Local News |

Offbeat news of 2024 in NEPA

Weird and wacky things happened in Northeast Pennsylvania in 2024. Here are a few examples:

Girl Scout cookie lawsuits

Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania filed lawsuits in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties against parents who agreed to have their daughters sell hundreds of boxes of Girl Scout cookies, but never turned in the money.

Once a parent signs an agreement form, ordering boxes of cookies to be sold and agreeing to remit the proceeds, the boxes cannot be returned as unsold and the parent is obligated to pay for the cookies, according to the complaints.

A complaint filed against a Wilkes-Barre mother who ordered 452 boxes totaling $1,285, sought that amount plus collection fees incurred of $385.50, for a total of $1,670.50.

Wrong brother released from LCCF

Luzerne County Correctional Facility inmate Billy Partington was mistakenly released instead of his half-brother and fellow inmate Drake Partington in January, following a paperwork mixup that led to a case of mistaken identity.

Billy Partington did not correct the mistake over his identity, signed his brother’s name and collected his brother’s personal effects, prosecutors alleged.

Billy Partington was captured soon after his mistaken release and charged with a felony count of escape.

Peanut butter suit

A Plains Twp. man claimed Jif peanut butter contaminated with salmonella sickened him so badly two years ago that he felt the effects weeks later.

Wayne Hinkin and his wife, Molly, sued the J.M. Smucker Co., which makes Jif, and Walmart Stores Inc., whose Sam’s Clubs sell it, in U.S. District Court in Scranton.

Wayne Hinkin sought at least $75,000 in damages for negligence and liability for a defective product.

Last January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said testing at J.M. Smucker’s Lexington, Kentucky, plant showed the presence of salmonella in the months leading up to the company’s May 20, 2022, recall of infected peanut butter.

Robot toes the line at Hanover Area

In March, the Hanover Area School District purchased a small mobile robot for $19,940 to paint lines on outdoor athletic fields.

The school board voted to approve the purchase from Denmark-based TinyMobileRobots, which is touted as the global leader in fully autonomous GPS line-marking robots.

The company website says its robot for athletic fields weighs 55 pounds. It has three wheels and can be transported in the back of a car or minivan.

“What it does is it goes by GPS coordinates,” Hanover Area Superintendent Nathan Barrett said. “It uses 50% less of the paint, and it reduces your personnel hours by 80%.”

Dead squirrel shuts down store

A dead squirrel, killed via electrocution outside the Laurel Mall in June, shut down Boscov’s department store until authorities determined the cause of smoke and flickering lights in the store.

Hazle Twp. Fire Chief Scott Kostician said the squirrel got zapped near the old Ground Round Restaurant across the parking lot from Boscov’s.

A transformer near the squirrel’s body emitted low voltage in one of its three phases, workers from PPL Electric found. Then electricians for Boscov’s detected an air handler’s motor had heated to 130 degrees and generated smoke.

Low voltage also caused the store’s escalators and the backup generator to start and stop while computers and cash registered acted balky.

Salt, not meth

A Wilkes-Barre woman sold sea salt that she claimed to be methamphetamine, according to Scranton police who arrested her on Dec. 5.

Chelsea Lehman, 34, was charged with drug-related offenses after police pulled her over because of a non-functioning front headlight on her vehicle.

As Lehman was getting out of the vehicle, she asked to take her purse with her, a criminal complaint states. When officers searched it, they found a plastic bag that contained a white crystal-like substance. Lehman described the substance as “ice,” and then said it was only sea salt.

An officer asked Lehman if she was ripping people off who thought they were buying crystal meth. She first admitted she was, then changed her story and said it was her husband’s friend who had been selling the sea salt as meth, according to the complaint.

Poconos’ beloved heart-shaped hot tubs on sale

The iconic pink and red heart-shaped hot tubs that have come to represent a historic slice of the Poconos were on sale in October on Facebook.

