Lititz Record Express

              THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2000
Lititz Record Express ^ - a r r f 'W i n n / ^
T u b l i c a tio n
124TH YEAR 30 Pages- No. 3 LITITZ, PENNSYLVANIA Two sections 30 Cents
□ Church
Day of Prayer
National Day of Prayer will be
observed on Thursday, May 4,
and the Warwick Association of
Churches will take that oppor­tunity
to pray for local leaders.
Page 14.
□ School
Essay winner
Catherine Stoner, a junior at
Warwick High School, recently
won an essay competition
sponsored by the American
Civil Liberties Union, which she
did on the topic of distribution
of religious materials in a public
school. Page 6.
Also, the Warwick High
School Orchestra will hold its
Spring Concert this Sunday in
the high school auditorium. The
show is free and open to the
public. Page 6.
□ Editorial
On Second Thought
Glenn Knight is searching for
“ The Lititz Iconoclast.” His
quest begins on Page 4.
□ Business
v e n n . r v *
Laurie Kear, proprietor of
Benner’s Soda Fountain, is
nearly finished with renovations
to the popular landmark that
closed last December. She
hopes to open the new store on
May 8. Page 18.
□Out of the Past
A new Rec
Forty years ago this week, the
Lititz Record Express intro­duced
the community to plans
for proposed Bobst Recreation
Center, which would eventually
serve the recreational needs of
the community through 1990.
For this and more news from the
past, see Page 21.
□ Also Inside
Watershed clean-up
The Lititz Run Watershed Alli­ance
is sponsoring a clean-up
day at two locations in Warwick
Township this Saturday, and is
still looking for volunteers,
either individuals or groups, to
help with the effort. For more in­formation,
see Page 17.
□ Sports
Egg Run W inners
Connie Buckwalter and Mark
Amway were the top winners in
Sauder’s Easter Egg Five-Mile
Run on Saturday, which was
held for the first time in Lititz.
Page 8.
□ Index
Births................ 22
Business......................... 18-19
Church.............................14-15
Classified........................25-29
Editorial / Letters...................4
Entertainment...................... 16
Obituaries.............................12
Out of the Past........21,24-25
Poiice/Fire Log.......................2
School News............... 6-7
Social..............................22-23
Sports................................8-11
D o S om e th in g
Great!
Then tell The Lititz Record
about it.
626-2191
Shopping center to open May 3
C o o p e r a t i o n
k e y i n s m o o t h
c o n s t r u c t i o n
RICHARD REITZ
R e c o r d Express Editor
WARWICK TWP. — On Tues­day,
as developer Kevin Lahn was
leaving The Shoppes of Kissel Vil­lage,
he admitted that it felt a little
strange driving on roads that for
the past few years have been noth­ing
more than conceptual lines on
a sketch plan.
Today, those lines are paved,
and form Peters Road, which con­nects
Millport Road to Highlands
Drive behind the new shopping
center south of town.
“It was a little weird to finally
see actual people out driving on
that road,” Lahn said. “And
Route 501 is so much different. It’s
a completely different road.”
Three years after plans for the
110,000-square-foot shopping
plaza were introduced to supervi­sors,
the project is nearly com­pleted,
and it is anticipated that 13
new retailers — from a 56,000-
square-foot Giant supermarket, to
more modestly-sized specialty
shops — will be opening for busi­ness
in May. Lahn, vice president
<>f R.J. Waters, said an overall
grand-opening celebration for the
center is planned for Tuesday,
June 6.
The road to this day was not
always smooth. This parcel of
farmland zoned for commercial
use was first coveted by Wal-Mart,
who proposed a 212,000-square-foot
superstore for the site. It was a
plan that generated vocal public
opposition, and was rejected by
Warwick Township officials in
1995 after Wal-Mart declined to
accept township requests to
finance road improvements they
See CONSTRUCTION, page 17
Hearing on
Lititz El
is May 15
LITITZ — The Warwick
School District will hold a commu­nity
meeting next month to share
the results of the feasibility study
related to the educational facilities
needed to accommodate expected
increases in the number of stu­dents
attending schools within the
district.
This meeting will be held on
Monday, May 15, at 7 p.m., in the
Warwick Middle School audito­rium.
During this meeting, commu­nity
members will have the oppor­tunity
to provide feedback and
propose additional solutions to the
successful management of in­creased
enrollments and other fa­cility
needs.
