Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Here are the stories for this week’s Pennsylvania Member Exchange package. If you have any questions, contact the Philadelphia bureau at 215-561-1133.
For use anytime:
EXCHANGE-EDITORIAL RDP
Editorials from around Pennsylvania.
For Saturday, June 25, 2016:
EXCHANGE-POLIO EPIDEMIC ANNIVERSARY
DOYLESTOWN — It rained hard the day before Nick Hovemeyer came down with polio in the summer of 1945. All the kids in his Trenton, New Jersey, neighborhood were out in the street, splashing in the water, just being kids. The next day, 8-year-old Hovemeyer developed a high fever and couldn’t stand or walk. Fear gripped the country each summer in the early part of the 20th century, when thousands of children caught the poliovirus before two types of vaccines were developed in the 1950s. Many were paralyzed, left with disfigured limbs and experienced other physical and emotional pain. For some, the virus was fatal. No one knew what caused it or how to prevent it, only that it targeted children. Health and humanitarian organizations hope the debilitating disease — and the fear it still creates — will be eradicated worldwide this year, the 100th anniversary of the first major polio outbreak in the United States. Jenny Wagner, The (Doylestown) Intelligencer.
EXCHANGE-CANCER PATIENT’S RV TOUR
PITTSBURGH — Norma Bauerschmidt is a most unlikely internet sensation, but that may be one reason she’s so popular. Another reason is, at 91 years old she’s still living — really living. She’s having fun inspiring others around the world to do the same, while also helping them deal with the hard issues of end of life. This summer, “Miss Norma” — as she is known — is what Facebook calls a “Public Figure,” with a page fast closing in on 400,000 likes. Last summer, she was a 90-year-old nobody in the township of Presque Isle, Mich. One day in July, her husband of 67 years died, and two days later, she was diagnosed with stage 4 uterine cancer. She didn’t seek treatment and had no interest in moving into a nursing home. Her son, Tim Bauerschmidt, and his wife, Ramie Liddle, offered her another option: join them on the road. I think I’d like that, Norma said. Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
EXCHANGE-BARN WEDDINGS
OLD ZIONSVILLE — What may turn out to be the last wedding at Meadowbrook Farms features a Swiss groom. He assured family and friends making the international trip this September that the picturesque 5-acre venue in rural Upper Milford Township offers “neutral ground.” It’s a Swiss joke with an ironic twist. Meadowbrook owner Paul Sarver’s dream of creating a choice rustic wedding and special events venue has upset neighbors and collided with zoning requirements. His mail carrier has started calling him “the most hated man in Upper Milford.” In traditionally agricultural but evolving areas of southwestern Lehigh Valley and beyond, entrepreneurial property owners are looking for new ways to live off the land. Barn weddings and other agritourism activities are one option. But such aspirations don’t always take into consideration regulatory realities and the peace and quiet others value. Andrew Wagaman, The (Allentown) Morning Call.
EXCHANGE-DIPLOMAS BEHIND BARS
WASHINGTON, Pa. — Prison garb and a mortarboard might seem like an odd combination, but both state and federal mandates require jail inmates under age 21 who want to earn a high school diploma to be given the opportunity. And no, as “Pomp and Circumstance” plays, you don’t have to scrutinize the ankles of graduates for shackles peeking out beneath their gowns. Roberta DiLorenzo, superintendent of Washington School District which, due to Washington County jail standing within its borders, is responsible for educating inmates who want to earn a high school diploma, said of its jailed grads, “No, they don’t walk” in a commencement ceremony. “People are aware of special ed students being in school until 21, but under 21, we’re required to serve them,” she continued. “Under both state and federal law, anyone under 21 is entitled to a free public education. We review their records, and we look at the practical possibility of getting a high school diploma. They age out at 21.” Barbara Miller, (Washington) Observer-Reporter.
EXCHANGE-RURAL HIGHWAY CRASH
HARRISBURG — The flat-black Honda Civic raced along the winding roads that trace the valleys of northern Dauphin County, neon green wheels spinning as its headlights swished back and forth in rhythm with the curves and dips in the rural highway. Behind the wheel Michael “Hickabilly” Posten was timing his shifts to the sounds of the engine — not to the quiet drive of a stock four-cylinder, but to the higher whine of a modified street racer. He had pulled this car back from the brink for $300 and saved it from a junkyard, his nights and weekends spent in the garage behind his mother’s house in Wiconisco, turning wrenches. Maybe he was racing a motorcycle, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was in a hurry to get home, to get some sleep before work the next morning. Or maybe Michael was just doing what Michael loved to do — to drive fast. Nick Malawskey ‘ [email protected]