West Chester

Joseph W. Strode Jr., 83, of West Chester, an acclaimed community worker, died of a kidney ailment Monday, April 8, at Chester County Hospital. Mr. Strode was the third-generation partner in Strode's Sausage & Scrapple, a business in West Chester that his grandfather started in 1876. The family had the distinction of operating one of the original booths in the Reading Terminal Market. He sold out in the 1980s. The son of Ethel and Joseph Strode, Mr. Strode spent his life in West Chester.

Schramm Inc., the West Chester drill rig manufacturer that had a moment of fame in 2010 when its drills rescued 33 trapped miners in Chile, is about to enter the big leagues of oil and gas exploration. The company, which has been making truck-mounted drill rigs for more than 50 years, is launching its biggest drill rig ever - a 102-foot-tall walking, talking monster designed to bore the deep horizontal wells that have turned Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale into a fossil-fuel bonanza.

Philadelphia University will take on Wilmington University on Tuesday in the championship game of the Bill Giles Invitational. The game is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. at Citizens Bank Park. Philadelphia reached the final with a 4-1 win over the University of the Sciences on March 28. Fifteenth-ranked Wilmington advanced with a 16-5 rout of West Chester on Wednesday. Tickets are $5 and can be bought at the first-base gate windows. In case of inclement weather, the game will be played Wednesday.

The nonprofit Uptown! Entertainment Alliance is set to buy the Pennsylvania National Guard armory in West Chester and convert it into a theater for film and live performances, officials said Friday. The nonprofit would buy the 10,900-square-foot armory at 226 N. High St. for $760,000 from the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, officials said. State Sen. Andrew Dinniman (D., Chester) said he introduced a bill Friday to authorize the transfer. The group would receive a low-interest loan and launch a fund-raising campaign to pay for renovations needed to transform the 1916 building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, into an arts center.

  The two West Chester University graduates were in a Warsaw hotel lobby late one afternoon in May 2012 when they were told of an antiques shop in an old neighborhood. "It was a shop that carried a mixture of Judaica and Nazi paraphernalia," Hilary Bentman said last week. An odd mix. But in the early evening, she and Hadassah DeJack went there. The Christian shopkeeper, whose grandparents had hidden Jews during World War II, asked if they would like to see a section of a Torah rescued from the Nazi occupation.

A local nonprofit group is set to buy the Pennsylvania National Guard armory in West Chester and convert it into a theater for film and live performances, officials announced Friday. Pending legislative approval, Uptown! Entertainment Alliance would purchase the 10,900-square-foot armory for $760,000 from the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, officials said. The nonprofit, which is dedicated to establishing a permanent theater in West Chester, would receive a low-interest loan to buy the property at 226 N. High St. The group would launch a fundraising campaign to pay for the renovations needed to transform the nearly century-old building into an arts center.

Bam Margera's kitchen, in his words, "just got Jackson Pollock-ed. " Neon paint drips from nearly every surface - refrigerator, cabinets, counters. The Jackass star was newly back from an international tour with his band, FFU - whose full name is unprintable, he says with a grin - and simply let loose. "I usually paint when I'm on tour, but I was on this really nice tour bus with a really nice driver," he said. "When I paint, the whole place just gets Jackson Pollock-ed. " Margera, 33, has been painting for only about three years, but his mother says he's always had an artistic streak.

When Quaker Valley's Jimmy Perkins scored 91/2 minutes into the Class A state ice hockey final against West Chester East, he immediately went to the opponents' cheering section. Perkins cupped his glove to his ear and played to the raucous crowd, which could be heard from the locker rooms before the game and in the parking lot before entering Aston's IceWorks. Despite his best efforts, West Chester East and its fans never let up and Quaker Valley watched the Vikings take the Pennsylvania Cup over the boards to their fans after a 6-5 victory Saturday.

West Chester East coach Drew Cox described senior Jesse Abarca's pregame approach as focused and fired up heading into the Flyers Cup Class A final against Springfield (Delco) at Iceline in West Chester. Abarca used a different word: nervous. While West Chester East was the top seed in the tournament, the school had not appeared in the Flyers Cup final since 2008. "It's a big game and it was a big crowd," Abarca said. "A lot of us haven't played in front of that many people. It's a nerve-wracking game that you don't want to lose.