Scott Nash has a new home in Friendship Heights for 40 of his beloved pinball machines. In September, the 59-year-old CEO of Mom’s Organic Market opened Vük Pinball on the lower level of the Chevy Chase Pavilion (5335 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.), where most games cost 50 cents or less to play. “The games are kind of nomadic,” having previously been at establishments in Bethesda and College Park, Nash says. “This is the biggest of the three [locations] and has been the most successful, I think because it’s a mall arcade open from 7 [a.m.] to 11 [p.m.].” Vük attracts competitive players for tournaments, as well as curiosity seekers and families, he says. The enterprise is more of a hobby than a moneymaking venture, says Nash, who lives in Bethesda and shows up at least once a week to vacuum the floors, empty the quarters out of the machines—and play a game or two. “It’s more than just the game,” Nash says. “I love the people … the pinball community.”
Bethesda’s Lexa Gandolfo says she often would leave her kids’ double stroller in her Chevy Suburban, piling groceries on top and creating a mess. Determined to find a better way to make use of the space, the mother of three sketched out a trunk organizer with shelving. Her patented invention, the Pakka Cargo Caddie, was eventually licensed to Lippert, a manufacturer headquartered in Indiana. It hit the market in November and is available on Amazon and other online retailers, and is slated to hit shelves at Strosniders Hardware in Bethesda in March. “It’s been the absolute hardest thing I’ve ever done,” says Gandolfo, 49, who has a background in web-based software development. “It was a real thrill for a big-time company to say, ‘That was a really good idea, Lexa, and we want to put skin in the game, spend a ton of money and develop it.’ … Inventing is … a perfect marriage of my creative side and business side.”
In February, 24-year-old Brian Myers’ book Hidden History of Montgomery County, Maryland was released by History Press, an imprint of Arcadia Publishing. The 2023 University of Maryland graduate, who grew up in Gaithersburg, interviewed local historians and residents, and pored over newspaper articles and documents in archives to uncover little-known stories about the county. From early explorers in the 1600s, to conservationist Rachel Carson, to the history of the now-closed Fourth Presbyterian School in Potomac, which Myers attended, the book includes 33 chapters with snapshots of life in Montgomery County. “It’s a dream come true,” says Myers, a longtime reader of history books by Arcadia, of publishing the book. “I’m really excited to share this local history with fellow Montgomery Countians.”
Kahlil Greene, who grew up in Germantown, was one of many with ties to Montgomery County who made the 2025 Forbes “30 Under 30” list for North America. He was featured in the social media category. In June, he also received a Peabody Award for a six-part, micro-documentary series, The Hidden History of Racism in New York City. “I call myself an educational entertainer focused on sharing history lessons that are commonly left out of school curriculums across platforms and across media,” says Greene, 24, a graduate of Poolesville High School and Yale University who now lives in Boston. Known as the “Gen Z Historian,” he creates content almost daily, writing scripts for his videos that appear on Instagram and TikTok.
Richard Kahlenberg’s new book, Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges (PublicAffairs, March 2025), makes the case for fixing class bias in college admissions, which he says is stacked for the privileged. “The research is clear that race matters in American society, but class matters more,” says the 61-year-old Rockville author who works at the Progressive Policy Institute in D.C. Kahlenberg argues that since the biggest obstacle to opportunity is economic disadvantage, colleges should move away from legacy admissions and increase community college transfers and financial aid. Although it’s too early to gauge the impact of the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended racial preferences at colleges and universities, Kahlenberg says he’s pleased a number of universities have adopted policies that have boosted economically disadvantaged students of all races. “The good news is that universities care about racial diversity,” he says. “Now they will use class to achieve both economic and racial diversity.”
As a law student in 1996, Lauren Francis-Sharma worked at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty hearings in South Africa. The Kensington author drew on that formative experience in crafting her third novel, Casualties of Truth (Atlantic Monthly Press, February 2025). The plot jumps between 1996 and 2018 following the life of a woman in Washington, D.C., who was confronted by someone she met at the hearings, in which painful human rights abuses were made public. “The challenge was trying to tell this story so it was just enough that people would get how horrible it was, but not enough that people would want to turn away,” says Francis-Sharma, 52, who returned to Johannesburg in 2024 to freshen up details for the book. “The most important part of the amnesty hearings really was about the suppression of stories. Finally, they were unearthed. Building community through stories—that’s what I do. … I hope people take this idea of listening to other people’s stories and learning from these stories.”
Rockville’s Pam Ballard says opening Knits ’N Purls in Gaithersburg was her “second act” after retiring from a career at Alcoa. She says her knitting and crochet store at 816 Muddy Branch Road is a labor of love for the community. Beyond selling yarn, it offers a range of classes and hosts social nights. On Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 7-9 p.m., people drop in (for free) with their projects and Ballard provides refreshments. “It’s a social gathering place for people to come and really enjoy each other’s company in person,” Ballard says.
This appears in the March/April 2025 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
