Lititz Record Express

              THURSDAY, April 30, 1992
Lititz Record Express
116TH YEAR 28 Pages- No. 2 LITITZ, PENNSYLVANIA 3 0 c e n ts
D istric t n e g o tia tio n s w ith Wrigley a re fru itfu l
Council told formal site rezoning request will be forthcoming
LORIN BEIDLER
Record Express Staff
By allowing the Warwick School District
to build a new elementary school on the so-called
Wrigley Tract, Lititz Borough can
have its cake and eat it too.
That was the message that Warwick Super­intendent
Dr. John Bonfield delivered to
Lititz Borough Council at its meeting Tues­day
night
Bonfield was responding to recommenda­tions
made by the Lititz Planning Commis­sion
urging the council not to permit the
rezoning of the the 50-acre Wrigley property
on the grounds that the plot is the last undeve­loped
industrial land in the borough.
The Warwick School District has reached
an agreement with the Wrigley Corporation,
which owns the parcel, to turn 23 acres of the
land into the district’s direly needed new
elementary school. The remainder of the
Wrigley property, some of which is in War­wick
Township, would then be developed
into 70 single-family dwellings.
The loss of borough real estate tax revenue
from allowing a non-taxable use, a school, on
the tract would be too costly, the borough
planning commission stated earlier this
month.
Bonfield told council that the school’s plan
would not only improve the quality of life in
the Warwick area, it would be financially
sound as well.
In order for the district’s plan to go
through, the borough would have to rezone
its portion of the land. Neither housing nor a
school are permited in industrial zones. War­wick
Township had previous plans to rezone
its share of the Wrigley Tract to a zoning clas­sification
appropriate for such a project.
Not only would the Wrigley location allow
the district to keep the new school in a
“neighborhood climate” and create new park­land
and ballfieids within the borough, the
Wrigley location would be financially adven-tageous
to both the district and the borough
and ultimately the taxpayers, Bonfield told
the council.
By locating the school on the Wrigley
property, Bonfield estimates that between
200-250 of the school’s students would be
able to walk to school, eliminating the need
for three or four buses. Eliminating three or
four buses would save the district between
$30,000 |nd $40,000 each year.
Moving on to the borough’s balance sheet,
Bonfield estimates that, while the school
itself would pay no real estate taxes, the 70
homes would generate around $ 14,000 in real
estate tax revenue. Adding a rough approxi­mation
of the income tax revenue that would
be generated by the occupants of those homes
and Bonfield figured that the borough could
reap over $20,000 in additional revenue
annually.
He estimated the real estate tax payments
made by Federal Mogul, chosen as a typical
(Turn to Page 20) Kids learn w h a t i t ’s like
to own a farm these days
LORIN BEIDLER _______ ___
Record Express Staff
Lititz isn’t the town it used to be.
Where once upon a time, and not
too long ago at that, Lititz was an
agricultural hub, a farming center
where the hundreds of area farmers
came to pick up supplies and sell
their goods, nowadays farmers are
much fewer and much farther
between.
While agriculture continues to be
the leading industry in the county and
state, fewer and fewer Pennsylva­nians
are actually working down on
the farm. As a result, fewer and fewer
Pennsylvania children really under­stand
how farming works.
That is the very reason why last
week 300 Warwick 4th graders vis-ited
the Marvin Witmer farm on Clay
Road and the Sauder egg processing
plant just north of town on Route
501. The students were there under
the auspices of a program of the
United States Department of Agri­culture
called Ag in the Classroom
(AITC).
According to Roy Brubaker, the
coordinator for the Warwick Ag in
the Classroom program, farmers,
who not too long ago produced
enough food for less than 20 people,
now produce enough food for more
than 100. Greater productivity, com­bined
with the loss of farmland due to
the local population explosion, has
brought about a decrease in the num­ber
of farmers in the Warwick area.
Add the production-oriented way
in which food is processed these days
and you end up with students who are
increasingly more ignorant about
where their food comes from.
‘The idea is to get kids more lit­erate
about farming,” Brubaker says.
“Many of them have lost touch with
where farm products come from.
They think the food they see in the
supermarket comes from some fac­tory
somewhere.
“Not many of them realize that
Lancaster County is still (nationally)
the number one county in the amount
of money generated by non-irrigated
fanning,” he adds.
Each year the USDA, along with
state and local farming advocacy
groups across the country, sponsors
the program which either brings the
classroom to the farm or the farm to
(Turn to Page 28)
X
Photo by Lorin Beidler
Warwick Township farmer Marvin Witmer explains how his milking system works to a group of Warwick
fourth graders. The students visited the farm as part of the Ag in the Classroom program.
S c h o o l p r o g r a m s e n c o u r a g e
s t u d e n t s t o v o l u n t e e r t i m e
JENNIFER KOPF
Photo by Jennifer Kopf
Harold Groff spends most of his week transporting goods, but was home in Rothsville last weekend with
wife Ann and sons Mike and Jeremy. Daughter Melissa is a student at West Chester University.
