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VOL. 136 — NO. 11

THURSDAY,JULY 31, 2014

75 CENTS

[L-V photo by Josh Walzak]

THE CLARKS rocked the Clarion County Fair last Thursday night. Fair Week concluded on Saturday with the week’s largest attendance

for the demolition derby. For more photos from the fair and event results, look inside today’s edition.

CYNTHIA (LEFT) AND CHARLES Temsik of Kismet Apiary of Kittanning carefully slice out pieces of a honey bee hive that was found inside a hollowed out tree in New Bethlehem. For more, see Page A-10.

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

NEW BETHLEHEM – New Bethlehem was abuzz with talk of honey bees Tuesday as several local beekeepers removed a pair of large hives from a large tree that was be-ing removed in the heart of town.

Halteman Tree Service of New Bethlehem spotted the hives as crews attempted to cut down several hollowed out

trees at the rear of the historic Andrews mansion property, currently owned by Toni and Keith Stahlman.

The tree removal experts called in the bee removal ex-perts, tapping Dan Lynch of Bee Be Gone in Templeton and Charles and Cynthia Temsik of Kismet Apiary of Kittanning with the task.

Starting around 9 a.m. Tuesday, several pieces of the tree were brought down from

Newbie trees drip with honey bees

[Continued on Page A-10]

HAILEY SINTOBIN of Clarion (left) sold her 125 pound Grand Champion Market Lamb to Scott Shirey of M&S Meats in Fairmount City for $750 during the 4-H Livestock Auction at the Clarion County Fair Friday night. For com-plete results from the auction and additional photos check out Page B-9. [L-V photo by Evanne Gareis]

By RON WILSHIREL-V Correspondent

RIMERSBURG – All that remains from a March 17 fire of the Sligo Korner Res-taurant is a wooden angel and sign that graced the building, but both will be used when the restaurant reopens in Rimersburg in August.

Owners Bill and Linda Himes changed their plans to rebuild the popular Ko-rner Restaurant in Sligo and decided instead to buy the existing Pam’s Diner, renovate it, and reopen it as the Korner Restaurant on Lawsonham Road in Rimersburg.

“We really wanted to stay in Sligo, but the costs of rebuilding are way too high,” said Bill Himes. “With our ages — I’m going to be 74 and my wife will be 65 — we were not going to go into debt for this. We couldn’t even build a new building in Sligo for less than $200,000 and there would also be additional costs.”

Pam’s Diner closed Sat-urday and will reopen later in August under the new name. Renovation plans include removing one wall with a fireplace to enlarge the dining area and con-version of the ice cream stand side of the building into a kitchen.

In the months follow-ing the fire, the Himes ac-tively looked for building options in Sligo, but all of them came in at too high of a price for the build-ing and related expenses. The couple even debated

Sligo’s‘Korner’ to make move to Rmbg.

[Continued on Page A-6]

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

ALCOLA – It might not be 100 percent accurate to say that the Clarion County Fair Week, which con-cluded on Saturday, was free of rain. But organizers aren’t complaining that the only rain that fell while fairgoers were on the grounds came after 10 p.m. on the fair’s final night.

“It seemed to miss us all week,” Clarion County Fair president Mark Wyant said of the rain showers and

Fair benefits from week of dry weather

[Continued on Page A-5]

CLARION – Clarion Hospital officials announced on Monday that the local hospital will team with the Indiana and Punx-sutawney hospitals to form a new healthcare affiliation un-der the Pennsylvania Mountain Health Care Alliance banner.

A press release issued Monday said that the boards of direc-tors of Clarion Hospital, Indiana

Regional Medical Center and Punxsutawney Area Hospital “have agreed to formally evalu-ate a stronger affiliation among the organizations to improve the health of the communities they serve.”

Officials from the three hos-pitals “have executed a memo-randum of understanding that outlines the principles of an af-

filiation that will permit man-agement of each hospital to pro-ceed with customary regulatory review processes through the balance of 2014 with the goal of leading to a formal new collab-orative entity in early 2015.”

The press release stated that the affiliation “does not include the combination of assets and is not considered a merger. Howev-

er, as currently proposed man-agement of the affiliated assets would be vested in a board made up of the directors from the three hospitals once a definitive agree-ment is reached to proceed.”

“This model is what we think is the road map for the continu-ing success of independent ru-ral healthcare providers,” said the three hospital CEOs in a

joint statement. “As founding members of the Pennsylvania Mountain Health Care Alliance (PMHA), we have an outstand-ing record of working collabora-tively over the course of the last decade on sharing resources, developing new programs, pur-suing grants and achieving sig-nificant cost reductions.”

Hospitals announce partnership

[Continued on Page A-2]

By EVANNE GAREISL-V Staff Writer

CLARION – “We don’t want to be petty about this,” Concerned Citizens of Clarion County mem-ber Nancy Banner said on Monday. “We under-stand that the courthouse needs renovated. We just want the commissioners to check other viable op-tions.”

The Concerned Citi-zens of Clarion County is a group of more than 40 county residents, both Democrats and Republi-cans with all kinds of eco-nomic foundations, who are opposed to the con-struction of a new annex building onto the existing courthouse.

While there has always been an unofficial group of concerned citizens, county resident Howie Schmader brought the inactive group back to life when Clarion County Commissioners Wayne Brosius, Butch Campbell and Greg Fall-er held an informational meeting regarding a pro-posed $8 million court-house renovation and an-nex project at the Main Street Center in Clarion in

Citizens speak against annex project

[Continued on Page A-2]

It was an amazing week at the Clarion County Fair, not only for the unusu-ally dry and comfortable weather, but for the many great events that packed each day’s schedule.

Year after year, the many organizers, volun-teers and sponsors provide a great event for our region — and this year may have been one of the best ever. With costs going up ev-erywhere, these dedicated people find a way to give more to fairgoers while keeping the price at only $8 per person.

Our hats are off to the fair’s organizers for anoth-er job well done. We can’t [Continued on Page A-6]

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