Lock Haven

Wilkes-Barre was inundated.

Towns along the river were underwater, and in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, home of Piper Aircraft's main production facility, the floodwaters rose into the factory.

The damage was severe, tooling destroyed.

Jigs and fixtures that had been used to build thousands of aircraft submerged and ruined.

5:03 remaining in the first quarter with Michigan leading Penn State 10 to nothing.

It is fourth down, so Travis Pawney, the placekicker from Lockhaven, PA, walks in.

He still doesn't have his scholarship, but Travis, I'm working on it.

34-yard try.

So I did.

I drove right down to the Lock Haven airport and borrowed a friend's light sport experimental aircraft and flew it around the pattern a few times.

And I said, I could get used to this.

This is not a bad little airplane.

However, so I was always an instructor.

I never really planned on having a full-time flight school, but it just kind of fell into place.

And the reason it fell into place is because the city of Lock Haven, owns the airport.

The city council manages the airport.

I'll explain how you can participate in a moment, but first, here's today's Final Four.

I'm Cassie Farrelly, and I currently live in Hershey, Pennsylvania, but I'm a native of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, which is right on the banks of the Susquehanna River.

So the regatta, I think, is one of those, um, experiences where it, it's definitely colored by my childhood memories of it, right? Growing up in Lock Haven in the '80s and the '90s, uh, it wasn't exactly a bustling metropolis any more than it is now, and that's part of its charm, right? But as a kid, there was such excitement built up around the regatta, and this was where they would organize races on the river, and they would have a carnival there at the same time, and there would be, you know, shopping booths with local artisans who were making beautiful artwork and that kind of thing.

But what really struck me about it was that you had this entire sort of community event that was organized around the river.

And I was probably 15 before I watched one of the races the first time, 'cause for me, it was all about the Ferris wheel that they wheeled in for the week and, and that kind of thing.

But, um, it's still going strong, and, and whenever I'm able to, I try to go back to Lock Haven for the regatta because I think it's a, again, a really unique time and place where people come from all over to mix and mingle there.

You know, my godparents had moved to North Carolina probably 10 years ago, and they would still come back to the regatta to see all their friends and family.

So what you really see is these rivers are not just a body of water, they're not just a recreation, um, tool, they're also a place where communities gather.

Pennsylvania's Commonwealth University plans to lay off faculty and staff next year.

As Anne Danahy from our friends at WPSU reports, the university expects the cuts to happen across its three campuses, Lock Haven, Mansfield, and Bloomsburg.

Commonwealth expects to lay off as many as one hundred and seventy-five people, seventy-five faculty and a hundred staff.

It's to, quote, "Create a financially sustainable university for the long term and address the institution's recurring structural deficit." The move to balance the budget comes at the direction of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

Layoffs will take effect in July of twenty twenty-seven.

The university says retirements, resignations, and other savings may reduce the number of layoffs, and the overhaul will protect students' ability to complete their degrees.

Commonwealth University was created in twenty twenty-two, bringing together Lock Haven, Mansfield, and Bloomsburg universities.

The university is now dealing with a seventeen million dollar budget deficit, according to news reports.

We had two churches from Ohio.

We had a church that came from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, which is like four hours away because they heard and they're like, this is crazy.

I want to go to this.

I want to be connected with people.

Neither airplane was engineered for the work he was asking of them.

He modified his ski installations, learned the specific performance envelope of his specific airplanes in the cold and the altitude, and the rotor wash that comes down off those walls, and flew those machines to capabilities their manufacturers in Wichita and Lock Haven probably never set down and calculated.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

Around 1966, Sheldon did something that I think captures who he was better than any rescue story.

Hey, here's a friend who was on the podcast not long ago talking about the run in Leadville.

Alicia says, did what appeared to be a really challenging boulder beast 24-mile run in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

It's a loop course that covers 25 miles and 6,000 feet of climbing.

The main feature is this one steep field of boulders that you need to ascend, and at some times she was ascending on all fours.