Bus riders learn Jeopardy facts about Greencastle and Antrim
By PAT FRIDGEN Echo Pilot

Marq Foley of Waynesboro shows off the 'new' old barn at Allison-Antrim Museum to MarthaAnn Hollinger during the OHW bus tour.

Who knew?

The global impact of products manufactured in Antrim Township is one of the area's best kept secrets, at least to the general population.

Residents who took the Town and Township Tour last Monday and Tuesday as part of the Old Home Week festivities expressed amazement at the innovative products created right in their own backyards.

Fab Tech Industries, owned by Michael and Donna Kulpak, makes corrugated pipe, which people can see from the road. But that is just part of the business. They specialize in madeto order products, including a mounted ramp system installed on heavy-duty vehicles for use by Homeland Security and Port Authorities all over the world.

It is also the only company in the United States that outfits armored vehicles with unique equipment used by the military in Iraq and by state police for rescue operations.

"You didn't realize they did that in Greencastle, did you?" one visitor asked another.

Karen Horejs offers commentary and Kim Beard drives the bus for the Town and Township Tour during Old Home Week.

Jennifer Smitka from the marketing department of Manitowoc Crane Group dropped some startling facts as well. The Shady Grove plant extends a mile deep, from Route 16 to Burkholder Road. The company uses 500 tons of steel a week as it builds cranes shipped across the country and around the world.

And people who don't pay the parking meters in congested cities are no longer safe from towing. Jerr-Dan Corporation engineers refined a side-loader truck that can pull up alongside an offending vehicle, pick it up and head off to the tow pound. Marketing director Karen Seylar Amsley said the unit has been available for just two years.

The other tour stops were just as fascinating.

The Mason-Dixon Auto Auction attracts dealers and customers from the entire eastern seaboard, explained Wayne Singhas to the visitors. And the average sale is completed in one minute six seconds.

"Isn't it just chaos in here on a Tuesday night?" asked a woman.

Fab Tech employee Dustin Young assembles cable guides, destined for Grove Manufacturing, as Viola Plum and his grandfather Colin Beegle watch during the Town and Township Tour.

Singhas said the system is very organized and established to protect the buyer. Inventory on a given night might be 700 vehicles, and 40 to 50 percent of them will sell through the five bays.

The travelers, transported in Greencastle-Antrim School buses, also investigated the Greencastle Water Treatment Plant. Chief operator Thomas Green and Dale Wright were on hand to share information, and Robert Miller, Vice Chairman of the Greencastle Antrim Franklin County Water Authority, treated everyone to refreshing glasses of ice water.

Green said the plant uses one ton of salt a day. The facility is manned around the clock. The 1.6 million gallons of water treated daily come from the Greencastle reservoir via gravity flow and from Moss Spring by pump.

"I used to swim in the spring as a kid," said Bill Ryder. "It was cold."

Thomas Green explains operations of the Greencastle Water Treatment Plant to Old Home Week visitors.

The reconstructed German bank barn at the Allison-Antrim Museum was a popular draw. Citizens have been watching its progress since 2003. Marq Foley, member of AAMI, said many people who stopped in during the week all told him the same thing. In similar barns from their childhoods, the first thing they did each summer was to go to the loft and take down the wasp nests.

Cathy Crocella of Lemasters admired the old structure.

"This is the first Old Home Week I've ever been to. I like to be part of Greencastle. I enjoy learning about the history."

Tayamentasachta was also on the tour. The school farm is the site of an archeological dig during OHW.

Approximately 300 people took the tour of community points of interest. Ryder's grandson, Brayden McDonough, 12, Puyallup, Wash., learned about his forebears' homeland, but it wasn't the history that affected him the most that day.

"I've been to Greencastle a lot," he said. "I still can't get used to the humidity."

Despite a storm Thursday around midday, antique tractor owners shined up their vehicles and continued their display on Center Square.