Jack Smiles column

Latest Columns by Jack Smiles

May 1, 2010

Farms go up in smoke

Attention all smokers! Looking for another reason to quit? Follow along. Last month a farm in Hollenback Township entered the Luzerne County Farmland Preservation Program. The owners of the 131-acre farm got $2,262 per acre or $373,000 of your money to give up development rights to their farm.

February 13, 2010

More Super notes

You didn’t have to look any further than the first name on the Saints Super Bowl prediction list in last week’s Dispatch to find a fan who nearly had it right. Our Saints cover girl Nancy Recupero predicted 31-27.

January 30, 2010

More super picks plez

We’re off to a nice start with our annual Superbowl prediction list, but we are looking for more, more, more. Keeping them coming in. Email is the best way to jsmiles@psdispatch.com. There are some prediction sheets at some of the local watering holes. Or you can drop of your list at the front desk here. You can call in predictions to me at 602-0178, but if you do, speak clearly and spell your name if it’s not Smith or Jones.

January 16, 2010

Two Kevins; both will be missed

The wake for Kevin Powers at Howell-Lussi Funeral Home in West Pittston was scheduled for four to eight o’clock on Tuesday evening.

January 9, 2010

On Super Bowl betting and Manger scenes at courthouses

A $3,000 Super Bowl betting pool run out of the teachers’ lounge at the Wyoming Valley West Middle School was broken up a couple weeks ago. This week the Kingston police declined to investigate. Finally, somebody with some sense around here, the Kingston cops.

December 5, 2009

If not Wal-Mart, what?

My daughter is going to hate me for this, but here goes.

October 3, 2009

Random notes on the news

In his speech to the UN President Obama talked about “an almost reflexive anti-Americanism” among people around the world. In a story about the speech Jennifer Loven, the AP White House correspondent, said the anti-Americanism Obama referred to “swept the globe under the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush.”

August 22, 2009

Empty nester, me

On Thursday my wife and I dropped our daughter Sadie off at Penn State. With a lot of help from her friend Mitchell McCabe we got her moved into a tiny dorm room at Mifflin Hall.

August 8, 2009

Random musings on the news

Larry Vojtko who lives on 8th Street near me in Wyoming sent an email correcting something I wrote two weeks ago in a column about the state budget, where I equated PBS with NPR and said the state government shouldn’t be funding radio and TV stations.

April 18, 2009

What’s your favorite Gus outfit?

Back in the day in the Local Chatter section of this paper there was a section called Human Scenery, where there were whimsical descriptions of people the editors spotted during the week, like, Joe Jones walking down Main Street wearing a polka dot tie or Sam Smith tooling through town in his new convertible.

Latest Articles by Jack Smiles

February 4, 2012

Little Giant all grown up

Taylor Crawford has been a Giants fan since she was toddler. Not that she had any choice. She was fated to be a Giant fan from the day in 1987 when she was 14 months old and her father Joe, a Giants diehard, put a Giants shirt on her and brought her to the Dispatch office and told her to “Do a touchdown.”

February 4, 2012

Proud Patriot since ’07

Alex Gross is a New England Patriots fanatic. Most Sundays his team isn’t on TV, but that’s not as bad as it might be because, as Alex says, “There’s an app for that.”

February 4, 2012

Local man one giant of a Giants fan

Just how big a Giant fan is Joel Skursky?

January 28, 2012

Local legend honors national legend

Jimmy Cefalo had already fulfilled his requirements for a Penn State bachelor’s degree in Journalism by the time he played his last game for the Nittany Lions on Christmas Day in 1977, but he had one more semester remaining on his scholarship.

January 28, 2012

Dupont church wings it on Super Sunday

They’ll be turning out a super amount of super wings for the Super Bowl next Sunday at the Polish National Catholic Church in Dupont.

January 21, 2012

Engrossing tale of area artist

After managing the Washington Senators to the franchise’s only World Championship, while playing second base fulltime, Bucky Harris was hailed like royalty, the king of baseball, when he came home to Pittston on October 29, 1924.

January 21, 2012

Election in 2013 likely scenario to fill magistrate’s seat

For 20 years District Magistrate Fred Pierantoni held court in Pittston, having been elected to six-year terms in District 11-1-04 in 1991, 1997, 2003, and 2009. The court serves Avoca, Dupont, Duryea, Hughestown and Pittston City.

January 18, 2012

Coming soon: Knox film in the works

Two men who grew up in the Wyoming Valley will have a public airing of a 90-minute documentary they are making on the Knox Mine Disaster.

January 14, 2012

He’s the boss of steam loss

Nothing gets Kevin Kennedy steamed like losing steam.

January 14, 2012

Flooded Duryea funeral home reopened

In September, Michelle Piontek and her father Bernard learned something about their funeral home they never knew – the back of the building is lower than the front. It’s knowledge they could have lived without, especially considering how the learned it.