A selection of classic “Garden of Eden” style pink and deep crimson hot tubs, as well as circular beds and other fixtures that lived in for decades at Pocono Palace, a couples-only resort near East Stroudsburg that changed owners in May just before closing its doors to undergo a rebranding, were up for grabs on the social media website.

The asking price? A cool $800.

Carbondalien festival celebrates ‘alien landing’

Those curious of life outside our world were able to participate in the Carbondalien Festival in November. The festival celebrated  the 50th anniversary of the infamous incident near Russell Park in Carbondale that many believe was a UFO crash landing on Nov. 9, 1974.

The event was hosted by the Carbondale Arts Alliance and will have vendors, food trucks, speakers, art and live music.

Nicole Curtis, the Carbondalien Festival’s organizer, “Carbondalien-in-Chief” and co-owner of the City Line Shop Cafe in Carbondale, was inspired to start the festival as an alien art walk after seeing how art helped save other nearby small towns.

‘Office’ themed 5K draws more than 1,500 participants

The love for the television show “The Office” runs deep in NEPA. So deep that more than 1,500 people participated in a 5K dedicated to the Scranton-based show that aired from March 2005 through May 2013.

The race, which also included a 1-mile walk, spoofed the “Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For The Cure” featured in an episode of the popular NBC sitcom set in Scranton at the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Co.

David Bosley of Scranton, board president of Valley In Motion, turned heads as Meredith Palmer in a slinky dress that included pixilated areas covering private parts. The outfit was inspired by an episode in which Meredith showed up for casual Friday in the “barely there” outfit.

Bosley said he was humbled by the turnout for the event, which grew from about 300 participants in 2022, its inaugural year, to over 1,500 as of early Saturday.

Reporter wins tractor pull

Not many can claim to have won a tractor-pulling contest during their first-ever experience at the wheel of a tractor.

But that’s what happened July 31, 2024, at the Schuylkill County Fair, when Pottsville Republican Herald reporter Hyun Soo Lee entered and won the celebrity tractor pull at the Curtis N. Luckenbill Memorial Track, Summit Station.

As usual, the tractor pull — an annual fair tradition — saw an impressive pool of about a dozen celebrity contestants, including the county commissioners, state representatives and the state’s top conservation official. Also competing were the newly crowned fair royalty and the winners of the 2024 Greater Pottsville Winter Carnival.

Lee took first place in the competition with a distance of 350.88 feet.

‘Magnet Man’ from New Philadelphia touches many lives with random acts of kindness

Not only does Michael Bogish fashion heart-shaped refrigerator magnets, he gives them away to people he doesn’t even know.

Though numerous people have offered, 79-year-old Bogish has steadfastly turned down offers to be paid for the magnets or the materials from which they’re made.

“He believes it would take away from what he does,” Elaine Klimas Bogish said of her husband of 47 years.

A retired industrial worker, Bogish insists that making refrigerator magnets is just a hobby.

His daughter says giving away his magnets allows him to break the ice with people.

The number of refrigerator magnets he’s given away over three decades, Bogish said, is impossible to estimate.

Nazi banner removed from a display at the Schuylkill County Fair

SUMMIT STATION – An original Nazi banner, stained with the blood of an American soldier who recovered it during World War II, was to be the centerpiece of a historical display at the 2024 Schuylkill County Fair in August.

While the display was well-received by judges, who gave it first-place and Best of Show honors in the heirloom category, fair officials took down the banner ahead of the proceedings — a move that has saddened David and Linda Wolfe, who submitted it as a tribute to Linda’s late father.

The Wolfes, who live near Auburn, said the display was meant to be a show of patriotism highlighting an important part of American history.

While the fair allowed the entry to be judged as presented, the flag was folded and concealed from the public because of its potentially “objectionable” imagery, per fair guidelines. It was shown alongside other heirloom exhibits in the fairgrounds’ Arts and Crafts Building.

The display honors late Army Cpl. William C. Green, wounded while recovering the flag during the Liberation of Paris in August 1944. Green’s blood stains can be seen on the white part of the swastika on the banner.

David Wolfe said the display honors the nation’s veterans and is not a glorification of Nazism.