Truckin' on the Western Branch

community away from the school. On High Street, the school was in the heart of the community. Old people don’t make a community grow—young families do, and schools have to be central to the community. After a decade at Churchland, coaching boys’ basketball, girls’ soccer and basketball, and earning a degree in sports management from Old Dominion University, Didawick became athletic director at Western Branch High in 1997. “The community is changing economically—there’s been a big influx from public housing in Portsmouth, and politics are not the right way to zone communities,” he said. “It’s a revolving system as people move from community to community, a continuous shifting. But I’ve not seen any real racial problems in either school.”

Didawick married Debbie Harrison, a 1989 Churchland High graduate, but Churchland/Western Branch still is not really home.

“I’m a true West Virginia country boy and still feel like an outsider here,” he said. “This is where I live but my heart is in West Virginia.”

Sara Seidman Vance Sara Vance grew up being known as the daughter of Mr. Quick—the chicken impresario of Churchland. Today, she holds her own as an Emmy-nominated, award-winning, professional makeup artist who works in TV, indie films, and on stage, including her current job with the 700 Club telecast.

Mark Didawick. Image by Sheally

“It’s not makeup,” she said. “It’s the illusion of reality!”

Show business runs in the family. Her father, Philip Seidman, was a vaudeville song-and-dance man before he turned to the restaurant business, a profession he attacked with the same energy he had on stage.

He was a widower when he married Suzanne, Vance’s mother and an artist, painter, and director of the Portsmouth Community Arts Center. He moved his restaurant operation to Churchland and called it Trucker Burger.

But then Burger Chef came to town and started selling cheaper hamburgers. Phil couldn’t compete and almost went bankrupt until he opened Mr. Quick. After school my sister Michele and I got dropped off there. I loved the Twinkies and the orange slush machine.

Later on he was also an umpire for the Tidewater Tides and Portsmouth Cubs.

I went to the Demonstration School, Western Branch Junior High and 9th and 10th grade at Western Branch High before I enrolled in the North Carolina School of Arts in Winston-Salem to study opera. Michele and I started singing at an early age.

Sara Seidman Vance. Image by Sheally

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