a re A re ro (continued from PAGE ONE) “Last Sunday evening Bill Wilcox, the State Fuel Alloca- tion Officer, called me and asked me to tour the area with him Monday, advising me that it was a crisis,” Mr. Lasala continued. Backing up Mr. Lasala’s explanation, Mr. Wilcox, during the same press conference, said that he was unaware of the gas part of the state until Friday. I learned about it from a phone call from a Scranton newspap- erman who called me Friday,” he said. J get more mail from Con- gressman Flood than I get from County,” Mr. Wilcox continued, “but somehow I had not re- ceived word from the congress- man concerning the gasoline shortage.” ~~ “Itis routine in my office that calls from mayors and public Robert Griffiths Studies in Capital Robert Griffiths, 925 Clear- view Ave., Trucksville, is enrol- led in the Drew University Pro- gram in Washington. He is one of some 25 Drew students who each spring study at George Washington University, intern in Congressional offices, and come together for some 40 to 50 meetings with senators, con- gressmen, Supreme Court Jus- tices, lobbyists, journalists, and congressional, White House, and independent agency executives. The resident director of the D., an experienced college teacher and author, who re- cently collaborated on a book about political patronage with her husband, Martin, of the “New York Times.” Mr. Griffiths, a senior at Drew, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Griffiths of Trucksville, and a 1970 graduate of Dallas Senior High School. Drew University is a small, independent university located in a 150-acre forested campus an hour west of New York City. officials receive high priority,” Mr. Wilcox said. ‘But the fact of the matter is that no such calls ‘about the gas shortage here reached me until the crisis was already severe.” Mr. Wilcox admitted that he had missed lots of calls once the crisis was evident. “We were contacted by the telephone company and notified that calls trying to reach my office were tying up the whole system of greater Harrisburg,” he said. “We have estimates that we re- ceived 10,000 telephone calls yesterday that never got through.” A spokesman in the office of Scranton Mayor Eugene J. Peters acknowledged that the mayor had not contacted state and federal officials until last week. “The mayor took the po- sition that he needed authoriza- tion from council,’”’ the spokes- man said. ‘““As soon as the resolution passed council, the mayor acted.” Scranton council president James Doherty, however, laid the blame at the feet of Con- gressmen McDade and Flood. Calling the situation more of a ‘‘disaster’”’ than an ‘‘emer- gency’, councilman Doherty said that the congressmen have been ‘‘derelict in their duty.” Mr. Doherty said the con- gressmen announce everything, “even the weather,” and he de- clared that if the problem is to be solved, it will be solved in the House of Representatives. Later, however, a council spokesman said that he ‘doubted’ that councilman Doherty had notified state or federal officials either. In Luzerne County, Commis- sioner Edmund Wideman Sr. told Greenstreet News that it had all happened too quickly for the commissioners to act. “By the time we knew about it . . . it all happened in one week . . . we never heard of the proper forms until last Monday when Wilcox came to town. We then immed- iately made application,” he said, referring to the federal FEO form 17. “From last Monday on the acuteness of the gas shortage became known,” Mr. Wideman said, as if he had failed to notice the long lines of motorists vir- tually all over the county. way of knowing the extent of the shortage,” the commissioner said. “We're being short changed because the present law has nothing to take care of the fact that so many gas stations in the area have been shut down. Gulf has pulled out and we're sup- posed to be getting 85 percent of last year’s gas, but we're only getting about 50 percent,”” Mr. Wideman concluded. When asked specifically who was derelict in reporting the gasoline shortage in this region, Mr. Lasala took a different approach. ‘The community as a whole was derelict,” he said. “My job is to move the product, and as soon as I was made aware of the crisis situation, I took action. The Wilcox approach to the dereliction was distinctly dif- ferent: ‘‘The oil companies are “We have begun an investiga- tion,” he told Greenstreet, ‘‘and we think there is more gasoline stock in storage than there was at the same time last year. In fact, we think there is more than one third more than a year ago. We think the FEO should insist that this gas is distri- buted. We think this view will be supported widely in the next