MARCH 21

COMMUNITY NEIGHBORS CONNECTING: Tuesday, March 21 from Noon to 2pm at St. Marks Community Center, Main St New Milford PA. Movie Day! Showing Florence Foster Jenkins, bring a sandwich, popcorn and drinks provided. Free. Every adult Susquehanna County neighbor is invited.

MARCH 22

COMMUNITY MEETING: Wednesday, March 22 at 7:45am at Shirley’s Restaurant, 438 Main Street, Forest City. The Great Forest City Business Alliance Community will be having their next meeting.

MARCH 23

COMMUNITY BLOOD DRIVE: Thursday March 23 from 1:30 to 6:30 at St Marks Church in New Milford. All are welcome.

MARCH 24

OPEN HOUSE AND NEW OFFICE TOUR: Wednesday, March 24 from 9:00am to 11:00am at the new offices of District Magisterial Jufge Jueffrey Hollister at the Susquehanna County Courthouse. Light refreshments will be available with parking at the rear of the Courthouse.

MARCH 25

SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALL SUPPER: Saturday, March 25 starting at 4:30pm at the Thompson United Methodist Church, 586 Main Street, Thompson, PA. There will be a Spaghetti and Meatball Supper and Bake Sale. All are welcome!

MARCH 29

HOMEMADE EASTER EGG: Wednesday, March 29 the eggs will be available for pick up on March 25th and April 1st at the Clifford United Methodist Church. To place an order, please call Robin Correll at 570-222-4344 or Lisa Bahrite at 570-222-5493.

LENTEN SERVICE: Wednesday, March 29 at 12:00pm at the Thomson United Methodist Church. Following the Lenten Service will be a soup/bread and dessert lunch as part of the Susquehanna Area Church ministry. All are welcome.

APRIL 1

13TH ANNUAL ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BREAKFAST: Saturday, April 1 from 7am to 10am at the United Methodist Community Church, Main St. Great Bend, PA. Ham and home fries, out “Famous” breakfast sausage, pancakes, scrambled eggs, biscuits and sausage gravy, danish, fruit and beverages. Proceeds benefit UMCC Youth Group Trip to Kingdom Bound Christian Festival.

INDEPENDENT DEMOCRATIC WOMEN of Susquehanna County Meeting: Saturday, April 1st at 2 p.m. at the Montrose United Methodist Church at  526 Church St. in Montrose. (Entrance to meeting hall is on parking lot side of the building). Interested women are encouraged to attend this newly formed group. Questions, call 570-785-5691

APRIL 8

SPRING DINNERS: Saturday, April 8th Roast Beef and Ham. Sunday, April 9th Roast Beef and Turkey, both to take place at the South Creek Lions Club in Gillett off Rout 14 at 4:30p. Dinners include “real” mashed potatoes, vegetables, baked beans and home baked bread.

MONDAY: Roast beef, mashed potatoes, wheat roll, apple bread pudding.

TUESDAY: Chicken salad sandwich, cabbage soup, wheat sandwich roll, orange.

WEDNESDAY: Apple ginger pork chop, mashed potatoes, parslied carrots, wheat roll, oatmeal cookie.

THURSDAY: Meatloaf, green beans, roasted red potatoes, wheat roll, cherry gelatin.

FRIDAY: Chicken Marsala (Lent Option: tomato basil fish), green beans, roasted red potatoes, chocolate chip cookie.

The Susquehanna County Tick-Borne Diseases task Force will present an informational event on Saturday, March 25th at the Elk Lake School auditorium.

The day will begin with a presentation by Dr. Ralph Garruto, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Anthropology, Binghamton University.

This lecture will present background research on the growing problem of Lyme disease. It will provide information and research on the pathogen (Borrelia burgdorferi), the reservoir host (Peromyscus leucopus), the deer tick vector (Ixodes scapularis), human risk behaviors, the role deer play in the spread of the Lyme pathogen, and household pets as a sentinel species for Lyme disease.

Following Dr. Garruto will be a showing of the movie “Emergence,” the uplifting sequel to “Under Our Skin” which was shown in Montrose last year.

