Ch 9 “9 “ GO ~~ Play win $750 Details on page 12 Vol. 105 No. 48 Dallas, Pennsylvania Two years later, he was driving a bus By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff A Dallas School District bus ‘driver accused of molesting two 12-year-old boys this past sum- mer admitted to furnishing alco- hol to minors in 1986. ..» Records from Luzerne County Criminal Court indicate that Dean Teachers contract settled in advance Agreeement begins in '95 By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff The Dallas Education Associa- tion and the school board have set a new record, adopting a three- year contract nearly two months before contract negotiations were scheduled to begin. Negotiations usually start the January before the contract ex- pires. “We approached the board in . August to do something early,” said DEA president William Wag- ner. “Act 88 imposes a strict time- line for negotiations, which also includes mandatory fact-finding and arbitration. Both sides fig- ured we could save money on fact-finders and arbitrators by settling early.” - ‘Both sides approved the con- tract November 22. ” “It was amazing,” Wagner said, referring to the heated atmosphere of past negotiations. “We had only two meetings and the contract was put together. Both sides were very resonable.” See CONTRACT, pg 2 Lee Werts had been charged March 21, 1986, with furnishing alcohol to minors. He waived his right to a pre- liminary hearing before District Justice Carmen Maffei on April 4 and pleaded guilty at abench trial in Luzerne County court Septem- ber 2, 1986. He was fined $250 plus court costs, according to the records. Bus owner Leon Emanuel told The Dallas Post November 22 that “Werts's last Act 34 clearance was okay.” An Act 34 clearance isan adult's permanent criminal record, kept on file by the Pennsylvania State Police Central Repository and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Anyone who works with chil- dren in any capacity must have a clean Act 34 clearance, according to state law. But not all convic- tions appear on the record, in- cluding any charges more than five years old. Werts waived his right to a preliminary hearing on the mor- als charges before District Magis- trate James Tupper November 23. Werts has worked as a substi- tute school bus driver and garage helper for Emanuel Bus Lines, transportation contractor for the Dallas School District, and also drove for Myers Bus Lines, trans- portation contractor for Wyoming Valley West. According to arrest warrant affidavits on file at Tupper’s of- fice, Werts was charged by King- ston Township police sergeant Michael Moravec with multiple A bear grows in Dallas By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff Motorists using Lower De- munds Road maybe startled when they pass Fred Rosencrans's yard. On his front lawn is a large black bear standing on its hind legs, teeth bared and right front paw upraised. But they need not fear, the bear is carved in one piece from a tree stump. When a 60-foot hemlock tree in the front yard died, Rosencrans had his nephew, tree surgeon Fred Kidd, cut it down. But he didn’t know what to do with the leftover six-foot stump, until he was inspired by several bears carved from trees which he had seen on Bunker Hill near Firecut Road. Using cardboard to trace abear which he had stuffed and mounted along time ago, Rosencrans made a life-size template for his own statue, which he credits his son, ‘Fred, Jr., with creating. Kidd made the initial rough cuts to outline the body and legs, while Fred, Jr., used a small elec- tric chain saw to do most of the actual carving. Fred, Sr., added a few finishing touches, then stained the statue with used diesel oil to preserve See BEAR, pg 2 POST PHOTO/GRACE R. DOVE THE BEAR FACTS - Ryan Gryskevicz shows off the bear which his uncle, Fred Rosencrans, Jr., and grandfather, Fred Rosencrans, Sr., carved from a tree stump at his grandfather's Lower Demunds Road home. Mossback's search for Santa An angry Mossback sets off for the North Pole Editor's Note: This is the first in a four-part children’s story that will appear in The Dallas Post. The other parts will appear in each of the next three issues. By T.T. CRATCHIT Special to The Post The days were growing colder and Mossback was sick of it. He was tired of frozen fingers and toes, fed up with the lack of really juicy flies for his dinner and weary of his lily pad getting caught in the rapidly forming ice in his pond. But most of all, he was sick of hearing the boys and girls who passed his pond talk about Christ- mas. It was all they talked about lately, Mossback fumed. Christ- mas. Presents. Fancy dinners. And Santa Claus. { Mossback hated Christmas. He hated presents, because he never got any. He hated fancy dinners because he never had one. But most of all, Mossback hated Santa Claus because Santa Claus hated Mossback. Or so he thought. “You'd think Santa Claus would visit a poor frog once every few years at least,” Mossback thought, feeling thoroughly sorry for him- Y self. “You'd think he'd have a little something for me sometime. I guess this Claus guy just hates frogs. Well, I hate him, too.” As the winter's chill settled on the pond and the meadow sur- rounding it, Mossback