Parkesburg Today

Octorara Intermediate School

The questions from parents flowed last night as Octorara's Superintendent Dr. Newcome and his administrative team continued their "It is what it is" tour to address questions about the district's ongoing efforts to restructure district programs and get to a balanced budget.

It was a friendly, albeit small, gathering of about 10 to 12 parents and had none of the edge seen in earlier Town Hall meetings.

The questions and answers we're straight forward and blunt; the message, Octorara will adapt.

A very quick summary of the hour long discussion:

Q: What research is there regarding the impact of full-day, every other day kindergarten?
A: Not much

Q: What is the anticipated class size of the all day, every-other-day kindergarten?
A: The goal will be 20 students per class. Current class size runs 16 to 24 students per class depending on the needs of the students and busing schedules.

Q: Is sports funding going away?
A: Eventually. Over time booster clubs will assume the financial burden for fielding teams and district funding for sports will be reduced and eventually eliminated. Octorara's band has leveraged this model successfully for years.

Q: Will 7th graders and 12th graders be in the same school together:
A: For the most part no. There will be some mixing of middle and high school students, but no more so than happens now.

The money question:

Q: What do you see as the solution to school funding long term? Are we going to have to go through this every year?
A: There is no political will to change the way public schools are funded in Harrisburg. Act 1 of 2006 restricted the ability of school districts to tax. Pennsylvania may eventually go to a tax referendum just as New Jersey does. Until that happens Octorara has no other choice but to find a way to play in this environment. One of the ways Octorara plays is create more ‘rateables,’ in other words grow the tax base by attracting more commercial development to our area.

Earlier this week Parkesburg Today traveled back in time to a bitterly cold February night in 1968 when seven children perished in a house fire on Maple Avenue.

After posting the Post Ledger newspaper clipping describing the incident to the blog, I created a link to the story in Facebook's Parkesburg Local group.

The vivid and heartfelt memories of the disaster left on Facebook by Parkesburg natives, all children at the time of the blaze, provide new details of the fire itself, the generosity of Parkesburg residents after the blaze, and the untold (and uplifting) story of families and a town moving on.

Visit the Parkesburg Locals group on Facebook. All sorts of old pictures, mementos and most importantly memories from Parkesburg's past are posted nearly every day.

You can join the group by doing a search on Facebook or sending an email to ParkesburgLocals@groups.facebook.com.

Mega kudos to Kathi Rendell, Lynn Guidetti and Patricia Prange-Smith for starting the group.

Thanks to their efforts, Parkesburg has a new town square!
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Here are the unedited Facebook comments posted in response to the Hoover Fire story seen earlier this week on Parkesburg Today:

Ann Marie Grenko Ken, thank you for posting this. I went to school with Mary Hoover and remember this sad event.

April 17 at 9:16pm ·
Lynn Thomas Guidetti Same here --

April 17 at 10:29pm ·
Rick Hoskins I cried when I read this article. I worked with Ralphie, and saw his scars. He was fun to work with. He was good to me and Brian. He had a very big heart!! The Rodgers family treated me like their own. Danny stayed with me for awhile out here. and lived here before heading south.

Monday at 6:49am ·
Suzanne Groff Remember it well & think of them ever time I pass Maple St. My
mother (Mrs. Keim) Had one of the children in her class that year

Monday at 8:59am ·
Kerry Glenn Does anyone know the whereabouts of Mary Hoover now?

Monday at 9:01am ·
Kathi Rendall This is another thing I had the unfortunate luck to watch from my bedroom window. I remember them saying that the fireman had icicles hanging from their faces. It was a very bad night.

Monday at 10:41am ·
Pat Welsh Mary Hoover was in the restaurant several months ago. She lives somewhere local. I remember that night too. Watched from the bedroom window. Horrible. Also remember watching the sewing factory burn and Keens lumber. Could see a lot from that window.

Monday at 11:48am ·
Jack Mariano The second worse loss of life fire occurred on 1/18/98 on Strasburg Ave. just off of Main St. when two children died after being pulled out of a second and third story window. My cousin Dean Hoopes pulled one of those kids out and onto a ground ladder and brought the child down, Dean remembers this night well.

