This happy reboot of the Mt. Morris Community Center began early one April morning in 2023. That’s when Candy Lohiser, newly retired from 47 years with Greer Industries in Morgantown, stopped by Jeanne’s Garage for a tire rotation.
“I had a book with me and thought I’d walk across the road to the Center and read while I waited,” she told me when I called. “But when I got there, the door was locked. I finally found a rickety picnic bench outside and dragged it around so I could sit, but I was surprised. I remember the place used to be so active.”
Puzzled, Lohiser decided to call Perry Township Supervisor Frank Basile. “I’ve known Frankie since he was a kid, so I asked him what’s up. And he told me the Center was now only open on Wednesday, for coffee and lunch with Blueprints. I knew Covid had stopped a lot of the activities we used to have, like line dancing and exercising, and people weren’t coming back on their own. So I said to myself—’well let’s make it grow!’ There’s so much we could do in this building. I knew I couldn’t do it by myself, so I called Mark Kesner. We worked together for years at the Sportsman’s Club and he knows people who could help us get it going again. I knew he’d just retired like me, so….”
When I reached out to Kesner, happily retired and managing farms with “Lots of cattle all over the place,” he laughed. “I remember that phone call!”
Kesner, a 1976 grad like Lohiser, told me he took a job at Greene County Memorial Hospital right out of high school and earned his college degree at Penn State University, “thanks to my employer.” Because of the way people have helped him, he admits he isn’t shy about giving back to the community through his faith. “I’m a volunteer. And any time I get involved, I put action into intention. We all need to do our share. Ask and you shall receive.”
For Kesner, getting involved in the reboot meant laying the groundwork – filing for a 501c3 and EIN number, researching the name “back a hundred years” to make sure it could be legally used, getting separate insurance for the new nonprofit, then mailing out and handing out surveys to everyone in town and beyond asking for ideas,and holding public meetings. There were also holiday community projects to complete as they came up, taken on by the people who came to meetings and stayed to do the work and have the fun.
“September will be our first anniversary of the Mt. Morris Community Center and we’re planning to have an open house to let the community see what we’ve done and will continue to do to grow this place,” Kesner told me. “We’re all about making people feel welcome. Please come visit us!”
The best day to visit the Mt Morris Community Center is still every Wednesday for lunch. Volunteers arrive around 8 a.m. They put on the coffee and set out snacks and fruit for the retired and not so retired men about town who come to hang out, shoot the breeze and share the talk of the town.
Sometime around 10 a.m. many will disappear, then reappear for lunch with their wives. When I got there, it was almost 8:30 a.m. and every corner of the long front room was already into something. Deep discussions punctuated by chuckles were going on at the front table. Heads were bent over a wild array of puzzles over there. Folks were chatting on couches and morning light was making halos around the hanging plants in the windows. I headed for the coffee bar and grabbed a muffin.
The old Mt. Morris high school that graduated its last class in 1962, owes its first reboot to Albert Clyde Ammons (1917- 1997). After retiring from a successful business installing local TV cable access, Ammons put up the initial funds and got a slew of his friends and associates together to do the renovations that turned his alma mater into a community space in the 1990s. Son Albert “Bub” tells me, “My dad wanted a place where his old friends could get together. It was his way of giving back. He graduated here in 1936 with honors and I still have his class ring. He was a good man, and he taught me a lot.” Tributes to Ammon’s good work still hang on the wall: a 1993 Humanitarian Award Ammons received for his leadership role in “turning a 70-year-old former four room high school building into a modern senior center” along with a saw signed by everyone who helped make it happen.
Owned and maintained by Perry Township, this classic yellow brick school building from the 1920s is open to the public for morning coffee klatches, senior lunches, a community library, a place to vote and host events, meetings, book clubs and classes. The playground outside is always ready and waiting for kids to shoot hoops and have fun.
“We’ve been getting donations of balls and toys and the hoops are being used by the teens,” Lohiser noted. “We keep a toy box outside for chalk and Frisbees and the neighborhood kids look after it. Neighbors keep donating balls and watching the kids play. It’s amazing!”
Framed photos and prints on the walls inside celebrate the Mt. Morris glory days of well derricks in every backyard and the excitement of the fairgrounds and racetrack that used to be just outside of town.
One of the four rooms still has the old hardwood floors of the original school. It’s where the community votes and Bowlby Library collaborates with the Center to maintain a library for adults and children.
Penn State Master Gardeners bedded in the native wildflowers, annuals and perennials that border the building, with a little help from the neighborhood.
“When it got so dry I was down there every day watering,” Lohiser said. “Everything is looking so good this year.” The Wednesday senior lunch crowd is growing as the word gets out and more stop by to deliver meals for the homebound. Others stay for the $2 donation lunch supplied by Blueprints and cooked up every Wednesday by Center volunteer chef Karol Koast. Retired Coastguard veteran Vickii Lawson leads a prayer group with a focus on fellowship at 11 a.m., lunch is served at 11:30 a.m. and socializing goes on until at least 2 p.m. “We have people coming from Sabraton and Westover because they like what we’re doing here,” Lohiser said. “We’re 13 miles from Waynesburg and 12 miles from Morgantown, so it’s an easy drive either way.”
Another season of activities that kicked off last September will begin again with the first anniversary Open House, scheduled for September 22.
Events posted on the Mt Morris Community Center Facebook page are updated weekly, including Line Dancing with Patty Lemon every Monday at 6 p.m. followed by $5 Drum Cardio with Miranda Chapman. This fall, crochet, knitting and craft classes will hopefully return, along with whatever other activity the community can coordinate. Local Gospel singer Candy Baker Mayle played for a Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser for the center on June 21 and “We can’t wait to have her back,” Lohiser said. “We’re thinking about serving dinners on Friday nights – that’s one of the ideas that came up at our monthly meetings.”
Old favorites like cakewalks, evening get-togethers and book clubs, holiday parties, cookie decorating classes and bus tours are all on the table or in the works. “Our next trip is Pirates Baseball versus the Royals, with Fireworks on Friday September 13. Our Amish Sampler Trip to Holmes County Ohio is Oct. 5 and Old Fashioned Christmas with 200 vendors in the woods in Columbiana, Ohio is October 20. The nice thing is the bus will stop in Mt. Morris and Waynesburg too.” For more information, call Debbie Copeland 304-680-2138.