At noon, a presentation will be given by Dr. Gregory Bach D.O., P.C. Chair of Subcommittee of the Governor of Pa. on Education of Lyme Disease. Dr. Bach is an internationally recognized expert in the field of tick borne diseases, for the last quarter century. He has lectured about Lyme disease and it’s coinfections throughout the U.S and in many different countries.

Dr. Bach has had the honor to give a second opinion to the former President of the United States George W. Bush, and also worked with Saint Pope John Paul II, concerning their Lyme disease infections. We are thrilled he is coming to Susquehanna County to present for us.

This free event will run from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Come for all of it, or whatever fits your schedule. With Pennsylvania continuing to be #1 in the United States in reported cases of Lyme disease, we hope you will join us to learn how to protect yourself, and your loved ones. For more Information please call 570-278-6608, or 570-396-0368.

The Penn State Master Gardeners of Susquehanna County will be holding a Plant Sale and Festival on Friday, May 12th, from 12 noon-7 pm and Saturday, May 13th 9 am-3 pm at the Penn State Extension Office, at 88 Chenango Street in Montrose.

To receive an extensive, full-color plant sale description and order form catalog contact the Penn State Extension Office by calling at 570.278.1158 or emailing klg11@psu.edu or feel free to stop by the office and pick one up.

This year’s pre-order plant sale will feature a huge variety of Natives, Pollinator Friendly Plants, Perennials, Lilies, Specialty Bulbs, Berries, Herbs, Vegetables and Annuals. So order early! The deadline to order is April 28th.

During the Festival you will also have a chance to tour our pollinator monitoring and educational gardens, talk to Master Gardeners and receive educational materials. We will also be featuring several vendors, live music, children’s games and a question and answer table.

This is our annual fundraiser which helps fund the Master Gardeners so they can deliver educational gardening programs for the community! This is also a great opportunity to view our newly-established educational garden, located in the greenway section of the parking lot.

Teachers, parents, and aspiring children’s authors all have a unique opportunity to spend a day learning about the many aspects of children’s literature.  Spend the day immersed in writing and literature with authors and illustrators Lindsay Barrett George, Kim Briggs, Jan Cheripko, Alison Green Myers, Linda Oatman High, and Patricia Thomas.

Author and illustrator, Lindsay Barrett George will be one of six presenters at the “Think Like a Writer” workshop.

“Think Like A Writer” will be presented on Saturday, March 25, 2017, at The University of Scranton at The Kane Forum in Edward R. Leahy, Jr. Hall beginning with registration at 8:00 AM and ending after lunch at 2:00 PM.  The day which includes a continental breakfast, lunch, 5 ACT 48 hours, a morning panel presentation by the authors and illustrators, breakout sessions and signed books to take home. 

The authors and illustrators are offering this professionally inspiring day to share their love of writing and illustrating children’s books.  Participants will discover the many ways stories are created, what makes characters come to life, and what makes a word phrase, or sentence jump off the page and stick in your memory.  Breakout sessions entitled Playing with Words, Understanding the Creation of Character, and Discovering the Whole Book will be presented. 

The day is sponsored by The Northeastern Pennsylvania Reading Association (NPRA) and The Panuska College of Professional Studies.  NPRA is a professional organization serving Lackawanna, Pike, Susquehanna, Wayne, and Wyoming Counties devoted to the improvement of all aspects of reading.  It provides extensive professional development opportunities and family programs on a variety of topics at different locations throughout the area including schools, libraries, colleges, and universities.

To register call Donna Salva at 570-815-6068 or email her at donnasalva@yahoo.com.   Don’t miss this opportunity to gain knowledge, to be inspired, and to share.

What can women of Susquehanna County do to make a political impact? Join us!  We are your neighbors, women of voting age from all backgrounds resolved to have our say at the local, state, and national level. We are the Independent Democratic Women of Susquehanna County (IDWSC).

Formed by concerns over this past election, we look to encourage and support a more active female political presence.  Among our many goals is to improve the election process by replacing gerrymandering with fair districting. We also want to safeguard women's civil, labor, educational, environmental, social and religious freedoms. Our work has just begun.  We are asking women to meet us, share your ideas and a bit of your time to Keep America Great.

