The Conshohocken Recorder, March 26, 1964

              COMPLIMENTARY
A Town Goes Wild; Its' Team's a Winner
Bedlam broke loose in Consho-liocken
beginning latelastSaturday
night as Joe Kirby's Golden Bears
brought home the flrstState cham-ionship
in Iron Town history.
The Bruins did It by crushing
previously unbeaten (26-0) Cou-dersport
High 63-48, behind the
brilliant clutch shooting of Butch
Kitt.
Four Conshohocken starters hit
double figures as Kitt paced the
attack with 18 points. Mike Eth-rldge
racked up 16, BobbyGraham
hit 14 and Tom White chipped in
with ten counters.
Despite a height disadvantage of
three inches per man the Bears
outrebounded Coudersport 33-25
and had entirely too much speed
for the Potter County five.
Tom Lyons led the losers with
13 points, while 6-8 All-State cen-ter
Dan Wetzel (who had averaged
30 points a game before the con-test)
mustered only 11 points
against a tight Conshohocken de-fense.
Ethridge and Mike Howell did an
excellent job blocking out the giant
center. Wetzel's teammates were
frustrated all through the game
from getting the ball to their big
scorer.
Conshohocken outscored the
western champions in every
stanza, 16-11, 18-16, 10-7 and
19-14 as they outran, outshot and
outjumped their opponents.
The Bears led 34-27 at inter-mission,
but pinpoint shooting from
the field and free-throw line built
the final lead to 15 points.
After the game more than 1,200
Conshohocken fans surged onto
the court and carried Kirby and
his starters off on their shoulders.
On Sunday afternoon thousands
more lined the streets of Consho-hocken
to welcome the conquering
heroes.
The varsity players sat atop a
hook and ladder truck of the Wash-ington
Fire Co. that led a proces-sion
of ten fire engines from the
Harmonville, Plymouth, Lincoln,
Spring Mill, East Norriton,
Swedesburg, Swedeland and Con-shohocken
Number Two fire
companies.
A cavalcade of cars followed the
bell ringing, siren screaming
string of engines. Mike Ethridge
held the big, golden Conshohocken
Teddy Bear from the first engine as
he and his teammates waved at the
screaming fans.
Kirby and his men were then
treated to refreshments and lauded
by speakers at the Washington Fire
Co. auditorium.
The team will be guests of the
borough council tonight when it
plays host to officials from 26
Montgomery County communities
at a dinner atT-K Hall.
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Conshohocken —West Conshohocken — Plymouth, Whitemarsh & Springfield Townships — Chestnut Hill
Vol. 93 No. 46 TA 8-4600 THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1964 7c A COPY
Pergine Signs
With Notre Dame
John Pergine, often referred to
as the most versatile athlete ever
to come through Plymouth-white-marsh
High School, signed an
agreement last Friday accepting
a four year football scholarship
to the University of Notre Dame.
In accepting the scholarship
Pergine passed up offers from
some 85 to 90 colleges. He will
enroll in the school of business
administration where he plans to
major In either business law or
accounting.
Pergine has started every
varsity football, basketball and
baseball game played by P-w dur-ing
his eligible high school years.
As a quarterback, he directed two
football teams ('62-63) to league
championships and led basketball
squads that won the Eastern ('64)
and State ('63) PIAA champion-ships.
"Going to Notre Dame has been
John's dream ever since he was
a kid in grammar school," John,
Sr., his father, told the Recorder.
"It really makes me proud to see
his dream come true."
State Sanitarian Sees Possible Epidemic
Unless West Conshohocken Gets Sewers
Says Widespread Epidemic Possible
Right Now From Sewage in Streets
Banquet to Fete
Conshy Champs
Conshohocken High's Class C
State Champions will be honored
at a banquet to be held some
time during late April or early
May.
The plans were discussed re-cently
at a meeting of the Con-shohocken
School Board.
"We still have to give more
consideration to the number of
people who will attend and the
facilities that are available before
we can determine a date," Victor
J. Montemayer, president of the
School Board told the Recorder.
"We only discussed it a short
time during our last meeting. Now
we can start making plans."
Red Raiders Win on Speed;
Mistakes Costly to Colonials
Plymouth - Whitemarsh High's
hopes of winning their second
straight State championship were
blasted Saturday night as Union-town
captured the PIAA Class A
crown by trouncing the opportunity-mis
sing Colonials, 62-51, before
a sellout crowd of 7,984 at the
Farm Show Arena in Harrisburg.
The Red Raiders closed the
season without a loss (28-0) and
son their second State champ-ionship
in three years. It was
P-W's second setback in 26 outings
this year and their second loss
in their last 56 games.
The Colonials were able to over-come
Uniontown's famed "panic
press" early, only to miss easy
layups. P-W often hurried their
shots and continually tossed the
ball array.
Banks Open Late
Today, Closed Friday
Banking hours will be extended
today at all area banks for the
convenience of depositors, due to
closing tomorrow in observance of
Good Friday.
Philadelphia National Bank,
Fifth Ave. and Fayette St., open
to 6 p.m.
Conshohocken Federal Savings
and Loan Association, Main Of-fice,
Second Ave. and Fayette St.,
open to 6 p.m. Lafayette Hill and
Plymouth Square Offices, open to
8 p.m.
First Pennsylvania, Ridge and
Butler Pikes, also open to 8 p.m.
The speedier Red Raiders outre-bounded
the Colonials, 34-29, and
outshot them from the floor, con-verting
27 to 65 compared to
P-W's 21 of 62.
