My new book Microbreweries, Nanobreweries, and Brewpubs: Histories of 241 American Craft Beer Companies (ISBN: 978-1-4766-9085-8) is now available.
Yesterday, I noticed my Texas Instruments TI-30 "electronic slide-rule calculator" in a drawer in my house. I took it out of the simulated-denim case, and put in a fresh 9-volt transistor battery. I pressed the "ON/C" button, and it came on. For old-time sake, I took the square root of 2. As an Electrical Engineer, I took note that the first four digits "1.414" were correct. Therefore, I concluded that it still works. I purchased my TI-30 at Sugerman's in Eynon, PA. This store had been called "Sugerman's Eynon Drugstore", but many locals referred to it as "Up the Eynon." I made the purchase in September of 1979 after I began to study Electronics Technology at the Lackawanna County Area Vocational-Technical School - North Center on Old Plank Road in Mayfield, PA. That year, I attended "Vo-Tech" in the morning, and Mid-Valley Senior High School in downtown Olyphant in the afternoon. "North Vo-Tech" was closed many years ago. "South Vo-Tech" on Rockwell Avenue in Scranton is now called "The Career Technology Center of Lackawanna County." The Mid-Valley Secondary Center is in Throop. The little handle on the case came loose and fell off. I turned the case inside-out. While I was studying Electrical Engineering at the Worthington Scranton Campus of the Pennsylvania State University in Dunmore, and working on some problems a classmate asked me why my calculator case looked that way. I replied that it was my great-grandfather's calculator case. He brought it over from the Ukraine when he immigrated to the United States in the late 1890s. One classmate said, "Oh, how sweet." We all grinned and continued working on our problems.
My new book Microbreweries, Nanobreweries, and Brewpubs: Histories of 241 American Craft Beer Companies (ISBN: 978-1-4766-9085-8) is now available.
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In the early 1980s while attending college, I worked part-time at Genetti Manor on Main Street in Dickson City. There, I worked with Olyphant native, Kenny Maloney. He was a retired construction worker, who served with the United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Navy Seabees during World War II. He was in his early 70s. As you can imagine, he told a lot of stories. Looking back, I wish that I had a notepad with me to write some of them down. (Likewise, for the stories told by my grandfather, Peter Klapatch, and his brother, my great-uncle John Klapatch.) One story he told was that the University of Scranton defeated Notre Dame in a football game on field that was located on the same property as Genetti Manor. He clarified that at the time, the University of Scranton was Saint Thomas College. At the time, there was no Internet as we know it for fact checking. Last week, this story came to mind, so I decided to see if I can verify it. An Internet search yielded the following webpage. History of University of Scranton Football Sure enough, for the 1932 season, the article said, “St. Thomas routed the Notre Dame "B" squad 24-6”, but the article did not say where the game was played. Further down the article says that in 1940, the team started to play at their new stadium in Scranton. I know that there was a football field in Dickson City in the vicinity of Genetti Manor called Crystal Gardens. The Dickson City High School Black Hawks football team played their home games there. I sent an e-mail to the archives mailbox as indicated near the bottom of the webpage to ask if the Saint Thomas Tomcats (often referred to as the “Tommies”, or the "Purple and White") played their home games at Crystal Gardens in Dickson City before 1940. The next business day, I received a response from Special Collections Assistant, Christian A. Scipioni. He replied, “It appears St. Thomas did indeed play at Crystal Gardens from 1931 until the stadium switch.” He provided the following link. The Aquinas 1931-10-16 In the article, Tommies Lose to Quantico Marines in Night Contest it says, "The Quantico Marines placed a 14-7 defeat in the 1931 record of St. Thomas College last Friday night. The game, the first one staged by the Purple and White under the arc lights in Crystal Gardens, Dickson City, was enjoyed by approximately 2700 spectators." So I conclude that Kenny Maloney’s story is true. The Saint Thomas College (later the University of Scranton) Tomcats defeated the Notre Dame “B” squad on a field located in the vicinity of Genetti Manor in Dickson City. When I discussed this with my father, Joseph Klapatch, he told me that Jim Thorpe also played football at Crystal Gardens. (This will be another small research project.) I remember the early days of the Mid-Valley School District, and the first few football seasons in the early to mid-1970s. The home football games were played at the Valley View stadium in Peckville. I asked my father if they had kept Crystal Gardens, would it have been suitable for Mid-Valley home games. He told me that the stadium at Crystal Gardens was gone by the 1950s. When he attended Olyphant High School in the 1950s, Olyphant, Dickson City, Archbald, and Blakely high schools played their home games at the stadium in Peckville. Jessup High School also played in Peckville until they got their own stadium. My beer website lager57.weebly.com/
Follow me on Facebook www.facebook.com/strippens The Old School thebp.site/57084 In 1969, the Mid-Valley School District was formed with the consolidation or jointure of the Olyphant, Throop and Dickson City (Pennsylvania) school districts. Many years before the consolidation, each borough had small neighborhood elementary schools that were in walking distance of the students. Each borough had a school named after Christopher Columbus:
My beer website lager57.weebly.com/
Follow me on Facebook www.facebook.com/strippens The Old School thebp.site/57084 On Thursday, March 5, 2020, President Donald Trump visited Scranton, PA for a townhall meeting.
