Lititz Record Express

              THE RESS
SERVING THE WARWICK AREA FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY
112th Year 0ne Section ESTABLISHED APRIL 1877 AS THE SUNBEAM
CONSOLIDATED WITH THE LITITZ RECORD 1937
Lititz, Lancaster County PA, 17543. Thursday, December 15, 1988 30 CENTS A COPY $9.50 PER YEAR BY MAIL
WITHIN LANCASTER COUNTY 24 Pages- No. 36
Township expected to adopt
revised manure ordinance
By Becky Collins
Record-Express News Editor
The Warwick Township
supervisors were expected
to adopt a long-awaited,
twice revised manure man­agement
ordinance at their
Wednesday night meeting.
The third and final draft of
the ordinance implements
both the original intent —
regulating the number of
animal units and disposal of
animal waste on farmland to
ensure water quality —
while clearly defining the
responsibilities of the far­mers
and the enforcing
agency.
“The first draft was a little
ambiguous,” agronomist
Michael Brubaker con­ceded,
referring to the model
ordinance proposed by the
Lancaster Conservation Dis­trict.
“The significant
changes in this ordinance
from the time it was first
proposed include specific
wording of the triggering of
Ordinance eyed from
a farmer’s perspective
Gordon Hoover, a dairy farmer in Salisbury Town­ship
and president of the Lancaster County Farmer’s
Association, stated Monday that he views the nutrient-management
ordinance as a “tool” to be used by mun­icipalities
in controlling contamination of ground
water.
“I think it’s something farmers can live with,” Hoov­er
remarked. Most farmers in Lancaster County, Hoov­er
says, are in compliance with accepted application
rates. He said the ordinance was designed to control
excess-application areas.
“In the form it’s in now, the nutrient management
ordinance does not inhibit a good operator in any way,”
he added.
Enforcement is the one aspect of the ordinance that
(Turn to Page 4)
the ordinance.”
“For instance,” he said,
“the first ordinance was to
have been triggered anytime
there is a ‘significant
increase in animal units.’”
Violation of the new ordi­nance
occurs when a farmer
exceeds 110 percent of his
normal seasonal changes in
herd size for two consecu­tive
months.
The ordinance would also
be triggered if a farmer’s
herd is in excess of 110 per­cent
of his normal seasonal
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Robert Mearig of Lititz looks over a magazine story about the Malmedy Mas­sacre.
(Photo by Dave Knauss)
Veteran recalls tragedy
of the Malmedy Massacre
By Dave Knauss
Record-Express Editor
This Saturday, Dec. 17,
Robert “Sketch” Mearig of
Lititz will note the date as
more than just eight days
before Christmas. Forty-four
years ago on that day,
this retired postal worker
was a witness to one of the
worst military atrocities in
World War II.
It is known as the Mal­medy
Massacre. And Mear­ig,
then a member of the
285th field artillery observa­tion
battalion of the U.S.
Army in Belgium, survived
it.
German troops of the
Early deadlines planned
The Record Express
will have early deadlines
for the issues of Dec. 29
and Jan. 5 due to the
holidays.
Display advertising
deadline will be 5 p.m. on
Thursday, Dec. 22, for
the issue of Dec. 29 and 5
p.m. on Friday, Dec. 30,
for the issue of Jan. 5.
Classified display
deadline will be 5 p.m. on
Friday, Dec. 23, for the
issue of Dec. 29, and 5
p.m. on Friday, Dec. 30,
for the issue of Jan. 7.
Reader c la ssified
deadline will be noon on
Tuesday, Dec. 27, for the
Dec. 29 issue, and noon
on Tuesday, Jan. 3, for
the issue of Jan. 5.
Social and church
news deadline will be 5
p.m. on Thursday, Dec.
22, for the issue of Dec.
29, and 5 p.m. on Thurs­day,
Dec. 29, for the issue
of Jan. 5.
General news deadline
will be 5 p.m. on Friday,
Dec. 23, for the issue of
Dec. 29, and 5 p.m. on
Friday, Dec. 30, for the
issue of Jan. 5.
The Lititz Record
Express office will be
closed on Monday, Dec.
26, and Monday, Jan. 2.
change at the time the ordi­nance
is enacted. The nor­mal
seasonal change of herd
size would be calculated
using the years 1984-88 as a
base.
Under the new ordinance,
farmers with a manure-management
plan who are
operating in excess of the
110 percent limit can con­tin
u e th e ir o p e ra tio n
unchanged with a permit.
