As we come to the end of 2023 and look forward to the new year, the Delran Sun looks back at the top three stories that stood out this year in the township.
Mya Milanese found a passion for horseback riding, after the end of figure skating came with COVID.
“I want the bond”
Earlier this year, we met then Delran High School senior Mya Milanese, whose endeavors we featured in a February issue of the Delran Sun, with an article headlined, “One passion ends, another begins: Delran teen rides to compete in national spotlight.”
COVID meant the end of a sport that became a passion: figure skating.
Milanese pursued that sport for about a decade before the pandemic – and serious family health issues – made it nearly impossible. So rather than ice rinks, Milanese ended up in the stables, where she rediscovered her love for riding horses.
“I enjoy just being at the barn,” she explained. “I cannot express how much I love this sport and how hungry I am to be on top. What they wanted me to become for figure skating, I know that I want to be on top for equestrian.
“I want to be the best of the best.
She also wants to learn more about the horses.
“I want to have a companion to be with me,” Milanese noted. “I want the bond that I’m beginning with my horse right now.”
Milanese was just awarded her varsity letter by the United States Equestrian Foundation, the governing body for student athletes in the sport. The NJSIAA (New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association) doesn’t recognize equestrian, so Milanese’s events are often sponsored by the national foundation.
Equestrian is a sport the teen very quickly took to heart, and she spends upwards of 20 hours a week training while taking care of her animals. Milanese initially got into equestrian while growing up with dyslexia, which stunted her academic advancement early on but also opened an avenue to what would become her sport.
While the number of competing equestrians is small, Milanese has brought the sport some attention.
Delran High School senior Riley Ahrens won a courage award for her efforts on and off the basketball court.
Okay not to be okay
In another article earlier this year, we met another Delran High School senior, Riley Ahrens, who had been named a national finalist for the Jersey Mike’s Naismith High School Basketball Courage Award.
The Sun featured her in a March article headline, “Delran senior’s ‘courage’ prompts a Naismith award nomination.”
You might recognize the word Naismith if you’re a sports fan or have some knowledge of the sports world. James Naismith, founder of the University of Kansas basketball program, is also credited with inventing the sport of basketball. His name graces the annual award given to the best college and high-school players in both men’s and women’s basketball.
Jersey Mike’s Naismith High School Basketball Courage Award – now in its fourth year – honors athletes who have shown courage on and off the floor. This season, Ahrens was named a national finalist for the award after the 2021-’22 season, in honor of boys basketball player Mason Williams, who was 17 when he died in January 2022.
Ahrens helped bring the girls and boys basketball teams and the entire high-school community closer to remember Williams and further advocate for mental-health awareness, especially in high-school athletics. His sudden passing also prompted Ahrens to take the initiative and let students, teammates, parents and everyone in the Delran community know that “It’s OK to not be OK.”
“For her to have the maturity level and the foresight to reach out to the different schools and have them help to support suicide and mental-health awareness, it was a testament to her and how much she knew that rocked the community,” Delran basketball coach Jon Repece noted.
Ahrens also encouraged other schools to remember Williams by wearing purple somewhere on their uniforms during Delran home and away games.
Kathleen Coyle of Providence House places a flower at the feet of a silhouette during the Silent Witness Project Memorial for victims of domestic violence at Rowan College at Burlington County.
“I never looked back”
Lastly, we look at “It’s not your fault,” a story by Sun writer Albert J. Countryman Jr. that appeared in the Oct. 18-25 issue of The Sun.
It’s a story far too common.
“He started wailing on me in the bed,” recalled Jessica Hailey, a domestic violence survivor and guest speaker at the Silent Witness program on Oct. 6. “I was his punching bag and I felt like he was going to kill me. I told my co-worker where I would be buried if he did, and I planned my escape.”
Hailey applied for her own apartment the next day.
“There was an opening several weeks later,” she recalled. “I took the key and never looked back.”
Hailey cried for a month before someone told her about Providence House, where counselors ensured her, “It’s not your fault.” Those words “drove me to get my life back with help from the staff at Providence House,” Hailey said of that organization’s help and support for victims of domestic violence.
“They are amazing.”
But not all victims get their lives back, as evidenced by the silhouettes of Burlington County residents who were killed by an abuser and displayed in the Student Success Center of Rowan College at Burlington County.
Tears were shed by the audience of more than 100 people when Florence Township police officer Michelle Koroseta sang a memorial song and Amy Congdon, Victim Witness Unit Supervisor for the county prosecutor’s office, read out the silhouetted names during the Silent Witness Project Memorial:
Missy DeBellis, Theresa Krawiec, Jodie Myers, Lauren Nobel, Jennifer Pheiffer, Misty Ramos, William “Mike” Seidle, Jessica Tush, Alla Barney, Marci Bucynski, Justina Bullock, Michelle Cazan, Erik Cole, Daniel “DJ” Cruz Jr., Nicole Hike, Erica Crippen, Cynthia Fortune, Shanai Marshall, Felicia Dormans, Lorraine Arsenault, Tianna Drummond, Artoria “Dee” Frazier and Sheila Maguire.