I recall Vice President Walter Mondale’s visit to Scranton on October 29, 1980. I was a junior in high school and a member of the Mid-Valley Spartan Band. Vice President Mondale made a campaign stop at the Hotel Casey at the corner of Lackawanna Avenue and Adams Avenue. The Mid-Valley Spartan Band played outside as he entered the hotel. The Dunmore High School Band played inside. We were then invited inside, and were each given soda in a paper cup and a hotdog on a slice of white bread. As the vice president was walking through the crowd, I was able to shake hands with him. The vice president shook hands with many of the other band members as well. I am not aware of any partisan arguments concerning our playing at this event. My beer website lager57.weebly.com/ Follow me on Facebook www.facebook.com/strippens The Old School thebp.site/57084 I wrote the following article for History Bytes - A Lackawanna Historical Society Publication, Vol. 2 No. 3 May - June 2019; Rick Sedlisky, Editor (Lackawannahistory <at> gmail.com)
Mr. Gerald Luchansky provided the information concerning the changes that took place beginning with the 1973-74 school year. Mid-Valley School District 50 Years Later By Joseph Peter Klapatch According to a report by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, Education Research & Policy Center entitled “Merger/Consolidation of School Districts: Does it save money and improve student achievement?” dated April 2009 (mrea-mt.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PA-psba-merger-consolidation.pdf), for the 1959-60 school year, there were 2,277 school districts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. During the 1960s, there were three legislative actions that brought about consolidations of school districts. There was the School District Reorganization Act of 1961, the School District Reorganization Act of 1963, and the School District Reorganization Act of 1968. As a result, for the 1969-70 school year there were 669 school districts in Pennsylvania. Locally, among many jointures, the 1969-70 school year was the first for the Mid-Valley School District, which consolidated the former Olyphant, Throop and Dickson City school districts. Even though the district is Kindergarten through 12th Grade, each borough continued to have its own elementary school. The former Dickson City Junior High School became the Mid-Valley Junior High School for students in grades 7 through 9. The former Olyphant Junior High School became the Mid-Valley Senior High School for students in grades 10 through 12. One of the anticipated advantages of mergers that the study mentions is the need for fewer superintendents and other key positions. At first, the superintendent of the former Olyphant School District, John Metrinko, became the superintendent of the newly established school district. The former Throop School District superintendent, Edward Prokop, and the former Dickson City School District superintendent, Joseph Tylenda, became assistant superintendents. For the 1973-74 school year, Dr. Thomas McDonnell became the superintendent; there were no assistant superintendents. Currently the Superintendent of Schools is Patrick J. Sheehan. Similarly, the principal of the former Olyphant High School, Stanley Kucab, became the Mid-Valley Senior High School principal. Frank Rolka, who was a science teacher, became the senior high school assistant principal. Edward Munley was the principal of the former Dickson City High School. Joseph Regenski was the principal of the former Throop High School. Mr. Munley became the Mid-Valley Junior High School principal. Mr. Regenski became the junior high school assistant principal. For the 1973-74 school year, Daniel Donovan became the secondary school principal for both the junior and senior high school with his office was in the senior high school. Before this he was a Social Studies teacher at West Scranton High School. Robert Warzecha became the junior high school vice principal in the school in Dickson City. He started his teaching career in the 1970-71 school year as a Social Studies teacher in the Mid-Valley Junior High School. Gerald Luchansky became the senior high school vice principal in Olyphant. He began teaching English at the Dickson City High School during the 1968-69 school year, and continued at the Mid-Valley Senior High School. He was the Guidance Counselor during the 1972-73 school year. Currently, Jeffrey Kovaleski is the Secondary Center Principal, and Michelle Higgins is the Secondary Center Vice Principal. The report points out that the consolidations facilitated the creation of full-time elementary school principal positions which improved supervision. Before the jointure, and during the early years, there were no formal elementary school principals. Each elementary school had a head teacher. This was a teacher who performed additional duties that would normally be performed by a principal. The head teacher for the Throop Elementary School was John Luchansky. For the Olyphant Elementary School, it was James Liparulo. For the Dickson City Elementary School, it was Ann Kachmar. Later, John Luchansky became the elementary school principal with jurisdiction over the three elementary schools, but the head teachers remained. Currently there is one elementary school in the district. Carlos Lopez is the principal, and the vice principal is Michael Piercy. There are no longer head teachers. Another anticipated advantage is the “need for fewer buildings.” Because all secondary students were attending schools in Dickson City and Olyphant, no secondary school students attended classes in the former Throop High School. It became the Throop Elementary School. The Washington School in Lower Throop, which had served as an elementary school, was closed. In 