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s e r v i n g m i d va l l e y & u p pe r l ac k awa n n a va l l e y thevalleyadvantage.com | February 3, 2017
The Saint Ubaldo Society will hold its annual ‘Carnevale’ |Page 3
A local business makes contributions to area fire companies |Page 4
Scenes from this year’s Snowflake gala charity event |Page 6
Still rooting for the BearS Blakely High School spirit still strong by Christopher Cornell Advantage editor
The days of Blakely High School ended in 1969 and the school itself was destroyed by a fire in 1971. All that’s left is memories. But there are still some “Blakely bears”
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who want to keep those memories alive. Reunions are held regularly and the Blakely High Papa Bears Club meets once a month at the Shopa-Davey Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 6082, 123 Electric St., Peckville. (The next meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 7 p.m.) Another proud Blakely grad is local businessman Ken Stefin, who owns and runs Mr. Kennth’s beauty salon on Main Street in Peckville. Stefin had an artistic ability even back in high school, when he created lifesize drawings of the fearsome Blakely bear mascot for the football team to jump through. “The players really liked them,” he recalled. Stefin and the school mascot were actually one and the same for a while: “I got talked into wearing the mascot costume in my senior year,” he said, laughing. “And it actually was a lot of fun. We used to march down the street to the games and I remember we gave out lollipops to the kids.” It was that memory — and the approach of his high school reunion — that recently prompted him to get out a drawing pad and pencil and sketch his alma mater’s mascot once again. Stefin has had some training to back up his natural ability. “I took some art classes in the area before deciding to go to beauty school,” he said. “And I sold paintings while I was in school. The art classes I took about the human form were actually helpful in beauty school. You need to know bone structres when you’re doing hair and makeup.” The sketch (see image) took about four
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hours to complete and it even has a little secret. “I’m a big fan of the work of Broadway caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who was famous for hiding things — especially the name of his daughter, Nina — in his drawings. So there are couple Kens in there,” he said, laughing. “So my love of Broadway has been brought in a little bit too.” Stefin has been a member of the honorary committee of the annual New Dramatists luncheon in New York. “I brought the sketch with me to my class reunion last summer,” he said, “and got a lot of positive reaction. And somebody said: ‘You know, you should really put that on a T-shirt.’” It wasn’t something that had occurred to him, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked it, as a way of keeping the Blakely High School spirit alive. “We don’t want the next generation not remembering who the bears are,” he said. “I want to keep the Blakely bear spirit alive.” And now Mr. Kenneth has another line
Ken Stefin shows off his new T-shirts.
of products: T-shirts are now on sale at Stefin’s salon. “If the shirts sell, I hope to be able to share some funds with the Papa Bears Club,” Stefin said. Meanwhile, Club members are overseeing the final touches that will surround the statue of beloved football coach football coach John “Papa Bear” Henzes, that in 2014 was moved to its new home in front of the Valley View football stadium. An inscribed bench and decorative lighting are planned.