Effect on Farmers
“As far as farmers are
concerned, the ordinance
will not affect them where
there is not pollution of
ground or surface water
runoff and where they are
not making any changes in
their existing operation,”
notes Robert Gregory, dis­trict
administrator for the
Lancaster Conservation
District.
He continued, “Farmers
who are good managers are
not limited by this ordinance
when they properly dispose
of their manure.”
(Turn to Page 4)
Barbara Burkholder thumbs through Bessie
Searle’s journals. (Photo by Jed Kensinger)
Alumni revealed
in journals of
Bessie Searle
By Jed Kensinger
Record-Express Staff Writer
Sometimes our names turn up in the strangest places.
For hundreds of native Lititz residents one of those
places is Bessie Searle’s journals.
Bessie Searle was a librarian at Warwick High
School and the former Lititz High School from the late
1930s to the early 1960s. She was so meticulous about
cataloguing information that she kept a list at home of
nearly all students who graduated from Warwick dur­ing
her career.
What’s even more amazing is that she continued to
keep tabs on the majority of her students for many years
beyond graduation, updating the data to include
engagements, marriages, births of children, obituaries
and other milestones in their lives.
The task might not have been so painstaking in her
early years at Lititz, since there were only two or three
dozen members in a high school class. But she con­tinued
diligently to keep her journals as the class size
tripled and quadrupled. Class size increased signific­antly
in 1957, with the consolidation of Lititz and
Rothsville High Schools.
As it turned out, Miss Searle had nine ring-bound
notebooks stuffed with trivia when she died about 15
years ago.
“When we were sitting there in the library, who
(Turn to Page 13)
Council cuts corridor from plan
By Dave Knauss
Record-Express Editor
The idea of a “connector”
road between West Lincoln
Avenue and West Orange
Street to reduce traffic con­gestion
on Broad Street in
the borough is history.
At Tuesday night’s meet­ing
the borough council vot­ed
to strike the proposed cor­ridor
— which would have
kept alive the idea of a con­nector
road if needed —
from the new comprehen­sive
plan. The plan as a
whole will be passed by
council at a later meeting.
Councilman Robert Her-shey
made the motion to cut
the corridor, stating the road
is opposed by the school dis­trict,
would block expansion
of the town’s largest indus­try
(Warner-Lambert),
would pose a hazard to stu­dents
in the school campus,
would be expensive to build,
and would be used primarily
by the six percent ofborough
residents who live in the
northwest quadrant of the
town.
The motion passed unani­mously
by council members.
In past meetings the corri­dor
was strongly opposed by
a representative of Warner-
Lambert, and received
opposition from Dr. John
Bonfield, superintendent of
Warwick School District.
In another controversial
matter, council members
made an oral agreement with
officials of Warwick Town­ship
Municipal Authority to
pay a lump sum to the town­ship
for its running sewer
lines from Pennwick Estates
to the borough sewer plant.
The developer of the
planned housing complex
would foot the bill.
The amount of the lump
sum was not agreed to; how­ever,
authority officials did
not reject the $ 1,000 per unit
($148,000) proposed earlier
by the council. Council pres­ident
Clyde Tshudy even
suggested that perhaps
$2,000 per unit might be
needed for the authority to
pay for depreciation and
new equipment.
Authority members will
study the matter and get back
to council with a suggested
amount.
In another township mat­ter,
council agreed to tell
authority officials by early
March how much it will cost
to upgrade the pumping sys­tem
in order to allocate more
water to the township.
Council will work with
Huth Engineers staffer Wil­son
Smith to study future
borough water needs and the
cost of getting more water.
Authority members agreed
to share the capital costs
with the borough.
Authority member Lester
Andes told council the agen­cy
may approach Lancaster
City for water if no more is
forthcoming from the
borough.
In other action the council
voted to pay PSC Environ­mental
Services of Limerick
$7,400 for a preliminary
study on the proposed ion
exchange system for lower­ing
the nitrate level of bor-
(Turn to Page 24)
Will Warwick Class of ‘89
take their trip to Florida ?
Waffen-SS took 145 Ameri­can
GIs prisoner near Mal­medy,
g a th ered them
unarmed in a field, and
mowed them down with
gunfire, killing two-thirds of
them.
Though the incident is a
bad memory for Mearig, he
still attends an annual reun­ion
of survivors. Some are
nearby. One lives in Mount
Joy, another in Marietta, and
a third in Elizabethtown.
