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By PHIL MANCINI; Times Leader Sports Correspondent
Tuesday, July 16, 1996     Page:

Among the festivities celebrating Pocono Downs’ 32nd anniversary this
weekend is a tribute to a man who endowed the track with new life 13 years
ago.
   
Joseph B. Banks, the late president of Pocono Downs who brought the track
back from bankruptcy in 1983, will be honored with a memorial race as part of
the track’s birthday celebration.
    The Joseph B. Banks Memorial Pace will be the ninth race on Sunday’s
schedule.
   
“I’m just delighted, and so is the family,” said Banks’ widow, Virginia,
who took over the presidency of Pocono Downs when Banks passed away in April.
   
“If you had known the facility when he took over in 1983, you’d realize
what he had done to it,” Banks added. “So he deserves a tribute. He was a man
of great vision.”
   
Besides putting the track back into financial shape, Banks had the
grandstand, clubhouse and the administration building remodeled among many
other renewal projects since he took control.
   
“The entire facility has been remodeled since about 1986,” said Banks, who
added that after one project was finished another would begin.
   
“He was an engineer and designer, so he would be able to envision what he
wanted,” Banks said.
   
And last year, the track’s surface was redone.
   
Pocono Downs has also grown in personnel. Including its offtrack betting
facilities in Allentown and Erie, it has 1,000 employees.
   
Sunday’s memorial will be an invitational pace, and a trophy will be
awarded to the winner.
   
Joseph B. Banks