Monday at 7:55pm ·
Anna Mowrey Baker That was a sad day. I remember it well. We went to school with every one of those families. How awful.

Monday at 8:37pm ·
Lynn Thomas Guidetti Mary went to Coatesville, but I never heard where they ended up. Ralph was in Rob's class.

Monday at 8:41pm ·
Betsy Wilde Benner I was 10 yrs. old and we lived on main street. I remember standing outside in the cold looking towards Maple Avenue the night of the fire. Still makes me sad thinking about it.

Monday at 9:44pm ·
Kathy Herr I remember hearing about it and seeing the horrible scene and the ice and I cried so hard that night. I felt so sorry for Mary (my classmate also) and her parents for their loss-can't even imagine-think we were all in shock.

Monday at 10:09pm ·
Joanne Diem Kennel Always think about it whenever I go past .. so sad

Tuesday at 12:05am ·
PatriciaLee Prange-Smith Mary graduated from Coatesville High School in 75 and married Jim Davis.

Tuesday at 6:45am ·
Craig Underwood I remember waking up to the sirens and going upstairs to my parents bedroom, looking out the window and seeing the glow in the sky. I also remember my Dad going down to the Post Office to make sure the Post Office wasn't burning. It was a very quiet and sad day in school that day.

Tuesday at 6:34pm ·
Kerry Glenn I should ask my Brother for more details on this, but a day or two after the fire, a huge crane was brought in with a clamshell drop-bucket to dig through the ruins of the Hoover's house to find the bodies of the children. Maple Street was blocked off because the huge crane pretty much filled the whole street. Remeber the cars parked along there being coated with what seemed like ice a foot thick.

Tuesday at 7:13pm ·
Betsy Wilde Benner I was in Mrs. Norris's 4th grade class when the fire happened. I remember we had a container on Mrs. Norris's desk to put money in for the Hoover family.

Tuesday at 7:28pm
Kerry Glenn Betsy - Was that the collection that was used to buy the glass display case in the Parkesburg Library that was dedicated in memory of the Hoover kids?

22 hours ago ·
Pamela Chesnet
whew! A lot of emotions reading all these comments and looking at the picture. Everyone in my family survived the fire (we lived in the last house of the row). I should say we survived physically, but mentally it is something we will nev...er forget. For me (10 years old a the time) I will never forget looking at my mom standing there crying. Mom ran back into our house to get Mary 'Sissy' Hoover a blanket and the amazing thing was that her mom 'Pete' returned that blanket to us about a month later! Can you imagine that after losing 7 of your children you would remember to return the blanket? I would always see 'Pete' and Ralph over the later years and he was always joking and laughing. A lot of people helped us get back on our feet. I will always remember Sidney Altman let us come to his store and get some new clothes! We stayed several places and then the Bethany A.M.E. Church let us rent their parsonage. We made a lot of lifetime friendships living 'on the hill'
As kids we had a lot of fun on Maple Street. I was talking to Ronnie Hoopes last week at the Wawa (small world) His brother Davey died about a month ago. We were talking about all the fun playing kick the can, hide and seek, etc. We stayed out till dark and later till our moms would come out screaming for us to get in the house! Not a care in the world that someone would take us or hurt us. The best of times and the worst of times. Thanks for listening! Pam Rodgers Chesnet.See More

20 hours ago ·
Kerry Glenn Pam - Are you related to Elmer Rodgers?

20 hours ago
Pamela Chesnet No, our name is from the area of Martins Corner, via Sarah Patton my grandmother who married John Rodgers. My mom was Gail McGinnis, brothers, Don and Bill, all of who are now deseased.

20 hours ago
Betsy Wilde Benner Kerry - I don't remember if the money was used for that or not. I don't seem to have your memory for things of long ago.

15 hours ago
Kathi Rendall Pam, your post brought tears to my eyes. It is so incredible to know these things now after all those years. I knew your family lived in that row, but hadn't thought about it since then and the impact that had to have on the lives of everyone back there. I am glad you all survived, so glad.

13 hours ago