The Times Leader from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania • 29

12G The Times Leader, Wilkes-Borre, PA, Sunday, August 14, 1988 SCRANTON A down and dirty job: 0 SLOPE 4t men who lead tunnel-tours The By BARBARA SIARKIEVICZ U--jjmi 'iWnuqiiEi mi -N-i i -T yvo' ir Times leader Correspondent SCRANTON Long hours and dark, damp tunnels. Hard work and cramped quarters. Such was the life of a coal miner. The Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour pays tribute to those who lived that.difficult life. Once the clogged vein Slope No.

190 of the Moffitt Coal the mine tour brings to life the world of mining for thousands of visitors "When the people go down they have a different picture of the mines altogether from what they read or see in the movies. 19 Tom Supey Sr. Occasional tour guide A each year. Led by for jer miners, thousands of tourists le alrail car one-f iith of a mile each yearj the mine. Then, 250 feet undergro below the 1 fth's surface, they embark on a If TIMES LEADER JACK STEBUNSKI Mine tour guide Roger down into the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour.

Beatjy READY TO GUIDE as a miner. He describes an incident in which he was part of a crew drilling a 36-inch abscess hole into which water was being pumped to wash away drill shavings. The holelecame blocked and the men had to go down to the bottom to unblock it. Beatty says the water was supposed to have been shut off but wasn't, and the pressure washed Tom Supey who weighs about 200 pounds, about 60 feet down the chamber. "It was the longest 10 seconds of my life." Beatty says.

Now a history teacher, Beatty says, "It's nice to be able to show people the heritage of the valley." Bob Baldeck, a former salt miner with an international salt company, agrees. "I enjoyed it very much," he says. As a tour guide at the mines, JJaldeck finds "the mining activity in itself is very, very fascinating." The the heritage and life cycles of these miners," he says. Baldeck's experience in the salt mines is valuable because he says there are many similarities in method. "Many of the situations that occur in salt are also typical in coal fields which I think gives depth to the tour activity." The restoration project began in 1978, Beatty stands by the car used to transport tourists worked his way through college as a miner.

walking tour through several of the veins of the abandoned mines. Using their vast knowledge of mines and mining, the guides try to give their tour groups a sense of what a working mine was really like. "When the people go down they have a different picture of the mines altogether from what they read or see in the movies," says Tom Supey a hoist operator and occasional tour guide at the mine. "A lot of people are scared to go down." Supey has worked in many mines throughout the area over the past 40 years and till works as a part-time miner in the Hazleton area. One of the things that visitors to the mine find difficult to comprehend, Supey says, is the depth of the mine.

"They can't believe they're walking under 250 feet of rock." Experience as a miner helps the tour guide answer questions and provide visitors with more detail. But seldom do they relay their own personal experiences to the tour groups. "Once in a while we stick in our own experiences, the things that scared me when I worked in the mines, or the things that could happen and did happen," says Roger Beatty, a tour guide who worked his way through -college- in the mine, and an exhiblt'hall featuring photographs and mining tools were constructed at the visitors' center where a souvenir shop and snack bar are also located. The Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour, which has won several awards, including the 1987 Take Pride In Pennsylvania competition, is located in McDade Park adjacent to the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum. It's open to the general public from May to' October.

Operating hours are 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.. Tuesday through Sunday, Tours are given at approximately 45-minute intervals. according to Supey, who, along with his sons Tom Jr. and Andy, wasjnyolyed in the construction.

After being abandoned by the Lackawanna County administration, the project was finished in 1 985 largely through the efforts of current county commissioners Joseph Corcoran and Ray Alberigi. says Barbara c. Colangelb, sales manager at the coal mining tour. Earlier this year, a number of improvements were made at the site. Statues of miners depicting their work situations were installed Japanese The Times Leader rv students visit area VV Citf Special Section THURSDAY, ACik'V AUGUST 1 8th SCRANTON Thirteen high school students frorri Japan received a taste of American life recently during a two-week visit to the city as part of the Marywood College Gillet School International Program.

The students, from Shoe! High School, an all-boys school In Tsurga. Japan, completed their stay after taking an English-language course at Marywood. In addition to classroom activities, the students visited city hall and met Scranton Mayor David Wenzel. They presented the mayor with a hand-crafted, lacquered plate and chopsticks as a present from Japan. While this was their first trip to the United States, the boys have been studying English grammar in Japan.

The young men also enjoyed several area attractions during their visit, such as canoeing at Lackawanna State Park and riding the alpine chair lift at Montage. Sr. Loretta Mulry, IHM, dean of Marywood's Gillet School and director of the program, said the main purpose of the trip was to introduce the students to American culture. Loretta gave a party for the young men and invited girls participating in "Pathways," another Gillet school-sponsored program. The social event gave the boys an opportunity tq meet American high school girls from area communities and other Eastern seaboard cities.

The Pathways program enables students to visit the Marywood campus while taking college courses for credit. The trip concluded with a farewell dinner at a locaKJapa-nese restaurant. "My favorite parts of thetrip were eating American learning to speak English, meeting American kids my own age and taking picture of my new friends," said student Takuma Shimono. Shimono said upon graduating high school he would like to attend Marywood to study international business. Owner of business is fined $120,000 SCRANTON A Lackawanna County Common Pleas Court Judge has ordered the owner of a Northeastern Pennsylvania modular- and mobile-home business to pay nearly $120,000 in consumer restitution and civil penalties.

Judge S. John Cottone ruled that John Urban, owner of Endless. Mountain Manufactured Housing, of Clifford, Susquehanna County, violated the state's Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law..