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NANTICOKE — While The History of Northeastern Pennsylvania conference has annually celebrated the last two centuries of area history, it has been building its own legacy. This year’s conference is the gathering’s 25th anniversary, and it’s taking the silver opportunity to focus on local history education.

The free conference begins 9 a.m. Oct. 21 at Luzerne County Community College’s Educational Conference Center in Nanticoke and is open to the public. After a welcoming and remarks from LCCC President Thomas P. Leary, Luzerne County Historical Society Director of Operations Mark Riccetti Jr. and LCCC Associate Professor of History William Kashatus, Morgan Pearce will host a session about teaching anthracite history. Pearce is education and volunteer coordinator at Eckley Miners’ Village.

“At the conference I’m going to be talking a little bit about how we started working on different ways to reach out to educators and how we’re developing new educational programs,” said Pearce, who holds a master’s degree in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University.

“The types of programs that we’re working on include the traveling truck (an improvement on the mobile classroom already in use by the village), and we’re trying to revamp the tours by making them a little more hands-on than they’ve been in the past — certain hands-on activities they can take home, for instance, butter making.”

After Pearce’s 9:30 a.m. session, Kashatus will once again take the stage to talk about making local history personal through the use of primary sources, or sources that are directly connected to an event like documents and eyewitnesses.

Kashatus believes that the best way to contribute to the push for local history’s importance is to feature local topics presented by local residents — something he has focused on with the conference. After taking over 13 years ago, he narrowed its focus to Luzerne and Lackawanna counties (with only periodical topics coming from outside the two) and put an emphasis on featuring area scholars and non-academic experts.

Kashatus said this year’s conference is aimed at local educators, but it’s free and open to the public; he understands it takes a village to preserve the history of a village.

“We just saw the demolition of the Huber Breaker. In my 14 years at the college, there have been multiple sites that have been demolished, and always in the name of improvement,” Kashatus said. “We don’t think creatively about how we can reuse these structures. When you destroy these sights and people don’t study the local history, you forget what made you unique.”

Lunch divides Kashatus’ session and Riccetti’s 1 p.m. “Doing Family Geneaolgy” gathering, while Wyoming Seminary Lower School history teacher and documentary film producer Clark Switzer will speak at 2 p.m. about his documentary “Scratching the Surface: 3000 Years of Wyoming Valley History (1675-1975),” which was screened at local libraries earlier this year and is used in local classrooms.

Kashatus is described as a “historian, educator and author” in The History of Northeastern Pennsylvania conference’s marketing materials, but the offerings he has organized for this year’s conference also warrant the title of “preservationist.” If the track record of the conference he oversees is anything to go by, its preservation is in good hands.

William C. Kashatus, associate professor of history at Luzerne County Community College, gives opening remarks at 2015’s The History of Northeastern Pennsylvania conference, which was held at the college.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/web1_TTL101015Historyof-NEPAConference-1.jpg.optimal.jpgWilliam C. Kashatus, associate professor of history at Luzerne County Community College, gives opening remarks at 2015’s The History of Northeastern Pennsylvania conference, which was held at the college. Clark Van Orden | Times Leader
Conference focuses on teaching local history

By Gene Axton

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Reach Gene Axton at 570-991-6121 or on Twitter @TLArts