1977, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry condemned the Olyphant and Dickson City elementary schools because they were in violation of the Fire and Panic Act. For the 1981-82 school year, students in grades seven through twelve began to attend classes in the newly-built Mid-Valley Secondary Center; the Elementary Center opened for the 1989-90 school year. The report mentions that in consolidated school districts, there can be a better allocation of teachers to offer additional courses. Immediately before the jointure each high school had graduating classes ranging from about thirty to fifty students. For the most part, students had the same English teacher for all three years, the same social studies teacher for all three years, etc. The consolidated district had graduating classes of over one-hundred students. Because of this, instead of having a science instructor who taught Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, there were a Biology teacher, and Chemistry teacher, and a Physics teacher. Students did not have the same teacher for a particular subject three years in a row. In the beginning, the transition was not very smooth. Some students, teachers, and administrators still held on tightly to their previous affiliations. In the years immediately before the jointure, none of the three districts had a football team. For the 1969 season, there was the Mid-Valley Spartans junior varsity team. The following season, there was a varsity team. This helped unite the student body. As students progressed from elementary school to secondary school, and had no previous first-hand experience in the predecessor secondary schools, integration of students from the three boroughs was less difficult. Now that there is only one elementary school for the entire district, borough identity has much less relevance in school life. Overall the consolidation was a big success. It is hard to imagine the school experience if there was no consolidation. My beer website lager57.weebly.com/ Follow me on Facebook www.facebook.com/strippens The Old School thebp.site/57084 The 50th Anniversary of the establishment of the Mid-Valley School District is approaching. June of 1969 marked the last graduating classes of Dickson City High School, Olyphant High School, and Throop High School. In September of 1969, the public schools of the three boroughs began to operate as the Mid-Valley School District.
For the 1959-60 school year, there were 2277 school districts in Pennsylvania. There was the School District Reorganization Act of 1961, the School District Reorganization Act of 1963, and the School District Reorganization Act of 1968. For the 1969-70 school year there were 669 school districts in Pennsylvania. http://mrea-mt.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PA-psba-merger-consolidation.pdf During the 1960s, there were many proposals concerning which school districts would consolidate with each other. There was talk that Throop, Olyphant, and Jessup would be one school district; Dickson City, Blakely, and Archbald would be another. There were numerous political factors, but I would imagine they may have also considered how they were going to shoehorn the students into the existing schools. The former Dickson City Junior High School became the Mid-Valley Junior High School. The former principal of the Dickson City High School, Edward Munley, was the principal, and the former principal of the Throop High School, Joseph Regenski, was the assistant principal. In the new environment, students and teachers from the former Dickson City and Throop schools had a familiar administrator in the building, but not those from Olyphant. I would imagine that initially, the seventh through ninth grade students, as well as the teachers from Olyphant and to an extent Throop felt uncomfortable in Dickson City. The former Olyphant Junior High School became the Mid-Valley Senior High School. The former principal of the Olyphant High School, Stanley Kucab was the principal, and an Olyphant High School science teacher, Frank Rolka, was the assistant principal. In the new environment, I would imagine that initially the tenth through twelfth graders as well as the teachers from Dickson City and Throop felt really uncomfortable in Olyphant. In about 1977, I remember a teacher telling us that she believed that immediately after the consolidations, the school districts should have planned for the construction of new secondary schools (grades seven through twelve), but continued to operate as they did with separate secondary schools until the new schools were completed. She was fully aware of the initial friction in the newly consolidated secondary schools. If a new school was built soon after the consolidation, and they waited until it was completed before the students from the three boroughs started attending classes together, things would have gone more smoothly. Instead of “we’re going to their school”, it would have been our school for the entire student body, right from the beginning. Taking this one step further, if a new school were built in the beginning, they would not have needed to consider the utilization of existing schools, and perhaps they could have made larger consolidations (i.e. Dickson City, Olyphant, Throop, and one or two more boroughs). My beer website lager57.weebly.com/ Follow me on Facebook www.facebook.com/strippens The Old School thebp.site/57084 In 2016, the estimated population of Olyphant, Pennsylvania was 5,087, but in the early twentieth century, its population was much greater. Due in part to an influx of European immigrants to work in the coal mines and silk mills, the population of Olyphant grew from 8,505 in 1910 to 10,236 in 1920. There were not enough classrooms in the schools. Many students attended classes on split sessions.