grew more and more angry and bitter. He longed to strike out at Santa Claus for slighting him. Mossback had never seen a picture of Santa Claus, but he was sure he knew what he looked like. He was big and orange and shaped like a gigantic fly. And he hated frogs. Finally, one day a little boy and a little girl walked by the pond talking, as usual, about Santa Claus. Mossback was about to hop off his lily pad and sink to the floor of the pond to sulk when he heard something that made him sit up and take notice. “I'd like to visit Santa at the North Pole,” the little boy said. “But it's so far away,” said his little companion. “The North Pole!” Mossback said. He rushed to his little froggy den and pulled out a green dog- eared volume called “The Frog's Guide to Everything Worth Know- ing.” He paged past the lengthy entry on “Flies,” flew by “Hopping, Techniques of” and finally found a tiny section called “Pole, North.” There was a little map there and Mossback saw the North Pole wasn't all that far away. He pulled out his little green ruler and saw Santa Claus’s home was just two inches away. “Why, that's practically right next door,” Mossback said. “I think I'll just pay a visit to this Santa Claus guy.” Mossback packed his little green valise. Then he went to the deep freeze and pulled out a sackful of freeze-dried flies in case he couldn't find any of the fresh kind on his journey. Finally, he filled a little green backpack and tied a tightly rolled green sleeping bag - shaped just like a lily pad - to the top. With a quick glance to make sure everything was secure, Moss- back looked at his tiny green compass, oriented himself with due north, and took the first step of his trip to see Santa Claus. Of course, Mossback couldn't have known about maps. He couldn't have known that the North Pole, which looked so close on the tiny map in his book, was thousands of miles away from his little pond in Dallas. But he would soon find out. Next week: Mossback meets a lizard. Bus driver confessed to ‘86 charge counts of indecent sexual assault, corruption of minors, endanger- ing the welfare of children and involuntary deviate sexual inter- course after being arrested the evening of November 17 at his Franklin Township home. The charges stemmed from a three-month investigation started after two 12-year-old Wyoming Valley boys told police Werts had ‘taken them camping and per- formed or attempted to perform See DRIVER, pg 10 By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff Building a new garage has turned from the routine into a nightmare for a Harveys Lake couple, thanks in part to an overzealous state employee. John and Bonnie Gross ob- tained a permit to build a garage in their Outlet Road backyard September 26. The couple then ordered $4,000 worth of materi- als for the building and arranged ~ to have a friend bring in some dirt for the concrete footers. The garage was to be built 140 feet from the road, Bonnie Gross said. On October 18, a man who said he was “from Dams and Water- ways” came into their yard when they weren't home and told Bon- nie's mother they were breaking the law by dumping dirt into a wetland. 3 Bonnie Gross said that she had called her mother, Janet Elko, to DEAN LEE WERTS Entering hearing last week State agency stalls HL garage project ¢ “.. he kept on telling me I was going to jail because I had violated some wetlands laws.” Janet Elko. Harveys Lake. watch the house when she went to work at 8:30 the morning of October 18. She had seen two men whom she didn't recognize standing in a nearby yard looking at hers and was concerned. “They stood there for about two hours, staring at Bonnie's yard, then walked up here through several back yards,” Mrs. Elko said. “They stayed well away from the creek. They had to go at least 325 feet to my fence, along my See GARAGE, pg 3 Dallas citizen advisors a valuable resource By JACK HILSHER Post Correspondent If you have ever attended a meeting of the Dallas school board, you could easily have had the impression of watching a well- oiled diesel train, relentlessly rushing down the track from sta- tion to station. Optical illusion? Not necessar- ily, for under the capable steering of president Ellen Nagy, this massive organization does indeed move like gangbusters, and in so doing, it does indeed get things done. And that's exactly what it's there for. But fortunately there is an- other organization, the Citizens’ ‘Advisory Committee, somewhat smaller to be sure, considerably less known, yet totally dedicated to making certain the Dallas “All you would-be volunteers out there, come in and look usover!” “in Pamela Langdon Citizens’ Advisory Council president ® behemoth does not jump the track, while also keeping a steadfast eye on the stations it visits. Although they are unsung in the truest sense of the word, we are talking “watchdog” here, and a very able one at that. CAC is simply 18 citizens of the concerned kind. They meet monthly among themselves, and then dispatch a See CITIZENS, pg 10 HB Shop at home. Back Mountain Business association members hold open house. Pages 11-13. HM It's over. The Dallas Mountaineers fell to Mt. Carmel in state football playoffs. 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