four to eight weeks.” Laying blame for the regional gas shortage squarely at the cox said that ‘‘the confusion has been brought about because of the lack of leadership and federal guidelines at the Federal Energy Office,” taking a similar approach to that ot Gov. Milton Shapp. Both Congressmen Flood and McDade also took the same ap- proach. Answering the charge that the FEO was not notified about the gas shortage in North- eastern Pennsylvania, Mike Clark in Rep. Flood’s Washing- ton office told Greenstreet News last Thursday that the con- gressman had kept the FEO office in Washington and Phila- delphia continually informed about the local situation ‘‘for at least a month.” “FEO officials are misin- forming the public about the federal register Form 17s also,” a congressional spokesman said, explaining that the allocations granted through the use of the FEO Form 17 is normally handled completely through the oil com- panies and seldom go through any government office. ‘The’ normal procedure is for the major oil companies to provide the forms to local retailers. Should the retailer run low on gas, he should submit the com- pleted form back to the parent company, which then processes it, and grants an increased al- lotment. The 30th annual District 2 P.ILA'A. wrestling tournament scheduled for March 1 and 2 will be divided into two divisions, Class A and Class B. For the first time in the history of the district, schools will be divided and the two divisions will run concurrently at different loca- tions. The A champions will be de- cided at Coughlin High School in Wilkes-Barre while the B titles will be determined at the John Long Center, Scranton Univer- sity. Preliminaries in both events will get underway Friday at 6:30 p.m. with semi-finals start- ing Saturday at 1:30 and the finals Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Teams participating in Class A ‘include Abington Heights, Bishop Hoban, Bishop O'Reilly, Coughlin, Nanticoke, Meyers, Pittston Area. Scranton Cen- tral. Scranton Tech. West Scranton, Wyoming Area, and Wyoming Valley West. Consolation bouts are return- ing in Class A and the top three wrestlers in each weight class will advance to the Northeast Regional Tournament at Wil- liamsport, March 8 and 9. Luther Richards is the “A” tournament director with Jim Ferris as assistant director. Teams participating in Class B include Bishop O’Hara, G.A.R., Hanover, Lake-Leh- man, Scranton Prep, and West Side Tech. The top two wrestlers in each weight class will advance to the Northeast Regional Tourna- ment also scheduled for the John Long Center March 8 and 9. Dallas, Hanover, and Lake- Lehman are the pre-tourna-; ment favorites. : Four District 2 champs from last season will return for another go at their titles. Bill Heller, 88 1b. champ from Abington Heights, and Bob Watlock, 105 lb. titlist from Wyoming Valley West, will par- ticipate in the Class A event, and Dave Puchalsky, last year’s 132 lb. champ from Dallas, and Len Kaminski, 126 Ib. crown winner from Hanover Area, will have another go in Class B. A rundown of Lake-Lehman Coach Chip Sorber's probable entries and their records for the season are: Mike Galka, 2-2 league (88); Steve Klemunes, 13-2 overall, (95); Dwight Bar- bacci, 13-2, overall, or Jim Hig- gins, 8-4-1- overall, (105); Ed Nixon, 15-1 overall. (112); Doug Agnew, 15-2 overall, (119); Keith Bonham, 1-0 (126); Hugh Five local physique stars will he competing at the Greater Scranton YMCA in Dunniore March 3, at the Junior and Senior Mr. Pennsylvania Phy- sique Contests. 1973's Mr. Anth- racite of Wilkes-Barre, David Budnick. plus John Seratore, Mickey Cogletti, Joe Bunomo and Bob Porietto have announc- ed that they will compete. Awards will be given to the first five place winners in each ‘contest by Scranton Mayor Eu- gene Peters and Miss Keystone State, Lyn Seamen, of Scranton. Prejudging. which is opened to the general public, will start at 10 a.m., Sunday. The place sys- tem will be used in judging the winners. ; £ Bob O'Leary of Scranton, contest chairman, has announc- ed the following have been ap- pointed judges: Abe Goldberg, l.eonard Krisando and Dr. Harry Shafran, of Scranton; John Kuc. Kingston; Franklin Page. Louisville, Ky.: Dick Shatel. Long Island; Val Vaughn, Houston, Texas. and Jim “Mr. World® Handley. of Baltimore, Md. The Mid-Valley Karate Club. under the direction of second- degree black belt-holder Roger Sparks, will put on a **One Kar- ate Exhibition’ featuring a “Tang So Do" breaking exhibition which will feature ladies as well as men breaking bricks and two-by-fours. Jones, 4-2 (132); Joe Haczew- ski, 7-6-1 (138); G. Naugle, 5-9 (145); R. Case, 6-7-1 (155); Fred 