An Oklahoma teacher is seeking help from teachers in Jim Thorpe to compete in the Kids Creating Community Content contest.

“This year, one of our chosen topics is Oklahoma Native American Jim Thorpe,” said Tammy Parks, a multimedia/broadcast journalism teacher at Howe Public School in Howe, Oklahoma. “We are looking for collaborators specifically from Lawrence, Kansas; Carlisle, Pennsylvania; and Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

“For the past three years, my students have created virtual field trips as part of the Kids Creating Community Content Contest sponsored by the Center for Interactive Learning,” she said. Her school received third and fourth places in 2009, and first and second places in 2010.

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The borough of Jim Thorpe won’t be surrendering the body of the famed athlete for whom the municipality was named without putting up a fight.

Two documents have been filed in U.S. District Court, Scranton, in response to a lawsuit initiated by Thorpe’s son, Jack Thorpe, who wants the athlete’s remains to be brought back and buried in Oklahoma.

Currently, the body is in a mausoleum along Route 903 in the borough.

The defending court actions were filed by attorney William G. Schwab & Associates, who is working pro bono on behalf of the borough, and attorney James R. Nanovic of Nanovic Law Offices, solicitor for Jim Thorpe borough.

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Orientation for students in kindergarten through eighth grade in the Jim Thorpe Area School District will be as follows:

L.B. Morris students

Orientation for seventh- and eighth-grade students planning to attend L.B. Morris will be held at the high school on Tuesday, Aug. 17 at 9:30 a.m.

Orientation for elementary students enrolling at L.B. Morris will be held at L.B. Morris on Wednesday, Aug. 18 at 9 a.m. for kindergarten; and at 1 p.m. for grades one through six.

Penn Kidder Campus students

Orientation for students enrolling at Penn Kidder Campus will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 18 at 10 a.m. for kindergarten; and at 1 p.m. for grades one through eight.

Jim Thorpe’s tourist-based economy saw a significant upswing in July as a series of factors came together to produce a perfect storm of positive coincidences.

One of the beneficiaries is Mike Guy of the Rainbow’s End Ice Cream shop in Jim Thorpe.

“We had our second biggest July in our 12 years,” Guy said. “Sales were up about 10 percent over last year.”

Paul Fogal of Pocono Whitewater also had a good July with whitewater release Saturdays filled, Sundays at 75 percent of capacity, and a float trip on nearly every weekday. He guesses that sales are up 5 to 10 percent over last year?

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AL ZAGOFSKY/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS Ed and Kristin Meckes, center, are excited about their two children Cheyenne, far left, and Cody, far right, claiming prizes for originality at the Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation's Art Marathon. Cody won a $75 prize for Most Original Overall, competing with amateur and professional artists, including several who came to the foundation from Philadelphia.

The historic district of Jim Thorpe, hidden amid mountains and largely isolated from the late-20th Century redevelopment, has in recent years, with its rugged landscape and ornate Victorian buildings, become a Mecca for talented, often quirky, artists.

But perhaps never so much as on Saturday, Aug. 7, at the Art Marathon, sponsored by the Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation. Noted for its shows of vintage abstract impressionist art, the foundation kicked “quirky” up a notch as it awarded a major prize to an artist that, under the guidelines, should have been too young to enter.

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The Old Jail Museum in Jim Thorpe hosted some landmark visitors as the total number of people who have now toured the historic lockup reached the quarter-million mark this past Saturday.

The arrival of four family members for the Old Jail tour took the museum past the 250,000 visitor threshold as they passed through its formidable fortress-like doors.

The four visitors were Joseph Romito and his son Joey from Wyndmoor; and his two grandsons Andrew and Michael Eisenhardt, both of Jim Thorpe.

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Two years ago, the Kemmerer Carriage House, located at the end of Kemmerer Park in Jim Thorpe, was on the verge of destruction.

Vandalism and the degradation of time had transformed the once beautiful structure into a health and safety hazard. The Jim Thorpe Borough Council was weeks away from demolishing the structure, when John Drury stepped in with a plan to save the building.

Drury, who is a local entrepreneur and preservationist, also sits on the board of the Kemmerer Memorial Park Association. When he learned of the borough’s plans to raze the Carriage House, he told the Kemmer Park Board that he was willing to put his own money toward securing the building.

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Maybe passenger train service will never equal its popularity of past generations, but a comeback from virtually dormancy has occurred. More people are hearing the familiar boarding wail of railroad conductors as they visit small passenger tourist lines across the nation and even abroad.

One needs only to visit Jim Thorpe any weekend between May and December to see the long lines of people waiting to board the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway to know how popular the trains have become.

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