Lititz Record Express

              THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2001
L i t i t z R e c o r d E x p r e s s
^ a r d - W i i i ^
KEYSTONE
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124TH YEAR 32 Pages- No. 4 4 LITITZ, PENNSYLVANIA Tw o sections 30 Cents
INSIDE
□ Special Section
Insurance Pages
Explore your insurance op­tions
in this week’s Lititz Re­cord
Express. On pages 22-25,
you will find tips and recom­mendations
from local experts,
who can help you sort through
all of your insurance options to
select the best coverage for
you and your family! Pages
22-25.
Back Page
P. Buckley Moss
On Feb. 26, Joyce Heiberlein
will discuss the works of re­nowned
artist P. Buckley Moss
as part of a program at the Li­titz
Public Library. Page 32.
□ Religion
Dreams of Wood
In her Woodcrest Journal,
Rev. Martha Sheaffer writes
about the unique perspective of
three trees and their dreams.
Her column is on Page 16.
Prayer Day
World Day of Prayer is com­ing
soon. Details on the up­coming
international event, and
how it will be celebrated local­ly,
can be found on Page 17.
□ Social
Sweetheart Surprise
For Valentine’s Day, the Lititz
Post Office delivered special
treats to local couples who
have been married for over 50
years. Meet one of those cou­ples
on Page 14.
□ School
Business Honors
The Business Department at
Warwick High School honored
five students for their outstand­ing
work. Page 6
□ Commentary
Allisha’s Wish
Last summer, Allisha Kissin­ger
met one of her heroes, Dale
Earnhardt through the Make-a-
Wish Foundation. Her families
reaction to his tragic death, and
their memories of that thrilling
meeting with The Intimidator
are featured in “For the Re­cord.”
Page 4.
Police News
School Bus Crash
On Feb. 15, three people
were hurt when a car struck the
front of a Warwick school bus
along Route 501. Fortunately,
no students were injured. That
story and other police news
can be found on Page 2.
□ Out of the Past
Ladder Man Leaves
After 45 years, Willis Goch-nauer,
known as the Lititz Lad­der
Man, announced his retire­ment
in 1961. His story, the
Democratic mayor victory of
1891, and other news from the
past can be found on Pages
21 and 28.
Entertainment
Grammy Hopes
Lititz rocker Joey Welz, and
his fellow recording artist Amy
“Elvis” Beth, have received pre­nominations
for Grammy
Awards as independent artists.
The story is on Page 26.
□ Sports
Girls advance
Following a heartbreaking
loss to Cedar Crest in the Lan-caster-
Lebanon League finals
last Friday, the Warwick girls
basketball team rebounded in
the first round of the District
playoffs on Tuesday, defeating'
Cedar Cliff by a 72-66 score.
Page 8.
Index
Arts/Entertainment................ , 26
Births......................................... 14
Business............................. 18-19
Classified............................ 28-31
Commentary/Letters................ 4
Obituaries...........................12-13
Out of the Past..................21, 28
Police/Fire Log.......................... 2
Religion............................... 16-17
School News...........................6-7
Social.................................. 14-15
Sports.....................................8-11
6 iiiB77490 53000 1
Bender hurdles opposition,
is named WHS track coach
6 6 ------------- ---------------- --------------------
This is the most important year ever for
Warwick track, and I’m excited to be a
part of that.
Blake Bender
New Warwick track coach
55
RICHARD REITZ___________
Record Express Editor
LITITZ — Blake Bender is the
new head coach for the Warwick
High School track team, and plans
on keeping the job for a long time.
Tuesday’s 5-3 vote by the War­wick
School Board ended the de­bate
over whether or not Bender
should take the reins, after , some
parents opposed his administrative
recommendation.
Bender’s opponents, as well as
his supporters, spoke out at the
December School Board meeting.
His hiring, initially scheduled for
the January meeting, was delayed
at the last minute and postponed
until Tuesday.
Before they vqted, however,
School Board member C. Wendell
Hower proposed that they name
Bender interim coach, then evalu­ate
his performance at the end of
the season to determine if they
should name him head coach.