7-8 overall (180); Tom Wil- liams, 7-8 overall (hwt.) The Lake-Lehman grapplers are strong in the lightweights and could well place most of them in the finals although much depends on how the wrestlers drop or go up in weight classes. This plus seeding has much to do with the final outcome. Coach Larry Schuler, whose Mountaineers shared the win- ners’ circle this season with the Meyers: Mohawks, hopes to place at least 10 in the finals Saturday night going with the luck of the draw. His probable entries and their records are: Dave Dierolf, 8-3- 1, or Steve Pinter, 9-3-1 (10-4-1 overall) (95); Dave Konnick, 9- 0-1 (12-0-1 overall) (105); Mike Cook, 10-3-1 (12-4-1 overall) (112); Rich Bridle, 5-1 (119); Jim Kasper, 7-6-1 (126); Frank Hazeltine, 9-4-1 (132); Todd Kirshner 8-4-1, or Dave Puchal- sky. 14-0 (17-0 overall) (138); Dave Puchalsky or Todd Kir- shner (145); Russ Thrasher, 13- 1 (155); Ed Williams, 1-0, or Gary Ostrum (167) ; Skip Shook, 8-5 (180); Art Gramps, 12-1-1 (hwt.). Coach -Sorber has two sophomore entries, Galka and Jones, six junior entries, Kle- munes, Barbacci, Agnew, Bon- ham, Naugle, and Webber; and five seniors, Nixon, Jaczewski, Case, Wallo, and Williams. Sophomores entries for the Mountaineers are Dierolf, Hazeltine; juniors, Cook, Kasper, MdDonald, and Sheok; seniors, Pinter, Konnick, Bridle, Puchalsky, Kirshner, Thrasher, and Gramps. Dallas fans have an opportun- ity to travel to the Class B event in Scranton by bus chartered by the Dallas Booster Club. Reser- vations for Friday and Satur- day may be made by calling the office at the Dallas Senior High School. Reservations are taken on a first called basis, the limit 48 persons. The bus will leave the high school Friday at 5 p.m. and again Saturday at noon. FEDERAL ENERGY OFFICE PETROLEUM ALLOCATION Notices “Only when the request is for no more than 20 percent more than the 1972 monthly allotment does the form have to be sub- mitted to the FEO office for evaluation,” the spokesman said. “I hear there is a back log of the forms in the FEO office in Philadelphia that might be re- sponsible for a small percent- age of the problems there, but I was in that office Wednesday, and I think they will have the back log cleared up soon. There is probably a larger back log in the corporate office of the oil companies. The College Misericordia Highlanders got their revenge against Luzerne County Com- munity College Saturday after- noon by downing the Minutewo~- men, 54-52, in a game played on the LCCC home court. The LCCC cagers had defeat- ed Misericordia in a game played earlier this season. The Misericordians drew first blood in the game against LCCC but found themselves down by one. 13-12. by the end of the first quarter. In the second quarter, paced by the accurate shooting of Sophomore Sharon Poplaw- ski, the Highlanders outscored their opponents by nine points to set the halftime score at 27-19 in favor of Misericordia. For the third. period. the Highlanders kept their lead: in- tact but saw it almost go down the pipe in the last period as the LCCC cagers began hitting from outside, outscoring the Misericordians 18-10. At the final buzzer, the Misericordians were able to keep a two-point lead. wrapping up their first win over LCCC in several years of play. Poplawski was high scorer with 17. In other recent games, the Highlanders defeated Mary- wood College. 46-34. in a game »'- ‘ed at Marywood. It was the second time this season that Misericordia defeated its tradi- tional rivals. The first win occurred on .the Misericordia home court at 62-39. Just prior to Marywood, the Highlanders lost to Bloomsburg State in a game played at Bloomsburg. The Huskies out- scored the Highlanders in every period of play. finally winning at 54-40. Misericordia high scorer against Bloomsburg was fresh- man JoAnn Montecalvo with 16. Sharon Poplawski paced the win over Marywood with 15. Misericordia’s season record to date is 5-3 with three games remaining to be played. FEO regional administrator Lasala says his office is power- less unless and until the Form 17s are filed. “Of the 300 gas stations in the three ‘county area,” he told the news confer- ence, ‘“‘only 150 have now re- sponded by filing a Form 17, which is necessary before the FEO can act for emergency gas allocations. Nothing can happen until these forms are filed by in* dividual gas stations owners and operators.” The Form 17s were furnished to the major oil companies which service this region, ac- cording to Mr. Lasala. ‘We had 17s out, and it wasn’t until we began to check that we realized that 80 percent of the gas station operators had not completed the form. Many didn’t even know about the forms, didn’t know how