“Lightning” Edward (“Ted”) Lombardi and Nicolle “The Rocket” Renick will be running on the same team this coming Monday in the Boston Marathon. The two reside about a five-minute run away from each other on Bedford Road. Both will be running on the Alzheimer’s Association’s Team Memory to raise money for Alzheimer's research. Both have or have had family members with memory malfunctions. Until they first signed up for the Run for the Memory last year, Lombardi and Renick didn’t know each other—or that they shared all that history. Lightning's Story Lombardi described his running nickname as…

  Orange and purple. Purple and yellow. Blue and white. Megan McCue walked past tables of pansies, some with two-color faces. With the warm winter—the last cold snap notwithstanding—gardeners are salivating to start planting. Some plants, like pansies, are cold-hardy, said McCue, a member of the third generation of her family to run McCue’s Garden Centers—now two, one in Woburn, one in Billerica. So are some vegetables, like cabbage, lettuce, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and swiss chard, and some perennials. So gardeners can begin to work in their gardens, said McCue, the centers' …

  Holly Brown and her classmates picked up their pencils and began to answer multiple-choice questions about geography. One of the questions:  “The Bitterroot Range is located on the border of Montana and what other state?” Brown, an eighth-grader at the Kennedy Middle School, put herself on the map by winning the school level of the National Geographic Geography Bee. Now, she’s headed to state competition. Brown has been putting in time after homework—about half an hour, but not every day—to study geography, from US cities and states to international locations to physical geography—“like the…

Matthew Govostes didn’t go back to school today after a week of school vacation. A first grader at the Wyman Elementary School, Matthew hasn’t been in school since late January. That’s because one month ago, Matthew received a new heart. Matthew’s home now. Depending on his immune system, he may join his classmates and teacher Nancy Hubbard at the end of March. Matthew’s parents, Elena and Jason, have known that Matthew had a rare heart defect since Elena was pregnant with him, she told Woburn Patch yesterday afternoon.  Structures in his heart called ventricles, which are chambers, were …

  When Bill Rich passed away unexpectedly last week, he left behind five biological children. And a school-full of others. Mr. Rich was the crossing guard for the Wyman Elementary School for years, helping students and teachers alike reach the building safely. When Mr. Rich's funeral procession drove past the school last Thursday, Feb. 16, teachers and students were on hand to say one last goodbye and pay their final respects. "He was a wonderful, kind, and gentle man," said Amy Abbott, a Wyman parent. "He took his crossing guard job seriously and always made sure our children were safe. He …

  Though he often works from his Woburn home, designer Christopher Cuozzo dresses up to a degree that most self-employed people don’t. On a recent winter weekday, he wore a fitted gray wool suit over a pink and white-collared dress shirt, navy socks and brown wingtip leather shoes. Even with the white pocket square, the look he considers “very, very understated.” “Men especially don’t take pride in what they wear,” he said, “and that’s why I make a point every day of dressing to the nines.” The 29-year-old fashion entrepreneur’s favorite color is pink, but lately he’s been wearing bright …

One Winchester couple has decided to donate most of its fortune to charity. Bill and Joyce Cummings of Cummings Properties were the first Massachusetts couple to sign the Giving Pledge, according to the Boston Globe. The pledge, which was started by Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates, invites the wealthiest individuals and families in America to commit to giving the majority of their wealth to charity either during their lifetime or after their death. According to the Globe, Bill and Joyce Cummings were trying to set an example for the wealthiest one percent, by signing more than 90 …

John Flaherty wanted to help replace and expand the crumbling, almost-70-year-old monument to World War II veterans on the Common. He originally planned to be “last man in” and contribute the difference between the amount that was donated and the cost of the project. “I didn’t want to take away from community (efforts),” Flaherty told Woburn Patch Saturday. The monument is “everybody’s.” The estimated cost of the new monument:  around $500,000. “In this economy, it would have taken a long time to raise the money,” Flaherty said.  Plus, the Boys and Girls Club is planning a capital campaign, …

When Joseph Crowley looks at the clock he received as a gift yesterday afternoon, it will be easy for him to remember what he has spent many hours over 30-plus years on. Instead of numerals, the hours are marked by names of city schools:  the Altavesta at one o’clock, followed by the Linscott, Joyce, Hurld, Goodyear, Reeves, Clapp, White, Kennedy, Wyman, Shamrock and, at high noon, Woburn Memorial High School. Crowley has sat on the Woburn School Committee for 38 years. A group of about 30 people, including two past school superintendents, a state representative, a representative of the …

At three years old, Dhruvaite Upmanyu is just begining to understanding the concept of Santa Claus. He knows, according to his mother, Geetika, that he can’t be on Santa’s “naughty” list. Even though Dhruvaite doesn’t plan to ask Santa for anything for Christmas, his mother said, he does plan to write Santa a Christmas letter, with some help from his father. So imagine when Dhruvaite, who lives in Wakefield, met Father Christmas in person yesterday afternoon. Father Christmas is, according to his business card, “The spirit of Christmas.”’ He stands for “loving and giving.” Like Santa, his …

