Winter Ice Festival Meltdown

The finsihing product of the ice sculpters from the competition taken by CityLife.fyi

The Richmond Winter Ice Festival started in 2013. This was the 9th year that this event has taken place. All over Richmond for the next few weeks, until the ice melts, you will see different ice sculptures depicting various things. This event took place for about a week. There were different ice carvers, a chili for charity contest, a frozen costume contest held at Ullery's Ice Cream, a Meltdown pizza party, a family fun zone, food trucks, the Richmond Farmers Market at the old Starr Gennett Building, Hot Chocolate at Hayes Arboretum, Ice Age Activity Stations at the Joseph Moore Museum, the Meltdown Pop-In Market, Ice cream eating contest, and finally the meltdown Throwdown & Fireworks.

So much is happening aside from just the ice sculptures, but speaking of the ice sculptures who sculpts them? The first person is Andrew Thistlethwaite from San Antonio, Texas, he started sculpting in 1996 at the University of Notre Dame as a culinary apprentice. The next sculptor is Aaric Kendall from Argenta, Illinois. He started at a private dining club where he sculpted a swan of ice at a charity event. After that he went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. The next ice sculptor is Deam DeMaris from Fate, Texas. He started carving in 1988. Later he went back to school to work on his art degree starting in 1992 and ending in 1997. Next up is Jeff Kaiser from Youngstown, Ohio. He started to carve ice at the age of 19 and then worked for over 20 years as a contract sculpture. Next is Danny Bloss ll from Niles, Michigan. He started to carve ice when the first Hunter Ice Festival in Niles took place. After that he took a class at Notre Dame's Morris Inn with an Executive Chef. He now works there, but keeps his hobby up with ice sculpting. Finally Samantha Moore from Elkhart, Indiana. She started carving ice in the year 2017 under the Michiana Ice Carvers Association. She now is continuing her career as a chef but pursuing her passion in ice carving on the side.

At the end of the festival there was a competition between the Ice Team and the Fire Team. While everyone watched this go down there were food and drinks from local restaurants and food trucks. At the end of the event the Ice Team pulled through and won the competition.

Rolex 24 at Daytona 2024

The 62nd Rolex 24 at Daytona took place on Saturday January 27, 2024 and ended Sunday January 28th. The Rolex 24 At Daytona is a 24-hour sports car endurance race that takes place in Daytona Beach, Florida. The race is held annually and kicks off the new IMSA Weather Tech SportsCar Championship season at the Daytona International Speedway. There are traditionally around 60 cars such as Porsches, Ferraris, Corvettes, Mazda, Fords, Lamborghinis, Lexus and Cadillac. Each car in the field is competing for the overall victory as well as four different classes. Each team trades shifts between three and four drivers. 

The winner of this year's Rolex 24 at Daytona was the Porsche Penske Motorsports team. The race was close coming down to Flipe Nasr in the Penske and Tom Blomqvist in the Whelen Engineering Cadillac. With just 45 minutes left, Nasr took the lead from Blomqvist on lap 768. “It’s just incredible to think we pulled that one off,” Nasr said. “It all came down to the fuel game pretty much.” This was just the second overall victory for Penske who won on the road course of the Daytona International Speedway in 1969 with a Lola T-70/Chevrolet.  

The next 24 hours sports car race is Le Mans coming up in June, Penske is determined to bring home yet another victory for the team this year. The 92nd 24 hours of Le Mans will take place in the town of Le Mans, France.“I’ll tell you, this goes down as one of the biggest wins we’ve had. Now we have to go for the big one at Le Mans, you know that.” Penske said. 

Seton Cardinal Spectacular

The annual Seton Cardinal Spectacular took place on Saturday, January 27 in the Chuck Mosey Memorial Gym. This is the kickoff to Catholic Schools week. Parents and parishioners gather to celebrate Catholic education. This year's theme was "Growing the Future" so the gym was transformed into Mary's Garden. It was another great event and was very successful! There were 210 guests in attendance.

The witty, Mr. Brian Cox, was the emcee of the evening and started off the night by thanking the sponsors and promoting the silent auction that took place throughout the evening. Galo Molina and Old Richmond Inn catered the meal. During dinner the guests enjoyed a video that portrayed the Seton experience, put together by Dr. Sam Krutz. A fun game of chance, called heads or tails, took place during the dinner. Our very own Krista Falcone won the prize of 500 dollars!

Seniors, Mary Daoud, Sophia Coyner, and Nate Wetherall all spoke and shared their experience at Seton. Then it was time to celebrate the "Friend of Seton" award. This is given annually to someone who goes above and beyond for this school. This year's recipients were Mr. Tom Kitchin and Mrs. Cheryl Kitchin. A lovely video was shared to show their commitment to Catholic education. The guest speaker of the evening was Father Jack Wright. He made the crowd laugh, sharing stories of his experience with certain teachers at Seton Catholic. Overall, the event was a great success! The final amount that was raised is over $15,000!