“In fairness to Mr. Bender, I
think he deserves a chance to
prove himself,” Hower said. How­ever,
because of the concerns
raised by parents, he felt this was
an appropriate compromise.
He said the district hired a para-
More BENDER on A-7
Photo by Bruce Morgan
New Warwick High School track coach Blake Bender (right), is
congratulated by former coach Bob Derr (left). Practice begins on
March 5.
Drug abuse
arrests up
43 percent
in Lititz
STEPHEN SEEBER_________
Record Express Staff
LITITZ — Drug abuse is a prob­lem
on the rise, more people are
speeding, and Broad and Orange
streets remains the borough’s most
troublesome intersection.
These are just a few of the obser­vations
illustrated in the Year 2000
Lititz Borough Police Report.
The eight-page document, which
logs local criminal information sta­tistics
for the Pennsylvania State
Police and FBI, was unveiled dur­ing
last month’s borough council
session. The most striking element
of the report is drug use.
Lititz police saw a whopping 43
percent increase in drug abuse vio­lations
and a significant increase in
drug-related arrests between 1999
and 2000.
Lititz Police Chief Douglas Sher-tzer
explains:
“I know this sounds weird, but
the economy always seems to be a
contributing factor,” he said. “A
good economy means more money
in people’s pockets... and some of
those people will use that money
on drugs.
“A lot of it is marijuana,” he
said, “but we’re seeing crack co­caine
out there; and heroin use is
on the rise.”
Drug abuse reports in the bor­ough
rose from 26 in 1999 to 41 in
2000, and even though more adults
were arrested for drug violations
(25, compared to 14 juvenile ar­rests),
Shertzer said the strategy
for curtailing the problem is aimed
mainly at Lititz’ youngest resi­dents.
“The DARE program is going to
be a big part of it,” he said. “And
we don’t want to label kids, but
there will be a'concentrated effort
on loitering.”
The combined effort of DARE,
community policing, foot and bike
patrols, and the K-9 unit should
add up to a Lititz Police Depart­ment
that is more visible in 2001.
“We’re really going to work on
visibility. You’re going to see a lot
More POLICE REPORT on A-7
Photo by Kathy Blankenbiller
Krystle Whitley collected 1,500 pairs of shoes to send to people who need them in Haiti for her
Girl Scout Silver Award project.
Sole support
Girl Scout collects 1,500 pairs of shoes for Haitians
KATHY BLANKENBILLER open pipe to fill their jugs with water that they carry
Record Express Staff
LITITZ — Krystle Whitley looked at the heart-wrenching
photos of Haiti’s “forgotten” children and
saw an opportunity to reach out and make a differ­ence.
The 15-year-old Lititz girl listened intently as her
friend Pat Cassel, who just returned from Haiti, told
her of the paralyzing poverty of the poorest country in
the Western hemisphere.
“Americans wonder why we should help when
there is poverty here in the United States,” Pat said.
“I don’t think anything compares to Haiti’s situa­tion.”
Unemployment in Haiti, one of the most densely
populated nations in the world, runs close to 90 per­cent
and people subsist on an average annual income
, ofiess than $100. Rows of tiny, one-room shacks built
with scraps of tin serve as houses for families of four,
six or even eight people.
There is no electricity in the slums; no running
water; boys and girls walk barefooted for miles to an
home.
“After listening to Pat, I felt that there just had to
be a way for me to help, even in a small way,” said
Krystle. “Then it popped into my head that I could
make this my Girl Scout Silver Award project. I’d col­lect
shoes for the children and send them over to
Brenda, a missionary with the Compassion of Christ
World Ministries who lives over there in order to help
build a grade school.”
Boxes for the donation of gently used children’s
sneakers and sandals were placed in Kidz Korner on
Broad Street and Bob’s Market. Results were slow and
Krystle began to realize that her project might be a
little more difficult than she first imagined.
Eventually the word got passed from friends, cus­tomers,
employees, and donations began pouring in.
Some generous soul had visited Bob’s Market and in
true spirit, donated 10 pairs of brand new sneakers.
