The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 146

THI MORNING CAU, SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 1996 I 1 1 7, nn i Lj LJ Li SECTION I 1 X- i j'" I 1 en I By DENNIS KELLY Of The Morning Call Since Dean Young came to the Boys and Girls Club of Easton in the summer of 1981, the club has grown from a place full of kids who were good at basketball to a haven where kids also learn to be good at life. Young, who created Teen Summit, which drew 350 young people to Easton last September, is quick to point out he has lots of help from his staff and a volunteer board of directors that believes in what he's doing. But back in that summer of '81, he said, it wasn't fashionable or cool to even talk about education and building self-esteem in the Delaware Terrace projects where the club has been since 1974. In 1981, he was 22 and thought it would just be a summer job. But the thing that kept Hm ft i ED KOSKEY Jr.

The Morning Call olomon Fallon i HARRY FISHER The Morning Call ing face. At 33, Fallon is an apt advertisement for a company that is synonymous with style. "She brings to the business an education and sophistication that's new and is needed," said Fallon's father, Ray Holland. "She communicates well. She is very goal orientated, and she is much better organized than me.

I trust her judgment as much or more than I do my own." And while she may have been born with the key to the front door of the company in her bassinet, Fallon chose to enter through the back, gaining experience in her own chain of hair salons before joining Holiday, first as a consultant and later as director of advertising. No longer reticent about working for the family business, Fallon is plowing ahead full steam See FALLON Page D10 By KATHLEEN PARRISH Of The Morning Call Lesley Fallon made an unusual admission the other day during an interview at the Hilton Hotel in Allentown. "Sometimes it's hard to get a haircut," she confessed. Coming from any number of professional women, that wouldn't be an unusual comment, but Fallon is president of Holiday Hair, and 200 salons in six states are at her disposaL Access is not the problem time is. "I'm so busy," said Fallon, the' mother of a 3'2-year-old.

She re- cently assumed the helm of the Allentown-based company her father started in 1963. Her husband, Timothy, is executive vice president. Despite her hectic schedule, Fallon was impeccably coiffed, her chestnut brown hair cut short around her youthful-look Thomas By HAL MARCOVrrZ Of The Morning Call A true roller coaster enthusiast looks for more than just a wild ride: there is the sound of the coaster, the side-to-side bounce of the cars, even the pleasantly industrial odor of the wooden struts and steel rails. And that is why Thunder-hawk, the 75-year-old wooden roller coaster at Dorney Park, is still popular among riders, even though it is dwarfed by Steel Force, the year-old red steel behemoth that towers over it. "Part of the attraction of a wooden roller coaster is that it has more personality," explains Cliff Herring of Catasauqua, a member of American Coaster Enthusiasts, the national organization of roller coaster fans.

Thun-derhawk may be a lot smaller than Steel Force, but it's a different ride; there's a smell to the wood, a different feel to the ride." Part of that "feel" is born on i' I 8TTX i Lesley trigued by politics since he was a 10-year-old fascinated by the Watergate scandal. At Bethlehem Catholic High School, the staunch Democrat founded the Political Affairs Club with a Republican friend. Though the 5-foot-8 Solomon recalls being physically dwarfed as he debated his 6-foot-4 friend, he said he has never felt overmatched in a political arena. That towering friend state Sen. Joseph Uliana still occasionally finds himself in debate with his life-long friend.

"There is a point where politics and policy overlap," Uliana said of Solomon's new status. "You can have all the great ideas in the world, but you're not going to complete any of them if you don't have the political savvy to get them accepted. Mike's See SOLOMON Page D3 By MATT ASSAD Of The Morning Call As he admires the view from his fourth-floor office in the Northampton County Courthouse, Michael Solomon knows he stands at a crossroads. A political consultant for the past 12 years, Solomon has prided himself not only on getting candidates elected but also in helping them to construct their political platforms. However, this year he blurred the line separating campaign politics and public service when he engineered Northampton County Executive Glenn Reibman's defeat of incumbent Bill Brackbill and then stepped into Reibman's cabinet as acting director of planning and development.