to fill them out, and local public offi- cials didn’t notify the FEO office of the crisis. Until Friday we didn’t know there was any problem here,” the administra- tor reiterated. A spokesman for Congress- man McDade’s Washington of- fice, however, said that the FEO office has been kept a- breast of the gas shortage in Lackawanna County. “We were notifying them case by case,” he said, indicating that some of the congressional staff went to the Philadelphia FEO office Friday and outlined in ‘‘great detail” circumstances concern- ing the gas shortage. He said at this point the FEO officials said they would need documentation of the regional shortage before FEO. found only a small per- centage of the Form 17s had been completed and filed. A spokesman in the office of Lackawanna County commis- sioners backed up this position. Charles Luger began informing Congressman McDade’s office about the local crisis as early as last Feb. 7, and had continued to do so until Feb. 19, when the commissioners telegramed both federai energy czar William Simon, Mr. Lasala, and Mr. Wilcox. Under the FEO system, a source in Mr. McDade’s office hf, ies have the responsibility of circulating the forms to local station operators, then proces- sing them through corporate of- fices to grant stations more gasoline as long as the request is for no more than 20 percent more than the 1972 monthly al- lotment. A The system itself appears to be part of the reason behind the current gasoline shortage here. In polling a number of station operators in the region, Green- street News found a divergent view of the crisis as well as the controversial Form 17s. George Guzy, a Texaco re- tailer in Clarks Summit, for example, said he didn’t know anything about Form 17. But he wondered aloud how long he could be expected to remain in business when he is only getting 1200 gallons of gasoline a day compared to 3,000 gallons a day he was pumping during the same period last year. William Butler, a Sunoco dealer in the same community, said that he had filed the Form 17 requesting 20 percent more gasoline, but that a company representative said that Sun Oil, the parent firm, was wait- ing on word from. the FEO. A spokesman for Matt’s BP, station in Shavertown knew of the form. ‘I got the form from my supplier. That’s the silly thing, he’ll wait until he gets a bunch and then send them in. It'll take a long time. We need gas today, not next month.” Another dealer in Dallas com- mented: ‘‘I sent the form in last month and again this month be- cause I read about it inthe papers. But it’s no good. It gets no results. It's just a political football.” A similar opinion was expres- sed by a Mountaintop indepen- dent dealer who has been pur- chasing gasoline ‘from Arco. Explaining that he has already tilled out four of the Form 17s, he told Greenstreet News that he was getting no more than 50 percent of his allotment, with no assurances from Arco that things were going to get better. “The Form 17s aren’t worth a damn,” he concluded. Administrator Lasala told a different story during his news conference. ‘I am pleased to RR announce this morning that ad- ditional gasoline is now moving into Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming Counties. These addi- tional supplies amount to 576,822 gallons of gasoline dis- tributed: through 100 stations. This amounts to about one normal day’s pumping. “These additions, including the figures in our release on Tuesday bring the results of our 60-hour efforts to 772,500 gallons moved through 158 stations. We are anticipating doubling the number of stations and the gasoline totals servighs the area by the end of the week. There remains a hitch. how- ever, according to Mr. Lasala “The dominant finuing 1s that approximate what we believe to be the estimate of gas stations in the area. Therefore, we urge that every gas station owner submit to their supplier this critical form as soon as pos- sible. Nothing can happen completed.” Mr. Lasala also expressed concern for the future. ‘I wish to issue a warning to all our citi- zens,” he said at the news con- ference. ‘‘The gas shortage is real and will be with us a long time. All statistical evidence predicts an average of a 20 per- cent shortfall. This means that the luxury of filling up at will is over. Therefore, all of us must manage our use of gasoline on the basis of about 80 percent of what we used to use. now begun to get d¥Perate, we are urging local officials to make contingency plans for a very serious future.” Mr. Lasala continued. ‘‘Under a good plan, local officials can guarantee that gas will be available for emergency ve- hicles like police and am- bulances.. But they should be