SCHOOL COLORS: Lorine Rounsville of Smethport
provides us a bit of interesting history on Smethport sports and
how the school colors were chosen, the subject of a recent RTS:
“Francis Quirk, a resident and historian of Smethport,
wrote in his book, ‘Smethport, My Hometown,’ that sports became
popular in Smethport Schools in the 1920s.
“He stated that ‘the school colors of black and orange was
chosen by Harry Rubin in the early days of football.’ I assume that
to mean in the ’20s. He goes on to say that the school board
considered changing the colors in 1965 when the new high school was
built.
“Mr. Quirk objected and convinced the board that the colors were
part of the school’s history and should never be changed.
“I’m afraid that doesn’t really answer the question of whether
Port Allegany or Smethport chose them first, but does provide an
interesting bit of history.”
In case you missed it, a reader had wondered how it was that
both Smethport and Port had chosen the same colors for their
schools and sports teams.
BERRY NOTES: We were pretty excited to get this
note on the blackberry crop – only to realize it was a little out
of our turf!
Julie Brink Hamilton writes from Oklahoma City, Okla.:
“My husband and I picked over a flat of blackberries in early July
at a place near our home here in OKC and the berries were huge and
sweet. The orchard we got the berries at has raspberries and
strawberries but we didn’t go earlier in the month of June for
them.”
“We has a tremendous amount of rain in July so that could
account for the size of the berries here in this part of the
country. Also the weather was in the 90s at that time, too.”
HOT TIME: Dona D. Oviatt of Coudersport writes:
“Re: the Aug. 27 column about the 100 degrees thermometer reading.
I have a picture of my thermometer (very blurry) taken on July 16,
1988, at 2 p.m. showing a 100 degree reading. I’ve never seen it
since (or before) and I’ve lived in this northern tier (McKean,
Potter counties) all my life.”
When we have a spare minute, we’re going to look back in
our archives to try to verify a record high in the summer of 1988.
We’ll report back on our findings.
