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1963 — The Thursday, March 14 edition featured a front page photograph of the Abington Journal’s former publisher and founder, Joseph L. Mann, who died of a heart attack the Wednesday before. Born in Glendale, Wyoming County, Mann lived in the Abingtons most of his life and served as a staff sergeant in the Pacific during World War II.
“After his discharge from World War II, Mr. Mann took over publishing the Journal and operated the paper until his retirement in 1957,” states the obituary. “During this period, he built the present Medical Arts Center next to his home on Main Avenue.”
He was a member of the Waverly Sportsmen’s Club, VFW Post 7069 and Our Lady of Snows and its Holy Name Society.
1967 — The Abington Heights junior varsity basketball team ended its season with an overall record of 21 wins and five losses. The season was highlighted by an 11-game winning streak, which included a 49-43 victory over the Montrose junior varsity.
A photograph taken at the final game of the year showed Comets and coaches Dale Cresswell, Frank Valvano, head coach Stan Majaika, Donald Buntz, Doug Huggler and Colin Holmes.
1971 — Businessmen, police and residents expressed positive views on a proposed “Abington Parkway” Clarks Summit bypass.
The article began, “Abington area residents have not given up their concern for the traffic problem that plagues the heart of the Clarks Summit business district.”
It ended by quoting Thomas J. Harrington, district engineer for PennDOT, in saying the department’s Lackawanna-Luzerne transportation study indicated a growing population and 83 percent increase in traffic would make the limited-access highway imperative by 1990. According to Harrington, the “medium priority” classification of the project at the time placed an expected final action on the proposal between 1978 and 1983.
The project never came to fruition.
1977 — Abington Community Park, now Hillside Park, was in its beginning stages of planning.
“The five municipalities comprising the Abington Area Joint Recreation Board must act quickly on a plan to initiate the first phase of the Abington Community Park adjacent to the Clarks Summit State Hospital,” read a Journal article.
Phase one was tentatively slated at the time to include tennis courts, a softball field, parking lots, seating facilities and landscaping, and was estimated at $84,000.
1983 — Clarks Summit Borough offered a $100 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a vandal, after five stop signs and the channel posts were uprooted, costing the municipality $250 to replace. A sign at Electric Street and Winola Road was also torn down.
In his vandalism report to council, then-borough manager Robert Thorne referred to just “a few bad kids,” but added, “the boys of Boy Scout Troop 160 in Clarks Summit are a better example of the type of kids we have in the borough,” commending them on a recent clean-up project.