Nine other members of their
battalion were from Lancas­ter
County but fell at
Malmedy.
This is Mearig’s story of
what transpired forty-four
years ago:
It was Dec. 16, 1944, the
first day of the Battle of the
Bulge, Hitler’s last desp­erate
offensive in the waning
days of the war. Mearig and
his battalion were ordered to
convoy to St. Vith, in Bel­gium,
to find the Germans,
who had just broken through
the front. His group’s job
was to set up a base for
viewing the Germans with
big, powerful scopes, to
(Turn to Page 4)
By Jed Kensinger
Record-Express Staff Writer
Warwick School Board
members are divided on the
controversial question of
whether they should allow
the Class of 1989 to take a
trip to Florida in May, even
though less than 60 percent
of the students have regis­tered
for it.
The board approved the
trip at an October meeting,
with the stipulation that it
was permissible if 60 per­cent
of the class agreed to
participate.
The board will make a
decision at its regular meet­ing
next Tuesday.
At last week’s Committee
of the Whole meeting, the
committee recommended to
have the trip reconsidered
and voted on at the regular
board meeting. Five mem­bers
attending the commit­tee
meeting agreed to recon­sider
the policy, while two
refused to reconsider it. Two
board members were absent.
More than 30 parents
(T..r-, »c Ppg5 1f!)
Police seek leads
to identify
cemetery vandals
By Becky Collins
Record-Express News Editor
The calm was forever
shattered at a private cemet­ery
in Warwick Township
this November when a group
of vandals violently bashed
the headstones (many dating
back to the 1700s) marking
the final resting places of 12
members of the Christian
Burkholder family.
But what seemed like a
simple case of vandalism
turned into a gruesome task
for Warwick police as they
discovered that someone
had dug down into one of the
(Turn to Page 21)
Prints of borough
sold for anniversary
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Ruth McKennon, chairperson of the Lititz 100th anniversary committee,
and Al Taft show his water color of borough businesses. (Photo by Dave
Knauss)
By Dave Knauss
Record-Express Editor
Those in love with Lititz
have a chance to buy some­thing
that may come up only
once in a century.
To commemorate the
100th anniversary of the
incorporation of Lititz in
1888, the borough council is
selling 439 prints of a water-color
by Al Taft that shows
17 current businesses in the
town. The individual views
surround a lovely drawing of
Lititz Springs Park.
C o u n c il w ill s e ll
unframed prints for $65 each
and framed prints for $150
each, with proceeds going to
the Lititz Community Cen­ter,
it was announced Tues­day
night.
The commissioned water
color is modeled after a pen-and-
ink drawing of 10 Lititz
establishments done in
1887.
On the back of each new
print is a map of Lititz,
according to Ruth McKen­non,
council member and
chairperson of the 100th
anniversary committee.
The businesses on the
(Turn to Page 12)
S t u d e n t a r t i s t r e c o g n i z e d S c i e n c e t e a c h e r g e t s h o n o r s
Originality is the hall­mark
of student artist
Andy Garner. The War­wick
senior’s artwork
will be exhibited at the
Lititz Public Library
throughout December.
Read about his art phi­losophy
and accom­plishments
on page 2.
iillilB g lll
Charlotte Kresge, a
1967 graduate of War­wick
High School has
been recognized for
her work in science
education. She will now
represent Pennsylva­nia's
science supervi­sors
at the national
level contest. To find
out what makes her a
special teacher, turn to
page 12.
R e c y c l i n g
s c h e d u l e
Recyclable materials
will be collected in Lititz in
the area south of Main
Street and east of Route
501 on Wednesday, Dec.
21. Recyclables — alumi­num
cans, glass contain­ers,
corrugated card­board,
and (until Jan. 1)
newspapers — should be
placed on the curb by 7:30
a.m. for pickup by the
Water Street Rescue
Mission.
C h r i s t m a s c o o k i e b a k e - o f f
Baking Christmas
cookies is a tradition for
many families . But the
way one local family
does it is extraordinary.
Each year the relatives
of Shirley Sauder bring
their cookie dough to
her Manheim farm­house
where they bake
1,800 cookies in 15
varieties. For their
story, see page 24.
Record
Index
Business 19
Church 16
Classified 21-23
Editorial 4
Manheim 18
Out of the Past 20
Social 14
Sports 6-8