Just over eight years ago, Sharon native Joel Peckham Jr. was in an automobile accident in Jordan, where he was on a Fulbright scholarship. His wife Susan, their oldest son Cyrus and their tour guide Akhmed were killed. Peckham, his younger son Darius, and his mother-in-law Farideh survived. Last month, Academy Chicago Publishers released "Resisting Elegy," Peckham's newest book, in which he reflects on his life before and after the accident, and on how he grieved. This is the story of that story. The 1988 Sharon High School graduate and former SHS football captain and Hockomock League …

Saturday, 2003 Sharon High School alumnus Leah Kramer Heyman and her partner Adam Williams begin a cross-country bicycle tour with a local flavor. The duo will search for the best projects where local schools' meals include local farms' food. The more than 4,500-mile ride from Brunswick, Maine to California is through FoodCycle, a nonprofit that Williams launched two years ago. The organization is "dedicated to the creation of enduring collaborations between small-scale organic farms and Public Schools," according to its website. Heyman and Williams will visit schools and farms, taking notes …

Scott Brody might be the Everwood Day Camp's best student. He's a founder, too. Brody recently shared those lessons during the American Camp Association's Tri-State Camp Conference, held March 13 to March 16 in Atlantic City, N.J. His presentation was entitled, "21st Century Skills: How Camps Teach What Children Really Need to Learn!". And this winter, the camp association presented Brody, and fellow Everwood founder Steve Baskin, with its National Honor Awards. The award recognizes "major contributions to the camp profession," Brody says. Brody is in his second term as a national vice …

A milestone in Sharon this week will give residents paws. Dr. Richard Segall leaves the Sharon Veterinary Clinic, which he founded on South Main Street roughly 40 years ago, for retirement. Segall says he'll miss "the clients and the patients" the most. "There's a core of about 30 clients that followed me from (Bruce Animal Hospital in) Dedham in 1973 when we set up here, and then I would say 75 percent of our clientele has been coming here over 10 years," says Segall, who transferred ownership of the Sharon Veterinary Clinic to Dr. Gerald Eichinger on Feb. 29. Segall has worked there part …

Astronauts would recognize some of the agility drills and nutrition lessons Sharon's third, fourth and fifth-graders have done for the past month. And on March 30, Heights Elementary School will watch a live Webcast from NASA. All because Heights physical education teacher and Sharon Public Schools health and wellness facilitator Tim Vigorito looked to the stars at age 2, and has never stopped looking at the sky. Sharon's three elementary schools are part of Team USA in Mission X: Train Like An Astronaut, a six-week, international fitness and nutrition challenge. Three school districts are on…

Longtime Sharon High School varsity baseball coach Joel Peckham's latest victory came on an 0-2 pitch. Peckham will be inducted into the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame Saturday night -- after the first two times he was nominated failed to connect with hall voters. After missing the first two times, "I said, 'That's it. I'm never going to get in,'" Peckham says. "I'm not so egotistical that I don't believe there are not a lot of other qualified people out there," he said during a recent interview at the Sharon High athletic department office. "There are plenty of …

Like many football fans, Aaron Schatz will spend Monday reflecting what Saturday night's Denver Broncos-New England Patriots playoff game means. Unlike most, Schatz has a sizable post-game audience for his findings and commentary. The 1992 Sharon High School graduate is the creator and editor-in-chief of Football Outsiders, which offers in-depth statistics and analysis on its website. "I had always been a fan of Bill James, the baseball stat guru," Schatz says. "And like a lot of people around here, I became more and more of a football fan after Drew Bledsoe and Bill Parcells showed up in the…

Sharon's Deborah Sampson Park evokes Steve Connolly's memories of childhood baseball games. Connolly now is exploring the history books' memories of Deborah Sampson. Inconsistencies about the Sharon Revolutionary War heroine's history -- including how the proper spelling "Samson" became "Sampson" -- are being explored in a series of Sharon Community Television documentaries that grew out of Connolly's ongoing research, which he started a year ago. He has read more than a half-dozen books, visited her homes, spoken with actors portraying her ancestors, and made over 100 contacts toward …

The Rev. Sandra Dorsainvil's first day in Sharon was memorable for the community. Sept. 11, 2011 marked the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The First Baptist Church of Sharon's new pastor was among the town clergy members attending An Interfaith Service of Sacred Remembrance of Sept. 11, 2001 and its Aftermath, at the Unitarian Church of Sharon. Earlier that day, across Post Office Square, Dorsainvil took over for the Rev. Dr. F. Lee Jones, who served as the Baptist church's interim pastor for nearly two years. The Sept. 11 service was "a beautiful community …

A self-described "do it yourselfer" from Sharon helps elderly Boston residents stay in their homes. For 11 years, Chris Pedersen has volunteered for Rebuilding Together Boston, the city chapter of a national organization that "works in partnership with skilled trades people and volunteers to repair and restore homes and non-profit facilities in Boston," according to its website. This fall, in October, the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation honored Pedersen as its "Patriots Difference Maker of the Week" after "Patriots and Kraft Group employees spent the day landscaping, painting and …