Results from this community
meeting will be shared with the
school board and appropriate
school board committees to assist
in making decisions as to how the
district will meet the educational
needs of the students in the War­wick
community.
One aspect of this plan concerns
the 82-year-old Lititz Elementary
School building, the former Lititz
High School. Several options have
been presented to address pro­jected
enrollment increases, in­cluding
renovation, recon­struction,
or relocation of the
school.
Circus set
for June 15
LITITZ — The circus will be
coming to town thanks to the local
Lions Club.
On Tuesday, borough council
gave Lions organizer William
Shuler the OK to proceed with
plans to bring the Kelly Miller
Circus, all the way from Okla­homa,
to the ball field grounds
west of Lititz Springs Park.
The unanimous approval means
that Lititz will have its first circus
in many years on June 15, and if
all goes well, Shuler said that it
could become an annual affair.
See CIRCUS, page 17
.-'y ' \cimrd Reitz
After years of planning, and several months of planning, The Shoppes at Kissel Village, located along the Lititz Pike near the Millport Road
intersection, south of Lititz, is ready to open. The first stores are planning to open on May 3, with several others targeting a mid-May opening.
T h e s h o p s a t t h e S h o p p e s
1 3 s t o r e s w i l l
o p e n i n M a y
ering relocation at the center, and
there are still vacancies for future
stores.
RICHARD REITZ .
STEPHENSEEBER
R e c o r d Express S ta f f
WARWICK — The road work is
complete, the buildings are in place,
and retailers are beginning to stock
the shelves in preparation for grand
openings that will take place over
the next several weeks.
Thirteen merchants will soon
open at the Shoppes at Kissel Vil­lage,
a 111,000 square foot shop­ping
center constructed south of
Lititz along the Lititz Pike at an es­timated
cost of $15 million by R.J.
Waters and Associates of Kennctt
Square. A 14th merchant is consid­GiantFood
According to Kevin Lahn, vice
president of R.J. Waters and Asso­ciates,
Giant Foods, the anchor of
the Shoppes at Kissel Village, is
planning to open for business on
W ednesday, May 3.
Giant will occupy the largest
space in the center, with a 56,000-
square-foot supermarket on the
north side of the complex. The
supermarket chain, which has 81
stores in Pennsylvania, has been in­terviewing
potential employees
over the past few weeks at the new
store, as they stock the shelves in
preparation for the opening day.
Giant Foods officials did not
return calls from the Litiiz Record
Express for additional comments
on the new store.
McDonald’s
McDonald’s may be moving a
little further away from downtown
Lititz, but when you step inside the
new fast food restaurant, it may feel
like you took a step right into the
heart of the historic town.
By mid-May, Dan and Kathy
Kraft, owners of the Lititz restau­rant,
said they will be closing their
decade-old building along Lititz
Pike to move down the road about a
mile. Mr. Kraft said they should not
miss a beat, with plans to close the
old restaurant after dinner, and
open the new building the following
morning, when everything is ready
for the move.
The biggest reason for the move
was to improve access to the restau­rant.
“I think everybody will agree
that the current location can be dif­ficult
to get in and out of,” Mrs.
Kraft said.
The signs at the new shopping
center all feature brick bases.
But she said they are anxious to
open up “where the action is,” with
a new building, new and efficient
See SHOPS, page 17
—
iwmmÎÊÊSmÊÊIÊtmm
Photo by Richard Reitz
Liz Higgs (center) is joined by Moravian Church administrator
Debbie Boehler (left), and Doris Stryker (right) of Lititz during
Higgs’ booksigningin Fellowship Hall on Saturday.
Memories o f home
H i g g s s p e a k s a t l i b r a r y , M o r a v i a n c h u r c h
RICHARD REITZ
R e c o rdE x p r e s s Ed ito r
LITITZ — Fellowship Hall at
Moravian Manor is a room filled
with emotional memories for
author Liz Curtis Higgs.
The Lititz born-and-raised
writer recalled it as the room
where she was baptized at the
age of 12, and where she taught
Vacation Bible School. It was
also where her mother’s funeral
service was held.
Liz came home last week to
meet with old friends and new
fans of her inspirational and hu­morous
novels, and on Saturday
morning, she returned to Fel­lowship
Hall, where about 200
people came to meet Liz, have
their books personalized, enjoy a
bit of tea and sugar cake, and
savor a good hearty laugh.
She observed her usual audi­ence
— mostly women “with a
few very brave men,” and out­lined
her three goals as a
speaker:
•Encourage women to cele­brate
their bodies exactly as they
are.
