From basement L Vol. 115 No. 13 March 28 to April 3, 2004 SERVING THE COMMUNITIES Of Gate of Heaven grads ym to state tit Post Staff By RONALD BARTIZEK The state basketball championships were played before a crowd of more than 6,000, in the spot- less Giant Center in Hershey. But some key players who helped bring the Class A trophy home to Bishop O'Reilly High School began their careers in a much more modest place, the basement gym at Gate of Heaven School in Dallas. O'Reilly starters Matt Flanagan, Tim Crossin and Josh Aciukewicz spent many an hour on the linoleum floor of the spartan space, where hun- dreds of children as young as kindergarten-age have tried game- ly to put a ball through a hoop. They were joined on the cham- pionship team by GOH graduates Chris DeRojas and Conor Judge. When they reach fourth grade, Gate of Heaven students can play on boys and girls Gators teams that compete in the Wyoming Valley Catholic League. A whole lot of them do, in part be- cause the small school has no athlet- ic facilities except the gym, which it- If is used for many activities out- side of sports, serving as the cafete- ria each day and the site of assem- blies, parties, concerts, auctions and a host of other events. The cafeteria part presents an un- usual challenge for basketball. Be- fore the space can be used for a game, the tables have to be folded up and put away, recalled Art Flana- See GATORS, pg 7 NI 50¢ LAKE-LEHMAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS Return of the kings. Five mem- bers of the state champion Bishop O'Reilly boys basketball team returned to where their basketball careers began — the gym at Gate of Heaven School. Standing in front of a wall painting of the Gators mascot, from left: Matt Flanagan, Josh Aciukewicz, Chris DeRojas, Tim Crossin and Conor Judge. FOR THE POST/ CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK ®Grant funds will revitalize Tunkhannock’s center By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff TUNKHANNOCK — By this time next year, downtown Tunkhannock could look signifi- cantly different. After 10 years of planning, a major downtown beau- tification project is set to go out for bid. The recent award of a $250,000 state grant means the borough now has nearly $500,000 to make major improvements to four blocks of its downtown. Two blocks of Tioga Street and two blocks of state Route 29 will reap the benefits of the undertaking. Historic’ lights, new sidewalks and curbing are all a part of the downtown streetscape program set to begin this summer. The local tree association is also in the process of gathering grant money to coordinate new plantings in con- junction with the project. Judy Mead, a member of the bor- streetscape ough’s three-person Dallas counts successes <A By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff DALLAS — The borough be- gan its own downtown revital- tion process in 2002 and is well on its way to seeing the fruit of its efforts bear out. “A tremendous amount of things have happened in a short period of time,” said Dallas Bor- ough Council President John Oliver, who has been with the process since it began. “There are so many things being done as we speak.” Several action items have al- ready come out of the Our Dal- las — Today and Tomorrow vi- sioning exercise, said Oliver. The largest of which is Pen- nDOT’s commitment to fund a $400,000 roundabout feasibility study for the congested five- points intersection. The borough has also applied for and received an $18,000 grant to plant trees along Main Street and other highly traveled areas. Some have already been planted at the post office and recreation center on Burndale Avenue. Last year’s very successful Dallas Harvest Festival was an- other outgrowth of the visioning process. Still in the planning stages is an urban greenway trail along Toby’s Creek that would start at the five-points intersection, me- ander behind businesses and homes that front on Lake Street and end at College Misericordia. The borough is planning to spend a significant portion of the tree grant on lining the trail. Oliver attributed the project's success to the borough’s resi- dents. “We've just had a wonder- ful outpouring from the commu- nity,” he said. . committee, said the improvements are a long time coming and impor- tant for a number of reasons. “We want to enhance the com- munity; we also want to enhance pedestrian safety.” She said overgrown trees have broken aged sidewalks. Curbing is battered and the absence of street lights makes the downtown dark and unsafe for pedestrians. “A lot of areas have lost their his- toric downtowns, so we want to maintain ours,” Mead said. The hope is the enhancements will further the positive trends al- ready occurring in town. “The central business district is much more of a hometown again. We're getting a lot of visitors. The storefronts are full — finally, I see a lot of things coming together,” she said. : The streetscape committee be- gan discussing how to enhance the area in 1994. The first grant appli- cations went out in 2000 and the See DOWNTOWN, pg 3 Jen Hindman from Aquaterra Technologies, a West Chester- based company hired by Sunoco, tested the ground and wa- ter as tanks were taken out of the closed gas sta- tion at the center of Dallas. The station is being removed to make way for improve- ments at the busy intersec- tion, which will allow the devel- oper of land in Dallas Township to proceed with a project there. FOR THE POST/CHAR- LOTTE BARTIZEK Dad/son EMTs help plug a volunteer gap By M.B. GILLIGAN Post Correspondent The Dallas Fire and Ambulance Department has four newly certified Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT), but there is always a need for more. “It is a relief to have the new volunteers but there is still a lot of AVA t time we have to cover,” olunteers said Megan Palmer, Making our Ambulance Chief. community strong Dallas Ambulance If you know someone has paid personnel on who might make a duty Monday to Friday good example, call 970-7157. from 6 am. to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The other 100 hours in every week are handled by 13 volunteer EMTs. Ambu- lance calls cannot be handled by a single person, so usually two EMTs or an EMT and other qual- ified person respond. See VOLUNTEERS, pg 2 L-L seniors help, learn with orad projects By CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK Post Correspondent LEHMAN TWP. — The 150 seniors who will graduate from Lake-Lehman Senior High School this June were required to spend at least 25 vol- unteer community service hours on their senior projects. : Most spent much more time than that, some raised significant amounts of cash for communi- ty organizations, and all came away with a bet- ter insight into their interests, strengths and weaknesses. And some produced the volunteer hours and benefit for the community, but not always in the expected ways. Ashley Peterson and Carol Jones wanted to paint something “very large” for their project. See PROJECTS, pg 9 FOR THE POST/CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK Jake Riddle organized a car show at Harveys Lake to benefit the Harveys Lake Fire Dept. Annual library appeal expands by 3 times By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff DALLAS — Since the Back Mountain Memo- rial Library was hit with a 40 percent reduction in state funding, a lot has changed. The number of new books and materials being purchased has been slashed and staff members have gone with- out raises. For the time being, however, two things re- main constant, said Martha Butler, the library’s director, “We've been fortunate not to have to cut back hours.” And while other libraries have had to cut staff, See LIBRARY, pg 3 V INsIDE THE PosT 12 Pages, 1 Section Calendar.........c......vs 12 King and Queen of Valentine’s Day at Meadows Nursing Center Page 6 March Madness 1959 V¥ How To Reach Us News: 675-5211 Page 5 thepost@leader.net Wyoming Sem Math stars shine at O'Reilly and 15 N. Main St. Wilkes-Barre PA 18711 Advertising: 970-7102 Subscriptions Page 10 and Delivery: 829-5000 -
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