Sharon's connections with Jewish Family & Children's Service have strengthened this fall. In October, resident Rimma Zelfand became chief executive officer of the Waltham-based agency. And last month, a monthly Parkinson's disease support group at the Sharon Adult Center and Council on Aging reached 32 participants, doubling in size since its inception in April, Zelfand says. JF&CS and the Sharon Adult Center are partnering to offer the group, she says. "The group is based on the successful Parkinson's Family Support model offered by JF&CS in Waltham, and its purpose is to meet the needs of …

After 18 years of helping Sharon students earn top honors, Sharon School Committee member Mitch Blaustein has made the state's lifetime honor roll. The Massachusetts Association of School Committees recently inducted Blaustein as a life member. Blaustein was among six new life members honored during the joint MASC-Massachusettss Association of School Superintendents Conference, held Nov. 9 to Nov. 12 at the Resort and Conference Center in Hyannis. The other new life members are Berkley School Committee member Christopher Ghilarducci, Hadley School Committee member Elizabeth LaFond, Plainville…

A Ugandan village has 288 toothbrushes partly thanks to Dr. Robert Chavez going to a Brockton McDonald's about three months ago. Chavez says there, by chance, he met former patient and sterilization technician David Rice. Rice told the Sharon resident and local dentist about the Ugandan Water Project, a humanitarian effort he was participating in for the second straight year. "He said, 'I am going to Uganda.' And then I said, 'Wow. Why?' And he told me the story of Uganda and the fact that he had been in Uganda the year before, and felt so compelled to go back because of the accomplishments …

Temple Israel of Sharon hosts this year's interfaith Thanksgiving service and dinner Sunday night. Coincidentally, Rabbi Barry Starr might not be celebrating his 25th anniversary at Temple Israel if not for Thanksgiving in 1985. At that time, rabbis seeking jobs received a list of potential congregations to interview with and then indicated their interest, Rabbi Starr said during a recent interview in his office. Temple Israel was on the list sent to Rabbi Starr, then the rabbi of Temple Israel in Binghamton, N.Y. A number of other congregations on the list had offered him jobs that "hadn't …

A new Sharon coffee house opens Saturday night with a first-string musician. Kathleen Guilday can fix that string, on her Irish harp, if it breaks. Irish harps are so uncommon, though, that "if I had a significant repair, I'd have to send it to" the Seattle factory that made it, the Sharon resident says. Such efforts are common among Irish harp players, Guilday suggests. "I had a friend who had this particular model, and she mailed it back to Japan," Guilday says. "It was gone for a year." The Not Just Another Coffee House debuts Saturday at the Unitarian Church of Sharon with Guilday …

The Sharon youth leadership group called Interfaith Action has a new name. And a new youth leadership program director who has long admired the work here. Karin Firoza says she discovered what's now Youth LEAD (Youth Leaders Engaging Across Differences) Inc. as a Wellesley College sophomore. She lived in the campus' multi-faith residential corridor. And she and other students, some from other universities, spoke at a Tufts University conference about such topics, she says. Interfaith Action students presented a workshop there. "I couldn't believe that there were kids in high school talking …

Saturday, Randy O'Brien will carry the vision and photo of her older brother Michael Tye on her bicycle 125 miles, from Boston to Provincetown. The Tye family's Harbor to the Bay ride supports the fight against HIV/AIDS. The event has raised about $2.4 million -- all toward the cause -- since its inception in 2003, says O'Brien, an Easton resident and the president of Temple Kol Tikvah in Sharon. This year's ride expects to raise $450,000 and draw 400 riders and 80 volunteers, she says. There are three ride options: 125 miles from Boston to Provincetown; 68 miles from Boston to the Sagamore …

When Sharon High School football fans want popcorn during Saturday's 2 p.m. season opener, the SHS Boosters Club will have it. The proceeds from the Boosters' concession stands will support Sharon High athletics: all 26 varsity sports and more than 550 athletes, President Terry Barnum says. However, the Boosters open the season with a major roster problem. What was once among Sharon's top sports fundraising groups is down to just six members for the second straight year, Barnum says -- not even enough to field a starting lineup in most SHS sports. Barnum says the Boosters face "the same …

Those who walk in darkness guided by Theodore Kohan will discover life in a turn of the century Eastern European shtetl. The Sharon resident's third and latest full book, "Those Who Walk In Darkness," follows a fictional Jewish family from such a shtetl, in Bessarabia, to Boston during the 1930s. Kohan says his parents came from Bessarabia, which is now Moldova, to South America, where he was raised in Santiago, Chile. "I don't even really know the name of the shtetl my father grew up in. So, I didn't even give it a name in my book," says Kohan, 71, a retired business executive in health care…

Some might consider triple majoring in applied math, mechanical engineering and Chinese a tough academic mountain to climb. Sharon resident Alyssa Zisk is in Shanghai, China this summer through the University of Rhode Island's Chinese Language Flagship Partner Program, "a federally-funded intensive undergraduate program for highly motivated students preparing for global careers, (which) is designed to prepare greater numbers of Americans to be highly proficient in languages that are critical to national security and competitiveness. URI is one of only nine universities selected for this …