- o Bear, beavers remind us of Nature nearby The Dallas Post SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF THE DALLAS & LAKE-LEHMAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS | Wednesday, April 20, 1994 ®\.. 105 No. 16 Dallas, PA Donuts lead bear - ¢into trap 8 By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff A trail of jelly doughnuts lead- ing into a live trap in a Dallas Township back yard was the .undoing of a 200-1b male black bear which had been raiding area bird feeders for the past several weeks. According to wildlife conserva- tion officer Jim Jolley of the Penn- | _sylvania Game Commission, the live trap had been set in the back ,yard of a home on Upper De- munds Road last week after resi- dents on Upper Demunds Road and at the White Birch Trailer - Park had reported a bear raiding . their bird feeders. Laying a trail of doughnuts into - the trap and filling the bait bag , with more of the goodies paid off Saturday morning, when the bear was trapped. “Bears are usually pretty hun- gry this time of year because they have just come out of hibernation and have used up all of their body fat,” Jolley said. See BEAR, pg 14 Beavers wear out welcome By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff High water caused by busy beavers on Harveys Creek is giv- ing headaches to residents, the Harveys Lake road crew and the borough's municipal authority. “It's gotten worse every year [or the four years that I've lived here,” said Laurie Knauer, who lives on Outlet Road. “They have badly damaged the weeping willow trees in my back yard. The ground is too soft because it never has a chance to dry out, and the con- stant high water is attracting bugs and water snakes.” Earl Elliott, who has lived on Outlet Road for the past 25 years, has seen the creek grow from 15 feet in width to a small pond. See BEAVERS, pg 14 BUSY WEEKEND - Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officer Jim Jolley was busy last week. Saturday, he showed off the 200 Ib. black bear that was captured Friday night near a home on Upper Demunds Road in Dallas Township. Game officers laid a trail of jelly doughnuts, JAZ I9 BD] CI [(€]D][6)\Y! which the hungry bruin followed into a trap. On Monday, Jolley was at work setting a trap for beavers that have built a dam near the outlet of Harveys Lake, causing water to back up in yards and across the road. The beavers have also been busy knawing at trees in the area. POST PHOTO/RON BARTIZEK POST PHOTO/GRACE R. DOVE Seven students are junior leaders e. GRACE R. DOVE ost Staff Seven Back Mountain students learned more about their commu- nity and helped to brighten the day for residents of several area nursing homes through a Junior Leadership Wilkes-Barre project. Dallas students Ken Chapple, Steven Lieberman and Greg Nadzan and Lake-Lehman stu- dents Daniel Lukasavage, Jaci ace, Tina Sidonio and Amanda Turner were selected to attend the series of day-long seminars on business, industry, the media, education, government, human services and the arts onceamonth during the 1993-94 school year. Their required work included a community service project, which the students decided would be to distribute Valentine's Day cards : @° nursing home residents. Their seminar team was rounded out by Northwest Area students Bob Barchik and Bran- 3 from Dallas, 4 from Lake-Lehman took part in Junior Leadership Wilkes-Barre don Kishbaugh. “Bob Barchik has an aunt who teaches art at Northwest, so we decided to ask her classes to make the cards,” Jaci Race said. “We later delivered them to the Mead- ows and Lakeside nursing homes." The colorful Valentines con- tained clever pop-ups and cute rhymes, such as “Roses are red, Violets are blue; You're someone special, And I love you," and “Roses are red, Violets are blue; I made this pop-up, Just for you." “The kids really worked hard on them,” Lukasavage said. “You could see that they took a lot of time.” : “I think that we really bright- ened their day,” Race said. Of the seven students, three were able to deliver the cards. Amanda Turner had never been inside a nursing home before. “This was a real eye-opener for me,” she said. “You don't see people like this out on the street. I think that there could be a better system to take care of the elderly.” The students said that some of the nursing home residents ap- peared not to have much contact with their families. “They thanked us over and over again for coming,” Turner said. Tina Sidonio has visited nurs- ing homes in Europe, where she says from what she has seen, the facilities don't seem to be as good or as plentiful as in the United States. Although back-to-back snow days prevented Lukasavage, Lieberman, Chapple and Nadzan from visiting the nursing homes, they said that they still learned from the program. (Nadzan was absent from school the day that the Dallas students were inter- viewed.) “The