GAZETTE THE CENTRE COUNTY
www.CentreCountyGazette.com
MIRACLE PAID FORWARD
TEE TIME
With spring weather finally settling in, it’s time for Centre County golfers to get back in the swing. From duffers to scratch golfers, the region offers options for all skill sets. Check out our guide to the courses./Page 20
April 13-19, 2017
Volume 9, Issue 15
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Work could start soon on hotel project Supervisors OK Mountain View plan By G. KERRY WEBSTER kerry.ccgazette@gmail.com
Photo courtesy of Whitehead family
THE WHITEHEADS, Tom, Kari and daughter Emily, of Philipsburg, will celebrate Emily’s 12th birthday on May 2.
Treatment that saved Emily Whitehead’s life holds promise for thousands By G. KERRY WEBSTER kerry.ccgazette@gmail.com
PHILIPSBURG — An experimental procedure that saved the life of a young Philipsburg girl may soon be saving thousands of youthful lives across the world. Emily Whitehead, now weeks away from her 12th birthday, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when she was just 5 years old in May 2010. After the second relapse, her parents, Tom and Kari Whitehead, were told they were out of options to treat their daughter’s cancer. They did not quit. And, neither did Emily. She underwent a radical new treatment called
T-cell therapy at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. It worked. In April 2012, at the age of 6, Emily began the therapy — which involved collecting a type of white blood cell, known as T-cells, from her body and then introducing the human immunodeficiency virus, which genetically reprogrammed the modified T-cells to recognize and attack cancer cells. The treatment caused Emily to become very sick and she spent the next two weeks in an intensive care unit, that first night beating the odds of survival of 1 in 1,000, according to the doctor in charge. Whitehead, Page 7
BOALSBURG — The Harris Township Board of Supervisors gave unanimous approval April 10 for the Ramada Group to move ahead with plans to add a 100-unit hotel to the Mountain View Country Club and breathe new life into the existing golf course. With just a few environmental clearances yet to get in order, Joe Thomas, general manager of the Ramada Hotel and Conference Center in State College, is confident dirt will fly in May and the new facility will be open and ready by the start of the 2018 football season. “There’s just a few more small things to work out, then the site work can begin,” Thomas told the Gazette after the supervisors gave their OK for the project. “It’s an aggressive timeline, but we’ve been patient to this point. Now, we’re ready to bring a much-needed hotel, conference center and golf resort to Centre County.”
issues, and the commission agreed, as did the supervisors when they cast their votes in favor of the project. Those waiver requests included relieving the group of 29.93 percent of required riparian buffer space because of the layout of the golf course. To remedy this, the group offered to create additional riparian buffer space on another area of the property that will be a benefit to the environment. The group also asked to waive an ordinance requiring new developers to connect into the public sewage system. The main hotel and banquet facility will be serviced through the public system; however, an on-course building is connected to an on-site sewage treatment system. The granted waiver will allow this treatment to continue until the current system needs to be updated or replaced, at which time it will be required to hook into the public collection system. Mountain View, Page 8
LONG ROAD
The supervisors’ decision paved the way to begin a project now more than five years in the making. The Ramada group purchased the property in 2012 from the State College Elks Lodge and kept the golf course and banquet facilities in operation. Since then, the group has been working to get the proper permits, plan designs and paperwork together to present the hotel project to the township. It was not easy. The original plans were submitted to the Harris Township Planning Commission several months ago. Issues with specific aspects of the plan were questioned, including placements of environmental-friendly riparian buffers and an on-site sewage collection system, and reserving an area for the future development of a bicycle path. The group had asked the planning commission to waive these
Gazette file photo
THE GOLF COURSE at Mountain View Country Club figures to get a boost from a new 100-room hotel and conference center.
Photographer captures barns, honors through lens By MARK BRACKENBURY editor@centrecountygazette.com
BELLEFONTE — R. Thomas Berner describes himself as a “print guy” during his years as a journalism professor at Penn State. But Berner has had a lifelong interest in photography, and the digital world has opened up new opportunities for him in retirement. Berner’s work, much of it focused on photographing Pennsylvania barns, earned him top honors — the 2017 “Sweepstakes Award” — from the Pennsylvania Press Club. Berner’s self-published book, “Pennsylvania Quilts Barns,” earned first place in nonfiction and book design categories. The book features photographs by Berner of painted quilt blocks on barns covering a wide swath of Pennsylvania. Inspiration for the book goes back years. Berner and his wife, Paulette, retired from Penn State in
2003 and moved to New Mexico. They sometimes drove across the country to visit their daughter in North Carolina, then made the trek up Interstate 81 to visit Paulette Berner’s mother in Luzerne County. “I kept admiring these barns,” Berner said. When the Berners decided to move back to Pennsylvania in 2010, they lived for a time with his mother-in-law in Hazleton and commuted along I-80 as they looked for a home in Centre County, taking in more fascinating barns along the way. Wanting to do something with this interest, but realizing “there are a million barn books on Amazon,” Berner wondered what he could do that was unique. That led to his book “Pennsylvania Barn Stories,” which features photos and text on barns that have an interesting story behind them.
CENTRE COUNTY SPOTLIGHT
Photo by R. Thomas Berner
THE QUILT BLOCK from a barn in Juniata County is reflected in a nearby pond in this photo from R. Thomas Berner’s “Pennsylvania Quilt Barns.” Police Blotter .................... 2 Opinion ............................ 9
Health & Wellness .......... 10 Community .................... 14
Spring Golf ..................... 20 Sports .............................. 23
Easter Services ............... 30 Family Matters ............... 32
Photographer, Page 4
Around & In Town ......... 33 What’s Happening ......... 35
Puzzles ............................ 36 Business .......................... 37