St. Luke’s Church offered Krystle an entire refrigera-
More SHOES on A-7
Civil War
experience
recaptured
at Library
KATHY BLANKENBILLER
Record Express Staff
LITITZ — Barry Kline has a
special assignment. On Wednes­day,
Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. at the Lititz
Public Library, he will entér a
“time machine,” so to speak, to
enter the consciousness of an indi­vidual
living in America 125 years
ago. As a “living historian,” Kline
will give a presentation on the life
and career of a Civil War medical
officer. Attired in a historically-ac-curate
Civil War uniform, he will
explain the significance and Uses of
various uniforms, then offer a brief
explanation of period medical
equipment used in battlefield sur­geries.
Tales of battlefield surgeries
will be recounted.
He looks forward to questions
from the public. “They always lead
into more stories, usually even bet­ter
than what I planned,” Kline
said. The Civil War has been the
main focus of the 44-year-old Co­lumbia
man, a resident there since
1990. An avid reader, he became
interested in the Civil War, read­ing
two or three books at a time,
consuming information, unaware
of the journey that awaited.
“By 1994,1 had become focused
on the idea of becoming involved
with a Civil War re-enactment.”
Kline said. “Reenacting is a way to
get people to look at their history,
to see their past, to appreciate the
present. I really wanted to get in­volved
but the problem was, how?”
Judy, Kline’s wife of 20 years
and a Lititz native, was Christmas
shopping when she bumped into
Mike Reilly, who overheard her
discussing Civil War books with a
clerk. As a Civil War buff for
many years, Reilly stepped in to
recommend a few books to her.
After speaking together briefly, he
handed her a phone number in the
hope that her husband might be in­terested
in joining a re-enactment
group.
It wasn’t long before Kline had
More CIVIL WAR on A-7
Photo by Stephen Seeber
New Children’s Librarian Karen Payonk reads “Today is Valen­tine’s
Day” to (left to right) Tyler Farnan, Ashley Farnan, Brenton
McCoy, John-Michael Shorter and Haylee Siegrist-Gross during
her Feb. 14 “Love My Library” program.
Karen Payonk heads children’s
dept, at the Lititz Public Library
STEPHEN SEEBER_________
Record Express Staff
LITITZ — Karen Payonk is the
new children’s librarian at the Li­titz
Public Library, and her constit­uents
had an opportunity for a
meet and greet last Wednesday
during the “Love My Library” pro­gram.
Payonk, 41, lives in Lancaster
with her husband Chris, who is the
bakery manager at Stauffers of
Kissel Hill in Lititz. They have two
children, Philip, a seventh grader
at Wheatland Middle School, and
Anna, third grader at the Elizabeth
Martin School in Lancaster.
Her road to Lititz is a long and
winding one that began in the late
1970s, when Payonk was a library
science major at Millersville State
College. She received her bache­lor’s
degree in 1981 and moved
north, where she was hired as the
inter-library loan librarian at the
Pottsville Free Public Library. Two
years later, she became the coal
town’s children’s librarian.
In 1985 she returned to Lancas­ter,
where she worked at Stauffers
of Kissel Hill while commuting to
Drexel University in Philadelphia
to work on her masters degree in
library science. She earned her de­gree
in 1987, and soon afterward
found a part-time position in the
children’s department at the Lan­caster
City Library. In February of
1998 she went full-time.
Work in Lancaster eventually
brought her to Lititz as veteran Li­brarian
Donna Hammond retired
and Lititz’ children’s librarian
Bonnie Young was promoted to
head librarian.
So, for the next few months,
Mrs. Payonk will be working hard
to familiarize herself with the Lititz
Library community. She got off to
a good start on Valentine’s Day,
when she read stories, sang songs
and dabbled in some crafts with a
small group of local children.
While reading “Today is Valen­tine’s
Day” by P.K. HaUinan, Mrs.
Payonk exhibited the skills chil­dren’s
librarians rely on in order to
hold a young attention span.
“Every class and every group of
children is different,” she said,
“and keeping their attention is a
challenge. I just try to keep things
moving.”
More NEW LIBRARIAN on A-7
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