Category: Featured

By Alex Geli –

2 a.m: Columbia Bowl closes down for the night. Pins, balls, shoes, roof all in tact.

5 a.m: Lights appear to be back on. Rather bright, aren’t they?

6 a.m: Pins, balls, shoes, roof no longer in tact.

With a red, yellow and orange tint reflecting in their eyes, multiple witnesses made phone calls to 9-1-1 about the devastating fire that occurred Sunday morning at a Lancaster County bowling alley.

When fire crews arrived, nothing was left to be salvaged. The alley, which illuminated the night sky, was quoted as a “fireball.”

“That was a big chunk of my childhood,” he said. “I bowled there every Saturday morning,” said Alex Mercer, a senior and former employee alongside his mother at Columbia Bowl.

His former place of work was described by West Township fire Chief Barry Carter to be “a complete loss.”

The decision to fix the damages is still up in the air, leaving the people of Columbia with only hopes to see their local hot spot in the future.

An “unknown source,” as Mercer put it, told him that depending how much the insurance company gives the alley, they’re planning to rebuild.

Hinting at who that “unknown source” was, Mercer added, “We were real close to the owners.”

“They’re just totally devastated,” owner Nathan Jameson said. “It’s been two days and just a constant stream of people through here that come up and hug you, shake your hand.”

This instance is all-too-familiar for the family-owned business.

In 1971, the building had its first run-in with fire, with fire being the victor, just like on Sunday.

40 years later, the flowing, scorching hot blue, red and yellow gas returned to bite Columbia Bowl and Pinchaser’s Lounge in the rear-end a second time, and Jameson is left with not only a roofless structure, but a question as to who or what exactly sparked this catastrophe.

According to Mercer, right as the firemen got there, they ruled out the chance that an arsonist started the blaze. Also, they figured out that the fire started out in the center and spread.

The probable cause of the fire is due to recent electrical work.

“New games, new lanes…” he said, noting the new additions to the archaic building.

“Same old monitors though,” Mercer said sarcastically.

Currently, Mercer describes himself as “happily unemployed.” Not only has he not worked there for around a year, following his mother’s footsteps, but they both left off on a bad note.

“(The management) would pin everyone else’s ‘stuff’ on everyone else instead of work(ing on it themselves),” he said.

After a combined seven years working for Columbia Bowl, they figured it was time for a change.

The change? Well…

“We kind of quit,” Mercer said.

A video from CBS 21 local news is below. Pictures can also be seen by joining ulocal on WGAL.com.

David Mohimani also contributed to this story.

By Lauren Richards –

Hard work, commitment, talent…No we’re not talking about a sport, we’re talking about yearbook.

A lot of work goes into creating the yearbook for Penn Manor High School. Having a superior yearbook requires an experienced, talented staff. But what happens when year after year, the number of students in the yearbook staff dwindles? The lack of students joining yearbook is becoming a concern and this has the potential to jeopardize the quality of the yearbook.

“This semester we only have four people on staff,” said senior Lyta Ringo.

Ringo has been on the yearbook staff since her sophomore year. She said that the submission of the book this year was almost a month late.

Eric Bear, editor-in-chief of the yearbook for the current school year, admits he is worried about what will happen next year.

“As of right now, there are no seniors for next year,” Bear said.

It seems that one of the main reasons students aren’t interested in joining yearbook is because all of the work that it requires.

“It’s a lot of work and I don’t like working with computers,” senior Sam Adams said.

The list of programs you need knowledge of when working on putting together the yearbook is extensive. Bear said he frequently works with Microsoft Word, Excel, Adobe Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, Apple  OS, Jostens Yearbook Avenue OS, Folios, COBS and even more.

Doug Anderson, teacher of the yearbook class, said that even the application process can be troubling for students. For the application students need letters of recommendation from teachers and they also have to write an essay.

Because of all the work they do, the yearbook staff has to be dedicated and willing to give up a lot of their own personal time.

“I think it’s hard work for the individuals involved, especially for students who take it extremely serious. There’s a lot of behind the scenes work,” Anderson said.

“It’s a lot of commitment. It’s a lot of personal time taken out. It takes a certain type of person to succeed on the yearbook staff,” Bear said.

Taylor Smith said, “I never did yearbook because it seemed like too much work.”

Ringo said that students who took yearbook in middle school had fun with it, but when they get to high school it’s stressful.

Luckily several qualified freshman are expecting to be joining the yearbook staff next year.

“There are more applicants for next year than there were last year. There were only three freshman last year,” Anderson said.

But that doesn’t completely make up for the fact that there’s going to be no experienced seniors like there are now. One has to wonder, what does this mean for the future of the yearbook?

“We had a lot of people fill out applications for yearbook next year, some got turned down. Hopefully it will be better,” Ringo said.

“The staff will be fine next year, but I think the book will be very plain-jane design wise, but not in a bad way,” Bear said.

So while Bear doesn’t think there’s much concern for next year, he admits that it will be tough for the staff to put in as much work as he has.

“To complete the amount of work I do takes the manpower of four people,” Bear said.

Bear also has another theory, other than the hard work, to explain why students haven’t been joining yearbook. He said that in the course selection book the class is labeled as Creative Publications, rather than yearbook. Bear thinks students get confused when they can’t find a class labeled as yearbook, and instead they join the club thinking they’ll get to do the same things they would in the class.

Bear admits that being on the yearbook staff, especially editor-in-chief, is a lot of work. However, he feels it is well worth it and thinks if people would join the staff they would learn to love it.

