>> welcome to the communityof penns valley, a collection of villages, towns, and boroughsnestled among the mountains of central pennsylvania. this region, boasts a richagricultural heritage, a thriving art scene, anda community calendar packed with a wide variety offairs and festivals. but if you ask anyone on the street they'lltell you it's the people that make this regionsuch a great place to live
because the communityof penns valley and its surrounding areasexemplify the spirit of giving. join us for wpsu'sfirst regional our town as local residentsshare everything that make their communitya great place to live. your friends andneighbors welcome you to our town penns valley. support for our townpenns valley comes from healthsouth nittanyvalley rehabilitation hospital
providing quality post-acuterehabilitation services after illness or injury. healthsouth right by your sideat nittanyvalleyrehab.com. jr's quality tile and hardwood,2041 general potter highway, centre hall offeringcomplete flooring services to refresh your home andoffice jrsflooring.com. the meadows psychiatric clinicoffering a continuum of care that includes inpatient,outpatient and crisis intervention alongwith the community commitment
to mental health awarenessand stigma reduction. information at themeadows.net. tamara trunzo statefarm insurance, 2836 earlystown roadoffering auto, home, life and financial services. information at 814-364-2181. penns valley building supply,3602 penns valley road, spring mills providingbuilding materials and supplies for over 25 yearspvbsonline.com.
the grange fair proud to be part of the penns valleycommunity since 1874. information on facebookand at grangefair.com. and from viewerslike you, thank you. [ music ] >> i'm cyndy engle, i'mfrom millheim, pennsylvania and i'm here todayto talk about photos that i take around penns valley. i always took some picturesof the family and everything,
but in 2010 i joined a photogroup, an online photo group, where we did a picturea day project. we started off with 60 ofus we ended up with a dozen by the end of the year. people started to ask me whyaren't you just taking photos of this beautifularea that you live in. so i started going andtrying to tell a story. many people think that thingsdon't change around here, it's slower out here, everythingmoves a little bit slower.
but things change all the timebarns fall down, roads change, the amish community grows. there's a street that's justby us it's called long lane and it comes out of town,so there's town shots, but then it goes by amish farms and then it flows itsway into penns creek. i find that i have a lotof different shots that are on that road just because theseasons everything changes. there's also another roadit's predominantly amish.
ahmed has farms on it,it has a schoolhouse and so i go and do that. the thing about penns valleywhich you have is your roads run like streams here and so aroundevery bend is another story, it's another shot and it canchange with the time of day, it can change with the seasonand it's all the same shot. it can be the samebarn, but it's -- i've shot it 25 differentways and it's marvelous and it's a surprise every time.
i've often said that ihave to hold my breath when i take a picture,but that's not hard to do because your breathis taken away. people started seeing whati was putting on facebook and said could you print thisfor us we'll sell it at auction to help raise money for non-profit organizationsand so this was done. well anything from the icons oflike the round barn to events that go on becausethere's quite a few events
that are here in the valley. everybody thinks penns valleythey think grange fair, but there's so muchmore that happens here. there's the dutch fallfestival, there's oktoberfest, there's crickfest, we havemary millheim at christmastime. and that's the other sideof penns valley i love to take pictures of themountains and streams, but there's this communitytoo that comes together and this is an opportunityfor me to show the people
when they come together and celebrate whatwe have around us. >> i'm jeff frazieri'm from centre hall and my topic is historicsites of penns valley. penns valley grandview i took that from the topof nittany mountain. supposedly that was the spot where colonel james potterwas the first white man to view the valley back in 1759and came there with a companion.
he turned to hiscompanion when he saw it because it was a lushmeadow, a beautiful place for raising livestock andso forth at that time. he turned to hiscompanion and said, why heavens thomson i'vediscovered an empire. old fort hotel was actuallyan old stagecoach stop and it still stands today, the old stone buildingis there today. potter's fort was nearby the oldstagecoach stop and it was one
of the three settler'sforts built in the valley it was calledthe upper fort built there by colonel jamespotter and was used as a refuge during theindian work troubles in pennsylvania penns valley. the jacob standford cabinis about 6 miles up the road from the locationof the upper fort. it was a site of an indianmassacre back in 1758, in may of 1758 the stanfordfamily was massacred there
by indians. the old log cabin still standstoday, the original log cabin. the indian lane monument marksthe spot where two soldiers from the upper fort, potter'sfort, were guarding reapers and they encounteredfive indians who were attacking the reapers. and there was a battlehand-to-hand combat there. one of the things the earlysettlers had to contend with in the old dayswere the wild animals
and that included mountainlions and packs of wolves. and it was said at one timethat if a lonely traveler caught in the woods at night hearda pack of wolves howling and to them that howl wasmore frightening in some cases than the war whoop of anindian raiding party was back in the old days when there wereindian wars in pennsylvania. boal gap road that'sanother site where a gentleman wasattacked by a pack of wolves. he was coming home frompenns valley butchery
into his one room log cabinout there on boal gap road. wolves attacked himand he threw pieces of sausage meat he was carryingback to them to keep them at bay until he got homesafely to his cabin. greenbriar gap is a siteof a wolf encounter back in the old days and the logcabin that's sitting there today is still a site originalhomestead that was built back in the old days there. and it's still a wild countrypeople say they still hear the
coyotes howling in themountain that night. round barn is just amajor tourist attraction in the valley. it was built there in1910 by calvin neff, aaron thomas was hismaster carpenter. the logs for the barn weresawed off in the bear meadows and today they say that some of the sawing wasexcellent examples of craftsmanshipeven equal to some
of the master sawingtoday that you see. woodward cave is one oftwo natural attractions in the valley thatattract a lot of people and penns cave is the othernatural attractions in the area, it's what they advertise asamerica's only all water cavern. and of course, thelegend connected with penns cave is an oldindian legend and it has to do with princess nittany forwhom nittany mountain is named and for whom the penn statenittany lions take their name.
penns valley has deeproots, a lot of the people that own land hereare descendants from original settlers that settled here,including my family. i grew up here and i also liketo hear the old timers talk about the legends andfolktales of the area. and then when i moved out aftergraduating from penn state and settled in new jersey iwas homesick and this was a way to stay in touch with home.
i would come back andtalk to old timers and so forth it wasjust fascinating to me, it still does today. it's my roots. >> my name is keri millerand i live in spring mills and my story is onthe old gregg school. the old gregg schoolhas a rich history. it started out as justa home and it was sold and became the greggtownship vocational school.
it became an elementaryschool and once that closed in 2006 people foughtto keep it open. once they realized thatwasn't going to happen a group of people came togetherand formed a board to make the old greggschool community center and they really pouredtheir heart and souls into making thiswhat it is today. this community centeris now home to many differentbusinesses and organizations,
a lot of them non-profits. a couple of those are thepenns valley youth center, tree yoga of centre county, we have a dance studioupstairs horizon studios, and there is a thrift storeat the end of the hallway who has been in operationsince this changed to a community center and sheis one of our strong tenants that helps keep thisplace moving. a great piece at the communitycenter that reminds us
of what used to behere is the artwork that lines the hallwaysand the classrooms. there are different muralspainted by the students in the classrooms where thecinderblock is the students get to paint a cinderblock of things that interests themat that time. and so it's neat tokind of walk through and see what wasinteresting to the kids and what they decided to paint.
and we try to keep thosewalls from being painted over. this community center is soimportant to the community because it bringspeople together. it is a hub of the community, especially to my kidsthe old gregg school is like a second home. we're coming down here everyday, playing at the playground, looking at books in the library. people remember going to schoolhere they come and tell stories
and pass it on tothe next generation. and when new people moveinto the community it's great for them to have a placeto bring their kids. so the great thing about livingin penns valley is the sense of community that it builds. it creates a sense of family. the way the old gregg schoolis still operational today is because everybodygives a little bit. it really enhances whatthat family is like.