The leap from a consultant into government is one seldom made in local politics, and one that made some members of Reibman's own Democratic party a little uneasy. But Solomon says it was the logical next step. "In the nearly 100 campaigns I've been involved in, I wasn't simply Mr. Goodwrench," Solomon said confidently. "I've given policy-making advice to judges, congressman, coroners, mayors, council candidates and county executives.

This is a natural outgrowth of that." The question that remains is this: Which path will Solomon chose to follow political strategy or public policy? Both appear to be on the incline. Solomon says he has been in-' MEOPLF An economy is made better by the contributions of individuals. Here are people The Morning Call has selected because their work in business, the arts or their communities makes our region rich. ED KOSKEY Jr. The Morning Call there for nearly 17 years was seeing a lot of himself among the young people who frequented the club.

He saw young people who didn't have access to educational resources, who needed strong role models and social opportunities like the ones afforded through the Boys and Girls Club. "I saw there was gt much more potential in them than they let people know about," Young said. "This was true of myself. I always enjoyed poetry, but never would have shared it as a child." Young uses poetry as a means of engaging club members in writing, memorization skills and self expression. Young, 38, became executive director of the club in 1986, but almost from the time he got there, he knew things had to change.

"I also realized there was going to be some resistance to change," he said. For guidance on how to change deep-seated negativity and complacency among the neighborhood youth and adults using the club, Young said he relied on what had been instilled in him by his father, the late Pastor Lee Young of Holy Faith Pentecostal Church, Bethlehem. His mother, Barbara Jean Young, is now pastor of the church, which was in Easton in the 1970s. "I had that moral code to fall back on. I wanted to share it.

I thought if I didn't share it, that would make me selfish," said See YOUNG PageD2 duced Rebbie, 42, and Dauphinee, 49, who at the time was managing East Coast operations for a Silicon Valley semiconductor company. Dauphinee, who was on the brink of an undesired transfer to California, had instead decided to look around for a new business venture. Dauphinee and Rebbie became partners, and today Rebbie is president and Dauphinee is chief executive officer. Rebbie says new wooden roller coasters are under construction at amusement parks in Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Alabama, Kentucky and California. In California, the new roller coaster is being built at Knott's Berry Farm, which was recently acquired by Cedar Fair parent of Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom.

Also, construction of wooden roller coasters is under Please See PARTNERS Page D4 Rebb illiam Dauphinei i i if I for a distance of less than an inch. That's what gives the rider a feeling of weightlessness as the car plummets down Thunder-hawk's 80-foot hilL "A car on a wooden roller coaster rides on top of the track much as a railroad car rides on top of a railroad track," says Thomas Rebbie, president of Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters. "The other two wheels don't hold the car in place as much as they guide the car along the track." Rebbie has been building cars for wooden roller coasters for 22 years. He joined the 96-year-old company in 1977 as a floor worker his first job was drilling holes in the chassis of roller coaster cars. By 1985, he had worked his way up to general manager and in 1991, Rebbie along with partner William Dauphinee bought the company from long-time owner Sam High who had elected to retire.

A mutual friend had intro the shop floor at Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters Inc. in Lansdale, the only company in the United States and one of three in the world that manufactures cars for wooden roller coasters. And that feel has a lot to do with the engineering for the cars. On steel coasters, the rails are cast in the shape of tubes. At each corner of each roller coaster car, you'll find a housing that includes three concave wheels that ride along three sides of the cylindrical tube.

The three wheels are in constant friction with the tube, enabling it to sail through loop-to-loops, corkscrews and high-banked curves. Cars for wooden roller coasters are different Again, each wheel housing contains three wheels, but it is not necessary for all three wheels to be in contact with the track at the same time. In fact most tracks are designed so that one or two wheels occasionally leave the rails albeit CATHERINE MEREDITH The Morning Cafl Rebbie, left and Dauphinee. owners of Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters in Lansdale, sit in one of their products..