Still, the Red Raiders didn't
break open the game until late
In the third period.
After the Colonials pulled into
a 39-37 lead with 1:59 left in
the third Uniontown struck with a
(Continued on page 4)
Promoted
New deputy group executive at ITT
is Francis J. Harkins, who is also
in charge of all ITT Latin American
operations and international com-munications
operations. Harkins
will be located in New York City.
He joined the ITT Legal staff in
1959. Before that he was a special
agent with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
A graduate of the law school at
St. John's University in Brooklyn,
he is a member of the American
Bar Association and the Associa-tion
of the Bar of the City of
New York. A native of Consho-hocken,
he is the son of Mrs.
Malcolm J. Harkins and the late
Dr. Harkins, of 1500 Fayette St.
A sanitarian for the State De-partment
of Health today told the
Recorder that "there is a possi-bility
of an epidemic breaking
out in West Conshohocken unless
a sewer system is installed in
the borough,"
Joseph Goodavage, who is di-rectly
responsible for West Con-shohocken,
cited this as the chief
reason why the State Department
of Health has" urged the borough
to take action on sewers.
"The quicker they get sewers
in, the sooner they will be pro-tected
against outbreaks of hepi-titis,
dysentery, typhoid fever and
other serious health hazards,"
Goodavage said.
"We haven't pressed too hard
in recent years because West Con-shohocken
is a depressed area with
a large part of its population
unemployed, on relief or retired.
"But it is our duty to protect
surrounding communities as well
as West Conshohocken. This means
that the borough should have
sewers."
Goodavage explained that the
Department of Health cannot force
the borough to put in sewers. It
can only educate the people and
make recommendations.
"Our sanitary engineering di-vision
asked them to conduct a
feasibility study several years
ago," Goodavage said. "They com-pleted
one but never did anything
Group May Take LegalAction
On Use of SchoolPlanetarium
The Pennsylvania Citizens for
Educational Freedom, an organi-zation
dedicated to having all ed-ucational
benefits follow the child
rather than the school, may take
legal action against the Plymouth-
Whitemarsh joint School Board
for "discriminatory action" in re-gard
to use of the school
planetarium.
"We have been getting reports
and requests from between 50 to
100 outraged parents in the Ply-mouth-
Whitemarsh area,"
William D. Valente, president of
the Pennsylvania federation, told
the Recorder.
"They say that their children
are being excluded from a special
educational benefit which they have
p I taxes for.
• The reports indicate that
National Aeronautics Space Agency
Funds have gone into the planet-arium.
Nevertheless, private
schools are being charged a $15
fee for use of the facility.
"If this be true, the school
board is being doubly arbitrary,
and we are very much opposed
to this kind of action.
"Right now we have invest-igators
looking into this. We ex-pect
to have a full set of facts
within a week or two.
"Once we have enough facts we
will sit down and talk to the
school board and try to adjust
any tax discrimination which
penalizes parents from having a
choice of what school they want
to send their children to.
"We are seriously considering
the prospect of litigation if it
proves necessary."
Valente explained that CEF is
a national organization with
branches located in 30 states. He
added that there are more than
4,000 members in the five-county
area of Pennsylvania.
"We are a non- sectarian, non-political,
non-profit organization
started in 1959 In St. Louis, Mo.
We have had a federation in
Pennsylvania for the past two and
one half years.
"We don't get this kind of com-plaint
very often.
"It is unique because children
are being excluded from equal ac-cess
to a special educational bene-fit
which everybody pays taxes
for.
"There is nothing that we can
see either In the law or common
sense that justifies excluding these
private school children from ac-cess
to the program on equal
terms. They should not have to
pay twice for the panetarium.
"Twenty-five percent oftheele-mentary
school population of this
state go to private schools. We
(Continued on page 4)
about it.
"Two months ago we asked them
to resurrect the sewage problem
because they had simply let it
lie dormant for several years.
"We have documented evidence
proving that there is a sufficient
health hazard in West Consho-hocken
to warrant the installation
of sewers.
"Three years ago we conducted
a survey of the sires, and found
that some septic tanks were not
functioning properly and that a
number of them were spewing
sewage to the surface.
"If we were to check every in-dividual
health violation in West
Conshohocken we'd be so busy that
our whole department would be tied
up in the borough.
"All we can do is make them
aware of the dangers and let them
police themselves.
"Violations occur daily with just
laundry alone. They let laundry
water run onto the street and take
it for granted that it will not do
any harm.
"During the summer the sewage
collects in gutters and the cracks
in highways. It lays there and be-comes
food for rats, flies and
mosquitoes. Bacterial action is
spread all around the neighbor-hood.
"Bacteria from sewage that
comes to the surface from septic
tanks can be spread over fairly
large areas. A single fly or mo*
squito is able to carry It two to
five miles. And they spread disea
much farther when they hitch rid
in cars.
"West Conshohocken has been
very fortunate that there has been
no serious outbreak over the years.
But there is always a threat
of some sort of epidemic.
(Continued on page 4)
Fourth of July
Parade Called OH
In W. Conshohocken
The annual Fourth of July parade
and celebration in West Conshoho-cken
has been called off by the
parade committee because of "lack
of participation."
Councilman Vincent Kehoe,
chairman of the committee, ex-plained
that only five persons
showed up at a recent meeting to
plan the event.
The committee reported that
its finances were depleted and
efforts to have the community
support the program proved futile.