acting now and not wait until all the stations are closed and there is no gas around anywhere.” (Editor’s Note: In ‘a forth- coming issue Mr. Freeman will discuss some of the reasons why there is a gasoline shortage in Pennsylvania as well as the nation.) The Hanover Hawkeyes re- turned as defending champs in the District 2 Junior High Wrestling championship tour- ney, and for the fourth consecu- tive year copped the ‘champ’ title, at the Lake-Lehman gym last weekend. The Lake-Lehman grapplers placed second; Wyoming Val- ley West, third; and Dallas Mountaineers, fourth. Meyers’ F. Castrigano was voted ‘‘Outstanding Wrestler’. He earned the honor by pinning Fogelman (C) in the quarter finals, turning over Young (AH) in 2:50, then going on to flatten Mras (WVW( in 2:13. He took the title in the 90 lb. class by decisioning Thomas (LL), 3-0, in the finals. The Lake-Lehman team pro- duced four District 2 champions including Tom Tranell, 100; John Zaleskas, 110; W. Henne- baul, 115; and Dana Sutliff, 165. Dallas placed two finalists, B. Corbett, 80 1b., and M. Cook, 95 1b. : The Lake-Lehman grapplers placed T. Klemunes (75), L. Thomas (90), S. May (120), and P. Cilvik (154) in the finals in runner-up position. D. Gramps (145) placed in second spot in his class behind Kutyna (AH). Brian Corbett (80), Dallas ninth grade student, came in second in the Districts last year and this year finished the sea- son 9-0 before taking class lau- rels in this-year’s competition. Cook (95), Dallas, also in ninth grade, completed the lea- gue season at 8-1 and took the 95 1h. class by collecting two falls and two decisions. Lake-Lehman’s 100 Ib. T. Tranell is in eight grade and might well be called the ‘‘sur- prise” of the competition. He finished the season with a 2-4 record before winning by way of the decision routé to cop his title. RL Ninth grader J. Zaleskas (ILL) finished the season with a 9-1 record and went the 110-title route without having a point scored against him. He beat out R. Gaetano in the finals by 8-0 to pick up the title. W. Hennebaul, seventh grade, 7-2-1 off the league season, walked away with the 115 class by pinning Bienck (H) in 3:02. D. Sutliff, eighth grade; with a season record of 9-1, drew a bye in the preliminaries; out- scored Martin (WB) 20-0, then pinned C. Brokenshire (D) be- fore dethroning last year’s title- holder L. Letukas from Hanover ‘in a thrilling 4-3 decision. Returning champs Zaleskas (LL, McGlynn (H), and Cas- trigano ~~ (M) successfully defended their titles. Winners and ners-up re- ceived medals from District 2 officials and the team cham- pions received a trophy. Jay Zaleskas and varsity coach Walt Sorber, assisted by John Oliver, also of Lake-Leh- man, were in charge of the event. 2 Officials were Bob Herman, Ivan Pettit, George Kempinski and Steve Maceiko. Dallas Jayvee grapplers took the final two meets of the sea- son last week to post a season record of nine wins and five losses. In the meet with West Side Tech Feb. 20, they turned back the young Titans 43-0. E. Lozier. 119 (D), flattened Doran in 2:40 to put the team on the board at 6-0. D. Parrish. also 119 Ibs., added three more by decisioning Greskiwicz, 9-2. With the score 9-0, C. Riegel, 126 1bs., turned over Urbanski in 3:44. Bob Hislop, 132 lbs., put Fannon on his back in 1:42 and B. McDonald earned a superior 10-0 win over Belles to run the score to 25-0. R. Harrison, 145 lbs., picked up six more for the young Mounts, pinning Roper in 3:16, and H. Evans, 145 lbs., out- scored Reed 7-6 to gain another three points, and the score moved to 34-0. G. Ostrum, 155 lbs., decision- ed Yurek 6-1, and E. Williams put Eckert flat in 3:53. W. Brooke Yeager III of- ficiated the jayvee bout. Last Saturday night the young Mounts turned back the Knights’ jayvees 24-6, in a con- test prior to the varsity meet at the Lake-Lehman gym. The Mounts got off to a good start with E. Lozier's (119) decision over T. Shaw. B. Hislop put up six more team points by turning over K. Diddlebock in 1:59. John Fox, 138, put the Knights on the scoreboard by pinning H, Evans in 4:57. Rick Harrison (145) took six back by flattening A. Sutton in 3:52. With the score 15-6, C. Riegel (145) moved it to 21-6 by putting C. Allen (LL) to the mat in 3:26. G. Ostrum (167) outwrestled E. Weber 9-3 to post the final three points for the Mounts. Official for the jayvee meet was Bob Herman. : Booster Club Sets nak The Dallas Area Lettermen and Booster Club will meet March 7 at the American Le- gion Home, Memorial Highway, Dallas, at 8 p.m. The program will basketball night with members. ketball teams in attendance. i RE I mtr Sa
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers