Everybody I know is going to be out helping Newtown celebrate its big 3-0-0 this weekend except my friend Teddy Coney.

It is apparent from this picture that Teddy thinks he’s going to be going places this weekend, but the organizers of this weekend’s tercentennial events have asked that people not bring dogs to the events. Normally the Fairfield Hills venue for the tercentennial activities is dog heaven. Dog walkers bring their pets from miles around to enjoy the grounds. But the campus is going to be off limits to Teddy and all other canines. Good thing they didn’t say anything about cats.

More than 500 fans attended Midnight Potter Parties at the three Stew Leonard’s stores on Friday, July 15, so that they could be among the first to purchase and read J.K. Rowling’s sixth installment of the Harry Potter book series. In conjunction with the book release, the dairy store held a book review contest, asking readers to submit an evaluation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by the following Friday for a chance to win a $50 Stew Leonard’s gift certificate. Luke Aho Shearin of Newtown was named the Danbury store winner last week.

Not only did the young readers (all three winners are 11 years old) devour all 652 pages in one week, they also took the time to thoughtfully critique the book. Luke, who gave the latest book a five out of five possible stars as a rating, said he liked the new installment because, “Harry was allowed to continue his studies to become an Auror and also allowed to play Quidditch.” He would, he also said, “very, very highly” recommend the book to others. I recommend he use some of that gift certificate to buy a nice big container of milk. We could curl up together and discuss all things Harry Potter.

Peter Van Buskirk, who accompanied members of Boy Scout Troop 70 to Philmont Ranch in New Mexico last month, reports that the high altitude and rock-bottom humidity resulted in seven spontaneous nosebleeds among the 14 hikers — and only five more accidentally induced ones.

Jimmy Crouch, former director of Newtown’s 911 emergency center who now lives in Thailand, recently represented the National Emergency Number Association in a World Health Organization conference on the health aspects of the Tsunami disaster in Asia, in co-operation with the Ministry of Public Health of the Royal Thai Government. His firsthand report on the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in Thailand, and its emergency communications system, was published in the March 2005 issue of Emergency Number Professional Magazine and in The Bee. He has been attempting to get donated emergency communications equipment from the United States and to integrate it into the Thai system. Anyone who is interested in helping, can reach him at jimmy_crouch@hotmail.com.

Police Youth Officer Dana Schubert has encountered an avian problem in his neighborhood. It seems that as the sun rises, the local guinea fowl also shows up for breakfast. Alarm clocks are pretty efficient devices. But alarm clocks cannot hold a candle to guinea fowl, whose absurdly loud voices wreck havoc in the officer’s peaceful neighborhood. The birds, which munch insects contentedly, make sounds that are startlingly loud. I guess that’s the price of living in the country.

Clark Kathan was looking with admiration this week at the stormwater drainage work that’s being done in the rear parking lot of Edmond Town Hall in conjunction with an elevator installation project there. In the future, when it rains heavily, drainage will pose no problems there, Clark attests. Clark plans to give me a ride on the new elevator when it is in service later this year.

Finally, I would like to send greetings to Virginia Heller in South Bend, Ind. Virginia is Susan Coney’s mom who has been a subscriber and avid reader of The Bee since Susan started reporting for The Bee. Virginia says she passes her paper around to all her friends, none of whom have ever been to Newtown. All of them, however, are now hooked on the continuing saga of Newtown —especially, ahem, as reported in this column. I guess I won’t have to tell any of them to…

Read me again.