MORE FUNK: We have another spot for Bob Funk to add to his post-retirement travel itinerary.

Readers might recall that Bob told us about visiting Funkstown, Md., on a trip south soon after his retirement from GE/Dresser. He jokingly said he was well-received there once residents learned his name.

The Rev. Ralph Crowell, who splits his time between Bradford and Okeechobee, Fla., sent us an email suggesting another destination for Bob.

Ralph told us he used to live in Normal, Ill., and that about 10 miles south of there along historic Route 66 there is a place called Funks Grove.

“It had an old cemetery and an old church in its midst (still used from time to time) with a partition about the height of the pews dividing each pew down the middle, where the congregations would sit segregated, male and female. 

“There is the old home of the Funk family, one of the settling families of the area, that has been preserved as a museum. The area also has a rather large maple grove and advertised their syrup along the highways always as ‘SIRUP,’ claiming it to have been an older spelling of the product.”

— 

AIRPLANE CREW: It didn’t take long for one of the young men in a photo we ran in Saturday’s column to identify himself and his cohorts as members of the Bradford High School Class of 1993.

The photo was of a group of students who volunteered to wash and polish an airplane in exchange for a sightseeing flight over the city, piloted by now-retired teacher Drew Ivancic.

Drew gave us the picture, which he said would have been from 1996 or before, but he couldn’t identify any of the subjects.

Brian Shaffer phoned Monday and said he was surprised to see himself in the photo, which he believes was taken in 1993, when he was a senior.

He identified those in the picture, from the left, as Eric Dee, Ken Skinner, Dan Lewis, Donald Neal, himself, Mark Pascale and Mike McDonald.

Brian said he glanced at the paper Saturday as he was driving to Cleveland with his wife. 

“I said, ‘I think I’m in that photo,” and asked my wife to read the article to me,” he said. A look at a digital copy of the photo on Monday confirmed his suspicion.

The afternoon worth of work on the airplane paid off, Brian said.

“That was the first time I had ever flown,” he said.