Daily Archives: February 3, 2012

Walking past the scorer's table after the game Thursday night, Freedom High School senior guard Joe Lococo overheard some astonishing numbers.

"I heard we shot 10-for-36," he said. "If you hear that stat, you say 'No way, we're not going to win,' but this team finds ways to win and that is what's special about this team."

Despite struggling from the field, the Patriots maintained their lead in the Lehigh Valley Conference East Division by beating Easton 40-29 in a gritty game at Easton Area Middle School.

Freedom improved to 16-2 overall and 10-2 in the LVC as the Red Rovers dropped to 15-5 and 8-4. Liberty, which hosts Bethlehem Catholic tonight, is in the thick of the race as well at 13-6 and 8-3.

"We try not to talk about that," Freedom coach Joe Stellato said. "We try to focus one game at a time, and I stay true to that in talking about every game as a championship game.

"We didn't really talk about playoffs or anything, just one game -- us against Easton."

Just as Freedom struggled shooting, so did Easton.

The Red Rovers, who got their first points of the night with 34 seconds left in the first quarter, shot 13 of 48 from the field and were shut out over the final four-plus minutes.

Down since the start, Easton took its first lead at 29-28 when senior guard Noel Hightower made 1 of 2 free throw attempts with 4:05 remaining. Freedom regained the lead on a pair of makes from the line by Lococo, who scored a game-high 17 points, with 2:51 left.

While shutting out Easton at the defensive end, the Patriots scored the game's final 12 points from the foul line, making all but two attempts. Lococo was 8-for-8, junior center Derike Chiclana (nine points) was 2 of 4 and senior guard Jarrod Dilts was 2-for-2.

"We played great defense," Lococo said. "They didn't score after they took the lead. Winning this game the way we did is a huge confidence boost."

Not only did Stellato emphasize stout defense before tipoff, the coach stressed the importance of winning the game on the boards.

Freedom, led by Chiclana's game-high nine, won the rebounding battle 36-20.

"They pounded the boards," Easton coach Jim Hutnik said. "There were a lot of loose balls they got in situations where we didn't come up with the ball during a crucial time."

The Rovers, who had their seven-game win streak snapped, stayed within striking distance at halftime, 20-14.

DeVante Queen's layup with three seconds left in the third quarter for Easton made it a two possession game at 25-20. Queen, who scored eight points, then tied the score at 28-28 on a layup with 4:49 remaining, forcing Freedom to call a timeout.

Momentum appeared to be favoring Easton when Hightower made the second of two free throw attempts less than a minute later for the lead, but it proved not to be the case.

"We talked about rebounding the basketball and we did that; we talked about defense and we did that," Stellato said. "Our kids are such competitors and they hate to lose. They haven't lost a lot and they hate that feeling so something kicks in with them. I can't take that credit.

"We beat a good basketball team tonight. I'm proud of our kids."

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Freedom High School boys basketball team beats Easton Area High School

CINCINNATI (USA TODAY) — It opened to great fanfare and promise in 2004. Now, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, whose exhibits focus on the story of the American struggle for freedom, especially that of African Americans, is in deep financial trouble that could force it to shut down.

Located where African Americans crossed the Ohio River into freedom, the center has cut expenses severely but faces a $1.5 million shortfall in its 2012 budget, said Freedom Center board Co-chairman John Pepper and other center leaders.

Pepper, chairman of the board of Walt Disney; the Rev. Damon Lynch, Pepper's Freedom Center co-chairman; and Kim Robinson, the center's president and chief executive, discussed the threat of the center closing by the end of 2012.

"We were not crying wolf," Pepper said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.

The Freedom Center's budget has been cut from $12.5 million in 2004 to $4.6 million in 2011, and its workforce from 120 to 34 full-time employees, Robinson said. "We are scratching and clawing," he said.

By its nature as an institution that examines the enslavement of Africans in North America, the Freedom Center has struggled to fight the label that it's a black-only museum, Lynch said.

The Freedom Center, by its leadership's admission, failed to market its mission clearly enough and appeal to all audiences. "We need to become more engaging to bring families and young people through our door," Pepper said.

Pepper is the Freedom Center's primary fundraiser and benefactor. He and his wife, Francie, have contributed more than $15 million since 1999, he said.

In 2010, the center expanded its original mission of telling the stories of abolitionists from the Underground Railroad? a network of secret routes used by African-American slaves to escape to free states and Canada ? by adding a permanent exhibit, Invisible: Slavery Today, that examines contemporary slavery, human trafficking and its abolitionists.

The exhibit, which looks at practices that ensnare up to 17 million people globally, has won the center new supporters, among them scholar James Stewart of Macalester College in St. Paul.

