Columns
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Nature’s Ways: The Great Blue Heron — a Super Angler
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Humans aren’t the only anglers to wade area trout streams hoping to land a trophy catch. One of the most efficient anglers in the state wears feathers instead of hip boots and never worries about what size of tippet to use. This two-legged fisherman is the great blue heron (Ardea herodias). Herons are equipped with…
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Penn State’s James Franklin Is Now No. 2 in Tenure Among Big Ten Head Coaches
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With the firing of Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern this week, James Franklin is now the second-longest tenured head football coach in the Big Ten Conference. Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, hired in 1999, is the dean of Big Ten coaches. He will be 68 on Aug. 1. Fitzgerald, who became the Wildcats’ head coach in 2006 at…
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Hook: For Penn State Athletics’ Fundraising Goals, It May Be Time to Pull Out All the Stops
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I’m not a big social media user. I have a grand total of 15 wonderful people who follow me on Twitter @TheRealJohnHook. But I do get emailed notices from Twitter when something is posted that their algorithms believe I’ll be interested in. I must admit that occasionally the algorithm is right and I will click…
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What Makes Penn State Wide Receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith Tick? No. 1 Through 12
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No. 1. That pretty much sums up who KeAndre Lambert-Smith is — and aspires to be — heading into Penn State’s 2023 football season. The fourth-year wide receiver began his Nittany Lion career wearing jersey No. 13. Then he switched to No. 1 at the start of the 2022 season. Watching K.J. Hamler, wearing No. 1,…
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To Draw Closer to America’s Founding Ideals, We Need Leaders Who Seek Real Solutions
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On Monday night across the neighborhood, people were getting ready for the Fourth of July by shooting off fireworks. It sounded like a U.S. battleship bombarding enemy defensive positions before launching an amphibious assault. From the sounds of things, it appeared that the new fireworks store on College Avenue must have had a successful opening. As…
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Yes, Baseball’s Faster, But It’s Also Louder
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You know you’re losing it when you yell at the TV. I’d watch a pitcher gaze at his catcher like he’s pondering “Guernica” at MOMA, and I’d say, loud enough for my voice to carry over the airwaves to wherever the game was being played, “Throw the friggin’ ball!” He would when he was good…
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Let’s Huddle Up
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“Let’s go, huddle up! Bring it together.” That was a regular command I shouted during my short-lived quarterback days as a youth football player. After each play it was the role of the QB to reassemble the other 10 players as quickly as possible to call the next play. It was the first time I…
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Tailor Your Taxes for Retirement
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After a fruitful career and plenty of practice paying taxes, you may feel prepared for the tax man in retirement. But a review of your post-retirement taxable income may yield some surprising insights. Examining your position can help you design ways to optimize your current investment strategy. Taking a new look at both fixed and…
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New State College Pastor Is a Michigan Man, but His Wife Is True-Blue for Penn State
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People in the State College area will readily take a liking to Nicholas Boonstra, the new senior pastor at Blue Course Community Church. An energetic 35-year-old, he’s brilliant and fun, and he has a lovely wife and three sweet kids, including 8-year old twins. And even though Boonstra is from faraway western Michigan, he’s got…
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202 Miles from State College to Buffalo: A Traveler’s Guide
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Over four years ago on these pages I chronicled the end of our family’s exploits driving U.S. Route 322 south of State College to support our son’s athletic interests during his youth and high school years. Then four weeks ago I wrote about our son’s graduation from college and our relief that our educational experiment…