywood Elementary School.

In other business, Mayor Thomas Micozzie presented an award to Bernard "Barney" J. Boyce, an Upper Darby resident who was grand marshal of the Philadelphia St.Patrick's Day Parade in honor of his years of service to the Irish community.

Micozzie proclaimed a day in Boyce's honor.

Boyce was born and raised in Mallymore, Milford, Donegal County, Ireland and came to America in 1957.

In 1965, after serving two years in the US Army, he married Donegal native Isabelle Crossan and lived in the Kirklyn section of Upper Darby where they raised their six children, Brian, John, Jimmy, Colleen, Michael and Karen.

"Barney operated his own roofing company for over 50 years in Upper Darby and held more than 30 positions on a variety of organizational boards in the Irish community and has been involved in the Irish Immigration Center for the past 25 years," Micozzie said.

The mayor also introduced Harmony Kulp, who served as student mayor for the day for Upper Darby, and led the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance.

According to Micozzie, she asked to serve through a Face-book message from her mother.

Micozzie invited the youngster to meet in his office where she shared her concerns and attended the Council meeting where she was introduced.

"She and her class want to extend school hours to learn, help the homeless, improve play equipment in parks and make our community a great place," Micozzie said. "I told her I wish to have the same and we had a discussion on the difference between the school district and the township. We also had a discussion on snow removal and I showed her the township snow emergency map."

Micozzie said he's interested in doing this more often and will entertain requests from all township schools.

Micozzie and Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood announced the 2016 Dennis McNamara Memorial Officer of the Year Award to Detective Christopher Karr.

Karr, a six-year veteran assigned to the detective division since 2015, was recognized for dedication to duty.

A graduate of Neumann University, Carr has a diverse background in emergency services as a tactical paramedic and volunteer firefighter.

"Chris enjoys the reputation of being one of the hardest workers in the detective division," Micozzie said. "He seems to have an immeasurable amount of energy when it comes to managing investigations and tracking down criminals."

According to Chitwood, Karr led all investigators by managing 262 criminal cases and processing 194 prisoners last year.

In addition to his duties in the detective bureau, Karr is the lead investigator at vehicle crash scenes.