The Sanatoga Post

State Sen. John Rafferty, at right above, laughs with Calvin Books, leader of the honor guard (below at left) that presented the colors during Saturday’s veterans’ breakfast at Sunnybook Ballroom.

SANATOGA PA – Hundreds of greater Pottstown area veterans from all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces filled Sunnybrook Ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Rd., Pottstown PA, on Saturday (Oct. 30, 2010) to enjoy a free annual Veterans Day breakfast in their honor hosted by Pennsylvania state Sen. John Rafferty.

Rafferty, who has conducted the event for several years with the assistance of state Rep. Tom Quigley and others, was all smiles and handshakes as veterans came up to him, said hello, and thanked him for their invitation. Several said they had attended the event every year since the breakfast began, and were “happy to be around for it again,” as one put it.

In addition to the food and musical entertainment, Rafferty presented Philadelphia Judge Seamus McCaffery as a guest speaker.

• See a Post gallery of photos from the event, below. Click on any thumbnail image to enlarge it.

On the run.

POTTSTOWN PA – The deer population in Montgomery County PA usually keeps to the security of local woods, and emerges only around dusk for feeding. When a hot air balloonist flew over Pottstown PA last week, he and his passengers saw a surprised herd running across a road and field, most likely scared by the noise of the balloon’s gas-powered flame.

One of the balloon’s occupants caught the herd’s movement on video, and uploaded it last Sunday (Oct. 24, 2010) to YouTube.

• See the video above, or watch it at the YouTube user account of netpatel.

Dancing is good for the hips, and the Hipsters.

POTTSTOWN PA – Pottstown’s Scenic Girls are giving new meaning to their “Hip Places To Be Scene” tagline. The emphasis, in this instance, is on the hips.

Janet Flack and Gina Stango operate “Hip Places To Be Scene In Pottstown,” a popular borough-oriented activities page on Facebook. They took video cameras this week to dance their blues away, and exercise until they were blue in the face, with Zumba Fitness in The Ballroom On High Street in Pottstown PA. They’re shown getting into a rhythm all their own in a video posted online Thursday (Oct. 28, 2010).

• See the Scenic Girls get dancin’, above, or watch the video at their YouTube user account.

Related:

• Digital Printing Firm Gets Zapped By Scenic Girls
• Pottstown Bloggers Dress Up In New Looks
• Scenic Girls Give Pottstown’s Y A Workout

Michael Agneta

SANATOGA PA – With avid fly fisherman Michael Agneta, there’s family and fishing … and sometimes not much in between. Oh, except that pesky thing called a job, which often gets in the way of the fun stuff but – if truth be told – makes the fun stuff possible.

Agneta, a Limerick (PA) Township resident, took a break from work Wednesday to attend his daughter’s in-school Halloween observance. Later in the day, he made a short jaunt over to Lower Pottsgrove’s Sanatoga Park to try his had at fly fishing for bass and other warm water species in the stream below the stone dam that creates the park lake. He caught something on nearly every other cast, he reports, although maybe the fish he hooked weren’t quite what he might have hoped for.

• Read Agneta’s post, “Afternoon of Pre-School & Woolly Buggers,” at his blog, Troutrageous.com.

Related:

• The Blizzard Locally, As Seen On YouTube
  

SANATOGA PA – Haines and Kibblehouse Inc., the construction materials and contracting company with operations spread over several states, has re-scheduled its hearing before the Lower Pottsgrove Zoning Hearing Board on its request to erect a two-sided digital display billboard on property off South Sanatoga Road.

An earlier hearing, scheduled for the board’s Sept. 21 (2010) agenda, was canceled by the company.

The Haines and Kibblehouse Trap Rock Quarry in Sanatoga.

An advertisement of the zoning board hearing, now re-scheduled for Nov. 17 (2010; Wednesday) at 6 p.m. in the municipal building, appeared Wednesday (Oct. 27) in The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper, the township’s publication of record for legal notices.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

Montgomery County property records indicate the parcel on which the sign would be located, No. 420001856001, is a 12.94-acre property purchased in 1980. Its accompanying map shows the property has extensive frontage along U.S. Route 422, where an existing Haines and Kibblehouse sign atop a hill is visible from the highway’s west- and east-bound lanes. That sign would be replaced by the new one, according to the advertisement. The property is near H&K’s Pottstown-Sanatoga Trap Rock Quarry, and is zoned for light industrial use.

Related:

• Construction Company Returns With Sign Request
• Company Cancels Zoning Hearing On Digital Sign
• H&K Asks Lower Pottsgrove For A New Digital Sign

Photo from the Haines and Kibblehouse website

POTTSTOWN PA – Pottsgrove High School students who want to learn to drive an automobile correctly and safely, and earn a driver insurance discount in the process, may soon get their chance.

The Montgomery County (PA) Intermediate Unit, which provides county schools with a variety of services, is willing to schedule after-school driver’s education classes if a sufficient number of students enroll, high school Principal Chris Shaffer said Wednesday (Oct. 27, 2010) via e-mail.

The two classes consist of 30 hours of classroom instruction, at a cost of $190; and 6 hours of behind-the-wheel guidance, at a cost of $300. An MCIU brochure supplied by Shaffer that more fully explains both is available for download, here. It also includes a registration form which, when completed, should be submitted to the high school office, Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA.

