Vol. 121 No. 14 THE BACK MOUNTAIN'S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1889 May 2 - 8, 2010 The PATEAS POS 50¢ Serving the communities of the Dallas and Lake-Lehman School Districts . www.mydallaspost.com Missionary team heads for earthquake-ravaged Haiti By REBECCA BRIA rbria@timesleader.com The medical missionary team of Back Mountain Harvest As- sembly had already decided to go to Haiti in 2010, months before a devastating earthquake hit that country. When the hurricane occurred in January of this year, however, there were even more reasons for the group to go there. Back Mountain Harvest As- sembly’s fifth annual medical missionary team is made up of 20 people who will travel to St. Marc, Haiti from May 12-18. They will stay with Pastor Gary Walker and his wife, Carolyn, a mission- ary couple who live in St. Marc. Ron and Suzanne Hillard, of Harveys Lake, lead the medical missions through Back Moun- tain Harvest Assembly. The Rev. Jack Rehill, of Pittston, assistant pastor of Back Mountain Harvest Assembly, leads the spiritual sup- Donations to help offset the cost of the medical missionary trip to Haiti may be sent to: Haiti mission trip In c/o Back Mountain Harvest Assembly 340 Carverton Rd. Trucksville, PA 18708 port. “There still is a lot of infant slavery is still legal in Haiti,” Hill- ard said, explaining the team’s mortality in Haiti and a lot of initial intentions to go to Haiti. people don’t realize it but child For the past four years, the medical missionary group has gone to Nicaragua. Hillard said the church still sent a construc- tion team to that country earlier this year but the medical team members agreed to go to Haiti af- ter the Walkers invited them. “Emotionally and spiritually, we need to be prepared for peo- ple who are even more destitute, who don’t have a home, perhaps have lost all of their family mem- bers...,” the Rev. Rehill said. “At least in Nicaragua, people did have some type of a roof over their head and they did have fam- ily members. I think we’re going to be confronted with an even greater need.” According to Hillard, 14 of the 20 missionaries are local but not all of them are members of Back Mountain Harvest Assembly. This will be the first medical mission trip for Maryellen Gian- nuzzi, of Dallas, who has been a See HAITI, Page 12 ‘MONSTER’ COMES TO LAKE-LEHMAN CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK/ FOR THE DALLAS POST Rehearsing for “There's a Monster in My Closet!" are, from left, Jessica Salus, Julia Bucholtz, Sophia Soifer, Hannah Kasko, Katherine Kaminski, Emily Blaum and Gabi Fitzgerald, all Back Mountain residents. The play will be performed at 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 8, at the Lake-Lehman High School. For more photos, please turn to page 9. Her determination captured their hearts Despite two broken legs of her own, ‘Miss Jimmy’ gives birth and cares for kittens. By REBECCA BRIA rbria@timesleader.com The outlook was bleak for a stray cat taken to Dr. Jim Hyssong’s office on March 11. The cat was found lying on the side of the road, was preg- nant and had two broken legs when a Good Samaritan took her to Hyssong at Brookhill Animal Hospital in Conyng- ham. The weekend was approach- ing and Hyssong planned to fix the cat’s legs the following Monday, providing the cat lived that long. It a strange turn of events, it was Hyssong who did not live. The 63-year-old veterin- arian died unexpectedly on Sunday, March 14. Dr. Delinda Zehner, of Back Mountain Veterinary Clinic in Dallas, was contacted by as- sociates at Brookhill Animal Hospital and asked to help. Zehner had worked at Brook- Dallas LifeSmarts team is 10th best n country Members of the Dallas High School LifeSmarts team placed 10th out of 32 teams in the 16th Annual LifeSmarts National Championship held April 24-27 in Miami Beach, Fla. LifeSmarts is a consumer challenge competition for high school students across the na- tion. Nine Pennsylvania high schools competed for the state title. The National Consumer League, in partnership with nonprofit organizations, gov- ernment agencies and educa- tional organizations, makes the competition available to teens in every state. The Attor- ney General’s Office plans and implements the program for Pennsylvania. Dallas advanced to the na- tional competition after win- ning the LifeSmarts Consumer Challenge Pennsylvania state competition on March 2 in Harrisburg. The Maryland state cham- ion team was the winner of the national championship and North Dakota captured sec- ond-place. This year, championship offi- cials introduced a new compe- 09815120079 tition to determine the na- tional champion in each of the subject areas - technology, health and safety, the environ- ment, personal finance, and consumer rights and respon- sibilities — that LifeSmarts en- compasses. Pierce Donovan, a member of the team, was awarded an individual honor for placing first in the nation in the tech- nology category of the 2010 topic assessments. He won a $500 scholarship from the Na- tional Consumer League for this honor. Members of the Dallas High School LifeSmarts team who competed in the 2010 national and state competitions are Katelyn Reinert, team -cap- tain; Kevin Hunter, Donovan, Tim Reinert and Monica Eso- pi. The school’s LifeSmarts team is coached by Kevin West, who has served as the team’s coach since 2005. Lois Redmond is the co-coach. Catherine Wega, a retired teacher who is now a member of the Dallas School Board, coached the team to the na- tional championship in 2003. Esopi and Kevin Hunter. CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK/FOR THE DALLAS POST Several members of the Dallas High School LifeSmarts team placed 10th out of 32 teams in the 16th Annual LifeSmarts National Championship held from April 24-27 in Miami Beach, Fla. From left, are Pierce Donovan, Kevin West, coach; Katelyn Reinert, team captain; Tim Reinert, Monica junior high baseball coverage, see page 10 For Lake-Lehman soccer and CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK/FOR THE DALLAS POST Miss Jimmy cares for one of her kittens as best she can with two broken legs of her own. hill as a veterinary technician from 1991 to 2003 before go- ing to veterinary school. “Dr. Hyssong thought, ‘Well, I'll give the cat a chance and see how she will do,”” Zehner said. “They didn’t think she would make it through the night when she came in. It was kind of his last effort before he passed away. He was in the process of doing a good deed and that was an important part.” Zehner agreed to take the cat, which she named “Miss Jimmy” in honor of Hyssong, under her care. An ultrasound showed that Miss Jimmy was pregnant with two kittens who were doing well. Dr. Anjilla Cooley, a veter- inary orthopedic surgeon, was consulted. She perform- ed surgery on the cat to re- pair her legs, using external fixators and, two weeks later, Miss Jimmy gave birth to her kittens. Zehner estimates Miss Jim- my is about a year old and the kittens she recently birthed are most likely her first litter. “She just had such a will to live - to have kittens and to be pregnant and have two broken legs,” Zehner said. “She’s just a really sweet cat. She purrs nonstop when she is here. She put up with a lot from us looking at her and trying to evaluate her.” Miss Jimmy has now found a new home with a veterinary technician at Brookhill Ani- mal Hospital. The kittens will also go to a new home when they are old enough to be separated from their mother. “Miss Jimmy had such an effect on everybody at Back Mountain (Veterinary Clin- ic),” Zehner said. “To have gone through what she’s gone through...she’s really been through a lot and has sur- vived a lot. Just to have that will to live is amazing.”
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