Arts Life
Jewish Stars
Olympic Dreams
ALAN HITSKY
Associate Editor
•
•
Free installation
all our fireplace glass doors
free standard install doors available in sizes and finishes to match our decor
Fireplace Glass Doors
Hearth Craft Raidowieluxe full frame full-fold
bifold doors for your factory built fireplaces from
Lennox, Superior, Majestic, Heatilator, Heat-N-
Glo & more others-sizes even up to 43" wide
includes custom sizes- most
- 379.99
r
Take an extr
1 0%o f
in stock fireplace gas log
set or fireplace grate-
co u.pon valid to 12/9/04
Take an extra
Ta e an extr
15%o
5off
bar ecue cover
coupons cannot he combined
any fireplace tool set or
log holder or basket-
coupon valid to I 2/9104 L coupon valid to 12/9/04
Clearance beautifulgas log sets from $199_
includes: rate burner embers sand ravel & sa et ilot control
4 Seasons Fireplace & Barbecue
30903 Orchard Lake, Farmington Hills by the Gap,
Open Sundays 10am to 6pm, Mondays and Thursdays 10am-9pm,
Tuesdays & Wednesday 1 Oarn-7pm, Fridays 10am-4pm, Closed Saturdays
12/ 3
2004
70
sale ends
12/09/04
248-855-0303
Expert Installation & Service
916260
skater, does homework until her sessions
start at 9:15. The Leggetts are home-
schooling Rachel.
Cheryl Leggett can spend more than
four hours per day at the rink, between
her two children, and works at the skat-
ing club one morning a week as a
"music monitor" — playing the skaters'
music for their routines. Working as a
monitor helps lower the cost of the chil-
dren's ice time, as does practicing in the
morning, rather than afternoons or
evenings.
"At the level they are at," says Cheryl,
"the cost is $28,000 annually per skater."
The Leggetts have reduced the cost to
$38,000 this year because Joshua has 10
sessions per week, instead of the usual
11 or 12, and because of the music
monitor job. "We just couldn't afford
more," Cheryl says.
oshua Leggett of West Bloomfield
has an expensive dream. And, hav-
ing just turned 9, he has found a
lovely partner to help realize the dream.
Joshua, of West Bloomfield, and his
partner, Laura Perry, 8 1/2, of Bloomfield
Hills, are among the youngest ice danc-
ing couples in the United States. Paired
as a team in October 2003, Perry and
Leggett won gold medals at their level at
the Ann Arbor Invitational last spring
and at the Lake Placid (N.Y.) Ice Dance
Championships in August. In Ann
Arbor, they competed against two other
teams; in Lake Placid, they competed
against an older team.
To get to this level, Joshua has been
skating since age 4. He's now on the ice
for approximately 20
hours over a six-day
week, and his parents,
Jim and Cheryl
Leggett, have both
taken on two jobs to
pay the $38,000 annu-
al skating bill for
Joshua and his sister,
Rachel, 11.
Since she was little,
Rachel has wanted to
be an Olympic skater.
Her mother began tak-
ing her for skating les-
sons at age 4, bringing
2-year-old Joshua along
in his stroller. Joshua
followed in his sister's
"skates" two years later.
The family has given Laura Perry and Joshua Leggett
up a lot to follow their
Olympic dream. Cheryl
gets up at 4:30 a.m. most days to get
She also works part time teaching
Joshua and Rachel to the Detroit
computer classes for preschoolers at
Skating Club in Bloomfield Hills. His
Temple Israel's Early Childhood Center.
ten 50-60-minute sessions per week start Husband Jim, a video engineering
between 6:15 and 7 a.m. and usually
supervisor, works a full-time job and
run back-to-back.
moonlights with a second company.
They include working with a personal
Cheryl says the effort is worth it. "It is
trainer on strength and conditioning
definitely rewarding for me to see the
exercises, a group ballet class one day per two kids trying to reach their dream.
week, working with a freestyle skating
From the beginning, my husband always
coach and with, partner Laura, with an
told them to quit if they decided they
ice dance coach.
didn't like it."
Keith Elementary in Walled Lake
It was Joshua's idea to find a partner
Schools allows Joshua to be 30-minutes
last year. "When are you going to get me
late for school the one day per week
a girl?" he told his parents and coaches.
Joshua's practice session starts at 7 a.m.
The coaches tried him with several
Meanwhile, sister Rachel, a freestyle
partners before he was paired with Laura
Perry. "The look was there, their strokes