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70 years of polka joy: John ‘Stanky’ Stankovic of Nanticoke is still performing

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Dallas Elementary School receives $75,000 to replace ventilation/heating classroom units

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; The stories are sad.</p><p>Whether it be an 89-year-old grandfather, a rising high school academic or athletic star, or an unborn child, any death as a result of drinking and driving is sad.</p><p>Yet these tragedies continue. People, for whatever reasons, drink and drive. And they kill, or are killed. It happens much too often.</p><p>The statistics are, no pun intended, staggering. Some 330 drunk driving-connected deaths were recorded in Pennsylvania in 2014, according to Joseph Swortz, Luzerne County&#8217;s DUI coordinator.</p><p>Swortz was on Public Square Thursday for a presentation in front of the DUI Victims Moving Memorial, which carries 1,000 names &#8212; a small sampling &#8212; of people killed as a result of drunk drivers.</p><p>Three local police departments were honored for their work in trying to reduce those numbers: Wilkes-Barre City, Wright Township and Hanover Township. PennDOT and the Northeast Highway Safety Program representatives also attended the ceremony.</p><p>The memorial made its stop to remind the public of the dangers of drinking and driving and to celebrate safely this Thanksgiving holiday season and beyond.</p><p>When Swortz asked if there were any family members in attendance who have lost a loved one to a drunk driving incident, one woman raised her hand. Jacquie Sheehey, a native of Pittsburgh now living in North Carolina, was there to honor the memory of her nephew, Dustin Church, who was 18 years old when he was killed in a drunk driving accident 11 years ago in Connecticut.</p><p>Jacquie works for Smart Start, a company that provides ignition interlocks for vehicles to separate drinking from driving, as well as portable alcohol monitoring devices.</p><p>Dustin was the son of Colleen Sheehey-Church, the national president of MADD &#8212; Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He drowned after the car he was riding in, driven by a teen with alcohol and drugs in her system, crashed into a river, trapping Dustin in the vehicle.</p><p>So Jacquie and her sister-in-law (Colleen) are doing what they can to reduce those tragic numbers.</p><p>&#8220;The answer is really quite simple,&#8221; Jacquie told me. &#8220;Don&#8217;t drink and drive.&#8221;</p><p>If it were only that simple. Solutions to problems like drinking and driving never come easy. Jacquie said stronger laws are needed to punish offenders. She noted many found guilty of DUI tend to do it again and again and again.</p><p>Jacquie said awareness needs to be increased as well. That&#8217;s why media outlets are covering events like the one held Thursday on Public Square.</p><p>Then there is the third component to attacking the problem &#8212; responsibility.</p><p>Jacquie told me more than 10,000 people die each year in drunk driving-related incidents and another 300,000 incur serious injuries.</p><p>As Jacquie said, we need to find a way to separate drinking from driving.</p><p>&#8220;Yes, go out and have a couple of drinks, but please don&#8217;t drive,&#8221; she said. You could hear the passion in her voice.</p><p>Jacquie and Colleen have experienced the loss. They realize what has been lost. They will never have the memories of Dustin that he would have provided throughout his lifetime.</p><p>As Swortz said during the ceremony, every person who has died in alcohol-related accidents was someone&#8217;s son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father.</p><p>Responsibility has to come from all of us. We have to not drink and drive. Servers have to cut off visibly intoxicated customers. Designated drivers need to be utilized.</p><p>There should be no excuse for anyone to drive drunk. The existing laws need to be strictly enforced. New, tougher laws with more severe penalties need to be enacted.</p><p>Far too many lives have been snuffed out due to alcohol or drug-related accidents &#8212; lives that had much more living to do, lives taken away from families and friends, living taken away from victims.</p><p>Staring at those names inside the traveling memorial was, again no pun intended, sobering.</p><p>I didn&#8217;t recognize any names on the memorial, yet I can&#8217;t help but feel compassion for them and those they left behind.</p><p>All are gone because of someone else&#8217;s poor decision.</p><p>Let&#8217;s listen to those voices we can no longer hear and do our best to stop the tragedies from happening.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Bill O&#8217;Boyle </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_Columnshot-1-6.jpg</photo0><caption0>Bill O&#8217;Boyle </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_TTL111715DUI2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Students from Coughlin High School&#8217;s SADD program tour the DUI Moving Memorial parked on Public Square Thursday afternoon. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_TTL111715DUI2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Students from Coughlin High School&#8217;s SADD program tour the DUI Moving Memorial parked on Public Square Thursday afternoon. </caption1><photoCredit1>Clark Van Orden | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>No excuse for drunk driving</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Bill O&#8217;Boyle</p><p>boboyle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Bill O&#8217;Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

IN FOCUS: Listen to the voices you can no longer hear