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"We are Still From Here:"Family Talks About Its Love for Manassas Park

Valentine's Day is the celebration of all types love. One family celebrates its love of community.

Pam Blake, her daughter Heather and her sister Patty Hurley-Ritnour know what it’s like to truly love the small community in which you lived, work and build a lifetime of memories.

 The women all live in Yorkshire with their families, not terribly far from where Patty and Pam grew up in Manassas Park in a home on Cabbel Street.

Now all three women spend their days in Manassas Park, working for the school divison. Pam, the first in the family to join the school division, came in 1999 as the executive assistant to then-Superintendent Dr. Thomas DeBolt who retired in 2010.

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Four years later, her daughter Heather followed her footsteps and began working as an administrative assistant at before moving to where she maintains that role. “I’ve found my home. I like working with the little ones, said Heather, a mother of three boys ages 11, 10 and 8 who are all educated in Manassas Park. Two of their cousins—Patty’s grandchildren attend school in the city with the three boys.

Patty, a former daycare owner, started working in Manassas Park as a bus driver about a year after Heather and even shuttled some of her young relatives to school and back.

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“Being in a small area, that was one of the selling points for me to come back and drive,” said Patty, who is now the director of transportation for the divison. "I like being close to home, I like being able to get to the kids and I like being able to get home at a reasonable hour.”

Patty said she clearly remembers when Manassas Park was still apart of Prince William County and she’s seen the city grow over the years. Manassas Park officially became a city in 1975. “Its had its up and downs, but during the last 10 to 12 years its been on an upward slope,” Patty said. There’s a group of six to eight bus drivers who are, "Manassas Park orginials" and have seen the community change, Patty said. “And that’s nice, because they’ve (bus drivers) seen Manassas Park grow, they love it here and they still want to be here,” Pam added.

The bulk of her years working in Manassas Park were spent witnessing, feeling and aiding in the transition of its school division.“For 10 years, Dr. Debolt and I, all we did besides our normal routine work is build schools,” Pam said, laughing.

When her mother first started working for Manassas Park schools, her oldest son was just a baby, Heather said. He's now 11 and in his lifetime, four new city schools have been built.

While many things in the small city are now different, some things are the same.   “There are many changes that have happened over the years, but Manassas Park is still Manassas Park,” Patty said. “There’s a wonderful knew but it’s still and the kids are still playing ball there. My brother played ball out there and we played ball out there on the same field. As much as change has happened, the old stuff is still here."

It’s a blessing and a challenge to live and work in the same vicinity as your family members, said Pam who lives across the street from Patty and shares her home with Heather and her family. There’s not much of that small-town situation here in Northern Virginia anymore,” Pam said. “It’s so transient.  People are not from here anymore, but we’re still from here.”


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