Vol.121 No. 37 THE BACK MOUNTAIN'S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1889 October 24 - 30, 2010 50¢ Serving the communities of the Dallas and Lake-Lehman School Districts | www.mydallaspost.com BMT Library stays afloat despite budget cuts By SARAH HITE shite@mydallaspost.com There is a slight irony to what Martha Butler, director of the Back Mountain Memorial Li- brary, sees every day. Despite re- ceiving cuts in funding on the county and state levels, more people are using the library dur- ing tough economic times. “We're busier than ever,” said Butler. “The library is used twice as much now.” The library located in Dallas, which serves eight other sur- rounding municipalities, lost ap- proximately $26,000 in state and county funding this year. Butler estimates it costs nearly $400,000 a year to run the library — an organization that relies on fundraisers and donations for of its budget. itler says this is nothing new ww brary funding has always been dependent on the econo- my. And though it is a struggle, she says she and the staff try to ensure business as usual at the li- brary for patrons. “Everything is affected,” she said. “We will have to make cuts on books and materials, but were not at a point where we would have to cut hours - yet. You never know.” The library won't be removing its bookshelves anytime soon. Butler says the kinds of cuts made to supplies would include ordering fewer copies of books and DVDs, cutting back on mag- azine subscriptions and letting go of certain Web programs, such as tutor.com, a service for What: Haunted Library “The Seven Skulls" When: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Oct. 24, 29 and 30 Fridays and Saturdays: 6:30 to Ti p.m.; Sundays: 5 to 9 p.m. Where: Slightly Read Book Store How much: $6 LN NJ] What: Fundraiser When: Tuesday, Nov. 9, 5 to 8 p.m. Where: Friendly’s Restaurant, Dallas How much: A percentage of sales, including eat-in, takeout and gift certificates, will benefit the li- brary. For more information, call the library at 675-1182. students. In addition to novels and non- fiction, most special programs for the coming year will also be eliminated, such as lectures for adults and magicians for chil- dren, because of the added cost to the library. There are programs happen- ing now that are “donated.” Ex- perts offer their time and skill to teach classes at the library with- out asking for a penny, and the library doesn’t get revenue from the programs, either. For exam- ple, the library is offering a six- week chair caning class, and the cost covers only the supplies needed for the course. “It doesn’t incur costs to the li- brary,” Butler said of the class. Butler, who has spent half of her career at the Back Mountain CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK/ FOR THE DALLAS POST Andrew Stocker plays a miner at the Back Mountain Library Haunted House. Memorial Library, says there is hope on the horizon. Patrons keep pouring in, and so do dona- tions and volunteers in support of the library. : “I think this community val ues the library and its services,” she said. “They respond to and support it regularly. I think they view it as an asset.” She said the library has hun- dreds of volunteers, from day-to- day book washers to those offer- ing their time to work at the an- nual auction. The Slightly Read Book Store is also another way for the library to raise funds — all the books for sale are donated by patrons. “It helps us to keep afloat and weather the cuts,” she said of the library’s volunteer force. As a librarian, Butler says it’s hard to see the library’s funding fluctuate every year because its purpose in the community is long lasting. “The library enhances a per- son throughout their life,” she said. “It’s lifelong learning.” 3 years of ‘perfect ion By SARAH HITE shite@mydallaspost.com Janine Hudak and Tammy Le- melin, both from the Back Moun- tain area, have been working at Pizza Perfect since they were youngsters in elementary school. They stood on milk crates to put cheese on pizzas, swept the park- ing lot, made pizza boxes and did every other sort of odd job a 10: year-old could manage. Their parents, Richard and Louise Adamchick and Richard’s close friend and business partner Myron Mickiewicz opened the successful pizza parlor a few dec- ades ago, and now the sisters serve as the restaurant’s manag- ers, overseeing operations for the Carverton Road eatery. Pizza Perfect is celebrating 35 years of pizza, wings and every- thing in between this month, and the staff can still remember the early years when a cut of pizza cost 30 cents and the Trucksville location was only half its current size. “The man who rented (the building) to us said he would on- ly rent to us on a month-by- ' month basis because he didn’t think we would make it,” said Adamchick of starting the busi- ness. He and Mickiewicz operated the pizza joint part-time while still maintaining their delivery See PERFECT, Page 11 CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK/ FOR THE DALLAS POST Marty Wise helps shows Boy Scout Zack Calkins the ins and outs of carpentry and making a bat house. Scouts attempt to help save bats EILEEN GODIN Dallas Post Correspondent One tiny creature, once seen as a pest, now needs our help, and Trucksville Boy Scout Pack #155, sponsored by the Trucks- ville United Methodist Church, is stepping up to help out. Cave, or mine dwelling, bats are being killed off in record numbers by a disease known as Vite Nose Syndrome, said iDen leader Russ Banta, of 1idcksville. The bats are also found in old barns, behind house siding and in other small crevic- es. Fifteen Boy Scouts ranging in 