Sunday News from Lancaster, Pennsylvania • 15

I SUNDAYNEWS Seri ion JANUARY 2, '2003 A. TV TV IVntlV FOR THOUGHT UCity irstamant i nsjied ions B2 Police, fne log B4 Contact the Editors Maw Adams, 29I-N7SS Gil Smart, 291-SS17 mada lnpnnes, aim www.lancasteronline.coin vy Gil Smart Helen Colwell Adams Warwick crowd likes idea of challengi ng Arlen Specter. Smari Remarks mary. "Ourcommonwealth has one great senator ho is committed to the principles of our party, oo-mey said Saturday. "But we deserve two and thats why Im seriously considering running for the Senate.

You could bet the ranch that Toomey wasnt classifying Specter as the great one. Judging from the standing ovation Toomey got, a roomful of Lancaster County Republicans are ready to be bold, too. Please see POLITICS, page B7 Political Amlls Suffer the women and children Congressman Pat Toomey uses vanations on the word "bold frequently. As in We should boldly advance and boldly confront this war on terrorism. Politically, Toomey is thinking about doing something bold him- self.

As challenging Pennsylvanias senior senator, Arlen Specter, in next years Republican pri Congressman Pat Toomey Last week in the Atlantic Monthly I came upon a review of G. Sebalds On the Natural History of Destruction, on the final days of Berlin as the Red Army bulled its way into the city in 1945 A similar book, Antony Beevors "The Fall of Berlm, 1945, was referenced in the piece. On Amazon com I read a few pages of the exerpt and was transfixed. These are accounts of human misery, the likes of which have been borne by civilian populations caught amidst war for millennia. Though, of course, the bombing of World War II was unparalleled, and the behavior of the Russians, gruesome as it was, was no worse than the atrocities of the Nazis themselves.

I wonder what it must have been like to have lived such close proximity to war, to have tasted it and felt it and breathed it and been confronted with its sights, day after day. Horrible things best erased from the memory, lest they drive you mad. These are the things which tell us, those who have not expenenced them, what war is really about. And I suppose I see parallels here and with what were about to do Iraq. Because for the past few weeks, on the Associated Press photo wire, Ive seen picture Please see SMART, page B8 Jack Leona rdSiNDAv News Dr.

Jack Fischel directs the Holocaust Conference at Millersville University. At Millersville, professor Jack Fischels interest in civil rights movement led him to delve into the Holocaust and his own heritage. Now hes history after retiring. IU autism The following is a look back at local news events during the past week. SUNDAY Jan.

19 It was learned that two Lancaster men had drowned in the Chesapeake Bay while hunting Jan. 17. The body of Adam M. Miller, 25, Elizabethtown, was recovered Saturday. Searchers were still seeking the body of Michael A.

Jones, 27, Marietta. The region remained in its coldest stretch in seven years, with overnight temperatures falling into the single digits. Thursdays high of only 17 for heat that broke the record for electrical usebyPPLcustomers. MONDAY Jan. 20 Clarence R.

Karr, 72, Drumore, was killed in a two-vehicle collision on Truce Road in Providence Township. TUESDAY Jan. 21 Ed Rendell was sworn in as the 45th governor of Pennsylvania ceremonies at Harrisburg. Eighteen-year-old Michael Bourgeois testified that it was Ms idea, not that of Ms 35-year-old lover, Drenea Rodriguez, to kill Ms mother, Lucy Smith, and her husband, Terry Smith, in September 2001. Bourgeois told how he tried to kill his mother with a hammer, but testified that Landon May, who has been sentenced to death, cut their throats.

Rodriguez is on trial on two counts of homicide. A verdict is expected from Judge Lawrence F. Stengel on Monday. Ric Curry was unanimously approved as assistant superintendent of the School District of Lancaster. He is expected to take the top job when superintendent Vicki Phillips leaves to become state secretary of education.

WEDNESDAY Jan. 22 Lancaster County Racquetball and Health Club on Millersville Pike was damaged by heavy smoke from a fire that apparently started in a lighting fixture. Damages were put at $500,000. Five people needed treatment for smoke inhalation. THURSDAY Jan.

23 HomerS. Sam Baker was killed by smoke inhalation when fire started in a bedroom at Ms apartment in the 100 block of East Liberty Street. He was 25. It was reported that the mother of 10-year-old Leonda Washington, who was mauled by a police dog last summer, has filed a lawsuit against the city, police force and the company that trained the dog, stating that some of the girls injuries are permanent. She FRIDAY Jan.

24 The cost of a renovated Lancaster Square was put at $29.3 million. A meeting wall be held at 5.30p.m. Monday in Southern Market Center to show the final plan. on i ence in Philadelphia, he and a colleague, Dr. Reynold Koppel, were inspired to organize a similar event.

