(FROM LEFT) CLAR-ION COUNTY District Attorney Mark Aaron, Sheriff Robert Fyock,

president of the Penn-sylvania Sheriff’s Asso-ciation, Attorney Gen-

eral Kathleen Kane, and Gary Tennis, Sec-retary of Pennsylvania

Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs,

testified at a hearing Tuesday in Clarion re-

garding heroin use.

A1 Front Page

eisurely

isitLV

VOL. 136 — NO. 14

THURSDAY,AUGUST 21, 2014

75 CENTS

Inside The L-VA Union High

School fall sports poster, featuring

photos of the UHS teams, can be

found inside to-day’s issue. Check back next week for our Redbank

Valley High School fall sports poster!

And don’t forget to cast your bal-lot for our 2014 Readers Choice

Awards!

[L-V photo by Josh Walzak]LEXI ALESE OF New Bethlehem shows off her 256-pound cross-bred swine during the Junior Livestock Auction Thursday eve-

ning at the Dayton Fair. For more photos from Fair Week, see Page A-10.

A PIECE of early radio history has a place of honor in Mel Check’s museum. The Atwater Kent set dates from the late-1920s and required the operator to tune each of its tubes while searching for a radio station. The user had to keep a detailed log of the settings if he ever wanted to find the sta-tion again. In 1929, the invention of a compo-nent known as a super-heterodyne eliminated the log keeping and al-lowed a radio listener to scan the frequencies for the desired station.[L-V photo by Susan L. Kerr]

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

RIMERSBURG – It won’t be just new programs, fa-cilities and classes that Union School District stu-dents see on their first day back to school this Mon-day, but a number of new faces as well.

In the brief span of summer vacation, Union

saw 11 staff members with nearly 240 combined years of experience retire.

Union superintendent Jean McCleary said that there were plenty of big shoes to fill going into 2014-15 — especially with the retirements of long-time confidential secretary Carrie Engro and business manager John Corsini —

New team to lead at Union

[Continued on Page A-9]

By SUSAN L. KERRL-V Correspondent

BRADYS BEND TWP. – Tucked into a cozy nook along the Allegheny Riv-er near East Brady, Mel Check’s eclectic museum is off the beaten path for anyone who is not a radio fanatic.

Check, whose radio en-gineering career spanned 34 years at KDKA in Pitts-burgh, began amassing his collection more than 40 years ago. From gim-micky transistors housed in a variety of plastic pro-motional items to a rare 1920s set built when the field of radio was in its in-fancy, there is something that might appeal to any-

Radio history lives on along river

[Continued on Page A-6]

By RON WILSHIREL-V Correspondent

CLARION – Clarion County Dis-trict Attorney Mark Aaron was the first to offer testimony at Tuesday’s public hearing by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania at Clarion Uni-versity and Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was last to testify at the four-hour session; but sandwiched between, other experts also talked about the heroin and opiate challenge facing Pennsylva-nia and the need for treatment.

“We cannot arrest our way out of this problem,” said Aaron about the heroin epidemic facing Clarion

and other counties in Pennsylvania. “In all honesty, I must tell you that when I first became district attorney in 2000, that if someone would have told me that within 10 years heroin would be the number one criminal issue in Clarion County, I would have laughed. At that time heroin was not here, and heroin was con-sidered a drug of the 1970s. No one used it because it had to be injected and it was not a drug of choice.”

The change in the distribution of heroin that started the Pennsylva-nia nightmare was the production of a more pure, potent heroin that is available in “stamp” bags in some

AG Kane testifies at Clarion heroin hearing

[Continued on Page A-6]

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

NEW BETHLEHEM – The new school year be-gins Monday for Redbank Valley students, and ac-cording to district officials, there will be a number of changes students and parents will experience this year.

At the high school, those changes will be evi-

dent from the opening bell as a homeroom period has been added to the start of the day.

Redbank Valley High School principal Jason Kerr said that the home-room period will run from 8:10 to 8:15 a.m. for all students except those who attend the Clarion County Career Center.

“Students must be in

RVSD ready for new year

[Continued on Page A-6]

Now that it’s just start-ing to feel like summer with several days above 80 degrees this week, the summer holiday is about to come to an end for local students and school em-ployees.

Monday marks the start of the new school year for [Continued on Page A-7]

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

NEW BETHLEHEM – Ideas for improving the truck access to the J.M. Smucker peanut but-ter plant in New Bethlehem were discussed Tuesday night by bor-ough and company officials.

Sean Zustin, manager of the Keck Avenue plant, attended the borough council’s regular meet-ing to bring up the possibility of widening a portion of Walnut

Street to allow large trucks bet-ter access to and from the fac-tory.

As it stands, Zustin said, Walnut Street from Penn Street to Short Street is too narrow for two-way truck traffic. The road-way is the main access to the plant for trucks.

At a minimum, he explained, the road would need to be wid-ened from 21 feet to 24 feet; how-ever, the company would prefer to have the roadway widened to

27 feet to help ensure that the trucks stay off residents’ yards along the street.

A major issue with any street widening would be the need to keep the street open for the plant’s operation. Zustin said there would be occasional time when crews could have three to four days to conduct the work.

Although he didn’t ask for any commitments from the borough, Zustin did say the company would like to see to what extent

the borough is willing to be a part of the project.

“We’d benefit from any sup-port,” he said, “but we know we need to do it anyway.”

Council president Sandy Ma-teer said that the project would likely need PennDOT approval, and would need to meet require-ments for sidewalks and handi-cap accessible ramps.

Zustin also said that the com-pany is considering expanding its parking lot next summer as

well to provide additional space for the busy factory.

“We need all the parking we can get,” he said.

Mateer suggested that Zus-tin and the company may wish to once again look at providing access to the plant directly from Route 28 (Broad Street).

“We’d like to get the big trucks off Penn Street,” she said, noting that designs for a new roadway were drafted a number of years

Borough, Smucker’s look at truck issues

[Continued on Page A-7]

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