Exhibition by Vladimir Dovicak in USSK Gallery

On Thursday, June 10th, there was the official opening at the U. S. Steel Kosice Gallery in the Public Affairs building of an exhibition of paintings by Vladimir Dovicak (b. 1958), an employee in the Cokery Division. Following last month's exhibition of steelworks employees' photographs, this is the second event in a short time at the Gallery, which is run by U. S. Steel Kosice's Public Affairs Department.
The ceremony was attended by USSK Vice-presidents Scott Pape, James Connor and Martin Pitorak, and relatives, friends and colleagues of the painter as well as members of the general public. Even though Vladimir Dovicak has been painting pictures for around 15 years, and has been a member of the Cokery team for 16 years now, up until last week his coleagues knew next to nothing about his hobby. This, according to Jozef Gburik, head of operations at Coke Battery No.3, is surely because he is one of our most modest employees. He emphasized Mr.Dovicak's conscientious work as a coke battery diagnostician, and did not conceal his pride and admiration for his colleague.

Mathematical Calendar

Mathematical competitions for boys and girls, whether at elementary or high schools, are nothing exceptional. Olympiads, Pythagoriads... But all of them have something in common: the task of solving a given mathematical problem. Then the Alejova Street Grammar School in Kosice came up with a new idea - the Mathematical Calendar 2004 project. Within less than 20 days of its launch via the Internet in October last year, a total of 157 teams from 38 schools all over Slovakia had joined the project.
It consisted of six rounds, each of which involved preparing a calendar for two months of the year, during which time the participants had to accomplish four competition tasks, each one requiring them to think up a mathematical problem based on the current teaching syllabus. The project was supported financially by U. S. Steel Kosice, and this meant that last week all five most successful teams could be invited on a three-day trip to Kosice which included the final evaluation meeting for the whole project. The organizers prepared a varied and interesting program for the teams, including an excursion to the U. S. Steel Kosice works.

Exercise Phoenix for rescue teams

At 10 am on Friday, June 18th, the Military Aviation Hospital in Kosice will be infiltrated by a group of terrorists. A while later there will be the sound of small-arms firing, followed by the groaning of wounded patients and hospital staff... The operational group of the crisis management staff then set off the siren on top of the Slovan Hotel, which is meant to warn people in the hospital's vicinity of the present danger.
This is the basic scenario of the coordination exercise for units of the integrated rescue system focusing on the protection of lives and health as well as private and state property, codenamed Phoenix, which is to be held in our city at the same time as an international conference on aviation medicine and the first international forum on medicine for catastrophes. The detailed scenario for the exercise is being prepared by a 4-member panel made up of experts from the EU, the Canadian Navy and the United States Army. All the action will be happening live, and the whole exercise, due to last about an hour, will be recorded on video. The resulting film will then be used in training programs in the area of control of extraordinary situations.

Hot Strip Mill footballers celebrate the title

On Friday of last week, with constant rain soaking the slippery turf of the Slavia TU Kosice Stadium, the concluding matches were played to decide the final placings in the U. S. Steel Kosice football championships. The new champions for 2004 turned out to be the Hot Strip Mill footballers, who beat the Power Plant team in the final by the closest of margins 1:0. Bronze position went to the Blast Furnaces players, who won the contest for third place 2:0 at the expense of last year's champions from Maintenance.