Hershey News 1959-01-15

              ERSHEY NEWS
Vol: 7 'D HERSHEY, PENNSYLVANIA, JANUARY 15,1959 No. 3
Tale Of Two Towns Plan t visitors net necord
Two Hersheys— Pa. and Nebr. — Are Linked By Letters 19..8 With The distance from Hershey,
Pennsylvania, to Hershey, Ne-braska,
is considerable.
But Mrs. John Luciani of
738 Hillcrest Road (Hershey,
Pennsylvania) has maintained
a link between the two
towns for a number of years
through correspondence with
Mrs. I. D. Browpfield, wife of
the Nebraska Hershey's re-tired
postmaster..
The Hershey - to - Hershey
, postal friendship began when
Mrs. Luciani was a student
at Hershey High School and
received an assignment "to
find out something abeut •the
town of Hershey, Nebraska."
Her first letter was addressed
to the postmaster; and a con-tinuing
exchange of letters
with Mrs. Brownfield fol-lowed.
Mrs. Luciani, a waitress at
the 'Cocoa Inn, even had the
Opportunity to enjoy a brief
visit with the Brownfields
during the war years when
she was en route to visit her
husband who was then sta-tioned
with the Navy on the
West Coast.
Recently she received a
short history of the Nebraska
town of _Hershey which con-tains
some interesting facts.
It was written by Mr. Brown-field,
now retired from the
postal service.
Hershey, Nebraska, is 14-
cated on the Union Pacific
Railroad and the Lincoln
Highway; about 300 miles
west of Omaha, and 13 miles
west of North Platte, the
home of William F. "Buffalo
Bill" Cody. •
In 1892 a_ group of farmers
and ranchmen of the region
met and organized a Townsite
Company. The principal aim
was to have a post office and
railroad switch from which to
ship hay and potatoes.
Select Name
At that time there- was a
large business operation there
—the Paxton and Hershey
Land and Cattle Company—
and the Townsite group de-cided
to name the town in
honor of one of the company
owners, J. H. Hershey.
"Mr. Hershey,, for whom
the town- was named, was
born and grew to manhood in
Pennsylvania," Mr. Brown-field's
account states.
Hersheyis located in a veil
ley between the North and
South Platte Rivers in what
was historic western frontier
country. Its farms are irri-gated
with water from the
North Platte River.
Beyond the farmland area
is hilly country, knewn as the
Sandhills. The land there is
owned mostly by cattlemen.
In the farmland around
Hershey, sugar beets, alfalfa,
and almost all kinds of grain
are grown, but stock raising
and wild hay are the best pay-ing
pursuits, Mr. Brownfield
wrote.
The natural prairie hay
grows in strips from one to
two miles wide along the riv-ers.
Some of-the hay is baled
and shipped, and some is fed
to the cattle locally.
Hershey, Nebraska, is elev-en
years older than its widely
known sister, Hershey, Penn-sylvania.
It is unlikely that
many local residents knew
there was a Hershey in' Ne-braska.
But Mrs'. Luciani and
Mrs. Brownfield haver faith-fully
kept the link between
the two towns.•
Lions' Club Honors R. K Raffensperger
' CITIZENSHIP AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING SERVICE to the community was pre-sented
by the Hershey Lions' Club to Robert K. Raffensperger at the Lions' Jan-uary
6 meeting. In the photo above, Raffensperger (second from right) receives the
Citation' from Ralph Horst (left), past president of the Lions' Club. Giving approval
are George D. McCiees(second from left), Lions president, and Past President-Sam-uel
DeAngelis, who heads the Citizenship Committee.
Raffensperger was recognized at the club's annual Community Service Night
meeting for his long and faithful activity as a member of the Hershey Volunteer
Fire Company. Special guests at the meeting included Percy Eckert, fire company president; Eugene Gray, fire chief; Mario Moratti, president of the Hershey Am- bulance Corps; and Paul Hummer, president of the fire company's Marching Club.
Another special guest was Frank Bybee, recipient of last year's Lions' Club award for community service.
