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H.S. Boys Basketball: Nanticoke Area defeats GAR for WVC Division 2 championship

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Josh Groban to play Mohegan Sun Arena on June 16 with Jennifer Nettles

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; She broke each sugary, heart-shaped cookie in half, effectively turning them into &#8220;broken hearts,&#8221; and decorated her party space with crossed-out Cupids and pictures of candy hearts that proclaimed a ho-hum message: &#8220;meh.&#8221;</p><p>Then, just to make sure nobody mistook Wednesday evening&#8217;s Anti-Valentine&#8217;s Day Party for a frilly, flowery type of event, the Osterhout Free Library&#8217;s young adult librarian, Laura Harding, brought more than enough yarn, buttons, glue, paint and tiny cardboard figures for everyone in the Teen Night group to make a voodoo doll.</p><p>&#8220;Not everyone is lovey-dovey,&#8221; Harding said, explaining she thought &#8220;why not do something a little different&#8221; from the conventional Valentine&#8217;s Day party she held last year.</p><p>While Harding did supply pins for young crafters to add to the dolls, she explained she intended it to be a just-for-fun sort of activity, with &#8220;no ritual, no human hair, no having bad thoughts towards an ex-lover or ex-friend. Just something different.&#8221;</p><p>The project did seem to be an overall benign experience, with no vicious cries of &#8220;Take that!&#8221; directed toward any little figures.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m gonna make one for my girl,&#8221; said 17-year-old Eddie Karcheski, of Wilkes-Barre, carefully writing &#8220;love you&#8221; on a cardboard cutout.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m making mine look like H2O Delirious,&#8221; said 14-year-old Jaair Lowry, of Kingston, naming a You Tube gamer he admires. &#8220;He wears a hockey mask. I&#8217;ll make that with white paint.&#8221;</p><p>Over at the girls&#8217; table &#8212; yes, as the evening got under way, the teens did segregate themselves by gender &#8212; 13-year-old Skyler Stempien, of Plymouth, and 18-year-old Helen Campbell, of Wilkes-Barre, used yarn for clothes and mismatched buttons for eyes to give their dolls a distinctive look.</p><p>Twelve-year-old Avagail Yeger, meanwhile, admitted she was trying to make hers resemble someone she knows who &#8220;doesn&#8217;t say a simple hello; she just glares at me.&#8221;</p><p>While 11-year-old Jahlil Lowry and 14-year-old Kanye Currie settled in to play a video game and some late arrivals started their first project of the night, early arrivals who had finished their dolls moved on to another project &#8212; &#8220;defacing&#8221; pictures of romance-novel covers that Harding had downloaded.</p><p>&#8220;I looked for the most cliched ones I could find,&#8221; Harding said, pointing to pictures of men with lots of muscles and women with lots of windswept hair.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m making them both pirates,&#8221; Campbell said as she added eye patches and a shoulder-perching parrot to a couple locked in an embrace.</p><p>&#8220;I made this one look like Krusty the Clown,&#8221; Yeger said with a laugh.</p><p><strong>&#8216;All about loving&#8217;</strong></p><p>In at least a nod to conventional Valentine&#8217;s parties, Harding had supplied punch that happened to be red and pretzels that happened to be covered in chocolate.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a staple,&#8221; Campbell said of the chocolate.</p><p>&#8220;I used to think Valentine&#8217;s Day was all about chocolate,&#8221; Currie said. &#8220;Now I know it&#8217;s all about loving.&#8221;</p><p>Harding said the library&#8217;s Teen Night takes place every Wednesday, encompassing movies, crafts and educational programs on such topics as anti-bullying, suicide prevention and how to tell facts from fiction.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to get more people to see what we have here,&#8221; she said.</p><p>The 6 p.m. Feb. 20 meeting will include a picture-frame craft and the Feb. 27 meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. with the movie &#8220;Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The &#8216;voodoo doll&#8217; part of the Teen Night anti-Valentine party at the Osterhout Free Library on Wednesday evening was all in fun, as 14-year-old Jaair Lowry, of Kingston, proved by decorating a doll to look like a YouTube gamer he admires. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_anti1.jpg</photo0><caption0>The &#8216;voodoo doll&#8217; part of the Teen Night anti-Valentine party at the Osterhout Free Library on Wednesday evening was all in fun, as 14-year-old Jaair Lowry, of Kingston, proved by decorating a doll to look like a YouTube gamer he admires. </caption0><photoCredit0>Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_anti2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">&#8216;I&#8217;m making them both pirates,&#8217; Helen Campbell, 18, of Wilkes-Barre, said as she added eye patches and a parrot to a downloaded picture of a romance novel cover during the Osterhout Free Library&#8217;s Teen Night on Wednesday, which featured an anti-Valentine theme. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_anti2.jpg</photo1><caption1>&#8216;I&#8217;m making them both pirates,&#8217; Helen Campbell, 18, of Wilkes-Barre, said as she added eye patches and a parrot to a downloaded picture of a romance novel cover during the Osterhout Free Library&#8217;s Teen Night on Wednesday, which featured an anti-Valentine theme. </caption1><photoCredit1>Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_ttl021419antivalentines-3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Helen Campbell, 18, of Wilkes-Barre, for years a faithful participant in Osterhout Free Library Teen Night activities, adds pins to the &#8216;voodoo doll&#8217; she crafted during the teen group&#8217;s anti-Valentine party Wednesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_ttl021419antivalentines-3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Helen Campbell, 18, of Wilkes-Barre, for years a faithful participant in Osterhout Free Library Teen Night activities, adds pins to the &#8216;voodoo doll&#8217; she crafted during the teen group&#8217;s anti-Valentine party Wednesday. </caption2><photoCredit2>Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_ttl021419antivalentines-5.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">It was easy to create &#8216;broken heart&#8217; cookies, young adult librarian Laura Harding said, explaining she started with a package of heart-shaped cookies and broke each one in half. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_ttl021419antivalentines-5.jpg</photo3><caption3>It was easy to create &#8216;broken heart&#8217; cookies, young adult librarian Laura Harding said, explaining she started with a package of heart-shaped cookies and broke each one in half. </caption3><photoCredit3>Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader </photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_ttl021419antivalentines-4.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Helen Campbell, 18, of Wilkes-Barre, left, and Skyler Stempien, 13, of Plymoth, hold up the anti-Valentine voodoo dolls they made &#8216;just for fun&#8217; Wednesday at the Osterhout Free Library&#8217;s Teen Night. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_ttl021419antivalentines-4.jpg</photo4><caption4>Helen Campbell, 18, of Wilkes-Barre, left, and Skyler Stempien, 13, of Plymoth, hold up the anti-Valentine voodoo dolls they made &#8216;just for fun&#8217; Wednesday at the Osterhout Free Library&#8217;s Teen Night. </caption4><photoCredit4>Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader </photoCredit4></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mary Therese Biebel</p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Please don’t be my Valentine: Teens put new twist on holiday