>> hi i am kurt grotz, i'mwith the waterhouse studios in aaronsburg and i'm here totalk about the aaronsburg story. in 2013, i moved to aaronsburgand one of the main reasons that i purchased my house wasi discovered that it was right above the salem lutheran church,which i learned was the site of the aaronsburg story. the aaronsburg story started inthe late 1700's when a gentleman by the name of aaron levydonated land for a church which became thesalem lutheran church.
and he gave the parishioners avery fine pewter communion set made by a top pewter makerin the city of philadelphia. and the long story short, in 1949 after the holocausta gentleman by the name of arthur lewis was anaide to governor duff and he was travelingacross the state and came through aaronsburg and saw that they were celebrating150 years of this church. and he found out about the giftfrom aaron levy who was jewish
to the christians andthought the story was so great that the state shouldjoin in the celebration. they ended up havinga remarkable event at the fields next to the salemlutheran church in aaronsburg. a large mass of people descendedon the town of aaronsburg, politically speaking itwas a mixture of democrats and republicans, but everybodywas there on the same page to talk about toleranceand religious freedom. there were three main workshops.
one of them dealt withreligious tolerance in america. one of them dealt withracial equality among people. one of them dealt withprejudice, how you identify it and how you deal withpeople that are prejudice. it was 10 years beforerosa parks and 15 years beforemartin luther king and it was just an amazing, amazing event righthere in the valley. there's markers aroundthat keep the story alive.
we're planning to havesome sort of recreation or a concert or anevent in 2019. my plan actually is toturn my house and property into a retreat, a peace retreat. we're really looking forwardto this story being a catalyst for further discussions andactivities along those lines. >> my name is bonniedebrasky and i from aaronsburg and my story is aboutmaking donuts at the st. peter'sunited church of christ.
we do it every year. as i understand back in1939 a group of women from the church startedmaking donuts to raise money, it was a fundraiser to raisemoney to keep the church going. it went until 1989 and thenthey didn't have enough people in the church to do it andthen in 1996 they started it up again and it's still going. a lot of people inaaronsburg were germans. they started this becausethey had old potatoes left
from the year before, sothey started making donuts with these potatoes andit was called a fasnacht. the usually madethem shrove tuesday, which is the tuesdaybefore ash wednesday and ash wednesday isthe start of lent. we get our ingredients donatedand it's quite a process. we make about 24 to 27 batches,which makes 4 dozen a batch and we make the wholedonuts and the donut holes. we have probably 10,12 people that help us.
we have people that takeoff from work and help us. people do expect them. we have a big donut sign that weput out along the road and a lot of people will stop in and sayoh i'm glad you put your donut sign out because i didn't knowyou were making them today, so it really is a nicefundraiser for us to do. it's a community and a familytradition in aaronsburg. my mother was a big start of itin 1996, she really got involved with it because shewent to church forever.
and as my sisters and igrew up we also got involved and i've been doing it fora long time and i enjoy it. >> i'm fred johnsonfrom rebersburg and my story is dowsing, which ilearned to do 20 plus years ago. dowsing is findingsomething with a stick. the gentleman that iwas with that taught me to do it was randall stover, he did well over 100wells for people. there's only four that he knowsof that ever went with him
that could do it andi'm one of the four. the stick that i useis just an apple stick, it's a wide stick off of atree, one of my apple trees. but amazingly, the stick willshow you where the water is, it'll point out thesides of the aquifer, it will tell you howdeep down the source is, and how many gallon per minute. i don't know how it works,i don't know why it works, it's a mystery to me,but i do know it works.
what you need to do is if imay show you hold the stick and put it in what theycall a cocked position and then you ask the question and i'm sure thestick doesn't know, but for some reason it'll bendwhen you want -- it'll go down. but i also found that you can domany other things with the stick and the one i did was dowsingfor remains in the graveyards. you would tell the stickto find the remains of the person youare looking for.
then you begin to turn ina circle, 360 degree circle and it'll usually most of the time will pointin a direction to go. then i try to walk that distanceor approximately reset the stick and ask it all over again untili come to the grave itself. i've spent time with thepennsylvania state police finding bodies of peoplewho have long been gone. i'm just glad to help them out. i always use apple.
i have an orchard withapproximately 15 apple trees and i'm the only orchard inrebersburg that have apple trees that do not have a ycrotch in them anymore because i usually takefour of five sticks with me when i go to dowse. when i moved to pennsvalley in 1966 i got a job at the penns valley high school as a history teacherin the high school. it was almost like family.
the whole community islike a giant family. the faculty at the highschool was fantastic and i just have nodesire to leave. there was no better placeas far as i was concerned. >> hi, my name is patrick smith,i'm a resident of centre hall and i've been askedto talk a little about centre hall'sannual town-wide yard sale. it was the idea of a smallgroup of business owners in centre hall who were lookingfor an idea to get people
to come into town,generate some foot traffic, maybe help supportlocal businesses. in their discussions theynoticed that there were a lot of individual yard salesall throughout the summer. and they hit upon theidea of what would happen if we invited everybody toparticipate on one weekend and it has grown immensely. it is a friday and asaturday, there are thousands of people now that comethrough centre hall.
it is truly a tributeto the idea that one person's trash isanother person's treasure. you will find allmanner of things. if you have smallchildren and you're looking for gently loved and used toys. if you're looking forclothing for children. it's a great opportunityto find things that can be reused and recycled. in fact, i know some parentswho claim they do the majority
of their christmas shoppingduring centre hall's town-wide yard sale. it's also expandednow you find antiques. one of the best thingsthat i see happening at the centre hall yard saleis when somebody is looking at something and saying tellme what this is or tell me where you found this and youget a little bit of history, a little bit of backstory on well that came down through my family
and i don't haveanybody to pass it on to. and you come acrosssome of the oddest stuff and the oddest stories, butthe stories are great to hear. it's also become a fabulousopportunity for community groups and organizations tomake a little money. so you'll find that anumber of the churches in centre hall during yardsale days they're doing burgers and hotdogs and sellingfood and cold drinks. it's a great fundraiserfor the fire company.
the food and beverages thatthey sell accommodate a pretty significant portion ofthe money that they raise to help support obviouslynew equipment purchases and training andthings like that. i'm a small-town guy ilike the idea of being able to take a walk late inthe evening with a friend or even alone and thefolks that are sitting on the front porch are the onesthat will wave and say hello. it's a great place to live,
the valley as a wholeis a beautiful, beautiful scenic place to liveand the people are friendly and everybody gets alongand has a good time. >> my name is lyn garling and ilive in rebersburg, pennsylvania and my story is aboutagriculture in penns and brush valley. here in penns valley wehave kind of a sweet spot for agriculture in the sense that we have an incrediblydiverse community.
both of types of farmers, ageof farmers, the plane community, the so-called english community,older farmers, younger farmers, you just don't findthat everywhere. and it's everything fromapples to zucchinis, from sheep to goatsto pigs to cows. a lot of small family farmsand some bigger commodity farms and somehow theyall work together. so we have this incrediblecommunity that includes allthis knowledge.
it's hard to go someplaceand find people that know how todo all this stuff. also all the small farms nomatter what type they are know each other and help each other. so that's an interesting thingtoo you get to know a lot of interesting people who dodifferent types of farming and you can learn from them. for us our own smallfarm we feel like we're in the perfect placebecause we've got welders,
we've got auctions nearbyif we need to sell stuff, we've got farmers markets, we'vegot, you know, direct market with our customers, we havelike people that know how to fix our tractorbecause i don't. in our area in pennsvalley we have organizations that support farming, so we havepennsylvania certified organic, we have pasa pennsylvaniaassociation for sustainable ag. we have penn state. for me penns valley is afabulous place to live.
i came here with nointention of staying here. i didn't come here withthe idea of farming, but once i saw theopportunities available here, then i actually startedmy own small farm which was pretty exciting. there's so many interestingpeople, there's so many people that have unassuming,but deep level of skills. you've got the bestof both worlds, the town life andthe country life.
so for me it's reallyjust the perfect spot. everything you couldwant is here. >> i'm elody gyekis, i live inpenns valley and my story is about the arts communityin penns valley. millheim is a really small townwith just one traffic light and a really small population, but it's in a very unexpectedway there are many amazing things there. there's a fine artgallery, the elk creek cafe,
which is a microbreweryand restaurant and a live music venue. and other things thatyou would expect to find in a much more urban area. so there's a really high ratioof talented people, artists and musicians there, especiallyconsidering how rural it is. it's a really amazing place. my art practice involves myfine art and community art. i have a studio in the upstairsof the green drake gallery
in millheim and that's wherei do most of my own work. i do a lot of differentkinds of work, mostly figurativeand landscape work. i love working withportraits and people. i also like doing plein airpainting penns valley is an incredibly beautiful place,so a lot of opportunities for working outsiderather than in a studio. i also do a lot of communitymural projects and other kinds of community art projects.
i've been doing communitymural projects since i was 18. the millheim projectwas very special to me because i took this ideaof working with community and talking with communitymembers about what the identity of a place is and translatingthat into a big mural project. and i also make the mural tobe entirely paint by number and have lots and lots ofpeople involved in helping to create the mural itself. and i took that intomy own community
so it was really special. the green drake gallery is thefine art gallery that's located in millheim. karl leitzel it washis brainchild and he is the energythat runs it. >> having grown up here iknow the valley very well and being outdoors orientedknow the wildlife very well. those are some of themany subjects i paint. i think artist justlike a writer does best
when they paint whatthey know best. so i concentrateon those things. i've lived here so long iknow almost every little nook and cranny of the valley andso i kind of have an idea when i see a beautiful sunset for instance i have anidea well we need to shoot over to this place or thatplace to get some photos to work from if that's whati'm going to do. >> they have a lot of incredibleartists, regional, local,
national, international. we have poetry readings, musicevents, all kinds of things, it's a really amazing space. right now i'm justfinishing up the book benches of centre county project thereare fiberglass sculptures of books in the shape ofbenches that you can sit on that can be paintedand there's 25 of them and they're going allover centre county. in addition to the professional
like individual artist paintedbenches i did several community painted benches thatwere on some of those community generatedthemes, but i made paint by number like the murals. penns valley is areally incredible place because despite being so ruralit has incredible culture, but the benefit of having allthat culture in a rural place is that it's just stunninglybeautiful every day driving around you just seeincredibly beautiful landscapes.
so it's the perfect marriageof culture and nature. >> hi, i'm jeff wertand i'm here to talk about the civil war monumentin rebersburg, pennsylvania. the monument on the mainstreet in rebersburg, which was my hometown was justput there during the depression. it was hard to believethat people of the area, penns valley area would raiseover $400 to honor the men who on august the 25th,1862, stood in the streets of rebersburg and were sworn
into service withthe union army. if a man signed up toserve he would be paid $50 and that money was not fromcentre county government that was from wealthyindividuals who agreed to donate that money to getthese men to enlist. and a company generallyconsists of about 100 men, 103 if you count officers. centre county willend up in the month of august raise seven companies
and it becomes 148thpennsylvania volunteers. it's known as thecentre county regiment. there is a small stone there. that stone was there in 1862. in fact, the recruitingofficer from harrisburg, pennsylvania his name waslieutenant george fetterman he came up and he stood on thatstone to swear the men in. he rode into town that morning,he's in uniform, patriotism is at a high pitch and i'm assuminghe got a lot of free drinks.
by the time the ceremonycame and this would've -- we're not sure, but somewherearound 1 p.m. they told him to stand on the stone. he stood on the stoneand fell off. they got him and theyasked him again to stand on the stone and he fell off. so two men from the audiencecame up that weren't being sworn in and they held him onthe stone and he sort of mumbled some kindof oath of allegiance,
which he was supposedto give to the men. it's granite stone, i don'tthink it's quite 6 foot high. and then the front ofit is a bronze plate that covers the whole monumentand it all the names of the men of the 85 men who werethere plus the men who would eventually goin to service later on and join the regiment. the men who came were from allthe towns from centre hall, spring mills, aaronsburg,millheim,
madisonburg, livonia, woodward. if you go through the namesyou have bierly, wolf, potter, spangler, stover, gilbertthey're still here, you know, they're still in thepenn valley area. i'm a descendant of a coupleof the men who stood there and they were mygreat-great uncles. my family, my wife's family havebeen in the penns valley area for at least 200 years. so i don't know whether we'retoo stubborn or other things not
to move away, but i thinkyou see that with the men who stood there thatday in rebersburg. their direct descendantsare still here, it's just one of those places. >> hi, my name is jimzubler and my feature is on the penns valleyconservation association. the penns valley conservationassociation began back in 91. since then we have diversifiedand broadened our scope and really made a trueimpression in the valley.
the penns valleyconservation association looks at the upper pennscreek watershed. it basically spansall of penns valley. we attempt to do a number ofconservation practices on farms and landowners that sharethat passion as well. we look at all typesof landforms, wetlands, we worked with a number of landowners throughoutthe valley. worked with them on bestmanagement practices
like installing mudsill or log veins. we also look at cattlecrossings. sometimes you'll see tree tubes. chances are we had someinfluence with that landowner or that property owner as well. we've employed anenvironmental educator in the penns valleyschool district since 2002, so our students areleaving penns valley with a much higher level ofeducation in the environment.
it's all about environmentalquality. penns valley conservationassociation is also involved with highway cleanup, aspring cleanup, we're involved with the river songs event to welcome the openingof trout season. crickfest is a major event which is held thesunday before labor day. we've had a whole influence with the millheimfarmers market working
with the penns valleylearning garden. and we're also launchinga community radio station and that's coming up verysoon and that'll be wsob. i grew up on a farm rightnear heckman cemetery. the passion i have for thevalley is because it's home and because of thepeople that have made it and continue to make it special. there's a saying that what yousee now may not necessarily be there in 10 or 20years without planning.
so those types of institutionsthat you want to see you need to be able to support, you needto be able to put, you know, some things forwardthat make a difference. >> my name is agnes homan, ilive at old fort in centre hall and my story is about arrowheads that my husband foundin the farm. my husband and i havelived there since 51, so he farmed theland for 50 years. he was always lookingfor arrowheads and then
in the spring of the yearis when you look for them when the ground is turnedover and when you're plowing or harrowing and he wouldcome in at noon time and have something inhis hand and of course, he found another arrowhead. he just found them. i mean we weren't historybuffs he just found them and of course, everyone hefound we'd bring in and wash off and put in our little bucket.
we have four framesand we have many more. we just found them we reallydidn't know anything about them. we had an archaeologist atour farm several years ago and he knew more about them, but we have one that's3,000 to 1,000 bc. they all look nice. you can tell some of themthe points are broken off, so they probably gotsomething with that one. i often wonder what animalthat they got with it
because well they would've haddeer and bear and groundhogs. it took a while to makean arrowhead you can tell that because each sideis a little bit different from the other side. i've always lived there. i was born where i live now. i really never havelived any other place but in centre hall vicinity. when i was a child every farmhad just the house and barn.
now it's kind of growing, butit still has the country feeling to it i think it's agood place to live. >> my name is jameslesher and i'm here to talk about the rhoneymeadearboretum & sculpture garden. it's a 6-acre garden situated on the historicalfarmstead of leonard rome. he was very active in thebetterment of farm families, particularly in this areaand across the state. he was involved in thegrange at the local level,
the county level, the statelevel and the national. and within that 6-acregarden we have cited about 26 sculptureson the grounds. it became a sculpture garden when the recently deceasedowner, richard morgan, in 1984 moved there, boughtthe house, fixed it up. he asked his friendsabout sculpture gardens, which were becoming en vogue atthat time and he said can i do that and they saidwell sure you can.
and so one by one heacquired sculptures. his first sculpture i think heacquired was from a sculptor who exhibited at thearts fest downtown. so you can see theeffects that the arts and culture have in that way. my favorite one is actuallya deaccession sculpture from penn state university, it'scalled grupo uno, it's a bronze of a couple figurescascading over each other. we just this yearinitiated a volunteer program
and they have helped us do aconsiderable amount of work. some people from pennsvalley and some people in from state college andlemont anything from weeding to watering to planting tomaintaining, trimming trees, the works, it's never boring andit's never the same each week. right now it's sundayswe open it to the public, but we have memberships. in particular we startedan artist pass membership where artists who like to paintoutside can come on the grounds.
we bring in camps now which isa great new use of the place and anybody who wants to setup an appointment can come. we hope to eventuallygo to full weekends and then five days aweek, but it's a process. >> my name is mary kaywilliams and i'm here to talk about some awesome preservationefforts that my husband greg and i have made in pennsvalley over the years. we moved here in 1990 and whenwe moved we found a real diamond in the rough, the cooke tavern.
it is a wonderfulhistoric property. when we bought it, itwas really in bad shape. we had some contractorswork with us and they really thought weshould just tear the place down, but we really felt thatpenns valley deserved better than that. we restored the property andwe named it after james cooke who built the property in 1808. after we were done with that,we decided to put a barn up.
and we did an amishbarn raising. that's another thingwe're really lucky here in penns valley is tohave the amish community because they also doa lot of restoration. they do a lot of preservation. my husband has a businessthere cooke tavern soups and we also do weddingsand events there as well. we also have propertythat is on penns creek. we turned it backinto a wetlands
where we do environmentaleducation and community memberscome in to do birdwatching and we do a lot ofeducation efforts. penns valley has a lotof wonderful people here and wonderful community membersand there's been an influx of people from othercommunities. we really believe thatthat helps the valley and that it helps create thatrenaissance, that newness because when you're from otherareas you realize the great
things that we have here. we feel really fortunate i thinkto have this influx of people from other communitiesto join together with the great communitymembers that are already here. we really feel like we'vemade our part of penns valley which is in penn hall, a littlebit outside of spring mills that it's our town, our place byreally making it a special place for not just us, but for manyof the community members. >> my name's kevin simsand i'm the president
of the aaronsburg civic club andthat's what i'm here for today. the civic club, which i'veonly been a member of for about a year and a half,but it goes back to 1944. it was formed by theend of world war ii and it was just a group ofcommunity leaders who wanted to just have an organizationthat was there to help residents and sort of preserve likea good communal spirit. eventually they bought theaaronsburg school which has since that time been theaaronsburg community building.
and then they boughta piece of land that is now don wertmemorial park. they've maintained that andused that for various festivals and events and also make itavailable for public use. one of the biggestthings they've doing for the last several yearsis the dutch fall festival, which has been happeningsince 1976. it's the civic club'sbiggest fundraiser, but it's also reallythe big festival
that happens in aaronsburg. there's a lot of food,but it's food made like in big iron kettles likeapple butter and ham bean soup, scrapple and thenthere's sticky buns and apple dumplingsand things like that. so that sort of focuses on the early dutchheritage of the area. it draws a lot of touristsfrom outside the area, but also really servesas a big sort
of community celebrationas well. in addition to maintaining theaaronsburg community building and the park in recentyears we've started to offer some programming there. so we do some educationalprograms after school class, cooking class, we do like asoup kitchen in the winter. the community building, the oldschool, has a commercial kitchen in it, so that's availablefor people to rent. but then we alsohold dinners there.
that's where the cooking classeshappen and things like that. and there's a big eventspace that people also rent. i moved to aaronsburgtwo and a half years ago, so i haven't beenhere for very long, but i think it's avery beautiful town. i like the town, i think ithas like sort of a nice spirit. getting involvedstraight into something like the civic club makes youfeel that inclusive feeling. i think if you just moveinto a new place and stay
in your house it'shard to feel included. so i thought it was veryspecial to arrive there and see oh here's this groupof people who live here who are meeting there andthen through that i've gotten to know a lot of peopleand not just know them, but work together on projects. and yeah, i made somegood friends that way, so it makes it apretty good place to be. >> i'm tim stecko, i'm avolunteer at the millheim pool
and soldier and sailor'spark and i'm here to tell you about what we think is a realgem of a resource in the valley. i got involved with the pool when my daughter gotinvolved with swimming. she was about eightwhen she got started, she swam for about four years. and when i was there i justsaw that the park had needs and being a very type aantsy person that can't sit around i just startedasking what can i do.
can i clean thisup, can i do that? and that just sort of blossomedinto some bigger and greater -- more great involvement,helping with the millheim tri. working with the lions club who manage the propertyoutside the fence that we call the poolpart of the park. my daughter no longer swims,but i have a healthy team of volunteers of parents who dohave children on the swim team. some of them are also justcitizens that live in millheim.
there's days when i mighthave 15 to 20 people helping with getting the poolrepaired and up and running. and this is all volunteer. the triathlon, wemust be in our sixth or seventh year ofthe triathlon. it brings in 10 $12,000, maybea little more weather dependent. all the proceeds that we nowget during the triathlon all of it goes rightback into the pool. it's all volunteer labor helpingus, every dime that gets spent
for the registration fees andcontributions and sponsors that all goes into managingand maintaining your pool. the athletes come frommore than just millheim, from more than justcentre county they come from out of states. they really like this triathlon. some of the bestcompliments we had about it was theysaid it was one of the more energeticnicely run small triathlons.
but i think it's thatsmall size that kind of captures the pennsvalley feel that we have. it's a small community, but we're an energeticlittle community. and numerous athletes mentionhow they think we have one of the nicest cyclingcourses in triathlons that they've ever been to. i've lived in the valley since1990 and it's to the point now where you got to really taketime to count the years.
the sense of communityyou can feel it if you come out to the park. it's meeting yourfellow community members. the first time i signed up forthe sand volleyball league. i've seen the faces around town,but i didn't know their names. so then you finallyget to meet them and they bring their children out to the park while they'replaying sand volleyball. everybody's running around,
your children are nowmingling with each other. in fact, my daughter met herbest friend out at the park and if it wasn't for the parkit would have been a best friend never met, never made andwouldn't have it to this day. so it's a place whereyou can make friendships that can last a lifetime. >> my name is debra hellerand i live in spring mills and i'm here to talkabout the farmer's market. on saturday mornings i get upand i go out there and i check
out all the different vegetablesand the different farmers. they know me all by name. farmers are so warmand kind and generous. they set this whole thingup it's like a table for the whole community andit's just such a treasure. and the food is amazing. we've got organicallygrown vegetables. there's cheeses and meats,there's free range beef, pork, chicken, we've got breadsand there is somebody there
who always has different kindsof hot foods and cold foods and there's cookiesand pies and quiches. you could just eat right there. it's very social,there's a lot of people that visit and catch up. it's not a huge market,there's not tons of people there and tons of vendors, but everything you needis there, it's there. after the market i come homeand i go oh my gosh look
at all this stuff, but everything is socrunchy and fresh. there's nothing like thatfood, it's heaven and a half. i was born in pennsylvania,but i grew up in the suburbs of long island and peopledon't know each other, people don't connect with eachother not the way they do here. i love that people are stillliving on a human level. people connect with each other. people take the time to visit.
if i go to burkholder's it's avisiting time too, i mean i got to make sure i've gotenough time to get my food and to have time to listen toanybody who may need some care. so it's a beautiful place to be. >> i'm bill markle,spring mills, pennsylvania. i'm here to talk aboutthe nittany antique machinery association. the nittany antique machineryassociation is a group of people that own old tractorsand equipment
and we get together twice a yearto display the equipment and put on demonstrations and so on. well it actually gotstarted back in 1975. my dad, richard markle, and russell mark metsomewhere at a similar show. they got to talking and theysaid do you think we could start something like this incentral pennsylvania. they did actually get a showgoing the fall of that year, even though it was small itwas a pretty good success.
they decided to havea spring show too. the thing kind ofballooned from there. the spring show first theycalled it the spring gas off just to get the equipment out ofstorage and back in operation. we have a sawmillrunning and a cider press and make apple butterand of course, a large flea market also. the other show is the fall show. it's the weekendfollowing labor day.
those same things that are at the spring show plus wehave thrashing and baling, thrashing wheat andbailing the straw. we usually get about sixor eight steam engines, the steam traction enginesthere were forerunner to the farm tractors. and then we have a lot ofgas powered farm tractors. at especially the fall showwe probably get upwards of 10,000 people that attend.
it's a nostalgiathing mostly i think. a lot of people grewup on the farm you know and they know how thingswere done years ago and it just brings back memories when they see thething in operation. i like penns valley,it's a beautiful place to live, it's nice and quiet. now it's primarilya farm community. it's just beautiful countryside,just a nice place to live.
>> i'm keith bierly, icurrently live in centre hall, but i grew up inrebersburg, pennsylvania and my story would be abouthow great it was growing up in rebersburg. the kind of community itwas then and is today. the definitive history of centrecounty was written by linn and it lists mygreat-great-great-great grandfather, anthony bierly, as driving the firstwagon into brush valley.
so he come into the rebersburgarea, laid the town literally and it was originallycalled bierlyville. built the first school,first tavern, first church. that was 1791, 225 years ago. so my family historygoes back literally to the start of rebersburg. but i was born and raised there, played little leaguebaseball there, my father was thepostmaster there,
my mother was a clerkin the post office. it was the kind of communitythat you just loved to grow up in, you had thatsense of security. in many ways it'sthe same in the sense that hettinger's grocerystore is still there, it's been there for60 or 70 years. the fire company is still vital. the three churchesare still there and the elementaryschool is still there.
there have been changes, but i think in some wayswe're on the way back. some of us have tried toestablish new businesses there and try and get the town comingalong the lines that millheim. the kind of experienceand progress that they've experienced. there are new younger familiesmoving in and we hope that more of them come to rebersburgbecause it's a great place to raise your children.
christine wolf is a lifelongresident of rebersburg, she worked for the bankthat was in rebersburg, now works for a bankin spring mills. >> we do have three churches within our small communityst. peter's lutheran church, st. peter's unitedchurch of christ, and also emmanuelunited methodist church where i am currently a member. during the time that i've beenin the community i have attended
or been a member ofall three churches, which is rather unusual. >> vicky welshansis a young mother of four children all whom haveattended the miles township rebersburg elementary school. >> the painting herewas wonderful. he moved in not knowing anyone and within the years itwas just like family. and the neighborswere just so close.
>> eric miller isa long time chief of the miles townshipfire company. >> we provide a lot of serviceobviously to the public. we have 62 active members, 14 ofthem are in the amish community. we strictly relyon the community for their supportwith fundraisers. >> mary hettingerworked for richard mann in his grocery store for years and then purchased thestore i believe in the 70's.
>> so we bought the store and it's been a familybusiness ever since then. and the reason i don't retirei don't know what i would do. >> it always comesback to the people. i mean rebersburgit's about the people, it's about the longstandingfamilies that have lived there, have raised families there. i know when i wasgrowing up the people that were my oldestbrother's age have gone
on to become doctors, attorneys,university vice presidents, accountants, teachers,ministers, very important people in the community and that's thekind of people that have come out of rebersburg andhopefully will come out of rebersburg in the future. >> my name is betsy forsytheand i grew up in millheim and my story today is aboutthe east penns valley library. the library was first startedin 1968 and it would open in aaronsburg in a churchthat was built in the 1860's.
when it first opened it wasan all-volunteer library and then they mergedwith centre county. and then in the late 1990'scentre county had a lot of budget cuts andunfortunately we were cut from the centre countylibrary funding. when we were thinking about keeping the library openwe did have a community meeting and we felt that thecommunity was behind us enough to keep it running.
so since 2013, we have been anall-volunteer run library again. when you would first walk into the library you would see arather large collection of books for a small town library. it has an old school feelingbecause it was an old school at one time, which was actuallymy fifth grade classroom that the library is in. it's important to have a libraryin i think a lot of communities for education purposes.
a lot of people comeout and use the internet that don't have internet. not everyone does have acomputer in their house and in penns valley sometimesit's hard to get internet. so they can come in they canfill out job applications, students can come do research, and a lot of peoplestill like to read. that's an art thatwill never go away. penns valley is a hometown,everybody knows everybody.
when you walk into arestaurant you're going to know someone elsethat's in there. you're going to know thewaiter or the waitress. if you walk down thestreet everyone says hello. growing up in millheimmy father had a business in downtown millheim andpeople still refer to me as doc's daughterand that was -- he's been gone since1976, it's hometown. >> my name is kay gray, ilive in millheim pennsylvania
and i'm going to be talking about the penns valleyarea historical museum. the mission of the penns valleymuseum is to discover, collect, preserve, and displayartifacts and any history of the penns valley area. the museum itselfconsists of four buildings. the main building is calledthe rudy-corman building and two floors of thatare full of exhibits. there's a very extensivegenealogy library
and then another building iscalled the craftsman building and in that buildingwe have a country store and post office exhibit. and we have a carriage house and in the carriage housethere's a very extensive antique tool collection andthen there's a barn and in the barn wehouse larger items, such as there's a hand-drawnfire truck in there, there's old churchbells in there,
there's old farmequipment in there. the aaronsburg story is oneof our permanent exhibits. we want to commemorate thememory of the aaronsburg story because that's whataaronsburg is known for. we have all kinds ofmementos from the story. there's lots of programs,loads of pictures. we have some costumes. the other thing it's not fromthe story, but it's related to aaronsburg thatwe're very proud
and we just recently acquired itis in 1786, a map of aaronsburg, it's the original map, it's onparchment and it's hand written and signed by erin levy. and erin levy was thefounder of aaronsburg. i wasn't born and raised inpenns valley, so when we moved to penns valley ifound the people to be, you know, very friendly. volunteering, you know,through the museum i met a lot of wonderful people andjust feel more involved
in the community andit's a beautiful country. it's a very relaxing niceplace to raise children and a good school system. and so i'm very highon penns valley. >> hi, i'm jim pierceand i'm here to talk about the learning garden atthe millheim farmers market. it's a very good ideathat started in about 2010 and i'll start by tellingyou what our mission is which is growing food, sharingskills, building community.
there are 13 bedsof annual plants and we sponsor those beds. so i've got one and, youknow, anybody can sign up and take over one of the beds. we sort of coordinatewhat we want to grow, but then it's mostly trystuff out and see what works and learn from each other. a lot of what we try to dois promote the farmers market so more people come.
so we put on demonstrationsand, you know, we walk through the herb gardenand permaculture demonstration and show how ourirrigation system works. we'll do cooking demonstrations,we set up a little table at the market, but it mostlysays come out into the garden and look around andask questions. right now we've gota pumpkin patch going that the kids planted early inthe season and then the kids of course get to harvest inthe fall and carve pumpkins
and taste foods and herbs that they've never tastedand things like that. i like to come up on saturdaymornings and set up the table and meet all the people. always, always there's somebodywith, especially with kids that clicks into thatsense of discovery and that never gets old. typically thursday afternoonsthis year the gardeners come out and it's like our little gardenparty and we weed and water
and transplant and share storiesand that's very informal, it's just always a good time. community i'm thinkingyou're going to find from all of these interviews issomething that makes this end of penns valley avery special place. i'm not from pennsvalley we transferred here about five years ago, butthe conservation association and the learning gardenwere two of the things that pulled us in quite quickly.
this has certainly become ourhome and it's the community that his made it home. >> hi my name is scottmitchell and i'm here to talk about the penns valley ymca. i'm the chief operating officerso i handle the operations for ymca centre county. we have four buildingsacross the county. the ymca of centre county reallywanted to provide services in the penns valley area.
in 2009, when we decided tomerge the state college ymca and the moshannon ymca one ofthe motivating factors to do that was to be ableto share resources that we can provide betterservice to our service area seven months ago we wereable to open a facility in the penns valley community. penns valley specificallyis more of a community center,program center. we do have a fitness centerwith wellness opportunities.
we have spaces for cyclingand different classes. we also offer beforeand after school care. and we also offer all kindsof social opportunities. we try to focus on gatheringseniors, gathering kids, just gathering families andtrying to promote you know that that type ofexperience in the community. the response from thecommunity has been great, i mean penns valley is reallyan outstanding community. we owe a lot to a chris coonswho was very instrumental
in getting a ymcafacility in penns valley. our goal is reallyto just try to fit into an already greatestablished community. it's very tight knit, it'sa very proud community. it's truly a throwbackwhen i say like if you need help someonewill be there to help you. you know, it's kind of the oldyou know go to your neighbor for some sugar or flourtype of community, but they are incredibly proud,they are incredibly tightknit.
and we are thankful that they'vekind of opened their arms and allowed us to come inbecause really our goal is to try to figure outhow can we fit in here, it's already an amazingcommunity. what can we do to fit in here and help make it evenbetter if possible? >> hi, i'm jimmy brown and i'mthe facebook page administrator of the penns valley areahistorical museum and i'm here to talk about the civil war.
i am a civil war reenactorand i've been reenacting since i was three weeksold, so for 22 years. i'm a corporal, agunner and company clerk of a local civil warartillery reenactment unit in hamptons battery f and i liketo incorporate the civil war with the museum's projects. a lot of veterans from pennsvalley fought in the civil war, including the 148th pennsylvaniavolunteers infantry. we have done a civil wardisplay at the museum
and we did incorporate some 148pennsylvania volunteers infantry artifacts from pennsvalley area. as a company clerk ibasically fill out paperwork, i take statistics on thesoldiers that are available to go out in the fieldand recreate battle, and also as a gunner i have togive commands to the soldiers out front cleaning thecannon, loading the cannon, and firing the cannon. i definitely feel thathistory is very important,
especially here in penns valley. it's very important tokeep history alive here at penns valley sowe can preserve it and also getting theyounger generations involved since i'm a part of themillennial generation. we're basically going to bethe future and we're going to be doing a lot of the things that the older generationsare doing so that the history canbe passed on, the stories,
the artifacts and that's whenhistorians come into play. >> my name is shannonquick, i'm the director of crisis intervention services at the meadows psychiatriccenter and our story today is about the meadows psychiatriccenter and the stompers project. the meadows psychiatric centeris a freestanding psychiatric facility that peoplecan come to get better and it's a peaceful environmentfor people to come and heal and when they're dealingwith emotional problems,
a psychiatric illness,a mental disorder. the jana marie foundationcreated the stompers project. they partner with differentagencies in the county in order to have a very specificstomper for that agency and then that is partnered with themfor our own stomper project. they're a parent child,so our parent is recovery and our child is hope. they're made outof sneaker pieces. all of the staff at the meadowspsychiatric center we donated
sneakers and we collected those. the sneakers are then cutinto pieces and our staff and individuals receivingtreatment at the meadows paintedall of the pieces. when someone is struggling withthings that happen in their life that becomes the story inthe fabric of their life and the stompers projectreally kind of honed in on that and giving someone a voice andthat voice comes out in art, painting, construction,deconstruction.
everyone's, you know,piece is different, it talks about their own story,their own transformation. once we have all thesneaker pieces done, then they are attached to thestomper, which is a wooden frame and that creates the personas it looks as a stomper. the reason that we pickedan adult and a child was about that we do treat allages here in penns valley for psychiatric illness. and that really is to inspirethat every journey is different
and people have the ability torecover from a mental illness. i've worked at themeadows psychiatric center for approximately 18 years. i see the beauty of thevalley, the generosity of the individuals thatare in penns valley and we're just really proudto be part of that community and we think that being part of that community really doeshelp all of the individuals that come to our hospitalto heal and to grow
in this environment becauseit is a wonderful environment to be in. >> hi, my name is toddhillard, i am here to talk about the millheim fire company. the millheim fire companywas chartered in 1909. they built theirfire station in 1941. the building went througha couple different changes, which enlarged the engine roomfrom a two bay to a four bay and then from a fourbay to a six bay.
our active membership isabout 50 members strong. that is when the tones dropwe have active members respond to the station to take anyemergency calls whether it be fire, rescue, lostpersons, any kind of event that the fire departmentis requested. we try to do different things to keep the membersactive in the fire service. we do battle with the barrel. we do multiple fundraisers.
we do an oktoberfest. we do our annualcarnival every year. it provides the firedepartment with money for vehicle insurance, itgives the community a chance to see the members thatare there to serve them in the capacity of raising funds to keep the fire departmentmoving and up and running. since i've been with thefire company i have noticed with penns valley it isa very tight community.
everyone is out for thegood of the community. whatever fundraiser you havethe community tries their best to come out and support it. i have been with themillheim fire company for approximately 26 years. i've been an assistant chief with the millheim firecompany for 22 years. once i became partof it, it became sort of like a second family.
all of us get togetherand we do it as a group and it is an exceptionalgroup to be part of. >> i'm catherine smithand i'm here to talk about chicorylane farm. this is an old farmnear spring mills, the base of brush mountain. it's like a lot of old farmshere except the difference is now it's all in conservation andthat's made a big difference. we came to that farm in1974, but it has been
in someone's ownership sinceit was surveyed in 1766. for the first whoknows how many hundreds of years it was all forestand then for the entire 19th and 20th centuriesit was farmed. and the 21st century wehave taken it to habitat, preservation and conservation. so the farm has sort ofcome into what it would be. this week just as part ofordinary activities we've come across a woodcock, a ruffedgrouse, a turkey hen and chicks,
not to mention the migratingsongbirds that are beginning to come through to get theblack cherries as they ripen and the barn swallows thatare beginning to leave. the wildlife hascome to live in it and that's what welove about it. really about five kinds ofwetland on this 68-acre farm and each one of them a differenthabitat for different wildlife. so i guess i'd have to saythe favorite parts are the wet parts, but that's hard as soonas i say that i want to talk
about the hill up top, whichis the upper new forest area where we planted new farms. the views in both directionsare just spectacular, it's the best place in theworld to watch a sunset from. i've come to respect whenhistorians use the term circa. i don't think we'll ever knowexactly when the house was built or exactly who builtit or even what kind of wood it's made from. it's placed where a settlerwould've placed it in terms
of the location of the house. it's between two hills,it's near a spring. we don't think ofourselves as preserving it, it's important just to livein it and be respectful of the place as everyone elsewho's lived there has done in their way. one of things we're tryingto do right now is think through the futurefor chicorylane farm. the future we want for it isthe one it has now its 21st
century life. if it's going to go forward wethink the conservation practices and allowing otherthings to live out their life there too is thefuture we want to have for it and we're workingto achieve that. it's where i want towake up in the morning. it's a place where wecan live in the setting, we and the other things thatare there are just participating very directly in what thelight is, what the temperature,
it's the place we call home. we've come to love it and i can't say i have lovedany other place i've lived like this one. >> hello, i'm sarah frazier,retired schoolteacher of penns valley school system. i have taught for 30 years. during those 30 years idid elementary phys ed for three years.
i went to 31 differentclassrooms in a week. one of the things though thati especially enjoyed were going to the 10 one-roomcountry schools. i enjoy physical educationand it was rewarding to me that my studentsliked when i came and enjoyed doing all thethings i was teaching. we interviewed danawho lives in one of the schoolhouses,collier schoolhouse. >> if you come in the frontdoor of the house and you walk
in you'll actually see someoriginal walls in the house and see some graffitithat the kids scratched into the woodwork. here's a heart that theycarved in, the letter a, over on the other walldown low there's a w. >> i was a promoterof girl sports. i started the first basketball and the first softballteam for girls. i learned that girlscould participate
in competition activitiesas well as boys. after i did the threeyears of elementary i moved into the penns valley building. i like going into thebig building and being with the junior senior high,but elementary were a joy. i am 92 years of age. i raised a familyin penns valley and they've all goneto school here. in fact, one of my daughtersis a teacher at penns valley.
so naturally i considermyself a part of the valley. i think we have anexcellent school system. it was a joy to havedone all this. >> my name is t. j. coursen, i'mfrom centre hall and my story is about the hope fundof penns valley. the hope fund was started in2008 by myself and my wife, kathy, as well as danand connie genismore and tom and nancy stoner. our mission is dedicatedto helping people
who are facing medicalemergencies or personal disasters. we're an all-volunteerorganization and we're completelyself-funded. the story starts i was facedwith a rare type of cancer. we found that there was a doctorin germany willing to operate. i had the first surgery and it was out-of-pocketit was very expensive. i was at the bank andi was doing a loan
for the second surgeryand going home that night and dan genismore showedup at my house he said, hey we've got somefundraisers planned for you he said it's a giftfrom friends you'll know what to do when you get home. we started looking at, you know,hey what does our valley need? over the course of about threemonths put together a plan of what we wanted to do and thehope fund was born then in 2008. we do several keyfundraisers in a year.
we have a spaghetti dinnerfundraiser that we do. we do the turkey trot 5k. we also have done a 5k duringthe dutch fall festival. we also do the gala forhope, which is held in april and we've been doing thatnow for about six years. and another one of our bigfundraisers we have a program that's called theambassador anchor program. folks can donate, you know, a minimum of $500 peryear to our organization.
we've raised, you know, over$150,000 with the program alone. one of the people thatwe were able to help through the hope fund ofpenns valley is linda solt. her mother was sick, she neededa ramp built for her house and we had approvedthe funds to do that. >> and i said to my mom i saidi know mom i said you've got pride, but i said let'scall the hope fund. >> prior to that happeningthough linda's mom took a turn for the worst andshe passed away.
linda and her siblingsreally didn't have the means and the funds for her funeral,for her burial and that's when we were able to step in andwe were able to assist linda. >> it just blessedus and i believe that the hope fund justblesses the whole community. >> the people in pennsvalley are just remarkable. they want to take careof their neighbors. the hope fund i thinkis a wonderful example, it isn't our organization it'sthe community's organization.
the hope stands for helpingother people every day and we've seen that with thehope fund, we've seen how people that we help then come backand want to volunteer with us and they want to help, you know,other people that are in need. it has exceeded ourwildest dreams, we thought we might be ableto help a couple of families and distribute a coupleof dollars and it's grown into this, you know,tremendously big organization and the communitytakes ownership
and pride in the organization. >> i'm nancy parks and ilive in the historic district of aaronsburg village in theeastern part of penns valley and i want to talk aboutthe preserved farms that we have in pennsvalley area. penns valley has had acommitment to farming both in forestry and inagriculture for over 200 years. we have terrific soilsand we have a lot of water and we have the ability toproduce food on a regular basis.
in order to make surethat that continues long into the future it isimportant for us to preserve as many farms as we can. and the way that we do that is by applying agriculturalconservation easements on two parcels of land andhopefully as we proceed into the future we canactually preserve enough farms that they're actually oneright after the other, they're contiguous throughoutthe valley and we'll be able
to assure good crops and goodfood availability for all of centre countyway into the future. it's been important for meto preserve my 27 acre farm because i want to provide alasting benefit for penns valley and for centre county. i chose to do that bydonating development rights to the centre countyfarmland trust, which is a wonderfulorganization that's been there for decades.
and it has preserved about11 different farms right now throughout centrecounty and they preserved over 1,000 acres of farmland. it's important thatwe protect the soils and the water resourcesbecause that will allow us to protect our vast fisheriestourism industry that we have in penns valley and also topreserve our groundwater, which we'll be usingin the future for safe drinking waterfor our communities.
penns valley is a verycool place to live. it's so community oriented andall the communities are involved with each other andthey support each other. they're good people andthey're good to other people, so it's a very positiveand very successful region in centre county. >> my name is mark engle ilive in millheim, pennsylvania. the reason i'm hereis to tell the story of the millheim theaterand why we live there.
the millheim theater was builtin 1923, it was the brainchild if you will of the ladiescivic improvement club in east penns valley andit first opened in 1924 and has been there ever since. if you were to walk into thetheater the first thing you would see is the lobbyand the ticket booth. there's a concessionstand room to the left and then there's three setsof double doors leading into a 400-seat auditorium
with full stage presidiumand the balcony. we came to live inthe theater in 1995. we were based in pleasantgap, after about three or four kids we startedlooking for a larger home and the real estate agent hadcalled me one day my wife was out of town and said hey,i've got this property over in millheim maybe you wantto come look at and i said sure. she took me over there and loand behold it was a theater and we walked into theplace and i just fell
in love with it right away. parents thought we werecrazy, told as much so. and what are you goingto do with a theater and the answer waswell what can't we do. our plan is to have it as publicspace, to be an event facility. we don't want it to bejust a movie theater or just a community theater,but a facility that can be used for any number of things whetherit be weddings, auctions, receptions, concerts, plays.
we would like to see it beused like that in the future. when we first came to visitthe community it was -- things were closingdown, stores were -- windows were boarding up,but its history is very rich. and at the turn of the lastcentury it was a thriving mercantile trade community,multiple banks, hardware stores. we really saw that there wasan opportunity, you know, history repeats itself that could happen againhere and it kind of has.
it's already started and wesee that there's an opportunity for everything thathappened at the turn of the century beforeto come around again. it's a great place to live. >> hi, i'm vonniehenninger, i'm here to talk about gramley schoolhouse. in 1838, the gramleyschoolhouse was built on a piece of ground east of rebersburg that was owned byphilip gramley.
at that time they had whatthey called a two-mile school, so every 2 milesthere was a school. so there was seven two-mileschools in the rebersburg area. in 1924, they closedthe two-mile schools and bussed everybodyto rebersburg. some years later they ran out ofroom for children in the school in rebersburg so they woundup moving the gramley school into rebersburg, theycompletely dismantled it and moved it into rebersburg.
in 2007, i was contactedby the school board that they were going to notuse this building anymore. the citizens of miles townshipworked together and were able to acquire the school. we had to move it because itwas setting within 12 feet of the elementary school. it was considered a hazard because it was awooden building. we moved it 200 feet south
of the present elementaryschool building and set it up as a museum. we have a lot ofartifacts in there. we have pictures of childrenthat went to school at gramley and a lot of other schoolpictures, lots of year books, and pictures of teachersthat used to be there. we have a lot of genealogy. i also saved picturesof families and so on so we can relate towhere our history used to be
and the familiesthat are so prominent like the bierly familywith rubin bierly. he started out as a contractor,he built many buildings from centre hall to theeastern part of the county. when he died i think it was1912, they said that more than half of the houses inrebersburg were built by him. our area is changingtremendously somebody needs to preserve it. my father and grandmotherwere great in history
and i have a lot of picturesand stuff from what they had and always wondered what i wasgoing to do with all this stuff that i could shareit with everybody. we have a lot of peoplecoming in and looking at what we do haveand remembering. i think one of thebiggest things is to remember how thingsused to be. everybody enjoys reminiscing. >> my name is garyway, i'm the commander
of the american legion. i live in spring mills. i did a story onliving in penns valley. i'm with post 779 [inaudible],there's another legion in penns valley post 444. the american legions are veryinvolved in penns valley. we sponsor youth baseball, wesponsor boy scouts, girl scouts. we provide scholarships forthe penns valley students. we have an easter egghunt for the children.
we do toys for tots for thechildren at the american legion. it's not just a clubfor war veterans, we like to servicethe community. through the american legion i'vegotten to know a lot of people that live in penns valley and iwanted to capture their feelings of living in penns valley. i spoke with larry youngabout living in penns valley and how he loves the area. >> the location is great,
everybody around hereis very friendly, and if you need a helpinghand you can find it here in this valley. >> bob kline is a member of the american legion,he's a war veteran. >> you've got a blend ofamish, you've got a blend of [inaudible] farmers,you've got a blend of people that work upstate college. >> denny bressler, avery good friend of mine,
we were drafted together, we went through basictraining together. we've been friendsfor over 50 years. >> the big changesi've seen being on a farm is farming has changedin the valley [inaudible] horses and of course, we went tothe tractors and so forth and now in the balers. and now the amish comeback into the valley and that has changed backto where we used to do it.
>> hilda putnam is a residentof penns valley i think for 40 some years now. >> it's a very niceplace to live. people are very friendly and i was well acceptedwhen i moved here. >> rich whitman is anative of penns valley, graduate of pennsvalley high school. >> at the end of theday if i was looking to hire somebody i think i'dtend to look in this direction
because i know peoplewant to do a good job and give a good day's work. >> ralph shope he'sa very active member in the american legion,he's quite the fisherman >> i love the serenity of pennsvalley, i love the mountains and the beautiful, beautifulvalley of the farmlands and the people that are inare so friendly and kind. >> tom kistler, judgekistler, very instrumental in the restorationof the colyer lake.
>> behind me is the 77-acrecolyer lake that's owned by the commonwealthof pennsylvania. it's managed by the pennsylvaniafish boat commission. it was built in 1966 andlike many of us who are over 50 it was showing itsage and needed some repairs. the fish commission hada concern for the safety of the people thatlive downstream from the dam closed thedam and they drained it. they formed a corporationcalled save colyer lake
and we mustered communitysupport, a lot of petitions. we also raised some moneyto let the legislators and the fish commission know that this project had a greatdeal of community support and we were interestedin seeing it restored. the contract waslet, the work was bid and it was successfully finishedin november and december of 2015 they startedfilling it up. >> penns valley is specialto me, i'm not a native,
but my wife and i we fell inlove with the penns valley area. the people are very friendly,it's a hometown atmosphere. >> my name is heather smith,i live in spring mills and i'm going to talk about somebiking routes in penns valley. it's a beautifularea to go biking that really clears the mind and it's just reallynice being out in nature. it doesn't matter whether it'sa small group or a large group or by myself i find itto be very therapeutic.
you do see friends and familyand neighbors and you can stop and say hi, you can stopand have a conversation, and it's just a veryneighborly thing to do. i have a few favoriteroutes in penns valley. i like spring mills to coburnor spring mills to woodward, the creek road, lots ofwildlife, lots of water birds. there's a ride i actuallydo from my front door and that's the great thingabout penns valley is a lot of times you can start theride at your front door.
i can leave my house andgo to green gove road to penns cave road to allisonroad and it's just, you know, anytime of year actually it'sjust a beautiful place to ride. the vistas, the views,anytime of year. so it may be the sameroute that you're riding, but it's never the same ride. there are plenty of backroads, you really can'tmake a wrong turn. you can make a right, you canmake a left, you can go straight
and it's just beautiful. it's one of our -- i think one of our secret weaponsin penns valley. we have lots of out-of-townerscome and bike. a lot of different groups fromoutside the area they just come in and enjoy it like we all do. it's just a really great daywhen you're out on your bike. >> my name ledon young, i livein centre hall, pennsylvania and my topic is the grange asit pertains to progress grange
in centre hall and subsequently to the centre countygrange encampment and fair. progress grange wasbegun in 1874. a local resident, leonard rhone,he always wanted to be a farmer. when his father passedhe bought the family farm from his brothers and sisters. he found out aboutan organization that had been startedin 1867 in washington, dc called the patronsof husbandry.
this was the time oforganizations of unions and guilds, so i hesitate tosay that the grange is a union of farm and rural people, butit is an association for them. the unit of the patrons ofhusbandry is called a grange. we call the members of thepatrons of husbandry grangers. leonard rhone felt thiswas an ideal organization and he started the firstgrange in centre hall. in 1874, he had established sixgranges throughout the county and he said to the members ofthe progress grange let us join
with our sister granges to havea picnic to let everyone know about this organization andthat was where grange picnic and now today's grangefair started. people were bringing their tentsto grangers picnic because at that time it was two days. leonard rhone to encourage morepeople to come rented tens, 50 of them from thenational guard. they decided in 1890 thatthey needed to buy a park and that 24 acres that theybought in 1890 is the nucleus
of today's 264-acre fairground. 2016 marks the 142nd centrecounty grange encampment and fair. we went from 50 tents tonow we have a thousand. it has been our tradition that although thetents are the property of the grange fairwe do allow folks to reserve them fromyear to year. and so we now havefamilies that have been
in the same campsite since 1890. our grange continuesto this day. i think the grangeepitomizes what is so wonderful about penns valleyand that it is home. people look aftereach other here. the salutation of the grangeis that we place faith in god, we nurture hope, wedispense charity, and we're noted for fidelity. and i think all of those thingsepitomize penns valley too.
>> and that's it forour town penns valley, a look at the community of pennsvalley and its surrounding areas through the eyesof its residents. support for our townpenns valley comes providing quality acuterehabilitation services and crisis intervention, alongwith the community commitment