Berks County

Russell Henry takes great pride in his craft. The 80-year-old Birdsboro resident specializes in slipware pottery, a type in which the raw clay is painted before the pottery is fired. He said it was one of the crafts that Pennsylvania Dutch settlers brought with them. "My ancestors were Pennsylvania Dutch, and I take the same pride in my craft that they always took in theirs," Henry said. This pride will be on display at the ninth annual Fall Pennsylvania Crafts Day at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford.

For her next show, Joyce Floreen figures she'll paint cows. "I have this feeling that maybe livestock will disappear too," the Berks County artist said last week as she prepared to open a show of her current subject: family farms, which are vanishing beyond Philadelphia's suburbs as development advances north and west. "A lot of places around here are just being built up," Floreen said, citing "the slow encroachment of houses coming closer and closer and closer. " Nearly a year ago, she set to preserving homesteads in oil on canvas, creating representations to transcend that encroachment.

That inevitable byproduct of a consumer society - trash - is contributing mightily to push up Delaware County's property tax rate by 8.3 percent, according to officials who yesterday passed a $137.3 million budget for 1990. For county homeowners, it means county real estate taxes on the average house assessed at $3,300 will go up $23.04 to $299.41. It is the ninth county tax increase in nine years. Trash-disposal costs will increase $6.47 million next year to $27.4 million or 20 percent of the total county budget.

AN EASTERN Pennsylvania man has been ordered to pay nearly $14,000 for yelling racial slurs at his neighbor and threatening to burn her house down. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission said Dino Concordia of Shillington, Berks County, also ridiculed Kelly Walton over her disability and "continually humiliated her" in front of neighbors and friends. Walton, who is black and suffers from neck and spinal injuries, had asked for $8,000 in damages. But the commission said it found Concordia's behavior so "vile," "heinous" and "despicable" that he should pay her $10,000.

A REGISTERED sex offender, already accused in a federal indictment of exploiting a 1-year-old to produce pornography, has been bound over for trial on charges of raping the child in Montgomery County. Robert Knappenberger, 41, of Boyertown, Berks County, was being held at the Montgomery County prison in lieu of $15,000 bail, police said. He is accused of rape, statutory rape, indecent assault, corruption of a minor and endangering the welfare of a child. The images of the abuse were posted on the Internet, according to the 2011 indictment.

State Sen. Michael A. O'Pake, 70, of Reading, Democratic whip of the Senate and the longest-serving member of the Pennsylvania legislature, died Monday of complications following heart-bypass surgery at Reading Hospital and Medical Center. Sen. O'Pake served as the first chairman of the Aging and Youth Committee, and helped draft the state's Child Protective Services legislation, which helps victims of abuse. He was a leading supporter of the state's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

John C. Williams Jr., 85, of Lafayette Hill, a part-time construction manager at Montgomery County Community College from 1994 to 2006, died of a heart attack April 29 at his home. Born in Pen Argyl, Pa., north of Easton, Mr. Williams graduated from what is now Pen Argyl Area High School. Mr. Williams studied naval science at the University of Virginia and served as an officer on a Navy tender off Bikini Atoll during atomic bomb testing, according to his son, J. Scot. Mr. Williams earned a bachelor's degree at Lafayette College in 1950 and a master's at Lehigh University in 1952, both in civil engineering.

Forget the war in Iraq, the problems with Medicare, and high gas prices. Of all the issues swirling around the red-hot congressional race between Republican incumbent Jim Gerlach and his Democratic challenger, Lois Murphy, it may all come down to one ballot question in one city in one county: Who will pick up the trash in Reading? Gerlach, who is seeking a third term, and Murphy, who ran against him in 2004, are locked in a tight contest to represent the Sixth District that spans parts of Montgomery, Chester and Berks Counties, and a single precinct in Lehigh County.

Glenn Reber had expected the worst. When Berks County finally decided in 1989 to do a countywide property reassessment, Commissioner Reber braced for what everyone said would be a maelstrom of citizen unrest and panic. "We anticipated all hell breaking loose," said Reber. "But it hasn't been the end-of-the-world thing that people said it might be. " As Chester County prepares to embark on its own reassessment, residents and government officials might do well to examine the experiences of two neighboring counties, Berks and Lancaster, that are well on their way to completing the complicated task.

Pitching is pitching, according to Jeff Singer and Dylan Johannink. Starting or relieving, the job is the same: Throw strikes, change speeds, trust the fielders. Singer and Johannink were starters for their high school teams. They were relievers Tuesday for the Burlington County team in the 26th annual Carpenter Cup Classic. But despite new roles and steady rain, both seniors seized command on the mound and led Burlington County to a 7-4 victory over Suburban One League American/Continental at Richie Ashburn Field in FDR Park.