Week in Review: Baseball Star Drafted, Cable Goes Out Across Town

Mets Draft Ward Melville Baseball Star

Eyes have been on Anthony Kay all season, and for good reason. Newsday reported late Saturday that the New York Mets drafted Kay, Ward Melville's lefty ace, in the 29th round. "It's great, and now we have to decide what to do. Do I go to UConn or sign with the Mets? It's pretty cool to realize a dream and have this opportunity," Kay told Newsday.

Elementary School Pi Program to be Phased Out

While the Three Village school district's Intellectually Gifted program will remain as is for the 2013-14 academic year, school administrators on Tuesday announced plans to gradually phase out the Pi enrichment program. A committee focused on reviewing the district's gifted education offerings has recommended replacing the Pi program in grades 4, 5 and 6 with a "school-wide enrichment model" (SEM) by the end of the 2014-15 school year. 

Hobbs Farm Gets a Wheelchair-Accessible Garden

Students from Stony Brook University headed to the Hobbs Farm in Centereach over the weekend to build a wheelchair-accessible garden so that local residents with disabilities can enjoy gardening. The 7.64-acre farm, for which Setauket's Bethel AME Church is the caretaker, is located at Oxhead Road and Washington Avenue and is one of the last remaining working farms in Centereach. It was preserved as farmland in 2009 when the Town of Brookhaven purchased the development rights through the Clean Water Open Space Bond Act of 2004.

Monday's Cable Outages Frustrate Local Residents

As the rain began to fall on Monday, many residents in the Three Village area reported losing cable television, phone and internet service around 11:30 a.m. The service outages, though, were not the direct result of the weather: A Cablevision spokesperson confirmed to Patch that a car accident in a nearby area took out a utility pole, causing the service outages.

Stony Brook Nets $2.45M in State Funds for 'High Need' Fields

New York State has awarded Stony Brook University a $2.45 million grant to develop programs in what state officials have determined are "high need" areas, the university announced Friday. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement that the program targets future workforce needs in the state of New York; the program will distribute a total of $12 million to 36 SUNY campuses over the next three years.

Library Grows Tech Offerings With Interactive Garden

Library patrons have been enjoying the resources and collections inside the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library for more than a century. Now, they'll also be able to enjoy what can be thought of as the library's outdoor collection -- its gardens. In July, the library will unveil "Emma's Garden," an interactive garden experience in which patrons can take in the gardens surrounding the library and learn all about the plantings by using their smartphones or tablets to scan QR codes set up to identify each plant. Each QR code will link to information such as its origin, features and care, with gardening book recommendations and some "how-to" videos as well.