Kempton News

ARTSQUEST seeks friendly and energetic volunteers, minimum age 16, to join the Musikfest Street Team and get the crowd pumped! Members of the Street Team roam the festival grounds and play games, give out ...

In the market for a windmill? The Keystone Home Energy Loan Program provides low-interest loans of up to $10,000, and possibly more, for Pennsylvania homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient.

Reading Eagle: Bill Uhrich Chainsaw artist and woodcarver/photgrapher Charles "Chuck" Eckenroth, 33, Albany Township, lives in Kistler Valley where he makes wooden sculptures and totem poles inspired by nature.

The ring of a blacksmith's hammer on the hard steel of an anvil isn't the normal sound a visitor would expect to hear at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary on the Kittatinny Ridge in Albany Township, Berks County .

Lenhartsville has new center for fun Tori Odhner lives in the Philadelphia area but thinks of Lenhartsville as home.

PENNSYLVANIA FOCUS: Alternative Energy, Progressive Candidates, Groups and Events Here is an alternative energy event coming up: Fri., Sat.

Last Saturday I was at Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop, in Kempton, PA when a Pennsylvania flintlock longrifle caught my eye.

Codename Live at Some Kind of Jam 3 on 2008-04-26 Description Codename April 26, 2008 Some Kind of Jam 3 Kempton, PA Recorded By: George Ewing Source: AT4040> R-4 Set I 01. via Internet Archive

Allentown played host to conservation history Tuesday when two of the four peregrine falcon eggs hatched in a nest atop PPL Corp.'s downtown headquarters.

The much-anticipated hatchings -- celebrated by PPL employees, conservation officials and animal lovers across the region -- were a recorded first for Lehigh County and another important step in the falcon's recovery across Pennsylvania. The state had no falcons 50 years ago and today lists them as endangered.

''If you would have askedA people 30 years ago, they would have said it's never going to happen,'' said ornithologist Keith Bildstein, director of conservation science at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Albany Township, near Kempton. ''It is incredibly gratifying to see a bird that was being doomed by my contemporaries in the 1970s coming back. We really need to take pride in our local accomplishments.'' Read more

Spring officially started March 20. But for the 275 revelers who packed into the Kempton Community Recreation Center, winter's not over until they say it's over.

And they said so -- as they have for 17 years -- on Sunday at the Winter Vanquish Festival rooted in German culture.

As the Walt Groller Orchestra played its farewell song, ''Thanks to All You People,'' the revelers, many of whom come year after year, booted winter out on its frosty behind.

About 50 fans of the orchestra -- groupies who follow Groller on trips to the Caribbean and Europe and to festivals near and far -- linked arms and romped on the ballroom floor, waving their signature white handkerchiefs. Read more

A fire that started in a shed on a Berks County dairy farm last night destroyed two buildings and killed about 100 hens. via The Morning Call

A hard-working heritage brought 90-year-old Ray Miller of Exeter Township to Kutztown University's ''Easter on the Farm'' event Saturday.

''I'm a full-blooded Dutchman and proud of it,'' he said while reminiscing over old tinsmith tools he used ''in my time'' to help build barns without nails in Berks and Schuylkill counties -- wood-shaving instruments such as the ''adze'' and medieval-looking axes.

Cadette Girl Scouts Abby Sanders, 12, of Kempton and Erin Ondush, 13, of Fogelsville attended the daylong cultural exhibit to help other children make paper Easter baskets. But both also enjoyed learning the Pennsylvania German method of decorating eggs. Read more

Chairs with woven seats have been under us for thousands of years. In ancient China, woven furniture was made from rattan vines, and in Egypt, dried rushes. Today, both natural and man-made materials show up in many styles of antique and modern furniture.

The beauty of these natural materials are their strength and resilience. ''Don't stand on it, don't cut it, and it should last for a long, long time,'' says Mary Zavilla of Old Dairy Antiques in Whitehall .

It's almost a living thing. ''If a seat starts to sag, take the chair out in the sun on a nice warm day and wet it, and it should tighten back up again, says Zavilla, who refurbishes woven furniture. Read more

FOUND Wheelchair porch lift: Mary Jane of Kutztown has a wheelchair porch lift she is willing to sell to Elaine of Orefield. via The Morning Call

SANTA CLAUS SPECIAL What: Join Frosty the Snowman and Santa and his elves on a steam train. via The Morning Call

COME AS YOU ARE SERVICE. Faith UCC, 2510 Livingston St., Allentown, will hold a ''Come As You Are'' service at 5:30 p.m. today and 10:30 a.m. Sunday. via MergeDigital

About an hour after arriving at the Kempton-area farm, veterinarian Sam Yoder finishes his first large-animal visit of the day. via MergeDigital

A Berks County man died Friday night at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest nearly five hours after he crashed his motorcycle in Lynn Township, authorities said. via The Morning Call

An overview of the state's energy efficiency and renewable energy-rebate program will be given next Tuesday at the final meeting of the year of the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Association. via Reading Eagle/Reading Times

State police have identified the two truck drivers killed in a fiery crash Monday on Rt. via Jersey Journal