Vol. 121 No. 43 THE BACK MOUNTAIN'S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1889 December 30, 2012 - January 5, 2013 he 50¢ WILKES-BARRE, PA. www.mydallaspost.com AN EDITION OF THE TIMES LEADER REMEMBERING 2012 Another hurricane, a bitter dispute over a police move and a new senior center top year’s headlines By DOTTY MARTIN dmartin@mydallaspost.com For the second year in a row, hurricane winds descended on the Back Mountain, causing widespread damage and power outages for many residents. In Harveys Lake, a bitter dispute about whether or not to move the borough’s police department was part of almost every meeting in that borough for nearly a year and the termination of a legendary high school football coach had ev- eryone in town talking. Here’s a month-by-month look at life in the Back Mountain dur- ing the year 2012: NUARY ‘he Knights of the Round Ta- e program geared up for its sec- ond year in the Lake-Lehman School District. The program started last year as a way to honor Lake-Lehman alums and present students with examples of local leaders. Lake-Lehman High School stu- dents took friends, family and fel- low classmates on a culinary trip around the world.. The humani- ties students participated in an international dinner as part of a class project in which they creat- ed a menu, assembled costumes performed a skit to represent choice of country. t of more than 900 entries, Wycallis Elementary fifth-grader Emily Bogdon was one of 22 stu- dents in the state to win the state Department of Transportation Aviation Art Contest. Bogdon’s drawing depicted a girl holding a paper airplane as a real aviation craft flew above her. Bogdon said her father helped her develop the idea for the drawing. Harveys Lake Borough Coun- cil adopted a $1,313,525 budget for 2012 without raising taxes. In- stead, council members voted to forego their monthly stipends for the year to help eliminate a def- icit. The seven council members are paid a total of $13,105 a year. Liz Martin was sworn in as a Dallas Township supervisor and was appointed vice chairman of the board of supervisors. Charles Youngman was sworn in as a first-time council member in Dallas Borough while Lee Eck- ert and Chris Matus were sworn in for another term. Kelly Martin Johnson, of Trucksville, replaced Mary Jo Hromchak as head coach of the Dallas High School girls basket- ball team and Doug Miller, of Exeter, was named head coach of the Mountaineers boys basket- ball team after Ted Jackson Jr. re- signed in November from the po- sition he had held for seven years. The Dallas School Board dis- cussed an expansion of the high school schedule that would allow students to take on extra courses. Superintendent Frank Galicki said the board was considering switching from the four-period block-style schedule to a five-pe- riod schedule. Chief Gathering LLC won an appeal to the Dallas Township Zoning Hearing Board for the modification of one of the condi- tions the board stipulated when it approved the company’s applica- tion for a natural gas metering station in December. The condi- tion Chief appealed, which was one of seven posted to the compa- ny’s project, involved the con- struction and maintenance of a 6- foot high fence with barbed wire to be no less than 315 feet at all points surrounding the metering facility. Friendly’s restaurant, located at the intersection of Routes 309 and 415, closed its doors on Jan. 8 after 26 years in business Rick Connors, of Bunker Hill Road, used over 18,000 lights to complete his holiday presenta- tion and was awarded first place in the Kingston Township Holi- day House Contest. Bill Grant, a 26-year resident of Dallas Township, was named to the board of supervisors, joining Liz Martin and Frank Wagner. The third seat on the board was left vacant in December when longtime supervisor Phil Walter abruptly resigned. A natural gas metering station would be located in Dallas Town- ship as the zoning hearing board approved Williams Field Service LLC's request to build a facility off Lower Demunds Road. The fa- cility, opposed by several local residents, would be located on 4.29 acres about 2682 feet from the Dallas School District cam- pus. FEBRUARY The Dallas School Board voted to keep the position of head foot- ball coach open. The vote came two days after a lengthy hearing for former coach Ted Jackson Sr. Students on the Wilkes-Barre campus of Penn State University in Lehman Township were mourning the loss of “one of their own” after the recent passing of longtime football coach Joe Pa- CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK FILE PHOTO/ FOR THE DALLAS POST Grammar school friends Leona Huntz and Helen Franklin meet to go into the new Dallas Senior Center in the Stacks Complex. for the 2012-2013 season. needs too many repairs to save. terno of lung cancer. Jeff Box was sworn in a for a third term