Hazleton Area High School

Recent Hazleton Area graduate dies in I-81 crash

A McAdoo teenager who graduated last month from Hazleton Area High School, where she played basketball, was killed in a car crash Sunday night on Interstate 81 in Hazle Township, state police at Hazleton said.

At 11:30 p.m., Kayla Bahrey, 18, was standing outside a disabled 2003 Dodge on a southbound shoulder near exit 141 when a 2006 Pontiac struck the vehicle. Bahrey was thrown 15 feet, state police said. Luzerne County Deputy Coroner Jeff Stock said Bahrey died at the scene and an autopsy is scheduled today at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

Inside the disabled Dodge was driver Tyler Paisley, 18, of Mountain Top, who suffered "significant injuries" and was entrapped in the vehicle, state police said. Paisley was a patient at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township and was discharged Monday, a nursing supervisor said

The driver of the Pontiac was Onix Gorbea-Lespier, 49, of Mechanicsburg, who was not injured, state police said. It was not immediately known why Gorbea-Lespier's vehicle left the roadway; state police are investigating the crash.

Bahrey and Paisley both graduated from Hazleton Area on June 7.

Bahrey played basketball for the Lady Cougars when she was a sophomore during in the 2008-2009 season during which she saw action on the varsity and junior varsity.

Hazleton Area Principal Rocco Petrone said his heart goes out to Bahrey's family.

"I'll always remember her as a nice person I was fortunate enough to get to know," Petrone said.

Drumheller named new Hazleton Area football coach - Sports ...

For the second time in as many seasons, Hazleton Area will have a new football coach when two-a-day practices begin Aug. 15.

But the latest man to head up the Cougar football program is no stranger to the local gridiron.

On Tuesday evening, long-time assistant coach Jim Drumheller was named the new head coach of the Cougars following a unanimous vote of Hazleton Area School District's nine Board Members.

Although he has less than two months before the opening day of practice, Drumheller is thrilled with the opportunity.

"It's an exciting time, no matter what time of the year it is," he said. "To be hired in late June, it puts us a little bit behind the 8-ball. But we're going to work hard. We're going to do whatever we have to to get it done."

Drumheller takes over for Paul Marranca, who resigned last month due to health reasons after coaching the Cougars for just one season. Hazleton Area went 3-7 in 2010, its first non-winning football season since 1999.

The first thing on Drumheller's agenda is to head the Cougar program back in the other direction.

"I can't really put my finger on what the problem was last year and where we ran into some trouble, it was just a lot of little things," offered Drumheller, who served as an assistant under Marranca. "It just never clicked. I think in time things would have turned around, but unfortunately it was just a one-year deal."

Although this is his first head coaching job, Drumheller has been an assistant coach under four different head coaches at Hazleton following a decorated scholastic playing career with the Hazleton Mountaineers.

A 1979 Hazleton High School graduate, he was a two-year starter at quarterback for the Mountaineers. He began coaching in the early 1980s on the junior high level under then-head coach Dale Stewart. He joined new head coach Rich Matz's staff at Hazleton in 1985, and continued coaching with Matz when the Hazleton Area School District was formed in 1992. Drumheller was an assistant with the Cougars through the 1995 season.

When Rocco Petrone was hired as the Cougars' head coach in 2000, replacing John Yaccino, Drumheller returned to coaching, and served with Petrone for the next 10 seasons. During those 10 seasons, the Cougars went to the playoffs eight times and never experienced a losing season. They compiled a 81-31 record while collecting five District 2 Class 4A championships, an Eastern Conference title and numerous Wyoming Valley Conference Division I crowns.

West's education law digest

American women photographers, a selected and annotated bibliography

Congressional Record, V. 147, Pt. 6, May 9, 2001 to May 21, 2001

Atlantic reporter

PLA bulletin