Archive - May 2012 - News Article
May 18th
PUNXSUTAWNEY — There’s a lot going on within the Groundhog Club’s Inner Circle: A new member, a promotion, a retirement and a new take on a long-time, late-summer event.
Tom Dunkel is the Inner Circle’s newest member, succeeding now-former Vice-President Mike Johnston, who has accepted emeritus status after 20 years with the club. Taking on the role of vice-president is “Fair Weatherman” Jeff Lundy.
PUNXSUTAWNEY — Monday, Punxsutawney Borough Council voted to table a vote overriding Mayor Jim Wehrle’s veto of the change in Ordinance 1120.
The change would permit apartments in first-floor commercial establishments in the town center commercial district.
Council member Eric Story said a change to Ordinance 1120 has been
brought up three times, and there were some comments made at the last meeting that people who would live in first-floor apartments would sit on the sidewalk in lawn chairs, which wouldn’t be attractive downtown.
May 17th
PUNXSUTAWNEY — One of the smallest classes in the history of Punxsutawney Area High School — 164 students — celebrated big accomplishments during the annual Class Night event Thursday.
More than half of the members of the PAHS Class of 2012 received awards and scholarships Thursday, and they also celebrated that despite its small numbers, it hosted the highest-grossing, most-profitable Variety Show in the history of the event, raising $19,425.84 — of which half will benefit the Margaret C. Boles Scholarship Foundation, and the other half will go toward the senior’s post-graduation party.
BROOKVILLE — Wednesday, a Reynoldsville woman who struck a jogging Falls Creek woman and fled the scene July 19, 2011, was sentenced to time in the Jefferson County jail.
Felicia Marie Steele, 48, Reynoldsville, struck Cindi A. Lingenfelter, 32, Falls Creek, with her 2003 GMC Sierra pick-up while Lingenfelter was jogging south on Route 950.
Steele then fled the scene, police said.
Lingenfelter suffered severe injuries and was flown via medical helicopter to Altoona Hospital for treatment, police said.
PUNXSUTAWNEY — A number of dogs that were apparently abandoned last weekend were rescued by area residents in the woods near Stump Creek.
Last Sunday, Punxsutawney-based Pennsylvania State Police called the Animal Hospital of Punxsutawney and asked if staff could keep a stray dog overnight, said Katelyn Hidinger, veterinarian technician at the hospital.
“By the time it was all said and done, there were 16 dogs that are being kept at the animal hospital,” Hidinger said.
The dogs that were taken in include a miniature pincher; two shih tzus; and 13 pomeranians.
May 16th
BROOKVILLE — Wednesday, Judge John H. Foradora sentenced a former Big Run Volunteer Fire Department member to 19 1/2 to 40 years in a state correctional facility on numerous arson charges.
Anthony Overbeck, Big Run, was arrested Aug. 10, 2011, and charged with a number of crimes that included arson and related offenses in connection with a fire at a two-story unoccupied residence at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Union Street in Big Run. He also confessed to seven other fires that occurred in the Big Run area last year, including one that destroyed Big Run Carpet June 19, 2011.
BROOKVILLE — After two months, local police officials say the state’s new ban on texting is nearly impossible to enforce.
Locally, Brookville Borough Police and Punxsutawney Borough Police officers have not issued any texting-ban citations.
And statewide, the Pennsylvania State Police have issued only 44 citations since Gov. Tom Corbett’s new law went into effect March 8.
REYNOLDSVILLE — As another school year is ending, some students at Jeff Tech are not wondering about their summer plans, but about what course of study to pursue next year.
May 3, the Jeff Tech Operating Committee voted unanimously to eliminate the marketing/retailing and lumbering programs offered at Jeff Tech.
This action affects 27 undergraduate students.
May 15th
PUNXSUTAWNEY — Monday, Punxsutawney Borough Council approved a request to rezone the area of Prushnok Drive from industrial to town center commercial to accommodate the planned construction of a new health care facility in that area.
The zoning change had already been approved by the Planning Commission.
PUNXSUTAWNEY — Call it a very intense training regiment.
Twenty-two-year old Mathieu Krsnik, of St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, has visited Boston and locations in New York state, but he hopes to see much more — all before the second weekend in June — of the United States on a cycling trip all the way to Florida.