as Kingston Township supervisor but the appointment was a bit unexpected. Box didn’t run for re-election in 2011 — not even in the primary. He won the seat left vacant by former super- visor John Solinsky after resi- dents wrote his name on the bal- lot more than anyone else’s mo- niker. Lake Townwship was gearing up to become a member of the Back Mountain Community Partnership as members dis- cussed the township’s inclusion at a meeting. Less than a month after leaving a career she held for 27 1/2 years, Marilyn Gregorski admitted she would be back at The Meadows Nursing Center in Dallas Town- ship. She had been asked to help with Market on the Pond, the center's largest fundraising event. The 71-year-old doesn’t like the word “retirement” and re- ferred to her recent departure from her position as director of volunteers at the nursing center as “a leap of faith.” Teachers in the Lake-Lehman School District adopted dress down days and paid $5 to wear less form attire to work every oth- er Wednesday with the money funding book scholarships for graduating seniors as well as school functions such as the Last Knight LockiIn. Language arts teacher Cathy Wolfe started the program as a way to wear com- fortable clothing to work while also paying homage to former Lake-Lehman employees and stu- dents. Each dress down day hon- ors a deceased member of the Lake-Lehman family. After more than 20 years of re- maining anonymous, Sue Hand, of Dallas, admitted to being the Phantom Valentiner who secretly taped paper hearts on doors of Dallas businesses with the help of her family. Longtime Dallas High School football coach Ted Jackson Sr. saw his career ended when the school board voted 7-2 to hire Robert Zaruta as the head coach ; Penn State THON for the seventh CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK FILE PHOTO/ FOR THE DALLAS POST Harveys Lake Borough Police Chief Charles Musial thinks the present police station in Harveys Lake is not secure, not up to code and Kingston Township supervi- sors adopted an updated compre- hensive plan. After several years of working with consulting firms and the planning commission, the board of supervisors adopted a final version of the township's comprehensive plan. Eleven-month-old Mia Ellis saw her father for just the second time in her young life when Den- nis Ellis, of Dallas, a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps flew home after a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan. Four generations of the Ellis family, as well as close friends, were at the Wilkes- Barre/Scranton International Airport to welcome home their favorite military man. To honor the memory of Tho- mas E. Lynch, 18, of Harveys Lake, a senior at Dallas High School who died from injuries sustained in a motor vehicle acci- dent in Dallas Township, the Thomas Lynch Scout Scholar- ship Fund was created to provide financial assistance to current and future Boy Scouts. Twenty-two-year-old Beth Ca- rey, of Dallas, participated in the CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK FILE PHOTO/ FOR THE DALLAS POST Marie Belasco watches as a tree from her yard is cut up and power restored to her home on Machell Avenue. time. THON is a dance marathon that raises money for the pediat- ric cancer support organization, the Four Diamonds Fund, associ- ated with the Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital. Carey danced with the Women’s Club Basketball — the same organiza- tion that danced in her honor when she was a 15-year-old bat- tling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the lymph glands and bone marrow. Elementary sports in the Lake- Lehman School District were suspended following an alterca- tion between two Ross Elemen- tary fifth and sixth-grade boys basketball coaches that escalated to a point of concern. Superin- tendent James McGovern was satisfied with the league presi- dent’s decision as to what action to take against the adults respon- sible but would not provide de- tails. He said the league would al- so develop a parents’ guide, coaches’ guide and a mission for the program. MARCH Due to overwhelming vol- icipal Authority increased its recycling collection to every two weeks. Larry Spaciano, executive direc- tor of DAMA, attributed the in- crease in recycling collection to the authority’s new single stream recycling program. Customers no longer had to seaprate materi- als like plastic, glass and card- board, making recycling easier than ever. The rivalry between the Dallas and Lake-Lehman high school swimming and diving teams got a little friendlier than one might think. The Lake-Lehman team, which started competing in the Wyoming Valley Conference in 2007, entered into an agreement with Dallas this year to utilize its pool for home meets. See 2012, Page 5 09815120079%g o
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