PSU alumni host pig roast to benefit Valley students
by Joe Sylvester, The Daily Item
Photos by Joe Sulouff/For The Daily Item
NEW BERLIN — Valley Penn State alumni started pumping up for football season on Sunday, all while boosting eight students’ academic careers.
The Penn State Chapter of the Susquehanna Valley’s 37th annual pig roast outside American Legion Post 957, a fundraiser for four of the scholarships, featured some special guests — 46 Penn State cheerleaders, the Nittany Lion, 1990s-era Penn State quarterback Wally Richardson, along with representatives of the Nittany Lion Club and Penn State ticket office.
The chapter is giving out four $1,000 scholarships to four Valley freshmen attending either Penn State University or Pennsylvania College of Technology and four $1,000 scholarships to upperclassmen, all based on academic excellence, personal achievements and outside involvement.
“Over the course of our existence, we’ve given away $125,000 in scholarships,” said chapter President Curt Rothermel, a 1995 PSU graduate.
Chapter treasurer Larry Weader, PSU Class of 1983, said the upperclassmen scholarships come from an endowment funded by donations. But fundraisers such as the pig roast raise the money for the freshmen scholarships.
“The lowerclassmen money we continually raise every year,” Weader said. “This is our biggest fundraiser of the year.”
The freshmen who received scholarships this year are Brad Haines, a graduate of Mifflinburg Area High School and SUN Area Vo-Tech who planned to major in engineering design at Penn College; Megan Fetterolf, a Midd-West graduate who intends to major in supply chain and information systems at University Park; Gracelyne Allred of Winfield, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Homeschoolers Accreditation Agency, who plans to major in aerospace engineering at University Park; and Gabrielle Herman, a Lewisburg Area High School graduate who will double major in communication sciences and disorders and Spanish at the main campus.
Rothermel said he won a scholarship in 1991. It was for $500 then. Now the chapter is able to give more, as the membership has grown. He said the chapter membership numbers approximately 300 families. Sunday’s event drew about 300 people, a number that keeps growing each year, according to alumni.
“I remember when it was a lot smaller,” said Dan Leister, of Sewickley, near Pittsburgh, a 1973 graduate who was among the alumni members sitting under one of the big tents set up for dining. “It’s been three tents for seven or eight years.”
Leister, a member of the Allegheny County Penn State Alumni Association, has been coming here most years for the past 15 to 20. His wife, Jean, has family in the area and he likes seeing some fellow alumni here.
“This is definitely the best,” he said.
Leister, a retired chemical engineer, attended with Jean, who didn’t attend Penn State but helped put him through school, and his daughter, Monica, Class of 1992.
“This is my first time,” Monica said. “This is awesome. It’s nice to see so many alumni come out.”
Elaine Walz, of Shamokin Dam, a retired school counselor who worked in the Shikellamy School District for 37 years, received her undergraduate degree from Penn State in 1973 and her master’s in 1974. She and her husband, Robert, a retired English professor who is a Bucknell University graduate and holds a Ph.D. from Lehigh University, are part of the group that puts on the alumni events. They help select the scholarship winners as well as prizes that were raffled off. Elaine, who now does therapy dog work, said the names, schools and genders of the candidates are redacted when the committee reviews their qualifications to ensure the process is fair.
Richardson, Penn State’s record-setting quarterback in the 1995 and 1996 seasons who had a brief NFL career — two seasons with the Baltimore Ravens and one with the Atlanta Falcons, is now director of the Penn State Football Letterman’s Club.
“I like getting to events like this,” he said, adding he enjoys meeting alumni from across the state and around the country.
He said though his professional football career was brief, he did make the team for a few years. But he had to adjust.
“A lot of kids will grow up dreaming of playing in the NFL,” Richardson said.
But many don’t make it. He moved on and earned his master’s degree in higher education and worked in administrative positions at the University of Georgia and the University of North Carolina before returning to Penn State.
D.J. Mapes, who co-founded the local alumni chapter, which covers Northumberland, Union and Snyder counties, is proud of what it has become.
“I and three other guys founded it,” he said, adding two have since died and one moved to Naples, Fla.
“We built it into a nice thing,” Mapes said.
The Daily Item. Reprinted with permission.