Raffensperger has been active in the affairs of the Hershey Volunteer Fire Com-pany
since 1943, and for the past fourteen years has served as secretary. A member
of the fire crew, he has been a driver for five years and an executive board member
for four years. His interest also includes activity in the Dauphin County Firemen's
i
Association. •
A Hershey Estates chemist, he s married to the former Jeannette Weaver and is
the father of two daughters, Kay, 31;2, and Jean, 16 months.
The Lions' Club also presented Old Monarch Awards to four club members -- E -,-
John Curry, E. Morse HeiseY, Ralph Horst and H. Melvin Keckler — marking ten
years' membership. Key Awards, for securing two or more new members during
the year, were presented to Frank
,(Lebanon DailY
News phoSetor, artz and Leonard Snyder.
11 189,832 Total
The number of persons visiting the Hershey Chocolate
Corporation via the guided plant tours during 1958 towered
over previous years with a new high mark set.
The year's records at the Visitors' Department show
that a total of 189,832 persons were ushered through the
plant to see the chocolate processing and manufacturing
methods.
The figure for the year 1958'
was 17,959 higher than the
previous alltime high of 171,-I
873 which was established in'
1957.
The totals for the past six;
years demonstrate the ever-1
increasing popularity of the
plant tours:
1953 105,899
1954 126,761
1955 ...... 149,543
1956 171.284
1957 171,873
1958 189,832
The year 1958 also brought
a new record for-plant visiters
during a single month when
66,080 persons passed through
the Visitors' Lobby in the
month of August.
The month-by-month fig-ures
for 1958. as compiled by
Mrs. Verna Stoltz, Visitors'
Department supervisor:
January 1,906
February ..... 896
March 2,090
April 7,747
May 18,961
June 33,096
August
September
October
November
December
The interest shown by the
many visitors in the world's
foremost chocolate manufac-turing
plant is widespread, in-cluding
persons from through-out
the U.S. as well as from
foreign countries. Many of the
plant visitors a r e school
groups. Boy Scout and Girl
Scout troops and other organi-zations
also are frequent plant
"tourists." -
Annually, the biggest influx
of visitors comes during
August, when the Pennsyl-vania
Dutch Days celebration
here brings a large number of
persons to Hershey.
The National Plowing Con-test
and Soil Conservation Ex-position
held here last August
in conjunction with the Dutch
Days events undoubtedly had
the effect of helping to push
.32,514th,
66,080
12,094
9,556
3,523
the August - 1958 visitation
mark to its'rcord 66,080..Pre-viously,
the busiest August
was in 1957 when 60,910 visi-tors
were welcomed through
the plant doors.
• Except for Farm Show
Week, when many of the show
visitors stop off in Hershey to
see the chocolate plant, the -
winter season is the 'quietest
for the young women who
staff the Visitors' Depart-ment.
Their "slowest" month
of 1958 was February, when
the extremely bad weather
held down the visitation fig-ure
to 896. -
But the guides and other
staff members - were in ,the
midst of a hum of activity
throughout the warm-weather
months of May, June, July,
August and September last
year. In that five-month
„,...p..deriod they greeted and es-corted
through the plant a
total of 162,781 of the year's
total of 189,832 visitors.
The Visitors' Department
functions daily except Skitur-
Wiffilikft4 and holidays,
and, of course, is closed during
the annual plant vacation.
Louis Andreoni Heads
Hershey Italian Lodge
The January meeting of the
Hershey Italian Lodge (Men's
New Independent Mutual Ben-efit
Society) was marked with
the installation of new of-ficers.
The new officers installed
were Louis Andreoni, presi-dent
; James Custer, vice-pres-ident
; Donald DiClemente,
secretary; Divo DiClemente,
treasurer; and Pete Camacci,
Dino Niccolini and Frank Tul-li,
trustees.
Joe Surace, president of the
society for the past year,
thanked the former officers
and members for their coop-eration
and assistance in help-ing
to make the year a suc-cessful
one. He noted specifi-oCentimsed
From Pato Filer)
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