We tried it at MU, said Fischel, who also went on to write books and articles on the Holocaust. It was so successful we brought it back fora second year. Now in its 23rd year, the Holocaust Conference held at Millersville each April has become internationally known. It has attracted luminaries such as Nazi hunter Elie Wiesel and Melissa Muller, an Anne Frank biographer. In 2002, the conference tackled its thorniest Please see HISTORY, page B5 history course at the former Jewish Community Center on East King Street.

Larry Pallas, the director of the center at that time, challenged him to teach something even closer to home. So Fischel introduced a course on modem Jewish history. For the first tune in his life, he was focusing on his own ethnic background. I was one of those people who was not that close to my roots, he said. I knew nothing about the Holocaust before I came to Mill-ersville.

He continued to learn more about the topic. In 1980, after attending a Holocaust confer By Jon Rutter Sunday News Staff Writer jrutterlnpnews.com It was the racial turmoils of another people that finally led Dr. Jack Fischel to explore his own heritage. As a young college professor, Fischel, who retired Jan. 10 from the Millersville University history department, was riveted by the civil rights movement.

I got caught up in the tumult, recalled Fischel, who jomed the Millersville State College faculty in 1965. In Lancaster, he began an African-American Final curtain call for Synodinos Academic, civic and culturalgiant remembered at memorial service. program pleases parents MariaCoole Sunday News Staff Writer memieMnpnews.com Bill Davis is outspoken. And when it comes to autism, the man who literally has autism tattooed on his chest is a walking billboard not to mention an advocate and cntic. Davis son, Chris, 9, has autism, and Davis and his wife, Jae, have been the forefront of expanding the awareness of autism Lancaster County.

Davis is also the author of two books on autism. Over the past several years, Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13 has been the topic of much of Da vis criticism Davis has criticized what he saw as the lack of training, insensitivity to the needs of the students, lack of communication and more. But since IU-13s new Autism Support Program, which includes a team of five professionals with years of experience with autism, began in the fall, Davis sounds like a different person. He has nothing but praise for IU-13. They have been absolutely wonderful.

They are intelligent, open-minded, are llling to look at the situation. Them opmions are not formed hen they alk m. Rich Barbour has been wonderful, Davis said. Barbour, the supervisor of the new program, is pleased with the praise, but takes it in stride. The attention and profession-Piease see AUTISM, page B6 Firetruck on way to Moldova finally ByPailaWolf Sunday News Staff Wnter pwolfSlnpnews com After several fits and starts, it looks like Cross Links efforts to supply the Moldovan capital of Chisinau with the well-equipped firetruck it so desperately needs are finally going to reach fruition.

Cross Links, based in Akron, sends humanitarian aid to Eastern European countries. This past summer, the agency purchased a 1961 firetruck, with an 85-foot aerial ladder, from Liberty Fire New Holland, after the department bought a new ladder truck. Paid for with donations, the old firetruck as driven to North Carolina and then sent to New York City September in preparation Please see FIRETRUCK. page B5 I the U.S. Army, stationed in Germany the years following World War II.

He even picked the date for his memorial service. He asked his family and friends to let 30 days pass before they came together to celebrate his life. He wanted the veil of grief to begin to fall aw ay, so the joy of his life could emerge, said LVC president Dr. David Pollick. Synodinos (pronounced sin-o-dee-nus) was the son of Greek parents who ran restaurants and a linen supply company in Baltimore.

He met his wife, Glenda, when he was a student at Loyola College in Baltimore and she was a coed at nearby Tow son State (now Tow son University). My mother couldnt spell my new last name for the first 10 years of our marriage, said Glenda Synodinos with a wry smile. The couple had been married for 43 years hen Synodinos died at Hershey Medical Center on Dec. 26, 2002, at the age of 68. About 700 friends and family members gathered to remember the person former President Richard Kneedler described Please see SYNODINOS, page B8 By Marty Crisp Sunday News StaffWnler mcnsplnpnews.com The late John Synodinos spoke at his own memorial service Saturday at the Miller Chapel of Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Lebanon County.

It didnt come as a surprise to the people who knew him well. The past LVC president and Franklin Marshall College vice president as a planner. He picked his own burial plot in Mount Annville Cemetery on a hill overlooking LVCs campus, the campus here hed more than doubled enrollment and given the place a facelift during his eight years as president He picked his favorite music, Violin Concerto in Minor, Opus 47, plaved by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (on tape) for the service he knew John Synodinos, former Lebanon Valley College president and Franklin Marshall College vice president, died Dec. 26. was coming after he was diagnosed with Sezarys Syndrome last year, a type of cancer so rare that his doctors at Hershey Medical Center had never before seen it He spoke on tape, commenting on the way he first heard the stirring music by Jean Sibelius, back when he was a corporal in 1 ij.