The Ancient Gastronomic Order of Rattling Reptiles met at the covered bridge by the Evergreen Farms cottage in the beautiful Spruce Creek Valley for the 64th consecutive time to honor King Rattler. Eighty-one members, 16 guests, four candidates and two speakers, for a total of 103 were present for the gala affair.
\nFellow rattlers began arriving at approximately 2 p.m. for fly fishing and socializing with attitude adjustments preparing themselves for the festive occasion. The day was sunny with temperatures in the mid to upper 80s.
\nThe order was called at 5:15 p.m. by President Abraham Harpster for various group pictures of those being inducted into the order. The group was then called to dinner by President Abe who welcomed everyone and also introduced Grand Imperial Rattler R. Wayne Harpster who thanked all those responsible for helping to prepare for the event. Rattler Jacking Rawlings led the pledge to the flag of our great nation, this was followed by Rattler John Rice giving the invocation. A delicious meal was prepared by Hoag\u2019s Catering of State College.
\nThe dinner consisted of turtle soup, trout, groundhog, corn on the cob, potato salad, baked beans, followed with ice cream and pie. The groundhog was prepared to perfection. It should be noted the \u201cKing Fisher\u201d Lloyd Riss caught the trout, Aaron \u201cQuick Hands\u201d Harpster caught the snapping turtles, \u201cDead Eye\u201d Bill Ansley, R. Wayne Harpster and Dick Burley shot the groundhogs and \u201cHigh Stepping\u201d John Harpster tamed the rattle snakes. \u201cMaster Cookie Chef\u201d James Trostle and assistants John Rice, Rich Burley and Nate Oehme prepared the whistle pigs and rattlers.
\nThe meeting began after the meal with the reading of the minutes by Grand Rattling Secretary, Richard Burley and were approved as read. President Abe discussed the history of the organization starting in 1942 and becoming a formal organization in 1947 marking 64 years of consecutive meetings. Comments of thanks were made for the excellent meal and thanks to everyone who helped with the day. Rattler John Harpster discussed the art of catching rattlers with a video sound tape on how this is actually done by him in the wild and on location.
\nThe very respectful Resolutions of Respect were read for the following deceased members by Grand Imperial Secretary Burley and board member William Gilliland: Dr. Samuel L. Lake, 95, of Warriors Mark; Stitler Vipond, 96, of Hollidaysburg and Thomas R. Barber, 100, of Johnstown.
\nThis was followed with a moment of silence.
\nThe featured program for the evening was introduced by board member Lloyd Riss and presented by Mr. Jeff Aucker of Reynoldsville. The title of the program was \u201cBirds of Prey\u201d. Mr. Aucker and his assistant discussed various species of predator birds using live birds tethered, such as the Red Tailed Hawk, Falcon, etc. It should be noted when the predators were demonstrated, the local birds all disappeared very quickly.
\nThe program was extremely interesting resulting in many questions from the group.
\nThe initiation of inductees began at 8 p.m. starting with the prologue by President Emeritus J. Winston Harpster, as only he can do. This was followed by the introduction of inductees by their sponsors: Don W. Ammerman of Tyrone by Rich Burley; Dr. Daniel R. Gandy of Williamsport by Thomas Aufiero; Fred Imler Jr. of Hollidaysburg by William Ansley and Thomas W. Markley of Camp Hill by Robert Dunn.
\nThe inductees were then turned over to initiation chairman John Harpster and President Abe Harpster to perform their acts of bravery. The pledge for new members was led by President Emeritus J. Winston Harpster. All candidates passed the test successfully and in good health.
\nA good time was had by all and the meeting was adjourned until 2007 by President Abe at 8:35 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ancient Gastronomic Order of Rattling Reptiles met at the covered bridge by the Evergreen Farms cottage in the beautiful Spruce Creek Valley for the 64th consecutive time to honor King Rattler. Eighty-one members, 16 guests, four candidates and two speakers, for a total of 103 were present for the gala affair. Fellow rattlers began […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}