6180981520079! ; age from 6 to 15 were at the Trucksville Early Childhood Education Center on October 17 to roll up their sleeves and build 20 single chamber bat boxes for donation to the Pennsylvania Game Commission in Dallas in early spring. The project is aimed at giving the boys a chance to work with hand tools while contributing to the betterment of the environ- ment, Banta said. The boxes will give the bats a clean healthy place to live, hopefully resulting inrecovery of the bat population. Kevin Wenner, Pennsylvania Game Commission wildlife manager supervisor for the Northeast region, said bats af- fected by the White Nose Syn- drome develop a white funguson their noses and wings, ultimate- ly dying of starvation. He said one to two million bats locally have been lost to the disease. In 2006, the first reported find- ings of White Nose Syndrome oc- lieves the disease traveled into Pennsylvania by cave spelunk- ers, people who enjoy exploring caves, or by biologists studying bats. “The fungus is a skin irritant,” he said. Afflicted bats spend most of their time trying to clean the fun- gus off their wings, an activity Wenner said burns up their fat and energy reserves. The bats awake hungry from hibernation in February. In February, their normal food, insects, are not available, he said. “They wind up starving,” he said. “Bats would normally hi- bernate until April.” Normally, bats eat three times their weight in bugs in one night, keeping the insect population in check. Without bats, farmers will use more insecticides and the well-being of forests will be at risk. See BATS, Page 1 Hodne's demeanor belies a man who has been at job By KIM ROLLMAN Dallas Post Correspondent Dwight Hodne enters the room wearing faded jeans and a gray sweatshirt. As he strolls across the lobby, he offers a warm, casu- al smile and extends his hand. It is hardly the image I had in mind when Iwas asked to interview the recently-retired pastor. Hodne appears to be much younger than his 65 years and, as we talk, it is clear to me it is not just his ap- pearance that contradicts his chronological age; he speaks with the unbridled enthusiasm of a young man just starting out, rath- er than a man who has spent near- ly 40 years in his vocation. Hodne retired as the pastor of the Fellowship Evangelical Free Church in Dallas in August. His retirement is, by his own admis- sion, a mere technicality. He is re- tired from the administrative du- ties of pastoring a church, but plans to continue his ministry for many years to come. He will draw upon his decades of experience to train new pastors and to intro- duce Christianity to minority groups in our country. The son of Norwegian immi- grants, Hodne was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. At 9 years old, he developed “a personal relationship with God.” He left Boston to attend The King’s College in New York where he earned a degree in psy- chology. During his second year there, he worked at a Christian camp where he witnessed camp- ers being saved, or welcoming God into their lives, and he knew immediately that he had found his calling in life. “Watching others receive Christ was a great experience for me,” he explains. “I knew that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I wanted to do something that lasted forever, that changed people’s lives forever.” After college, Hodne married his childhood friend, Holly, and for 40 years Pf SE. CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK/ FOR THE DALLAS POST Retiring pastor Dwight Hodne gets a high five from Gregson Dief- fenbacher who is held by his grandmother, Pat Dieffenbacher, at a retirement luncheon in his honor at the Evangelical Free Fellow- ship Church in Dallas. the couple moved to Chicago where the aspiring pastor stud- ied at the Trinity Evangelical Di- vinity School for four years. After graduating from the seminary in the early 1970s, he worked as a youth pastor in the Chicago area. In his two years there, he saw his youth group of high school stu- dents grow from 15 members to more than 80. He then moved on to pastor a church on Long Island, NY for four years. Although he never wa- vered in his devotion, he didn’t feelhe was where he needed to be. The church had already been well established and the young pastor felt his talents would be better served elsewhere. Seeing himself as an innovator or pio- neer, he wanted a chance to de- velop his own ideas and start a program from scratch. He got that chance in 1977 when the Eastern District Associ- ation of Evangelical Free Church- es came looking for someone to develop a year-round program at Camp Orchard Hill in Orange. The association had purchased the camp, which included a din- ing room and several cabins, and was looking to develop a summer camp and retreat program on the site. So Hodne packed up his wife and two young children (his youngest son was not yet born) and left a solid job to come to the Back Mountain for a job that re- quired him to raise his own salary by developing the camp and get- ting funding from the churches served by the camp. It was a big risk and times were tough for the young family but Hodne was en- ergized by his faith. “It was a risk,” he said, “but I trusted in the Lord. I believed that God was going to take care of us.” The Hodnes worked together to build the camp program. With- in five years, the camp grew into a year-round facility that adminis- tered to over 3,000 youth and adults. The program included family weekends, weekend re- treats, youth groups, adult class- es and men’s and women’s re- treats. Hodne and his staff used See HODNE, Pagel 8
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers