Dallas, Pennsylvania The Back Mountain's Newspaper Since 1889 February 20 to February 26, 2003 L a. > — a ad ‘>, > eo Yo, “> SS — NSS iS INA 6 Tie DALLAS POST SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF THE DALLAS & LAKE-LEHMAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS Vol. 114 No. 8 50 Cents COMMUNITY Dallas Fire & Ambulance intstalls officers. Pg 5. SPORTS Junior High wrestling tour- nament at Lehman. Pg 9. SCHOOL Dallas High names Students of the Quarter. Pg 11. Business leaders fear eémpact of job losses By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff BACK MOUNTAIN — Local business leaders are concerned that decreases in employment will hurt the stores, restaurants and shops that serve the Back Mountain. In the last three years alone several hundred jobs have either been elimi- nated or moved out of the region, with the latest blow the announced closing of Energy Converters (Encon) in Dallas next month. With Encon closing in March, Epix Internet Services and Commonwealth Telephone having moved out in 2000, some Back Mountain business owners say the changing number of companies in the area has them worried about the long-term health of the region. Remaining large businesses say they e stable, but a series of realignments Id layoffs have removed hundreds of jobs from the Back Mountain. Lynn Banta, current president of the Back Mountain Business and Profes- sional Association and owner of the Twin Stacks Center, says while the See BUSINESS, pg 7 Peruginos have spent seven decades together By M.B. GILLIGAN Post Correspondent DALLAS TWP. — A local couple's marriage has bridged the Atlantic, and the decades. Mr. and Mrs. John Perugino, of Over- brook Estates in Dallas, celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on Feb- ruary 11. The couple met in Calabria, Italy as young teenagers. “I was walking back to the town from the country and he and his brother were walking behind me on the road,” said Victoria Perugino. “I stopped to let the funeral procession of a rich man go by and he caught up to me. | heard that after that he was look- ing for me all the time.” Indeed, he was and after a few years of just watching for each other around their town, John Perugino went to visit L-L will shun gas station that pays no taxes By KALEN CHURCHER For The Dallas Post LEHMAN TWP. — Members of the Lake-Lehman School Board agreed Tuesday night to have the district stop patronizing the Sunoco gas station on state Route 118 because it does not pay taxes to the School District. “They're making a profit off of the business and we're paying for it,” said member Chuck Boytin. According to Times Leader records, the gas station's assessment dropped from $8,900 to $1 in 1996 due to an underground storage tank leak in the ily 1990s. At that assessment, the iness pays 31 cents per year in See LAKE-LEHMAN, pg 3 Down the tube POST PHOTO/ERIN YOUNGMAN Max Strasser, 17, spent a.good part of President’s Day tubing with friends at the Kingston Township Recreation Park. They said their only disappointment was that the snow didn’t arrive on a school day. More storm photos on page 4. Wycallis school featured in architecture mag ~ By M.B. GILLIGAN Post Correspondent The Gerald J. Wycallis Elementary School has been included in the Ameri- can Institute of Architects (AIA) recently published book, “Education Facilities.” The award-winning building was de- signed by Quad Three Group, Inc. of Wilkes-Barre. “It is a real thrill to have been recognized on this high level,” said Leo Karasinski, of Dallas, who was the Quad Three partner in charge of design for Wycallis. “We are with an elite group with this school. I know that not a lot of schools in the country get this level of recognition.” The Wpyecallis Elementary School, which opened in 1999, was built as a K-5 school to replace the aging West- moreland Elementary School in Kingston Township. The planners sought input from many avenues in the design phase, including teachers and administrators. Throughout the process, designers were encouraged to create a building with the children in mind. “I gave my employees a $5 budget to See WYCALLIS, pg 8 ae hit | PHOTO COURTESY OF QUAD THREE GROUP INC. Designers used a Lincoln Log theme for the cafeteria wall in the Wycallis Ele- mentary School. Dallas El would be K-3 under plan, 4-5 at Wycallis J Recommendation will be made March 3 By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff DALLAS — A task force looking into realignment plans for the Dallas ele- mentary schools will recommend an arrangement that would make the neighborhood school concept a thing of the past in the district. Instead, all of the district's kinder- garten through third grade students would go to the present Dallas Elemen- tary building, and all fourth and fifth graders would attend Wyecallis, a build- ing designed just five years ago to re- place the former Westmoreland Ele- mentary School in Trucksville. Prompted by what the district says is increased enrollment, upcoming man- dates, and parent interest, the district put together a task force composed of parents, teachers and members of the community to look into changing the configuration of what grades are in which schools. The group, which has been meeting since October, will pre- sent its recommendation at the March 3 meeting of the school board. “Jane Ketchner, a parent on the task force, said participants were almost evenly split on the realignment ques- tion, saying “there are teachers and parents that are against it, there are also teachers that are very happy about it.” Ketchner said the consensus was reached through discussion rather than by a vote. “We didn't actually vote, I don’t think it would have made much of a difference, but I think it would have been close,” she said. See SCHOOLS, pg 8 16 Pages, 2 Sections Calendar Classified Crossword POST PHOTO/CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK John Yamrick, a Lake-Lehman High School senior, is a National Merit Scholarship finalist. Yamrick is Merit finalist By CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK Post Correspondent LEHMAN TWP. — Nature, or nurture? John Yamrick's as- tounding academic successes might have been the result of un- conventional childhood experi- ences. Or maybe he’s just a gifted student. The Lake-Lehman High School senior, at 17, is a National Merit Scholarship finalist. Based on his junior year scores of 79 ( verbal), 75 (math), and 72 (written) on the PSATS, he, along with 15,000 oth- er finalists (less than 1 percent of the seniors who took the PSAT), will comptete for cash scholar- ships, and some 8,000 will win. His combined SAT scores are 1510 and his math score was a perfect 800. Not bad for a young man who spent five critical years of his school life in Russia. “Russia only hurt my English skills,” said Yamrick, who still struggles to get “up to speed.” The family spent the years in which John attended fifth through ninth grade in Russia as missionaries. But while his English suffered, he figures the Russian educational system's math program helped propel him to greater achievment. He studied algebra and geometry in fifth grade, biology in sixth, physics in seventh, and in eighth grade Russian children take chemistry. “I think because [I struggled with the Russian language so much, math became the one thing I could do well,” John said. “I also tried to read any English books I could get my hands on. There weren't too many. It was a unique experience.” See SCHOLAR, pg 3 CALL 675-5211 FOR HOME DELIVERY, NEWS OR ADVERTISING E-mail: dallaspost@leader.net 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