Junior Leadership pro- gram has broadened my view of the Valley and my realization of all of its resources,” Chapple said. “During the seminar on the law, I was able to talk to Judge Gifford Cappellini about what's involved in legal work. All of the the infor- mation that he gave me has really helped.” Interested in tax law, Chapple plans to study accounting and taxation in college. Lieberman especially enjoyed the business and industry semi- nar at Sallie Mae. His father, Ronald Lieberman, owns Basically Bagels. See LEADERS, pg 5 He's a miracle By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff : Born 3 1/2 months prema- turely and addicted to cocaine, Josh Kupstas started his life with two strikes against him. He weighed barely more than a pound - much too small to be expected to survive. Seven years later, the plucky adopted son of Becky and Tom Kupstas of Huntsville has over- come many life-threatening health problems and was recently named northeastern and central Penn- sylvania’s poster child for the Children’s Miracle Network Tele- thon, which benefits pediatric services at Geisinger Hospital. “When I first saw this scrawny, tiny little baby fighting for his life in the hospital, he looked right into my soul and I immediately knew that he would be ours,” Becky Kupstas reflected. At six months, Josh couldn't sit or turn over without help. He cringed from the slightest touch, was extremely withdrawn, never cried and refused to make eye contact with people. Geisinger's pediatric special care unit, doctors and nurses were his entire world, until the Kup- stas family took him in as a foster child, later adopting him. “Josh had built a shell around himself, probably from all of the blood tests and painful procedures which he had undergone,” Becky to family, doctors POST PHOTO/GRACE R. DOVE JOSH KUPSTAS Geisinger Children's Miracle Network Post Child. Kupstas said. “Our biggest chal- lenge was breaking through it.” For his first six months with the Kupstas family, Josh was continually held, read to, talked to—anything to break through his self-imposed wall of silence. See MIRACLE, pg 2 Cease Terrace cottage still bedevils neighbors Difficulty in ascertaining who actually owns a cottage on Cease Terrace has delayed the township taking action against Michael and Carol Rayes, who neighbors say have created a health hazard by accumulating an assortment of “junk” in their yard. The house, which has no run- ning water, no sanitary facilities and no electricity, had been on the tax sale roster until it was pulled the day of the sale. “The only owner of record that we could find had an address at a post office box in the Poconos that is now closed," said solicitor Peter Savage. Neighbors Linda and Patricia Dorrance said that they had been ready to buy the property at the tax sale to “clean it up and just let it grow trees again.” “Every few days this winter we saw them empty a five-gallon bucket of human waste out the door and cover it with a few shov- elfuls of snow,” Patricia Dorrance said. The women said that they have videotapes of Rayes unloading more “junk” from people's vans, including a washing machine, a refrigerator and old tires, which he has placed on the roadway. “He told us that he’s going to bringin five truckloads of manure to cover everything up,” they said. Savage said that he will check on the status ofa citation filed last year with the magistrate against Rayes by sewage enforcement officer Frank Eginsky, and will file a petition in Luzerne County court for a preliminary injunction to have Rayes clean up his property. Ifnecessary, the township could ask fora court order to have Rayes vacate his property until he cleans it up, Savage said. Supervisor Doug Ide said that Savage should also ask the De- partment of Environmental Re- sources to investigate Rayes’ prop- erty as an illegal landfill. In other business, the supervi- sors announced that there will be a public hearing on the Toby's Creek watershed plan May 12 at the Luzerne County Courthouse. “I'm not in favor of it,” said supervisor David Sutton. “I think that it will stifle development in Lehman Townshp. In some in- stances, if you pave your drive- way, you'll be required to file a stormwater runoff plan with the county first.” BM Rabies clinic Back Mountain Kiwanis will hold a rabies vaccination clinic Sunday from 10-4. Page 3. MW It's fixup time! Check out our 12-page home improvement section. 26 Pages 2 Sections The Dallas Post Calendar............. 10 Classified........ 11-13 Crossword........... 10 Editorials. .........nsii 4 Obituaries. ......... 11 8chool.............000 8 SPOS... tiersitienss 9 CALL 675-5211 FOR HOME DELIVERY, NEWS OR ADVERTISING MAILING LABEL- Please enclose this label with any address changes, and mail to The Dallas Post, P.O. Box 366, Dallas PA 18612-0366
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers