Outdoor Notes
First Posted:
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission will hold a Family Fishing Festival at Lackawanna State Park on June 28 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The free event will teach basic fishing skills like knot tying, casting, baiting the hook and removing fish from the hook. Families can fish without a license required and all equipment will be provided. For more information, contact Allan Schreffler at 570-477-2206 or [email protected] .
The PA Anthracite Section 2014 Annual Meeting and 100th Anniversary will be held on June 19, at the Valley Country Club in Conyngham. Members, guests and the public are invited to join in any or all of the celebration, which will consist of a day of golf from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., hospitality from 5 to 6:30 p.m. and a speaker, annual meeting, and buffet dinner starting at 6:30.
Many members and their guests will “enjoy” a day of golf on the challenging golf course designed by A.W. Tillinghast, who is regarded as one of the finest golf course architects of all time. Golf will begin with a shotgun start at 11 a.m.. Sponsorships and golfers can sign up until June 11.
Hospitality for the evening will start at 5 p.m. with entertainment by Van Wagner, a troubadour who makes mining music. Wagner is also an award-winning educator who also teaches Environmental Science at Lewisburg High School and educates audiences with his music and programs on Pennsylvania History. His music has been featured on the History Channel, WVIA-TV, as well as Country Music Television. He has released 16 original albums and published a book entitled “Coal Dust Rust and Saw Dust.”
The hospitality period before the 6:30 p.m. buffet dinner will also involve several displays relating to 1914-era mining including:
• Movie “The Price of Carelessness,” filmed at the Truesdale Colliery in 1915 (continuously run) furnished by F. Charles Petrillo
• Eckley Miners Village and Scranton Anthracite Heritage Museum
• WYSO sculptures, possible for a future Mining Engineers’ Memorial
• Underground Miners – Mine car in parking lot.
• John Podgurski mining artifacts
• Reading Anthracite Museum & movie
• 2015 Field Conference of PA Geologists
• Items for raffle, misc. AIME/SME memorabilia
Speaker for the meeting will be John Stuart “Stu” Richards. Richards is descended from a family of coal miners and has spent many years researching early coal mining and the lives and times of the people in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania. He has presented numerous talks on early coal mining and life in the small Anthracite villages known as patch towns. An active member of the Schuylkill County Historical Society, he has worked with both the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. Richards has assembled photographs selected from the Columbia County Historical Society’s large collection, into a historical look at early coal mining, Early Coal Mining in the Anthracite Region, one of six books he has written. The photos in this book evoke the people and life of the towns in their heyday from 1870 to 1920, the period between the founding of the American Institute of Mining Engineers and the founding of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Section. Richards will talk about anthracite mining in that time.
Other “activities” planned for the evening:
• Annual award of Kaminski Scholarships
• Recognition of past chairs and secretary treasurers, with some 20 past chairs, including several from the late 70s and early 80s planning to attend
• Recognition of national SME representatives –the SME executive director and at least two past presidents, several distinguished members of SME, and the president-elect of AIME have plans to attend
• Raffle of Mine Safety Lamp/1st Edition Peele Mining Engineers Handbook/1905 Coal Miners Pocketbook/Geology of PA books/ 1st edition (1936) Mine Ventilation/breaker watercolor/ carbide lamp/oilwick miners lamp and other items.
• Installation of 2014-2015 officers
• Discussion about plans for a future Mining Engineers’ Memorial. Cost is $35 and checks can be made to “PA Anthracite SME.”For more information contact Josh Derrick at 570-449-4601 or email [email protected] .
Nescopeck State Park will hold the following events in June (for more information or to register, call 570-403-2006):
Wednesday, June 11 — Kayaking: Levels I and II; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (register in advance)
Saturday, June 14 — Kayaking: Level I; Session I — 9:30 a.m.; Session II — 11 a.m.; Session III — 1 p.m.
Saturday, June 28 — Just for Kids: Art in the Park with Artist Jan Lokuta; 1-3 p.m.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission is accepting registrations for its Furtaking course to be held Sept. 13 at the Whitetail Preserve Shooting Range, 118 Boulevard Road in Rock Glen. Cost is $15 for the one-day certification class.
The class also includes training on the use of cable restraint devices, for which certification is required for any trapper using cable restring devices to capture foxes and coyotes. Students should bring waders or hip boots to be used during the instruction on making water sets. For more information, call 570-675-1143.
Promised Land State Park will host a Watershed Education Teacher Workshop on June 24-25 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the conference room at the park office. The workshop is open to teachers from grades 6-12 and participants must attend both days. The fee is $45. To register, call Carissa Longo at 717-772-1807.
