Dee Kantner, a 1978 Exeter grad, who is one of the preeminent women’s college basketball officials, was elected to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame Tuesday.

Kantner, a longtime resident of Charlotte, N.C., has officiated 22 Final Fours and 15 NCAA championship games.

In 1997, she and Violet Palmer were the first women hired as NBA officials.

Kantner has also served as supervisor of officials and director of referee development for the WNBA.

Among those included in the 12-person class are two-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., PGA Tour veteran Davis Love III and former ACC Commissioner Gene Corrigan.

The induction ceremony will be held in May.

After successfully launching as a mobile business, Donut NV, Alex and Amanda Gingold, 2001 graduates, opens a brick-and-mortar location. 

Donut NV recently put down roots on South Hanover Street in Pottstown in a retail space included in the Hanover Square townhome development.

“It was one of those opportunities that found us,” said co-owner Alex Gingold. “The highlight of the brick-and-mortar store is getting to know the community.”

Royersford residents Alex and Amanda (Scott) Gingold set up the brick-and-mortar doughnut shop after launching a successful food truck business focused on selling doughnuts in July 2015.

“It was so successful we had to add another trailer the following month,” said Alex Gingold, a Lehigh County native who graduated from Penn State Berks with a degree in small business and entrepreneurship in 2012. “We travel the Tri-state area.”

Putting down roots

Alex and his wife, Amanda, who graduated from Exeter High School in 2001 and also attended Penn State Berks, put down roots in the doughnut business in 2014 with a kiosk at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets, called Cinnamini Donuts.

The mini doughnuts are made in front of the customers and are only about a third the size of a regular doughnut, hopefully bringing less guilt to the table.

Alex said, “It was something different. Cupcakes were kind of played out.”

Donuts were a runaway success for the Gingolds, according to Alex, and the demand grew for catering weddings, private parties and corporate events.

“We both came from corporate America,” he said. “We weren’t happy with our schedules and we wanted to work together and spend more time together.”

The kiosk at the Premium Outlets solidified a relationship with the outlet’s owner, Simon Premium Outlets, who eventually permitted the Gingolds’ food trucks access to their outlets along the East Coast.

“The kiosk was good, but you were tied to a seven day a week schedule,” Alex said. “The food trucks allowed us to follow the market.The food trucks are still a full-time business for us.”

And the market research told the Gingolds that the name Cinnamini Donuts denoted only cinnamon doughnuts to consumers, causing the brand to relaunch as Donut NV in 2018.

Franchise opportunities for mobile doughnut shops in protected mobile territories are offered through Donut NV with a proprietary mobile unit that converts from a kiosk to a trailer, an endeavor which took a year to develop and is made at a company in Salt Lake City.

“The unit can be pulled with almost any vehicle,” Alex said.

Selling and training

Along with franchise opportunities came the need for training, which started the Gingolds on the journey ending with their shop in Pottstown which will double as a training facility.

The 1,000-square-foot store has 20 seats for customers and joins the development leasing office and a yoga studio in retails spaces.

onut NV doughnuts are made from a proprietary recipe and created in custom doughnut-making machines made in Hungary, stamped with the Donut NV logo, and available to be sold to franchisees.

“They’re cake doughnuts, not yeast doughnuts,” Alex said. “They’re light and fluffy.”

The doughnuts are reminiscent of funnel cake, he says, and can be topped with a choice of sugars including Oreo, Fruity Pebbles, cinnamon and French toast, and dipped in sauce such as vanilla, Hershey’s chocolate and Nutella.

Alex said his wife is a big cooking advocate and baker and he enjoys eating sweets.

“It’s a good mix,” he said.

Also available at Donut NV are fresh squeezed orange juice and lemonade, fresh brewed ice tea, hot coffee and a special iced coffee called NVous, a blend with condensed milk and sugar.

A grab-and-go case is onsite for a quick meal and Nelson’s ice cream, previously made in Royersford, is on the menu in cups, cones, and milkshakes, along with bagels from the New York Bagelry in West Lawn.

“We always said if we had a store, we’d have the best bagels,” Alex said.

Traffic to the new shop has been busy with early morning commuters, students, networking groups, travelers, and residents, and corporate and catering orders have been coming in with delivery available within a 25-mile radius through EZ Cater, according to the owners.

“We went back to our roots and what we enjoyed,” Alex said. “You can really change someone’s attitude by giving someone something delicious. We have so many people saying thank you for picking Pottstown.”

He replaces Deb Schlosser.

Keller was the Berks player of the year as a senior at Exeter in 2006, went on to be a four-year starter at Division I Rutgers-Newark University and played professionally in England in 2011.

He coached in the Daniel Boone boys program and the Red Rose Volleyball Club from 2012-16. He is a current member of Team LVC of the National Volleyball Association.

Matthew Hathaway’s (2000) labor of love in developing the Teachers in the Parks summer program has earned him national recognition as one of 46 recipients this year of the NEA Foundation’s prestigious California Casualty Awards for Teaching Excellence.

Hathaway, an elementary teacher in the Exeter Township School District, Berks County, founded Teachers in the Parks as a young teacher in 2004. Other teachers and school districts, particularly in the Berks County region, have joined in over the years.

“Teachers across Berks County earned this national honor,’’ Hathaway said. “Together, they have sent a clear message across Pennsylvania and now our nation that high-quality summer learning programs provide children a much clearer path to literacy and math proficiency.’’

Recipients of the Teaching Excellence award are nominated by their peers in NEA state affiliates based on their dedication to the profession, attention to diversity, and advocacy for fellow educators.

Leocadia Lellig of Exeter Township has passed on her freshman year at Penn State to join the Disney on Ice tour as a performer. About three weeks of intensive rehearsing is next.

At age 4, Leocadia Lellig was a bored younger sibling watching her big brother learn to skate.

Christian, now 20, never really took to the ice.

But Cadia, as she’s known to her family, convinced her mom to get her lessons, too. She wowed the Learn-to-Skate coaches at the Body Zone Sports and Wellness Complex in Spring Township, and they quickly referred her to private lessons.

Now 18, Lellig will be making dreams come true this fall as part of the Disney on Ice Worlds of Enchantment show, performing alongside the likes of Ariel the Little Mermaid, “Toy Story’s” Buzz and Woody and “Frozen’s” Elsa and Anna.

An ensemble cast member, she has a nine-month contract that carries her through a new season, which starts Sept. 27.

“I always thought Disney on Ice was so cool,” said Lellig, who graduated from Exeter High School in June. “The level of skating is pretty professional. I’ve been really focused on making sure all my jumps are up to par and trying to get my double axles consistent.”

Most days this summer, she spent about 45 minutes at Body Zone’s gym working on strength and cardio training, followed by 90 minutes of skating practice on the rink downstairs.

By Lellig’s side has been Andrei Lavrentiev, her coach for almost all of her childhood.

He was there as she struggled with her first scratch spin at age 6— “That was a big episode, especially for my poor mom,” Lellig remembered — and when she traveled to Brazil to promote figure skating prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Having passed her senior free skate, Lellig could have continued to compete at the highest levels of the U.S. Figure Skating Association. But she said she prefers to put on her best performance rather than simply outdo other skaters.

That’s one reason Lavrentiev encouraged Lellig to send in an audition tape last year.

“You have to like to perform, and you have to have artistic skills,” said Lavrentiev, who spent six years with Disney on Ice before an injury led him to coaching. “When you’re competing, you might do it once a month. In Disney on Ice, you have to perform every day — and you have to be happy and smile no matter what.”

Lellig was one of three women to audition in person for Disney last year in Newark, N.J., between two shows with current cast members. Now that she’s been named to the cast, she’s gearing up for an intense three-week rehearsal period during which she will have to learn complicated sequences, get fitted for costumes and keep up her skating endurance.

An Olympic freestyle skate runs about 4 minutes. A Disney performance can last up to two hours, and on some days, the cast squeezes in three shows.

Performers travel from city to city on buses, sharing hotel rooms and making meals on the fly. Lellig said she recently discovered she’ll be accompanied by Rachel Wegfahrt, a Lehigh Valley skater who spent the last four years at a Minnesota boarding school known for its skating program.

Lellig’s lifestyle will be a departure from what she envisioned happening this fall. Recognized by the Reading Eagle as a Berks’ Best 2018 visual arts nominee, Lellig was accepted to Penn State University, attended orientation and set up her fall class schedule.

In high school, she enjoyed art classes, earning accolades at the Berks County Intermediate Unit’s Secondary Art exhibit and a GoggleWorks art show; kept herself flexible by performing with the Berks Ballet Theatre since age 3; and performed in Exeter’s theater program in shows ranging from “Bye Bye Birdie” to “Shrek the Musical.”

When she found out she made the cut at Disney, she deferred her Penn State admission and started buying hot pots and other dorm-like accommodations for her life as an on-the-road skater.

She also stopped her job as a Learn-to-Skate instructor to focus on improving her own skills.

Once her tour starts, Lellig won’t have much access to the ice outside of her call times, Lavrentiev said.

On a recent Thursday afternoon, Lellig showed off her smooth style, marked by tight layback spins, breathtakingly fast spirals and graceful waltz jumps.

When Lavrentiev cued up Michael Jackson on the rink’s audio system, she tried to string together a few of the moves that got her into Disney’s good graces. Though the exact choreography escapes her, Lellig smiled easily as she mimicked Jackson’s iconic moonwalk and a lean made famous in the “Smooth Criminal” video.

In just a few weeks, the music will be bubblier, the costumes bulkier and the fresh choreography drilled in to her.

“I’ll need to know all the numbers, to be able to do the footwork, the turning, the edge work,” Lellig said. “I think it will be fun. I’ve always loved to spin, and I like to do tricks.”