Florie Wachtenheim has been selected by the Scarsdale Bowl Committee to receive the 2012 Scarsdale Bowl, the highest honor for service to Scarsdale. Wachtenheim will be the 75th recipient of the Scarsdale Bowl Award and the 22nd woman selected. Nominators on the Scarsdale Bowl Committee recommended Wachtenheim as “a volunteer leader in Scarsdale who invariably worked cooperatively with neighbors to make the right choices as a group. Her ability to find and solidify a consensus has been exceptional. Her trustworthiness and caring often have carried a group beyond sharp differences and to view changes in a new light.“
Wachtenheim has experienced and led an extensive “tour” of educational service opportunities over her years in Scarsdale from the day she became a resident in 1981 with a husband and one child. Even before her third son was born in 1989, she already had accepted responsibility in the Fox Meadow School PTA.
Her “tour” was marked by growing levels of responsibility from the time in 1994 when she became President of the Fox Meadow PTA. Important roles have been accorded to her at Scarsdale PT Council, School Board Nominating Committee, Middle School PTA, Scarsdale Teen Center, Scarsdale Bowl Committee, Scarsdale Scholarship Fund, Scarsdale Board of Education, League of Women Voters, and Scarsdale Adult School.
Wachtenheim’s sons attended Scarsdale schools, K-12, and now are graduates of colleges and universities. Her business activities included, for twenty years, a role as Administrative Vice President, Merchants Importing, Inc. She is now an Associate at the executive search organization Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, Ltd. where she conducts executive searches for school districts.
Asked about her reaction to the news, Wachtenheim said, “Quite frankly, I was astonished and actually a little bit unnerved. I’ve always felt tremendous support for the contribution and spirit this award acknowledges, and I did not consider that I came close to meeting the standard that the Scarsdale Bowl represents.”
What were her favorite volunteer posts? Wachtenheim told us that she enjoyed “those connected to education, and most emphatically, those where I’ve been able to feel a direct connection to people in the community including the Fox Meadow PTA Presidency, the Board of Education Presidency, and chairing the Scarsdale Bowl Committee in 2008.
Some of her most memorable volunteer jobs including her work on the founding of the Teen Center, on the steering committee to explore an education foundation for Scarsdale as well as serving as a judge of the Middle School speech contest, as a facilitator at Young Writer’s Conference and as the liaison to the High School government at SHS.
The Scarsdale Bowl Dinner on Wednesday, April 18, celebrates the spirit of volunteerism in Scarsdale and includes the high moment when the Scarsdale Bowl is received. The Scarsdale Bowl Committee was formed initially as an independent entity in Scarsdale. It remains an independent committee of resident citizens, but the Scarsdale Foundation has the duty to maintain the Scarsdale Bowl tradition. For further information, go to www.scarsdalefoundation.org .
Greenburgh Police Chief DeCarlo released statistics for Part I and Part 2 Criminal Offenses for the year 2011. Part I Offenses are considered serious crimes by the United States Department of Justice and included Aggravated Assault, Burglary, Homicide, Larceny, Motor Vehicle Theft, Robbery and Rape. 
On the afternoon of 1/20 a 73 year-old woman, ironically named Thressiama Panicker, of Dalewood Drive in Hartsdale, backed her car into the Burger King at 556 South Central Avenue, Scarsdale. Driving a 1985 Mercedes, Panicker was attempting to exit a parking space and had the car in reverse when she struck the front of the restaurant instead, breaking through the glass doors and stopping 3-4 feet into the lobby of Burger King against a support column. In the process, she also hit a 1998 Honda that was parked outside. Fortunately, no one was injured. The owner of the Honda is 91 year-old Irving Sprinsky of 60 Morrow Avenue, Scarsdale, who was eating inside Burger King at the time of the accident. A tech rescue team, the detective division, the building department and the Greenville Fire Department were all called to secure the restaurant. Everyone was evacuated while the building department assessed the structural damage to the building. It was determined to be safe and the two cars were towed to Glenn’s Towing.
To celebrate the centennial of Hitchcock Church, the Perspectives committee will host a special panel discussion and luncheon featuring three experts on the history of the church in Scarsdale. The event, titled “3 Views of Hitchcock’s 99 Years ,”will bring together Scarsdale Village Historian Eric Rothschild, Tom Hughart, a long-term Pastor in the Hudson River Presbytery and Scarsdale Inquirer Editor Linda Leavitt. They will discuss the Scarsdale, Westchester and civic view, the Presbyterian Denominational view, and the personal view of a member who grew up in Scarsdale and Hitchcock.
The Scarsdale School district appears to have avoided a feared budget crisis posed by the 2% tax cap imposed by NYS State. At the first of two community budget forums on the night of January 11, Assistant School Superintendent Linda Purvis presented a preliminary look at the 2012-13 school budget and the feared $8 million gap has now shrunk to $1.5 million.