On January 20, 1926, the new Olyphant Junior High School opened for seventh and eighth grade students. It was located on Lincoln Street across from the high school. There were three classrooms per story for a total of nine classrooms. It was designed by John Howley. The general contractor was Boland Brothers of Carbondale. It cost $180,000. There were eight teachers assigned to the school: Catherine Murphy, Mary Rogan, Mary Gavin, Sarah Ruddy, Nellie Lenahan, Gertrude Hoban, Marie Beatty, and Catherine Walsh. Around 1938, an addition was built that extended the structure to Susquehanna Avenue as it stands today. This addition included two gymnasiums and increased the number of classrooms to a little over twenty. The school was for students of Olyphant in grades seven through nine. When the population of Olyphant began to decline, there were many vacant classrooms in the school. In the mid-1940s, St. Patrick’s Church rented the third floor to use for their parochial school. In September of 1969, the school became Mid-Valley Senior High School for students in tenth through twelfth grades from Olyphant, Throop, and Dickson City. On February 10, 1977, the Olyphant Elementary School was condemned by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. On March 4, 1977, the Dickson City Elementary School was also condemned. The displaced elementary school students attended classes in the junior high school in Dickson City. Senior high school students attended classes in this building during the morning session, and junior high school students attended classes during the afternoon session. In September of 1978, students in grades nine through twelve began to attend classes on full day sessions in the senior high school, while seventh and eight grade students attended classes in the former St. Patrick’s school on Delaware Avenue. There were additional classrooms in the basement of St. Patrick’s Church, and a mobile home for Home Economics classes in the alleyway between Church Street and Lincoln Street. In September of 1981, students in grades seven through twelve began to attend classes in the newly constructed Mid-Valley Secondary Center on Underwood Road in Throop. The school in Olyphant was then used as an elementary school. It was closed in 1989 when the Mid-Valley Elementary School on Underwood Road opened. The building is now the Lackawanna Heritage Apartments. My beer website lager57.weebly.com/ Follow me on Facebook www.facebook.com/strippens The Old School thebp.site/57084 After school, on the afternoon of Thursday, February 10, 1977, the Mid-Valley Spartan Band had practice in the auditorium of the Olyphant Elementary School in Olyphant, PA. The band was comprised of junior and senior high school students, but we practiced in an elementary school. We were learning the music for our spring concert. The Olyphant Elementary School was sometimes referred to as the Mid-Valley Elementary School in Olyphant. The original two-story part of the building was located on the corner of Church and Susquehanna. It was designed by Lewis Hancock, Jr., and was built in 1910. In 1915, a three-story annex was completed that extended the building to the corner of Susquehanna and Lincoln. The annex was designed by Edward H. Davis. The original part of the building was an elementary school, but the annex was a hybrid. In the annex there were twelve classrooms and an auditorium. Some classrooms were for elementary grades, and others were used for senior high school classes. The senior high school was across the street. Some senior high students used to cross Lincoln Street when changing classes. On December 22, 1976, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry notified the Mid-Valley School District that the Olyphant Elementary School was not in compliance with the Fire and Panic Law. The building had highly flammable oil-soaked wooden floors. There were also open stairwells that would aid in the ventilation of a fire. Their concern was that if there was a fire while classes were in session, the building would quickly become fully engulfed in flames. An evacuation would not be able to be completed in a panic situation. They also cited health related concerns such as the permanent stench in the lavatories. They said that if the remediation was not performed to bring the building into compliance, they would condemn the building, and order it closed. After school, on the afternoon of February 10, 1977, we noticed that building inspectors were moving about in the school. Apparently, they took note that very little (if any) work had been done. Toward the end of practice, a state inspector had a sidebar conversation with our band director, Mr. George Kinsley. Mr. Kinsley relayed the message to the band that the school building had just been condemned. The band was allowed to practice until our parents came to pick us up. Before we left, my father and I, along with other parents and band members talked to a maintenance man. He told us that the Dickson City Elementary School was going to be condemned next. (It was condemned on March 4, 1977.) He said that the junior high school in Dickson City had enough classrooms to accommodate the students from both schools. The junior high school students and senior high school students would then attend classes in the senior high school across the street on split sessions. While exiting the building for the last time, I remember hearing a parent say, “Last one out; don’t forget to turn off the lights.” The building was razed in 1982. The Valley Covenant Community Church Glory Garden occupies the property where the school once stood. (Thank you Kevin Novak and Andy Palumbo for photographs.) My beer website lager57.weebly.com/
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AuthorJoseph Peter Klapatch is originally from Olyphant, Pennsylvania. He currently resides in the urban forests of Galloway, New Jersey with his wife, Margi. They have five children. Archives
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