the way. Vol. 92 No. 6 25°¢ The Millettes ‘Love the Back Mountain!’ BY JESSIE MORGAN “People from this area don’t really know how lucky they are,” says Pat Millette. Originally from Rhode Island and the Hartford area, Mrs. Millette bjand her family have recently ~ moved to the Back Mountain area and are very excited about living in Northeastern Pennsylvania. ‘Everybody in Connecticut gave us the impression that this area was full of smokestacks. Nobody ever moves to Wilkes-Barre. Everybody leaves this area,” she laughs, ‘but the landscaping around here is beautiful. Parts of Northeastern Pennsylvania look a lot like Con- necticut.” Both she and her family were sold on the area after their first visit to Wyoming Valley. “In New England it takes 50 years of living in a community before you feel you're really part of it,” she says. “We weren’t used to people being this open. We had almost turned away from being pleasant. But here I have to plan to spend at least an extra 15 minutes in the grocery store whenever I go shopping. Everybody has suggestions on what ..to buy, the state of economy, and & the weather. I like it.” ~ The people of this area have » really made the Millette’s feel at + homes {Everybody from the gar- bage collector to the president of my husband’s company has been really kind and helpful,” says Pat Millette. Her husband, is vice president with Petro and Jennings, a local engineering firm. “I've lived in 15 different places and never have I had so many people be so nice to me.” The Millettes have spent the past two years in Israel where Mr. engineering company and Pat taught art at an American school. “Israel was a tough place in which to live and try to raise three children,”’ she says. ‘We ex- perienced a real cultural shock. People over there have totally different attitudes about life, and living in a military-type housing unit for two full years was just two years too long. But we did get to rave” she says, “so it did have it’s positive points too.” While living in Israel, the family was able to vacation in Paris, Thailand, and Hong Kong. ‘The children were able to grow socialy, worldly, but not academically,” says Pat. The school they attended in Israel was a six room school- house where the first three grades were in one room while the next three grades were in another. “When the children started school here in Dallas, I realized that our youngest, Keith, was behind in reading,” recalls Mrs. Millette: Al- though she considered having her son: repeat the first grde, she decided to seek the aide of the elementary guidance counselor. “He was very helpful and sup- portive, and convinced me to allow my son to go to second grade. He has a good teacher who really cares . and everything has worked out well. counselor called me to see if every- thing was alright. 1 just can’t tell you how pleased I am with this school district. The teachers are in control and the guidance counselors know what their function is.” The Millettes are so impressed - realize a life-long dream here. An industrial-commercial estimator, and free-lance muralist, Pat hopes of this summer. When she and her husband bought their home in Carverton, they also purchased an adjoining ten acres of land. They plan to break ground in Spring for a barn. “The children were so good all the while we were overseas. We haven’t seen grass for two years and they would like to have some horses. So my husband and I decided to buy some land and allow them to have what ‘they have Bol . (Continued on P.2) Free Job Ads If you are unemployed and looking for work, we may be able to help you. Call the Dallas Post and see our free Job Wanted Classifieds. Ask for John Allen. Back Mountain residents call 675-5211. Wilkes- Barre residents call 825-6868. Frank Rollman, president of the Dallas Lions Club, has announced the following donations to Lions district programs: $50 each to Leader Dog Camp for the Blind, Sight Conservation, Northeast Eye Bank, Beacon Lodge, Camp for the Blind, Lions International Founda- tion and Hearing Conservation; Second anniversary which can be matched against a month of March. clusively at the Dallas Office. $100 to provide a campership at Beacon Lodge. The donations are based on a suggested $2 per member for each program. y The service club will observe their annual charter night dinner dance Saturday, February 27 at the Castle Inn, Dallas. The ladies night affair is being chaired by Lion Paul McCue. Jack Dee will provide the : entertainment. On Monday, March 15, the Dallas : The prisoners ; ‘Wedont @ pattheir backs’ BY JOHN ALLEN Someday, with few exceptions, every prisoner at the State Correct- | ional Institution at Dallas will be re- leased. : Theoretically, at least, the public was secure in the knowledge that it was safe as long as they were behind bars, but what about the : | future, when they are once again on the streets? ; i “We can guarantee they will come out worse,” says Sister Barbara Craig and Ingrid Prater, two women whose fear is that if the community does not help, does not concern itself with what happens to the men’ in prison, the cycle of prison-release-prison, continues, unabated. y ‘We are not do-gooders. We don’t pat them on the back. We are teaching them responsibility, to take charge of their lives.” Sister Barbara and Mrs. Prater teach and counsel + convicts through an organization called Thresholds. It is a program - ten weeks - in decision making and problem solving and is taught to prisoners by volunteers. The two women have no ready statistics as to the numbers of ex: convicts who have been inspired enough by Thresholds to stay out once released, but they do know that the average nationally is about 80.10.85 percent. « - a “The whole issue of overcrowding in our prisons is a national problem. Judges are ‘coming down hard’ when handing out sentences. The public is demanding mandatory sentencing, we are informed daily, but what are the alternatives to = overcrowding? We are going to be forced into alternatives. It costs anywhere from $12,000 to $20,000 to keep a man locked up. If the or- dinary citizen could understand just what it costs, he would benefit. Instead we quite often hear, ‘what are you doing for the victims?’ ” The answer is that the convict, through decision-making, deter- mines that he alone is responsible for his life, and will therefore take charge of his own life. ; The Dallas area Thresholds program, which is four years old this month, grew out of research done in Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans in 1965. Early work focused on the teaching of literacy and remedial reading. But due toa © lack of skills in language, per- ception, ability to retain and recall information (by some. of the prisoners) decision-making was added ‘to the studies. The results were impressive enough to esta- blish the program at the national level. “lI determine my life by ‘the choices I make. Ilive out that life by choices I make,” is the basie philo- sophy behind the decision-making process says Mrs. Prater, a Dallas bank employee. : Says Sister Barbara, who teaches A eeind cies stone works with Hispanics at the prison, “It’s a corny phrase, but ‘born to lose’ also means born to choose. We teach them they don’t have to be a victim of society, or circumstances, or whatever, unless they choose to be one.” ; But Dallas Thresholds is faced 2 with the problem of finding enough 3 concerned and bright people to | serve as volunteers. The demand || for decision-making by prisoners at ~~ | the state prison is growing. Many of them are school drop-outs, mostly from the ghettos of Philadelphia. Ld They are also volunteers to the program, and they are carefully screened and selected by prison administrators. “We have a very long list of 3 prisoners waiting to get into the program, but we can only take as many as we have volunteers for,” says Sister Barbara. ‘The course is ten weeks, and Thresholds volun- teers go to the prison once a week.” Threshold volunteers . (any concerned citizen, 18 years or Fk older) are trained in the method || during a basie training weekend. || (Continued on P. 2) Soh & A RT a
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers