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This week’s sign that the year is already moving fast: the 19th Annual Rehoboth Beach Autumn Jazz Festival has announced artists for the five-day event at the Rehoboth Convention Center, scheduled for Oct. 15-19.

While festival organizers are still looking for its Saturday, Oct. 18 headliner, the lineup so far is as star-studded as the festival has seen.

The event will kick off at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 15, with the traditional opening night party, featuring a set by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group The Drifters. Celebrating their 50th year, The Drifters are responsible for such hits as “On Broadway,” “This Magic Moment” and “Under The Boardwalk.” Included is the annual Best Taste of Rehoboth cook-off, with prizes going out to the best seafood and chicken of the 2008 festival.

With more than 17,500 tickets sold for more than 150 screenings, including 62 screening sell-outs, Rehoboth Beach Film Society leaders and volunteers calculated the votes of the audience and announced “Rocket,” directed by Charles Binamé, as the 10th Annual Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival’s feature film winner.

“Rocket” is based upon discrimination against French-speaking hockey players in Canada during the late 1930s through mid-1950s. In the movie, hockey becomes a metaphor for much larger issues regarding politics and prejudice, said festival program director Joe Bilancio.

This weekend, Oct. 5-7, thousands of greyhounds will visit Dewey Beach and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for the 13th annual Greyhounds Reach the Beach weekend. For attendees -who come from all over the country and even abroad - the weekend is equal parts education, networking, socializing and enjoying the local flavors.

For area residents, the weekend offers an opportunity to meet some of these gentle dogs. In fact, several curious visitors - having learned about the breed at Dewey Beach - have gone on to adopt greyhounds of their own.

The 18th annual Rehoboth Beach Autumn Jazz Festival kicks off in earnest with the event's opening party at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center on Wednesday, Oct. 10.

Tickets are $58 and include music by the Miracles featuring Claudette Robinson (Smokey Robinson's ex) and their local opening act, the Eddie Sherman and Peggy Raley duo; this year's Mardi Gras-flavored buffet will feature a crab and chicken dish cookoff by chefs from more than a dozen local restaurants. Rehoboth's 5-day festival will continue Thursday, Oct. 11 with a double-bill convention center concert by Candy Dulfer and Brenda Russell (see story, p. A34); about three-quarters of the 1,000-seat venue has been filled.

Two cities on opposite ends of the state will be vying for your dining dollars next week. As Wilmington prepares to kick off its third annual Restaurant Week on Monday, Rehoboth Beach restaurateurs will be gearing up to welcome patrons to their second annual Restaurant Week in the Sussex County resort town on Tuesday.

Eleven restaurants in Wilmington will offer $15, two-course lunches and $30, three-course dinners. Limited tickets remain for the May 5 "Dine Around," six different dining "loops" where patrons start at one restaurant for appetizers and stop in two others for entrees and desserts.

The Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the International Student Outreach Program (ISOP), the U.S. Department of State, Social Security Administration, Delaware Dept. of Labor/Labor Law Enforcement, State of Delaware/Dept. of Justice, Internal Revenue Service and the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), will hold an international student workforce conference on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 from 10:00AM – 1:00 PM at the Hampton Inn, Route One, Rehoboth Beach.

Foreign students are getting a local helping hand. The students picked up a survival guide Wednesday for working and living in Rehoboth Beach.

The booklets have local laws and safety rules written in four languages. Rehoboth Beach residents put the guide together. They also hope to make a database of the students who come from all over the world.

The orientation program gave students information about safety, banking accounts and even where to turn for medical help.

June 14, 2006

Foreign Student Orientation at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center. Sponsored by the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce, www.beach-fun.com.