Last month the Brothers and Sisters of the Seipstown Grange gathered for dinner at Hop’s Fogelsville Hotel to celebrate the group’s 110th anniversary with a special tribute to their members who contributed countless volunteer hours to make this Grange a community gem since inception.

The National Grange was founded in 1867 by seven men and one woman, to assist farmers and agriculture, both of which bore the brunt of the ruins left by the Civil War.

From inception, in this fraternal organization, women were equal in voice and votes and four offices of the Grange could only be held by women.

The Grange only promotes policies, never political parties or candidates and all members are volunteers actively engaged in community service.

Through the decades, the local, state and national Grange fought for collective purchasing for agriculture, college and vocational studies in agriculture, rural free delivery of mail services and elevating the Department of Agriculture to the Cabinet level to name a few accomplishments.

Due to aging and declining membership, the Seipstown Grange found it necessary to sell their beloved Grange Hall along Claussville Road back in 2015.

Funds realized from this sale continue to make possible their annual “Sharing with the Community” which continues to allow donations to 14 are nonprofits.

The event marked the impressive 80-year Seipstown Grange membership of Myrtle Horning who recently reached her 95th birthday, being marked with various gifts and flowers presented by Grange Master Brian Wetzel.

She noted she would have to search her files to find the date she was first elected, but she knows that she continues to be their Secretary after more than 50 years in this role.

She also was fundamental in their many years of serving dinners and banquets and takes pride in continually hearing how much guests loved the tasty food she and so many others enjoyed preparing.

Another milestone year of service was presented to Ruth Raber for 60 years which she shared with Paul Wolf who was unable to attend.

Debra Hardiman, Gail Mangold, Ann Wertman and Brian Wetzel reached their 50 year level along with Carol-Jean Minnich who was not present.

Diane Gehringer and Brenda Wetzel were cited for reaching their 25 year level.

Other members were recognized at the 55, 45, 40, 35, 30, 20 and 15 years of membership.

Seipstown Grange also paid tribute to the completion of 35 years with PennDOT’s Adopt-A-Highway program of the 8 miles of Route 100 between Tilghman Street and Route 309 which has now proudly become a Grange and wonderful community partnership.

In opening this portion of the event, highway cleanup coordinator Ann Wertman, who worked beside her late life companion Joe Zeller to begin this community service, asked the attendees to think about where this world would be today without wonderful volunteers in churches, food banks, emergency services, blood donors, Meals on Wheels, Scouts, PTA’s and other civic and historical societies.

Ann went on to note that development of businesses and homes along this 8 mile section, along with multiplied traffic levels, has magnified the level of service needed to complete this event each spring and fall.

Myrtle attested to times in the early 1990s when she and her late husband Earl cleaned both sides of Route 100 from Fogelsville to Claussville in 3-4 hours and accumulated about six bags of garbage…today this same 3 miles is cleaned by at least five volunteers…takes a combined total of about 10 hours and yields about 20 bags of garbage and other assorted debris.

Proudly, Ann announced that the crew currently consists of 24 members with the majority being wonderful community volunteers.

Before COVID, the team was down to less than 10 and involved long hours of participation.

Memories included the late Ronnie Derr who loved this task and over the course of several days, by himself, cleaned from Fogelsville to Holben Valley Road.

It was noted that Grant and Jill Mertz were the first community volunteers on the team beginning their section 15 years ago.