Print Edition Highlights - May 14, 2015

PickleFest
Town celebrates founding Dill family and the dill pickle
By Peggie Williams

Photo by Mark Ryder.
Brandon Amspecher, wearing the Batman T-shirt, was the first place winner in the children’s category of the PickleFest.

____ Over 100 vendors and entertainers lined Greenbrier Lane in Dillsburg and Dill's Tavern and Plantation was filled with reenactors and demonstrators as once again the small town celebrated both the founding Dill family and the dill pickle that has become its modern symbol.
____ Historic Maple Shade Barn anchored the east end of the festival. It was there that the 5K Pickle Chase Run got underway. Over 100 runners took part in the race that benefits a group that brings smiles to teenage cancer patients in the forms of “mini-wishes” to brighten their lives and help with their battle against the disease.
____ Throughout the day there was music and entertainment on the main stage with performances by the Bermudian Springs Steel Band and the North Mountain Ramblers. Folk Musician Jerry Haines performed on the mini-stage at the west end of the festival.
____ Food trucks supplied an array of fair food from French fries to funnel cakes and Colcanic sodas to deep fried pickles.
____ Deep fried pickles? Yes. Deep fried pickles, pickle ice cream, pickle soup and pickle lollipops were among the specialty foods available.

Photo by Mark Ryder.
The start of the Pickle Chase Saturday morning. More than 100 runners competed.

See the May 14, 2015 edition of the Dillsburg Banner for details.

Wounded Warriors face economic challenges, physical and mental health issues
By Jeffrey B. Roth


Jack Peck, left, member of the Board of Directors Pennsylvania Wounded Warriors and Kenneth Graf, MD, Lebanon Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Department of Surgery were guest speakers.

____ American soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq face physical and mental health issues on their return stateside.
____ More than 50,000 American soldiers have been wounded in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks to advanced medical care in the field and rapid evacuation to surgical field hospitals, more than 90 percent of wounded soldiers survive, compared to a 70-percent survival rate for wounded during World War II, said Col. Kenneth W. Graf, a doctor who first served in combat as a physician during the Kosovo War, 1998-1999; and has recently served in as a combat field surgeon in Iraq and Afghanistan.
____ Col. Graf, whose PowerPoint presentation of the work done my military medical personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, illustrated the severity of combat wounds ranging from head and torso to lost limbs, was one of three speakers at a Saturday Pennsylvania Wounded Warrior Project program, hosted by St. Michael's Lutheran Church, in Rossville.
____ Earlier in the evening, Republican Congressman Scott Perry, PA-4, a Pennsylvania National Guard lieutenant colonel, who commanded the 2-104th General Support Aviation Battalion, which deployed to Iraq from 2009-2010, talked about the Pa. Wounded Warrior Project, during the dinner portion of the program.

See the May 14, 2015 edition of the Dillsburg Banner for details.

Print Edition Highlights - May 14, 2015

Polar Bears ready for Districts
By Joe Guty


Photo by Curt Werner.
Brooke Regan performing the long jump.

____Shippensburg University is the next stop for Northern H.S. track and field this weekend (May 15-16) as the Polar Bears have qualified seven athletes to compete in the 2015 PIAA District 3, Class AAA Track and Field Championships.
____Seniors Kennedy Shank and Keith Steele lead the way in their respective pole vault events. With a mark of 12-00, Shank is seeded third overall and is among the six top Girl Class AAA pole vaulters who are all seniors. Steele is ranked first (14-09) among 17 vaulters entered in the Boys' AAA pole vault. Senior Kierra Zack is seeded 10th out of 20 qualifiers in the 1600 meter run (5:12.27). In the Girls' 800 meter run, with a time of 2:22.11, sophomore Emma Fisler is seeded 18th out of 22 qualifiers. Both Zack and Fisler will join freshmen Ashlyn Stonge and Emily Weaver in the Class AAA 4 x 800 meter relay. Junior Makenna Byers will be the alternate. The Lady Bears are seeded ninth out of 16 teams in the relay event.
____Last weekend, the Polar Bears competed in the Mid Penn Conference Championships at the Chambersburg H.S. Edwin H. Sponseller Track and Field Complex. The Northern girls' team placed 16th with 17 points while the Polar Bears boys' squad placed 21st with 22 points.