Our am b a s sad o r in E u ro p e
Harold Groff is
featured in
USIA project
JENNIFER KOPF_______ ____
Lititz Record News Editor
Larry and Lisa Getz, local natives
who teach at the American School of
Bucharest, got quite a surprise last
month as they were walking down
the Romainian streets. They glanced
at the United States Consulate show­case,
and there it was: a pictorial dis­play
on one “Herold Grof ’ of Lititz,
Pennsylvania.
“Imagine our shock,” the Getz’
wrote. “...It sure made our day!”
Imagine the surprise of truck driv­er
Harold Groff of Rothsville when
he got the call asking if he’d be inter­ested
in the project. Since the fall of
the Communist block began, Groff
had been “thinking and praying
about it. What could I do as a trucker,
as a professional, for Eastern Eur­ope?
Then this fell in my lap.”
“This” was an offer from the
United States Information Agency
(USIA) to have photographer Banry
Fitzgerald follow Groff during a
week on the road, then spend the
weekend at the family home.
The agency works with the U.S.
State Department, Groff explained,
and was embarking on a documenta­tion
of the entire food industry in the
United States. “(The USIA’s) func­tion
is to tell America’s story to the
world,” Groff said, and, as a result,
his story is scheduled to be displayed
from Lisbon, Portugal and Sofia,
Bulgaria, to Zagreb, Yugoslavia and
Warsaw, Poland.
Groff had come to the agency’s
attention through his consistently
high performance in a national com­petition
run for trucking industry
owner/operators by the Truckload
Interstate Carrier Conference and
Owner Operator magazine. The con­ference
is a subsidiary of the Ameri­can
Trucking Association, which
(Turn to Page 28)
Lititz Record News Editor
There’s no one more self-centered
than a teenager, you say? They don’t
give their time to anyone else?
False, and false.
While teens take a lot of heat for
attitudes they supposedly hold as a
group, volunteer programs in War­wick
nears the end of the school year
with many contributions to their cre­dit
The for-credit Community Ser­vice
class, begun this year, and the
Open Campus program, have pro­vided
a volunteer outlet for Warwick
High School students — and the
interest is definitely there.
From teacher’s aide to working in
a retirement home, students have
been able to check out career areas,
or work in areas of interest, all while
providing much-needed volunteer
services. And, says guidance counse­lor
Betty Schmoyer, that service is
som e th in g th a t sh o u ld be
encouraged.
“(Volunteering) makes them feel
like they’re contributing something,”
she said of her students. “It may help
them to commit themselves to some
kind of service as an adult... I think
we need to do things like this.” Vol­unteers,
she notes, provide much-needed
help that, in many cases,
wouldn’t be available otherwise.
In recognition of National Volun­teer
Week, and National Youth Ser­vices
Day on April 28, Warwick
High School is planning special
announcements and displays that call
students’ attention to their peers’
contributions. The school itself has
two programs established through
which pupils can volunteer outside
the school system.
Community Service is ending its
first year as a school-sponsored, cre­dit
program. After completing 120
hours at an approved organization,
students can earn a credit to be used
toward graduation. Working during
release time, after school, on
weekends and during holidays, a full
list of high schoolers has contributed
time and skills to eight different
organizations.
The Open Campus program,
meanwhile, allows students to be
released from school for non-paid,
(Turn to Page 28) House d e co ra tin g
contest s la te d fo r
J u ly 4 celebration
A house and business decorating
contest is one of the many activities
to be held in conjunction with the
observance of the Fourth of July.
The Lititz Veterans of Foreign Wars
Post 1463 has agreed to sponsor the
contest, and the Garden Spot Badge
Company is donating the six
plaques.
Any resident or business in the
Warwick School District is eligible
for the prizes. The VFW and the
Fourth of July committee are
encouraging local people to get
involved by decorating their home
or business in a motif that best
d e s c rib e s th e o c c a s io n o f
independence.
Those who are interested in enter-
(Turn to Page 2)
THIS WEEK IN THE RECORD EXPRESS
Deli-L gets new owners Tracksters earn sweeps of Norlebco, Lebanon
Walking into the Deli-L
these days, you’d think that
nothing has changed. The
only difference one might
notice is in the faces. Steve
Hartnett and his wife, Terri,
bought the business on
March 23 from Glenn and
Judy Lippart. Read more on
page 21.
It was a good week for War­wick’s
boys and girls track teams
as they earned sweeps over
Norlebco and Lebanon last
week. The boys kept their per­fect
league record intact (4-0)
and moved closer to clinching
the Section Two title and the
girls improved to 3-1 Read more
on page 11.
Five honored at
Jaycee Banquet
The Lititz Area Jaycees
honored five citizens at the
recent Distinguished Service
Awards Banquet. The five are
Judith Ann Drager, Steve C.
Hibshman, Charles Shenen-berger,
Steven Mateyak, and
Frank Kenavan. Read more on
page 28.
THE INDEX
Business 21
Church 18-19
Classified 24-27
Editorial 4
Manheim 20
Obituaries 2
Out of the Past 4
School Menu 6
School News 6
Social 14-16
Sports 8-11
WEATHER: Thursday, mostly
cloudy with a chance of showers.
Chance of rain Friday. Fair
Saturday.