Our next meeting will take place on Saturday, April 1, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. at the Montrose United Methodist Church, 526 Church Street in Montrose.  (The entrance to the meeting room is off the parking lot and down a few stairs.  There is handicap parking near the ramp.) For more information or to RSVP contact:  Barbara Scott rasprise@epix.net.

Misericordia University is presenting the colorful exhibition, “The New American Landscape 2017,” a collection of original oil paintings by abstract expressionist artist Robert Stark in the Pauly Friedman Art Gallery. In the MacDonald Gallery, Tunkhannock artist James Dougher is providing the exhibition, “Cryptic Artifacts,’’ featuring mixed-media wall relief constructions of Informed Primitivism and small freestanding sculptural objects. Both exhibits are on display from April 1 through June 3.

The exhibitions are supported in part by The Sandra Dyczewski Maffei Endowment. A free meet-the-artist opening reception is Saturday, April 1 from 5-7 p.m.

Untitled, oil on arches huile, Stark

Stark is a well-known artist who has lived and painted at his Susquehanna Studio in Union Dale, Susquehanna County, for 50 years. He also maintains a studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he and his wife spend their winters. Known for abstract expressionist landscape painting and photography, his work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at many venues including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection and the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., The Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennessee; the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Loretto, and Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia.

His paintings have traveled to more than 140 world capitals under the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies program, including Algiers, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Havana, Kathmadu, Lagos, London, Manila, Stockholm and Tehran. He is represented in museum, corporate and private collections across the country.

The exhibit will include a catalog featuring a critique of Stark’s 2017 exhibit by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Henry Allen, a cultural critic for the Washington Post from 1970 to 2009, and the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2000. In his Oct. 18, 2016 critique, Allen writes, “His (Stark’s) instinct for the edgy impact of color – the edge being located somewhere inside your brain – has now culminated in the paintings in this show, a meld of bleakness and beauty, very American, a vision akin to that of Jack Kerouac with his ‘sad’ highways. Since the beginning, Stark's work has had a tincture of hard melancholy that makes me think of America and the raw-boned facts of small-town existence he must have learned as a boy in Sidney, N.Y., a poignance that drove him toward beauty ­– a kind of glory.”

Caged Crow, Dougher

Stark earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Denver. He studied photography formally and informally with Minor White, 1962-1968, and studied Restoration and Conservation of Paintings with Robert Scott Wiles at the Corcoran Gallery of Art from 1970-1974.

Dougher holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Kutztown University where, under the guidance of James Carroll in the mid 1970’s, he met and studied some of the most influential and groundbreaking artists of the time, including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Vito Acconci and Richard Serra. He has since studied decorative finishes at The Finishing School in New York, and has spent years restoring 18th and 19th century furniture and studying its construction. He has worked professionally in graphic design related fields for more than 30 years.

Dougher describes his exhibit, “Cryptic Artifacts,” as a group of small constructions that took form in an effort to give new life to mundane and ephemeral objects, which possessed an innate and intrinsic beauty, or, at the very least, stirred an unexpected interest.

“Sequence, nature, and introspection are themes,” Dougher said. “I’m fascinated with the things people live with, decide to put up on their walls, imbue with value or meaning, and revere as objects. Mimic them, create them, and recreate them. There is hope to inspire others to pursue their own creativity and think about objects in new ways.”

 The Pauly Friedman Art Gallery is closed on Mondays and for all university holidays and snow days. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, please log on to www.misericordia.edu/art or contact Dona Posatko, gallery director, at (570) 674-6250.

For more information about Misericordia University, please call (570) 674-6400 or visit www.misericordia.edu. Founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1924, Misericordia University is Luzerne County’s first four-year college and offers 43 academic programs on the graduate and undergraduate levels in full- and part-time formats. Misericordia University ranks in the top tier of the Best Regional Universities – North category of U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 edition of Best Colleges, and was designated a 2017 Best Northeastern College by the Princeton Review.