•Encourage the church to
laugh more.
•Encourage people to know
Jesus Christ as their savior.
“My first book was encour­agement
for big, beautiful
women living in a skinny, ner­vous
world,” Liz said about
“One Size Fits All, and Other
Fables.”
She also wondered why so
many people, when they put on
their Sunday clothes, also put on
an unhappy face when they
should bejoyful.
“I’m on a mission to help
people to laugh more,” she said.
“Sometimes we are so busy, we
miss the funny things that are
out there.”
It was a thrill for Liz to return
to the location ofher latest novel,
“Bookends,” which has become
a popular book in this area — es­pecially
since it’s set entirely in
Lititz, from Christmas to Easter
of 1999. Though she takes some
artistic liberties in the book,
most of the book is painstakingly
accurate, right down to the
weather.
“My editor asked me why
there were three snowstorms in
the story, and said ‘Liz, it’s get­ting
old.’ I said T know, but it’s
See HIGGS, page 17
No problems on April 20
STEPHENSEEBER
R e c o r d Express S ta f f
LITITZ — As expected, school
was conducted without incident
on April 20. And as expected, stu­dent
attendance was incredibly
low.
Close to 70 percent of Warwick
High School’s pupils missed class
during the one-year anniversary of
student murders at Columbine
High School in Colorado.
Several bomb threats which
referenced the Columbine anni­versary
prompted Warwick offi­cials
to heighten security last
week. The extra effort paid off, but
the majority of the student body
was not on hand to witness it.
But now that the educational
routine is starting to return to
normal, the culprits of last
month’s bomb threats should not
rest easy. Lititz Police Chief Doug­las
Shertzer said that his depart­ment’s
investigation is closing in
quickly on a group of suspects who
could soon be facing some very se­rious
criminal charges.
“We’ve done the writing analy­sis
and we’re still intensely investi­gating
this,” Shertzer said this
week. “We have narrowed it down
to a group. It’s more than one
person and I can tell you that they
will be dealt with very seriously. I
can’t say any more than that.”
Shertzer declined to release the
exact wording of these threats, but
he did say that there were five dif­ferent
incidents, all of which oc­curred
on bathroom walls in the
high school and middle school.
What the perpetrators may
have considered to be a harmless
joke was in actuality an act of ter­rorism
which disrupts an entire
community.
“This took a lot of work to pre­pare
for and it affects a lot of
people, not just the police depart­ment
and school district,”
Shertzer said. “There is a price tag
to all these extra services. I mean
our department alone probably
had 70 hours of overtime.”
The agencies which helped keep
Warwick safe last Wednesday and
Thursday include: Lancaster City
Police, on standby; Pennsylvania
State Police, provided two bomb
search dogs from Philadelphia and
Williamsport; the Lancaster
County Sheriffs Department, sup­plied
a dog; Mt. Joy Police, sup­plied
its K-9 unit; Emergency
Management Coordinator Bob
See WARWICK, page 17
Pool to get defibrillator
STEPHEN SEEBER
R e c o r d Express S ta f f
LITITZ — It looks as if Lititz
will have the first defibrillator-equipped
public pool in the
county.
Last month, the idea of entrust­ing
teenage pool employees with
the life-saving heart shocker was
met with a mixed reaction.
Could such young people
handle such a high-stress situa­tion?
Could they afford to be with­out
what is quickly becoming an
essential tool for artificial resusci­tation?
The debate ended Tuesday
night, when borough council voted
unanimously in favor of allowing
Teresa Freeman, a local nurse who
aided in the failed attempt to
revive a Lititz man at the pool last
summer, to solicit funding for the
purchase of a defibrillator which
will be used at the borough-run
swimming facility.
On July 18, 1999, Donald
Cromer was the victim of an acci­dental
drowning at the pool. A
police defibrillator, which arrived
on the scene several minutes after
lifeguards and Freeman began ad­ministering
CPR, was used to no
avail. Freeman is convinced that
having the device, which restarts
the heart with an electric shock, on
hand at the pool is the difference
between life and death.
The research she presented con­vinced
council as well.
Freeman stilled qualms about
training and liability by engaging
the help of the Lancaster Heart
Foundation, which will provide
free training on how to use the de­fibrillator.
Lifeguards will have to
undergo a two-hour seminar with
annual refresher courses which
last no longer than half an hour.
And in many cases, such training
has already been combined with
CPR classes.
See DEFIBRILLATOR, page 17