Friendship and Discipline at the Trenton School of Dance

With her arms jutting from her sides and toes pointed, Reagan Wellman spun and jumped across a large room with a wall-sized mirror on one side and pictures of ballet dancers on another, while two instructors called out directions.

Reagan is a student at the Trenton School of Dance. She's 10 years old. She's been dancing at the school since she turned three.

Reagan is one of hundreds of girls who've spent countless hours over the past 37 years practicing ballet under the tutelage of the instructors at the Trenton School of Dance.

In 2009, Meredith Shamanski, 28, of Detroit, took ownership of the school after her aunt, Trenton resident Judy Shamanski, decided to retire.

"She comes in to check up on me," Meredith Shamanski said. "She's well-loved among current students."

Meredith Shamanski, her cousin Errin Menna, 29, and Charlie Howard, 26, make up the school's staff; each began dancing when they were very young.

Meredith Shamanski has a bachelor's degree in dance from Eastern Michigan University and has been dancing under her aunt's direction since she could walk.

"My aunt was trained in Detroit in the Cecchetti method, which is a strict ballet training method," Meredith Shamanski said. "She danced for the Detroit City Ballet,Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action which is no longer around."

Menna and Howard have full-time jobs during the day, but from the time the school opens at 4 p.m. to the time it schools at 9 p.m.Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person., their focus becomes teaching ballet, jazz and tap dancing.

Menna, a high school teacher in Dearborn Heights, said she likes teaching the younger students.

"They wanna be here and they always have a smile on their faces," Menna said.

While staff encourage everyone ages three to 18 to register for classes, acceptance to the school can be tricky. Registration is only available in August and some previous dance training is often required.

"It can be very difficult to teach dance to an older student who has never taken dance before," Howard said.

Meredith said students often begin taking classes at the school at a very young age and return year after year because they want dance to play a major role in their lives. Students often make strong friendships with fellow dancers.

"They love going to dance class because they have such good relationships with both the staff and their friends they dance with," Toth said.

One-by-one students marched in through the glass door of the Trenton School of Dance and out onto the gray tile floor as quietly as the soft, slick shoes strapped to the bottom of their feet. With their heads still and eyes straight ahead, their hands felt for a long wooden bar hanging from the wall. The music played.We've got a plastic card to suit you. And they danced.

Jim Andersen, president of NMS Properties, the current developer, worked with Killefer Flammang Architects (KFA) -- the original architect -- to complete the two urban contemporary six-story buildings.

“Residents will be able to live, work, and play without ever needing to get into their cars,” said Andersen. “This is part of our vision for walkable destination apartments for lease in Santa Monica. Leading this kind of lifestyle will save residents thousands of dollars in car-related expenses and reduce their carbon footprint.”

The building exteriors of the two buildings utilize plaster, resin panels, and painted metal panels and are further distinguished by sloping, metal roofs, which also conceal mechanical equipment, according to KFA principal Barbara Flammang, whose firm has designed more than 8,Did you know that custom keychain chains can be used for more than just business.000 units of multifamily housing..

Another design element of the $22 million project are the powder-coated custom blue tube steel trellises which march along the ground floor and are echoed at the fifth and sixth floor balconies.

I would like to speak now about perhaps the most challenging and sensitive part of our relationship - our work together to combat organized crime and strengthen the rule of law in Bulgaria. In recent years, we have identified drug trafficking, cybercrime, ATM skimming, and other economic crimes as priority areas for law enforcement cooperation. Collaboration between our respective law enforcement services is excellent in these areas and is producing concrete results. This, in turn, has persuaded the U.S. Government to significantly increase our resources for joint law enforcement activities here in Bulgaria.

Fighting crime is a lot more than just policing. It requires an able and efficientprosecution service as well as a determined and impartial judiciary. Recent events have demonstrated that there is considerable interest in Bulgaria in having a prosecution service and a national judiciary that can truly uphold the rule of law. And there has been progress in that regard. The selection of the Supreme Judicial Council as well as the Prosecutor General involved a serious examination of the credentials of the candidates and were conducted in a more transparent manner than before, though there is still room for improvement. Most important will be whether those selected will institute needed reforms. There is a lot of work to be done. The U.S. is committed to assisting Bulgarian efforts to reform the legal system so that the process of administering justice can be efficient and effective, but ours is a supporting role - the impetus and energy has to come from Bulgarians.

Going forward, we plan to continue our engagement on strengthening the rule of law. We are bringing prosecutors and judges to consult with their Bulgarian counterparts and share their experiences. In the past year, members of the Specialized Court for organized crime cases and the Ministry of Justice traveled to the United States for a week of consultations with their counterparts in our Federal criminal justice system. We have identified subject matter experts who have come to Bulgaria to assist the Ministry of Justice as it drafts new legislation. We are training law enforcement officials at the FBI Academy as well as through the International Law Enforcement Academy, or ILEA, in Budapest.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? And both our FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have sent agents to work side-by-side with their Bulgarian counterparts.

But of course the key ingredient for success here is going to be your determination - the commitment of Bulgarian officials and civil society to make needed reforms.