Successful completion of both courses often entitles the student to a 10-percent discount on automobile insurance, the brochure states.

Classes won’t be held locally unless the high school attracts a minimum of 15 students, Shaffer said. He intends to promote them in coming weeks during morning announcements and in the high school’s health and physical education courses. For more information, call 610-326-5105.

Photo from Google Images

The promotional poster for Melange's return.

POTTSTOWN PA – The Mélange Contemporary Dance Company, which recently returned to the U.S. after a overseas tour, comes back Nov. 5-7 to the Tri-County Performing Arts Center, 245 High St., Pottstown PA, for a weekend of music and dance performances featured during the International Dance Festival in Ladek Zdroj, Poland.

Its program will be staged in three shows only: Nov. 5 (2010, Friday) and Nov. 6 (Saturday), both at 8 p.m., and Nov. 7 (Sunday) at 3 p.m. In addition, a special discussion with the company’s artistic director and dancers is planned for the Friday performance.

Melange is the center’s resident professional dance company. It presents a mix of modern, jazz and other diverse dance and music forms.

“The dancers are informed by experience, and their experiences during this year’s trip to Poland left some lasting impressions,” arts center representative Betsy Chapman explains. “Much like our recent weather, Poland experienced severe storms and flooding,” she said. They caused the entire festival to be moved to the town square.

The town of Ladek Zdroj is among Europe’s oldest spa towns. During the dancers’ downtime they were able to relax and enjoy a swim in a naturally heated indoor pool of mineral water, time in a salt cave that helps sinuses and respiration, and a body de-tox, Chapman reports.  They were also given a class by an instructor from Warsaw.

The company includes Founder and Artistic Director Michelle Jones Wurtz, Christa Campbell, Krista Grunklee, Emily Horstmann Getchell, Jessica Jarvis, Jill Michalsky, Sara Pyfer, Jackie Kokolus, and Tija Ore.  Their November performance at the Tri-PAC will showcase a diverse, energetic suite of dances.

Tickets cost $17 for adults, $15 for students and seniors age 65 and older, and $13 for children age 12 and younger. Tickets for all shows are available online, or by calling 610-970-1199. Seating is limited.

Photo from Tri-PAC

POTTSTOWN PA – Students who attend the Pottsgrove School District’s Ringing Rocks Elementary School on North Keim Street participated in a Halloween parade on the track behind the school. They were accompanied by band music and a fire truck from the Ringing Hill Fire Company.

• Watch the video, above, or see it at the Vimeo account of user Daniel Krueger.

NORRISTOWN PA – When winter – silent, cold, and foreboding – takes hold of the Norristown PA area next January, it will be disturbed for eight hours on a Wednesday as a select group of shotgun-toting hunters will be allowed to participate in a controlled, antler-less deer hunt at Montgomery County‘s Norristown Farm Park, 2500 Upper Farm Rd., park Supervisor Ken Shellenberger said Thursday (Oct. 28, 2010).

The hunt has been set for Jan. 11 (2011).

The deer hunt was announced in a press release from the county Communications Department. It will be held one day only, on Jan. 11.

The hunt continues the county’s efforts, the release said, to reduce the effects of an overabundant deer population, cut down on the number of automobile accidents involving deer, limit damage to park landscape and that of adjacent properties, and deal with the threat of Lyme Disease conveyed by ticks living on the deer.

Hunters involved will be selected in a lottery, and must be registered in advance to be eligible to be chosen.

Applications to join this year’s lottery consist of only a 3-inch-by-5-inch index card that contains the applicant’s name, legal address, telephone number, driver’s license number, PA hunting license number and WMU Area 5C antlerless tag number(s). Cards can be dropped off at or mailed to the “Deer Hunt,” Norristown Farm Park, 2500 Upper Farm Rd., Norristown PA 19403. Applications must be accompanied by a self-addressed and stamped business-sized envelope for return correspondence. For more information, call the park office at 610-270-0215.

Participants must be age 21 or older (except for active duty or full-time military personnel, who qualify at age 18 or older).

Hunters will be required to use a 12-gauge shotgun firing slug ammunition only, (no buckshot). Additionally, all hunters will be required to hunt from safety-harnessed tree stands they scouted, selected and set up themselves. No ladder stands, screw-in pegs or any other device that could affect a tree’s health will be permitted. Special accommodations will be made for those with documented physical limitations or restrictions. All applications must be post marked or received by Nov. 30 (2010), and will be chosen on Dec. 4 (Saturday, 2010).

The county is taking no chances with the hunting prospects’ qualifications, either. It is demanding that all selected attend a mandatory safety meeting before the hunt, and said failure to attend would disqualify those from the hunt. All Pennsylvania Game Commission laws will be in effect on hunt day, and the hunt itself will be closely monitored for safety and legal compliance, according to Shellenberger.

The park will be closed to visitors on hunt day.

Composite photo by The Post

LIMERICK PA — Gateway Employment Resources, which has its offices on Ridge Pike in Limerick PA, will hold a fund-raising “Night at the Races” on Nov. 5 (2010; Friday) from 6-10 p.m. in the Loft At Limerick Golf Club, 675 N. Lewis Rd., Limerick.

A buffet dinner, music, horse races, silent auction, and 50-50 raffle are included. Tickets cost $30. For more information, call Tina Cooper at 610-489-9699 Ext. 115.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.