"These exhibits are precious materials," said Stewart, the founder of Historians against Slavery, a group dedicated to resurrecting the abolitionist spirit on college campuses and promoting discussion of social-justice issues.

The recession and deep cuts in government funding for museums nationally have made fundraising both essential and difficult. The center received almost $20 million in public money from the city of Cincinnati, Hamilton County, the state of Ohio and the federal government from 2004 through 2011. That number is likely to level off at about $250,000 in federal money this year, with no city, county or state funds expected in the immediate future, Pepper said.

Public funding for U.S. museums dropped to an average of 17% of total museum revenue in 2010, down from 24% in 2008, according to a survey released in December by the American Association of Museums.

"It's very common," Dewey Blanton, director of strategic communication for the association. "Public donations are down, too, in this economy."

Heavy investment of government money has made the Freedom Center a popular target of local anti-tax groups, primarily the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), led by Cincinnati attorney Christopher Finney.

"My position and COAST's position is we want (the Freedom Center) to survive and thrive and be a nice addition to the city ? without tax dollars," he said.

Paid attendance has leveled off to about 113,000 in each of the past three years, according to Freedom Center records. Though the center has had no problem attracting big-name visitors ? its list of International Freedom Conductor Award winners includes Rosa Parks, former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush and Desmond Tutu? it has had trouble gaining support in its hometown. A third of the center's 1.135 million visitors in its first seven years came from metropolitan Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, Freedom Center records show.

The center has begun to answer complaints of being aloof by Cincinnati NAACP chapter President Christopher Smitherman and others by reaching out to the city's black community and partnering with programs that assist children from low-income families and at-risk mothers.

The center "has to ride the edge of a razor," said state Sen. Bill Seitz, a suburban Cincinnati Republican, who would like to see offerings expanded to include, for example, the struggle for freedom in World War II. "If it widens its appeal to draw a broader audience, then some African Americans aren't happy. And it's a victim in the larger white community, which can see it as a black museum and not go."

Several revenue-generating options have been discussed, including tenants for the building, which the Underground Railroad Freedom Center owns outright, a potential naming-rights deal, opening a full-scale restaurant to utilize its liquor license and further investment in social programs.

To Lynch, a Cincinnati native and pastor for 41 years of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, one of the city's most influential black congregations, the Freedom Center's survival is personal. "Not on my watch," he said. "We will do whatever it takes now to be here 100 years from now."

Copyright 2012 USA TODAY

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Underground Railroad Freedom Center battling tough times

President Abraham Lincoln rode a train that passed through New Freedom while on his way to give his famous address in Gettysburg, said Diane Folger.

"There's a lot of history in New Freedom, and that's what we're trying to get out, the value that New Freedom had back in that time when the train was running on Northern Central railroad," said Folger, a borough resident.

The borough's history will be on display in The Heritage Museum of New Freedom.

The museum's grand opening is 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at 22 Railroad Ave. in the borough.

The museum was developed by the 35-member New Freedom Heritage, which works to preserve the borough's history, as well as the borough's cultural character, said Folger,

New Freedom Heritage Vice President Brenda Putnam straightens a historic baseball uniform in the historical society's Heritage Museum of New Freedom. The museum is hosting a grand opening 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. (Bill Kalina Photo)

the Heritage president.

The grand opening will include a book signing from 11:30 to 12:30 p.m. with Bob Ketenheim, author of "Around New Freedom."

At 1 p.m., a Benjamin Franklin impersonator will present "Ben Franklin from Beginning to End."

The museum will be open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the first Saturday of every month, Folger said. There is no entrance fee, she said.

The museum features the "Free Family Quilt" donated by Kathleen Craig, a Virginia resident who is a descendent of the Free family who founded New Freedom in 1873, Folger said.

Artifacts: Museum artifacts include old photographs, railroad items, old high school memorabilia and yearbooks and sports items, including trophies, uniforms and pictures of teams, she said.

There are products and equipment on display from past businesses, including American Insulator, Charles G. Summers Jr. Cannery and sewing factories, Folger said.

Established in 2005, New Freedom Heritage has been working on museum plans since 2008, the year the group acquired a building for it. The facility was renovated and prepared to house museum items, she said.

Over the past two years, the group collected and received donated items from borough residents and the local government, Folger said.

"We're excited to have this opening, to have our history on display," she said.

Jeff Halapin, the borough's mayor, said he had a chance to go through the museum and is impressed by what he saw.

"(The New Freedom Heritage has) done a fantastic job," he said. "It's just the best and I'm glad they finally got it open. I hope that people from outside the borough will come and see this museum."

--Reach Eyana Adah McMillan at 505-5438.

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New Freedom museum opens Saturday