After college, David Crowley wanted to do a year of community service somewhere other than and different from Woburn-Cambridge-Boston. But where? He thought about joining the Peace Corps. Seeing needs stateside, he chose to go to Kentucky. He worked for what turned into five years there. He started an outreach program to give teens skills to make a difference in their community. Their first big project:  Thanksgiving for elders who lived alone. When AmeriCorps started in Kentucky, he ran the program at the state level.   Coming Home In the late 90s, he and his wife, Jodi, returned to his …

  When Isabella and Gabi Burton come home from school, a menagerie of animals greets them:  two smaller-size dogs, Molly and Teddie, a baby snapping turtle named Tiny Tim and, in a pen up the road from their home, a miniature horse nicknamed Mattie. From hoof to head, Mattie measures 36 inches tall. Her picture recently appeared on Patch. Here’s the story of how and why the Burtons got Mattie. Isabella—“People call me Bella”—a first grader at the Reeves Elementary School, has a medical condition, Morquio Syndrome. The condition affects Bella’s bones and her physical strength and stamina. She’…

On Sunday morning at 7 a.m., Oct. 23, Paul Medeiros went to work at Spence Farm, just as he has on Sundays since early June. With other volunteers, he helped pitch tents for some 20 vendors and otherwise prepare for the weekly farmers’ market. More than nine hours later, close to 4:30 in the afternoon, he was still there, long after the venders and visitors had left. The market usually closes at 1:30; the last one of the summer and fall season lasted about two hours longer, with special activities, like hayrides. Only a handful of volunteers remained, and even their ranks were thinning. “…

Your doorbell probably didn’t ring last night.  The ghosts and ghouls and zombie hunters who braved trick-or-treat night Monday faded back into the shadows. Except at one house. In the northwest corner of the city. From the front yard, it looked last night like one family on Mikaila Way just left their Halloween decorations up and lit.  Lots of decorations. Spider webbing up to the second story of the house. A witch next to the driveway. Eerie apparitions in the windows. A huge spider with blood-red eyes. But that’s not even the half of it. A mad scientist and her minions continued their faux…

People call his radio program, aired in four states—Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Maryland—“therapeutic.” “I say, ‘Lay worry aside,’” Pastor Frank Tamilio told Woburn Patch Thursday from his Main Street office and suite where he records his five, weekly, hour-long programs of “Christian praise and worship music with devotional thoughts.” “Realize,” he said, “God loves, is forgiving and the Bible is true.” Pastor Frank marked the 20th year of the incorporation of his Amazing Grace Ministry, Inc. last week. He is its president and founder. One way he ministers to people is over the …

Add a new entry to Michael Paladino’s resume:  boss. The WMHS junior is finishing his Eagle Scout Leadership Service project, a kiosk for notices at Spence Farm. When Paladino went to Spence Farm for a hayride he said he noticed that flyers and signs inside the window of the building on the city property were “inconvenient to see.” A member of Boy Scout Troop 502 from St. Charles parish, he’d seen a sign board for notices outside the Senior Center. After getting the go-ahead from Paul Medeiros, chairman of the city’s Agricultural Commission, which oversees the Spence Farm property, Paladino …

How would you like it if someone took control of your life away from you —under the guise of love—leaving you feeling helpless? For her essay about overcoming a personal challenge, which starts with the above question, Tayla Lucchese, a freshman at Framingham State University, has received a $1,000 scholarship and learned a life lesson. Lucchese received the award from the local foundation named after Shannon Lee Meara, a 2001 WMHS graduate who was shot in January of 2008 by an ex-boyfriend. The foundation, started by Shannon’s mother, Arlene, has funded several efforts for WMHS students to …

Remember the so-called lazy, hazy days of summer?  No school? They ended three weeks ago for local students, who are working their way back into the groove of school bells. But way before September, one local school administrator started to plan for this school year—even before school ended in the spring. Rita Masotta has been at St. Charles Elementary School for a quarter century, this year is her 14th as its principal. “I always enjoyed school (and) learning,” Masotta said Tuesday morning, from the quiet of her office, several days after the school’s back-to-school ice cream social. “…

When four-year-old Colby Deharo says, “Drive,” he doesn’t mean a car. He means his wheelchair. Colby has cerebral palsy. He’s had trouble with his motor skills—controlling his muscles, even his eyes—since he was born, according to his mother, Tracy.  He wears braces to help support “almost every part of his body,” Tracy said, from his shoulders to his toes. In his wheelchair, "He’s in control of something,” Tracy said. Colby loves “hockey, school and his grandmother, Marie Watkins," Tracy said. The problem for Colby and his parents, according to Tracy, isn’t the wheelchair. It’s the vehicle …

They started with a gray “canvas,” roughly 20 feet long, from left to right, and 16 feet high, and transformed the cinderblock wall into a vibrant, fluttering, red, white and blue American flag. Next to the flag, on a smaller section of the wall, Mikaela Holt and Laura Standley painted the insignias of the five branches of the US Armed Services:  Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. So where are these murals? On a wall at the Senior Center, outside the office of city Director of Veterans Services Larry Guiseppi. Around Memorial Day, Guiseppi went to WMHS to talk with Principal …