“Most people who start yearbook continue with it for the rest of high school. Once you start it you can’t stop, you become a yearbook junkie,” Bear said.

By Alyssa Jahnke –

It may be the best Penn Manor has ever done at the science fair.

A grand champion prize and several other wins in various categories was an amazing showing for Penn Manor students, according to science teacher Dave Bender.

“Penn Manor rocked!” Bender said about the students from Penn Manor did at the North Museum Science & Engineering Fair.

Bender was in charge of the science fair at Penn Manor High School.  He said Penn Manor has won more awards in other years but never this many top ones.

“It was our first ever senior grand champion,” Bender said in an e-mail  “But I was equally proud of our two category first place winners and our second place category winner as well.”

The North Museum Science & Engineering Fair was was held at Franklin & Marshall College Monday, March 28 through Wednesday,  March 30th.  It was their 58th annual county-wide science fair.

Four Penn Manor High School students were at this fair to show their displays and experiments.

There were 350 students from 25 different high schools.

Senior Ben Clark won first prize over all the other competitors.

“I determined how common close binary stars are which has important implications to determining how stars form,” said Clark of his project.

Clark is trying to make a decision about his future educational endeavors.

Clark said,  “I have been accepted to Harvard and Princeton, but haven’t made a decision yet.”

Clark now qualifies to compete in the ISEF, which is the Intel Science & Engineering Fair held in Los Angeles in May.

Anthony Crognale, a sophomore, won first place in the microbiology category. The experiment he did was the effects of bovine leukemia virus infection of human leukocyte cells. Crognale also participated in the science fair the previous year.

In addition to having a display for their project, students also had to participate in an interview with a group of experts.

Senior Zach Estep, won first place in the physics and astronomy category.

Estep’s project was about, using sound waves to separate crude oil emulsion in the ocean.

“I want to go into the medical field after high school,” said Estep.

Junior Jake Shick said, “My experiment was on the chaos theory.”

This was Shick’s first science fair.  He won second place in the mathematical sciences category. After high school Shick is interested in the science field in college.

By Laura Revelt –

In our fast-paced society, time is an important variable, but when you need to know what time it is do you look at the strip of leather your wrist or do you check the mini computer in your pocket?

To call a business do you flip through the yellow pages or get online and instantly find the company’s number on their website? When making the call do use your cell phone or does your home still have a land line?

When driving in unfamiliar territory, do you pull over off to the side of the road and trace the turns you made on the wrinkled map between your seat and center console or do you program your trusty GPS to guide you to the desired location?

When doing research for your history project do you scan the library shelves or type a question into your favorite search-engine?

Technology is changing, therefore changing the way we live our daily lives: our wrists are bare, we use our ears rather than our eyes when driving and more time is spent typing than sifting through pages.

So far in our lifetime, we are witnessing the demise of the watch, the map, the phone book, the VHS and books with paper pages.

Natasha Fletcher, senior, explains that she owns a watch that she doesn’t wear.

“I have one that was my dad’s old one, but the battery doesn’t work on it,” said Fletcher. “It’s vintage. I want to wear it, but it doesn’t tell time. It’s kind of pointless.”

She explained that she thinks people wear them nowadays for fashion rather than for their actual purpose.

“Recently I’ve seen a lot of girls wearing them, like the flashy, big ones,” said Fletcher. “Everyone looks at the digital clocks. I think its fashion.”

Fletcher also added that she would use her cell phone over a watch anyway.

“It’s easier, less thinking, which sounds terrible,” said Fletcher.

The use of maps has changed as well. Instead of using the old, trusty tool of a road atlas, travelers are switching to Global Positioning Systems.

Symon Porteous, Business Development Manager of Lovell Johns Group of Companies, a mapping company, explained that, “Lovell Johns started producing maps over 40 years ago,” and that the demand for paper maps has changed because of competing technologies.

“Electronic images and then computer-based digital delivery of mapping has changed the way people view maps,” said Porteous.

Porteous said he thinks that the GPS popularity is, “Both a good and bad thing. Good because it has raised awareness of mapping in general public users’ minds and this helps us (Lovell Johns) sell our services. Bad because it has particularly eroded sales of road atlases which we have traditionally helped produce.”

Erick Dutchess, a teacher at Penn Manor, owns a GPS but has used a form of a paper map as well.

“I have used trip-ticks. They’re created by AAA. They would give you a paper map and highlight the roads,” said Dutchess.

“I use a GPS for long trips. I find their ability to not have me plan anything is awesome.”

It appears as though technology is providing an easy way of solving everyday problems. The same goes with cell phones. We see everyone using them, and teens are notorious for constantly texting. How much do they depend on them over other tools or technologies?

Elena Hart, senior, said her family got rid of their land-line phone about a year ago.

“(I am reliant) to stay in communication with people because if you’re not in communication with people, what is there? You’re solitary,” Hart said.

“I don’t text when I’m sleeping or at lacrosse practice,” said senior Olivia Hertzler.

Hertzler also said that without her phone,”I would probably be more focused and study more and feel naked.”

“I text. I call. I take pictures. I email. I schedule. I live,” said senior Stef Friedman. “Our generation is too dependent on their cell phones.”

With new popular technologies taking place of the old, will the dinosaur technology disappear?

The DVD has taken the place of the VHS tape and the iPod instead of the CD. Will the next generations recognize the tools we depend on now?

What will be the next to go?  What will be the next to come?