Church replaces tornado-damaged stained glass windows

Rick South and Tony Casas of Berg Studios install stained glass windows at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Tuscaloosa on Tuesday. Berg Studios, based in Lubbock, Texas, is replacing the windows at the church using 90 percent of the glass recovered from the original windows, which were blown out during the April 27, 2011, tornado. A church member's photos were used to recreate the layout.

Buy Photo Michelle Lepianka Carter | Michelle Lepianka Carte

Published: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 3:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 11:42 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | The EF4 tornado that swept through Tuscaloosa on April 27, 2011, caused damage to many churches in the city.

Covenant Presbyterian Church on Hargrove Road was not spared. The damage the tornado caused has been more difficult to repair than expected.

The church's sanctuary sustained heavy damage that was easily fixable. What has been difficult to repair is the half a million dollars in damage to the church's pipe organ and stained glass windows.

Susan Benke, co-chair of Covenant's building and grounds committee, said the church has to fly in experts from Canada to fix the gigantic pipe organ because few people have the expertise.

Rush Watson, also co-chair of the buildings and grounds committee for the church, said repairing the church's stained glass windows also takes a specialized hand. The stained glass windows were made of faceted glass 1-inch thick that is difficult to procure, he said. The design of the church's stained glass, more than 50 years old, was also unique and hard to replicate.

After interviewing four different companies, church officials found a company in Lubbock, Texas, that could do the job.

?A mission group in Texas told us that Berg Studios could do all kinds of stained glass work,? Benke said. ?We wanted someone closer by, so we tried local companies, but found out that they didn't have the experience or the expertise doing faceted stained glass.

?So we called Berg, flew them in for a talk and found out that they had the experience and the skills,? she said.

Berg started installing faceted stained glass windows in the church on June 23.

Amy Weh, co-owner of Berg Studios, said installing the stained glass windows has been challenging for several reasons.

?On a scale of 1 to 10, the difficulty of this job is about an eight,? Weh said.

Some of the more than 20 colors used in the church's original windows can't be duplicated because they don't exist anymore, Weh said, such as a tan streaked with red.

Constructing new windows to resemble the originals has been like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle.

?I only had a picture to go off of,? Weh said. ?There's about 20 different colors in this design and each piece varies in size.

?I had to take the photos of the old stained glass windows and scale them up. I drew the original stained glass windows on graph paper and had to number each piece and the color of it. Then I laid out all the pieces like a giant puzzle.?

Weh was also asked to use pieces of the broken stained glass in the new windows.

?The church members took great care to collect the broken glass and Berg worked with us to re-use it,? Watson said. ?There's an emotional, sentimental element about using the same glass.?

Weh said about 90 percent of the new windows are made of glass recycled from the old windows.

?Recycling it actually saved them a lot of money,? she said.

Watson didn't give the exact cost of the project, but said that insurance and donations covered the cost.

The new windows are expected to be completed by Saturday.

Benke said she's very pleased with the project so far.

?It looks fabulous,? she said. ?It looks wonderful. The technique they use to do it today is better than it used to be.?

Watson said more light is filtered through the new stained glass windows than the old. He said the church will begin worshipping in the new sanctuary in August.

Reach Jamon Smith at jamon.smith@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0204.

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Fragile X gene's prevalence suggests broader health risk

ScienceDaily (June 14, 2012) ? The first U.S. population prevalence study of mutations in the gene that causes fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of intellectual disability, suggests the mutation in the gene -- and its associated health risks -- may be more common than previously believed.

Writing this month (June 2012) in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, a team of Wisconsin researchers reports that the cascade of genetic amino acid repeats, which accumulate over generations and culminate in the mutation of a single gene causing fragile X, is occurring with more frequency among Americans than previously believed. The study also shows that as the genetic basis for the condition is passed from generation to generation and amplified, risks to neurological and reproductive health emerge in many carriers.

"The premutation of this condition is much more prevalent than we previously thought and there are some clinical risks associated with that," explains Marsha Mailick Seltzer, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Waisman Center, who led the new study.

Fragile X is caused by the unexplained runaway expansion of a set of amino acid repeats in a single X chromosome gene known as FMR1. When fully mutated, the gene fails to express and produce a protein that's required for healthy brain development. The syndrome, which is more common in boys, results in a spectrum of intellectual disability.

However, before the gene fully mutates, carriers of the faulty gene exhibit a smaller number of elevated repeats, which expand as the gene is passed from generation to generation. Normal FMR1 genes exhibit anywhere from five to 40 repeats. Carriers with a premutation may have anywhere from 55 to 200. Those with between 45 and 54 repeats are characterized as falling into a "gray zone." Carriers of gray zone expansions often pass the mutation on to their children who themselves are at greater risk of having the premutation, and in subsequent generations the risk of a full mutation causing fragile X syndrome is high.

The goal of the new study was to calculate the prevalence in a U.S. population of the premutation and the gray zone. The research was based on data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), also known as the "Happy Days study," which for more than 50 years has tracked the careers, family life, health and education of more than 10,000 graduates of Wisconsin's high school class of 1957.

Using genetic samples from 6,747 WLS participants, the team led by Seltzer, an expert on developmental disability and family life, found that 1 in 151 females and 1 in 468 males carry the fragile X premutation while 1 in 35 females and 1 of every 42 males fall into the gray zone.

"The prevalence is high, the second highest reported in the world literature," says Seltzer, noting that the incidence of fragile X varies by population and is higher in some places such as Israel, and lower in others like Asia.

The expansion of the FMR1 gene is known to vary across ethnic groups. The sample in the WLS study is primarily white and of northern European descent.

People with the premutation are more likely to have a child with disability; to have neurological symptoms such as numbness, dizziness and faintness; and, for women, to experience early menopause. Although these symptoms have been recognized previously in clinical studies, the WLS data represent an unbiased sample and supports those observations.

"This study confirms that there are health risks associated with the premutation," says Seltzer. "People with the premutation have a higher probability of neurological and reproductive problems. There is a significant public health burden."

The new Wisconsin study was supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Co-authors include Mei Wang Baker of the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene; Jinkuk Hong, Matthew Maenner and Jan Greenberg, all of UW-Madison's Waisman Center; and Daniel Mandel of the Centers for Disease Control.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original article was written by Terry Devitt.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Marsha Mailick Seltzer, Mei Wang Baker, Jinkuk Hong, Matthew Maenner, Jan Greenberg, Daniel Mandel. Prevalence of CGG expansions of the FMR1 gene in a US population-based sample. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 2012; 159B (5): 589 DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.32065

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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