See the May 14, 2015 edition of the Dillsburg Banner for details.

Polar Bears finish season for win, wait for playoff opponent
By Andy Sandrik


Photo by Mark Ryder.
Jamison Heisey pitches during the Saturday, May 2 game vs. York Suburban. Northern won, 9 to 2.

____ Last season, Brian Robison's Northern baseball team stunned District 3 by winning the AAA championship.
____ We're about to find out if the Polar Bears can do it again.
____ Northern wrapped up its regular season on Thursday night with a 12-0 win over Mid-Penn Capital Division opponent Milton Hershey.
____ The Polar Bears finish the regular season with a 14-6 overall record, including a 9-3 mark in the Capital Division, good enough for second place.
____ Northern, ranked No. 11 in the latest batch AAA power rankings, was still waiting to learn its district opponent by the Banner's press deadline.
____ "Whoever it is, that's who it is," Robison said of a potential first-round playoff opponent. "We're just taking this opportunity to practice this week and get ready for the playoffs on Monday. The fun part of districts is getting to play a team from outside of the area. We don't care who we play, we've just got to be playing our best as a team."
____ Robison wouldn't share who he plans to pitch in the first game of the playoffs, but we're inclined to believe it could be one of his two tall sophomore standouts -- southpaw Curtis Robison or right-hander Scott Leitholf -- who have combined for half of Northern's wins this season.

See the May 14, 2015 edition of the Dillsburg Banner for details.

Print Edition Highlights - May 14, 2015

By Jeffrey B. Roth

Jason Gerber relaxes at Camp Taji just outside Bagdad, Iraq while on tour from 2008 - 2009. He is a crew member on an M777, 155 mm howitzer.

____ In June 1992, when Jason Gerber graduated from Northern High School, the national unemployment rate peaked at 7.8-percent, the highest it had been since March 1984.
____ The country was in the midst of a deep recession and job creation was sluggish at best, when Gerber along with about 184 classmates threw their graduation hats into the air.
____ During high school, Gerber worked three to four seasons at Haar's Drive-In, a favorite summer destination for people from Dillsburg and from York, Cumberland, Dauphin and Adams counties.
____ Gerber served hotdogs, hamburgers, French fries, buckets of popcorn, candy, soft drinks and other traditional drive-in fare.
____ Gerber said that Kim Bassinger portraying Vicki Vale, the beautiful photojournalist who falls for millionaire, Bruce Wayne in 1984, caused a line of cars to form on Rt. 15, all wanting to see the blockbuster movie.
____ He also had a job working at Williams Grove Amusement Park, which involved working on the midway.

See the May 14, 2015 edition of the Dillsburg Banner for details.

“War bride”
Happy marriage is key to happy life
By Carolyn Kimmel


“War Bride” Jeanne Knisely with pictures of herself and husband Paul taken in 1944.

____ Jeanne Knisely is a living history book, full of first-hand stories of things most of us have only read about in school textbooks or watched on the History Channel.
____ For this Dillsburg resident, Adolf Hitler is not a historical figure; he was a man whose actions had a direct impact on her life. Bombings and basement hide-outs are not the stuff of movies for Knisely; they were part of her childhood. D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and finally, VE Day – all these significant historical events had personal implications for Knisely, who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1926.
____ “We knew of Hitler, but we didn’t really know what was going on. News wasn’t available like it is today,” said Knisely, who never dreamed she would live out her life in a small town in southcentral Pennsylvania back when she was Jeanne Verstraten, a small girl riding her scooter and competing in skating shows where she was a champion in speed skating and earned a silver cup for dancing on ice.
____ This month, as she turns 89, Knisely will celebrate a life that turned out quite differently than she imagined – punctuated by moments of sheer terror, a war that threatened to take her true love and a move across the ocean to a new home in a foreign land – but one for which she is truly grateful.
____ “You really appreciate that you survived something like that and that you are together,” she said. “In life, I find that I am very grateful and the little things that really might annoy you don’t matter anymore.”

See the May 14, 2015 edition of the Dillsburg Banner for details.