Dear Editor,
This letter comes to you to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who helped us when our daughter Mara was missing last weekend.
I have lived in Tyrone my entire life, but never realized how close knit this town could be until something like this happened to our family. In addition to family members, many friends, especially Lori Friday, neighbors, the police department, especially Officer Jessica Barlick, the members of the fire department, came together and worked for one goal, to help us find our daughter.
My husband and I have learned a valuable lesson and we would like to share that with other parents. Mom’s and Dad’s KNOW who your kid’s friends are. When we first realized that Mara was not where we thought she was, a friend and I literally had to drive from home to home because we didn’t know Mara’s friends last name or parents names. We went to the home of a young lady where we thought she was staying and she told us, no I thought she was going to so and so’s house. So we went there and repeated the procedure until we woke up about eight families between 10 and 11 p.m. Friday night. Many of the parents involved in this realized we really didn’t know our children’s friends full names or addresses. You think we live in a small town until you try to find a missing child, and then Tyrone seems enormous.
We have now created a My Friend’s List and are having our children fill in their friend’s names, their parent’s names, addresses and phone numbers. Any time our children want to go to a friend’s house, we insist on having all this information before they are allowed to go.
Our hope in writing this letter and sharing our experience is that some of you will learn from our “mistakes” and not let this happen to you. In this instance this was simply a matter of miscommunication. Mara had two friends with very similar first names and we misunderstood where she was going.
Again, thanks to the Tyrone Police Department and everyone who took part in the search.
Sincerely,
Ron and Jackie Beckwith
and the entire Zimmerman family.
Tyrone
— — —
Dear Editor,
After talking with Snyder Township resident Helen Mengel, I feel I must both subtract and add to my January 11, 2003 remarks. What Mrs. Mengel told me is typical of the buddyism and behind the scene shenanigans of the present head of the Tyrone Dynasty that has ruled the local school system for over half a century. The last time it cost the Tyrone Area School District over $20 million. This time it was your turn, Snyder Township Residents.
I cannot here elaborate on Mrs. Mengel’s story of the history of Pyramid and TAHS Head vs. Snyder Township for it could be discounted as hearsay.
But I do subtract the implication in the third paragraph of my remarks that you Snyder Township Residents should’ve been present to object when the decision was made to bring Pyramid into your midst. According to Mrs. Mengel, that decision was made outside public meetings.
What I can tell you is TASD Board Member Becky Emenhiser is now a Pyramid employee. How’s that for conflict of interest? And speaking of conflict of interest, two perfect examples (with nepotism thrown in) are Borough Council members Jim Beckwith and Bill Latchford.
Now I urgently add that you Snyder Township Residents — as well as ANY interested persons — should talk with Mrs. Mengel and join her task force in her continuing quest against political duplicity and illegal maneuvering for private gain by public officials which has characterzed both the borough and education establishments’ operations in our area.
A democracy works only when responsible — AND CARING — people represent and govern the entire community rather than benefit a self-proclaimed elite faction within it. If those responsible and caring people are not the governors, if they are members or puppets of the elite, what you have is a plutocracy into which this area and, indeed the country, is fast evolving.
Is there no solution, no way to reign in our omnipresent imperial wolf-pack of plutocrats at our jugular?
If you care, if you are more than a couch-potato-squawker, February 3, you can pick up your petition to run for Snyder Township Supervisor (requires 10 signatures) or TASD School Board seat (requires 10 signatures) or Tyrone Borough Council seat (requires 10 signatures) in the upcoming May 20 election. You can start circulating the petition for signatures February 18. And you can turn in your petition — complete with 10 signatures — by March 11.
There’s the solution. Now where’s the responsible AND CARING candidates?
Viva Le Revolution
Dan Meckes
Tyrone
