photo by: Mike Yoder

A zigzagging string of Christmas lights connects a neighborhood of homes and trees just north of Quail Run School on Woodridge Drive. Chad Dodd and Chris Eagle are the neighbors who provide and install the lights each year.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Ted Savich, 13, and an eighth-grader at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School, pulls up a watermelon from the school garden while he and Max Ahlvers, 11, right, were weeding Thursday, August 25, 2011.

photo by: Subarna Bhattachan

Bridget Patti, of Lawrence, holds up toothbrushes that were given away to poor residents who lived in the Mustang district of Nepal. Very few residents in the sparsely populated district owned a toothbrush and there was no dentist to provide care. Patti was part of a medical mission team who provided supplies and care. The trip was Oct. 28-Nov. 8.

photo by: Subarna Bhattachan

Bridget Patti, Lawrence, takes the vital signs of a woman during a free clinic in the village of Tukche in Nepal. She volunteered to take part in a medical mission trip to Nepal that was organized through the Kansas City-based World Outreach Foundation. She assisted a general practitioner with care and dispensed medication, toothbrushes, toys and hats.

photo by: Brandon Cusick

Dr. Doug Cusick, a plastic surgeon from Kansas City, center, along with two Nepali doctors volunteered to help poor, rural residents during a medical mission trip that was organized through the Kansas City-based World Outreach Foundation.

photo by: Nebraska Furniture Mart

Retired Lawrence Police Sgt. Mark Warren

photo by: Special to the Journal-World

Owner Ehren Penix says his potbellied pig, Sparky, is clean, well-behaved and affectionate.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Jeff Weinberg, assistant to the chancellor at Kansas University, is entering phased retirement. One of his hobbies and passions is painting.

photo by: John Young

Becky Wisdom, center, is surprised by Christmas carolers as she answers the door to her southwest Lawrence home Friday, Dec. 23, 2011.