A1 Front Page

VOL. 136 — NO. 32

THURSDAY,DECEMBER 25, 2014

75 CENTS

LOUIS ZAMPERINI

[L-V photo by Evanne Gareis]

WITH THE NEW highly buzzed about film, “Unbroken,” set

to hit theaters Christ-mas Day, Redbank Township residents

Jim (right) and Joanne Zamperini shared

their personal connec-tion to the story. Jim is a second cousin of Olympic runner and

World War II hero Lou-is Zamperini, whose

life is chronicled in the Angelina Jolie-directed

film based on a book of the same name.

[L-V photo by Josh Walzak]THE SOUNDS OF Christmas were in the air last week as Redbank Valley Primary School kinder-gartners went caroling in down-town New Bethlehem. The sing-ing students offered up their first

carols around the community Christmas Tree near Wood Street before making stops at Broad-wood Towers, the post office and other places in town.

[L-V photo by Evanne Gareis]

FOUR-YEAR-OLD Lucas Short of Rimers-burg bent Santa’s ear as the New Bethle-hem Festival of Trees wrapped up its three-weekend event at the former Family Dollar storefront located in the plaza.

By EVANNE GAREISL-V Staff Writer

NEW BETHLEHEM – When the new movie, “Un-broken,” hits theaters on Christmas Day, some local residents will be watching with special interest.

A highly buzzed about film, “Unbroken” — which marks the directional de-but of Hollywood A-lister Angelina Jolie — is based on the same-titled best-selling book by Laura Hil-lenbrand, chronicling the life of Olympian and World War II hero Louis Zam-perini.

Louis’ parents, Anthony and Louise (Dossi) Zam-perini, emigrated from It-aly to the United States in approximately 1889, and settled in Berndale, near St. Marys, where Anthony and his brothers worked in a coal mine.

Anthony and Louise moved to the local village of Seminole before leaving for Olean, N.Y. where Lou-is was born on Jan. 26,

1917 as the second of four children to the couple. A short time later, the fam-ily moved from New York to California where Louis spent the rest of his child-hood.

According to an article published in The Leader-Vindicator in June 1969, the only time Louis visited

the Seminole area was in 1937 when he was travel-ing home to California. Af-ter stopping in New Kens-ington to visit family, Louis made his way to Seminole for what he reportedly de-

‘Unbroken’ hero has local roots

[Continued on Page A-2]

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

NEW BETHLEHEM – Efforts were already un-derway among New Beth-lehem Borough, the J.M. Smucker peanut butter plant and PennDOT to im-prove directional signage to the local factory when a tractor trailer truck hit and became lodged be-neath the old railroad overpass on Keck Avenue recently.

Borough officials said last week that the driver of a truck making a deliv-ery to the Smucker’s plant around 4 a.m. on Dec. 12 opted to go north on Keck

Avenue to access the fac-tory, instead of using Penn Street.

Council president San-dy Mateer said that the borough and Smucker’s had already been working together for some time to convince PennDOT that better signage was needed when the latest incident occurred.

“We’ve been work-ing with Smucker’s for months, who has been working with [borough zoning officer] Dee Bell and PennDOT to get signs up to direct truckers to the plant,” Mateer said. “Trucks have been follow-

Sign solutionsought for trucks in NB

[Continued on Page A-5]

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

KITTANNING – Spend-ing is on the rise for Arm-strong County in 2015, but property tax rates won’t be going up for local resi-dents.

On Thursday, county officials gave formal ap-proval to the $20.7 million budget, as well as to tax rates that will remain at 17.5 mills in the new year.

“We really worked to

make sure every penny is accounted for,” commis-sioner Dave Battaglia said after he and fellow com-missioners Bob Bower and Rich Fink unanimously voted for the spending plan. Battaglia said that a number of requests from county departments had to be denied to keep spend-ing in line with revenues.

The budget shows cost increasing totaling more than $1.3 million from 2014 to 2015; however, the

extra expenses will be off-set by a projected increase in revenue as well as a shift in a half-mill of taxes from the county’s debt ser-vice to its general fund.

Carly Cowan, the coun-ty’s financial advisor, said that there were some “slight” changes from the county’s preliminary bud-get to the final budget.

“It actually decreased by about $105,000,” she said of last-minute spend-

Armstrong trims costs, maintains tax rates

[Continued on Page A-3]

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

RIMERSBURG – Rim-ersburg officials gave for-mal adoption to the bor-ough 2015 budget, and took care of a couple of other items, during a short special year-end meeting last Thursday night.

The final budget that was approved by a unanimous vote, was not changed from the preliminary bud-get the council adopted earlier in the month.

The budget maintains tax levels despite a projec-tion of rising costs in the new year.

After several months

Rmbg. green- lights budget

[Continued on Page A-7]

The time for planning and preparations is over, as we begin the celebra-tions of Christmas today, on Christmas Eve.

From all of us at The Leader-Vindicator, we wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas!

* * *

Due to the Christmas holiday, The L-V office will be closed tomorrow (Dec. 25). We will be open on Fri-day, Dec. 26.[Continued on Page A-6]

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