Addition to veterans park reflects college collaboration

Four members of the ConCreate Design Club joined instructor Harry W. Hintz Jr. at the Lycoming County Veterans Memorial Park this week, installing paving bricks engraved with the names of Penn College students and faculty who have worked on the project over the past three years. The group rendezvoused at the West Fourth Street/Wahoo Drive site with John O. Markley, of the Veterans Memorial Park Commission, who oversaw the latest enhancement to the ever-expanding memorial. As preparations continue for a Memorial Day dedication at the park, organizers generously wanted to permanently spell out the college's collaboration. The pavers acknowledge Hintz and three other faculty members – Glenn R. Luse, Richard R. Motter Jr. and Franklin H. Reber Jr. – as well as more than 100 students engaged in the improvements to date, from site preparation to stone-wall construction.



Those who joined Hintz for the Thursday afternoon work detail are David M. Collazo, a building construction technology student from Monroe Township, New Jersey; Madison L. Kistler, of Kutztown, graduating next month in surveying technology (and staying on for additional degrees); Stephen K. Lee, of Bethlehem, enrolled in residential construction technology and management; and Harrison Wohlfarth, a concrete science technology major and building construction technology alumnus from Midlothian, Virginia. "What a great opportunity to link the college’s commitment to community connection and real-world classroom activities ... and to have the students' names permanently displayed side-by-side with those of war heroes who have given the supreme sacrifice," Hintz said. "The veterans group's actions have touched my heart in a way that I can’t even describe, and I am truly humbled by the goodness that this cooperative college effort has produced."

– Photos by Tom Wilson, writer/editor-PCToday

 

Hintz goes over the game plan with students, reviewing the roster of college participation as it will appear in a commemorative booklet.

The keystone of the Penn College pathway, centered over the honorees' names below

Reber's brick is manuevered into position, with students' names – in placeholder mode from a "dry run" – soon to follow.

Collazo wields an extraction tool to easily pull a blank paver, making room for an engraved one.

Lee reviews the tentative arrangement of bricks prior to their final placement.

Hintz takes broom to pavement, the final touch in a job well-done.

Accenting the already-meticulous work, spacers are individually pushed into the gaps between bricks for a uniform look.

Late-afternoon shadows creep across the "completed" work-in-progress, which leaves room for future classes to be enshrined.

Hintz kneels among the students, near the submarine monument that formed the basis for what has exponentially developed at the site since 1992. Standing from left are Lee, Wohlfarth, Kistler and Colazzo.

The students stand reverently in conversation with Markley, thanking him for his Army service alongside a star-spangled reminder of their day's mission.