In the news 35 years ago this week:
• A zoning hearing on a plan to expand Sewickley Valley Hospital became contentious after neighbors organized a “Save Our Neighborhood” campaign to oppose it. Hospital officials proposed building a parking garage and a new South wing, which would necessitate the demolition of 10 homes along Hill Street. Opposition organizers said that to date, hospital expansions had resulted in the demolition of 25 homes in the surrounding area.
• Virgil Hovis, the 76-year-old owner of a Sunoco station at the foot of the Sewickley Bridge, was profiled by Ed Stankowski Jr. Hovis had owned and operated the station since its establishment in 1936 — when, he told the Herald, he was the “only person in Sewickley who benefitted” from the St. Patrick’s Day flood. He was able to rig up a manual pumping system to sell gas to rubberneckers who drove in to gawk at the inundated river. In the interim, official ownership of the property had passed to Sunoco and then back to Hovis, but he was ever-present at the pumps, reluctantly allowing his shop to become a convenience store as well. “Gasoline hands shouldn’t touch anything relating to food,” he said. “Besides, you can’t do two things well at once.”
• Irmgard Tolksdorf established a new record at Sewickley Heights Golf Course during a three-day women’s tournament. Lenore Lloyd, tournament chair, said Tolksdorf sank a “dramatic 20-foot putt” to pass every mark in the tri-state area and become the champion.
• Sewickley native David Wharton was set to compete at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea after making the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team. Wharton, then a freshman at the University of Southern California, went on to take silver in the men’s 400 meter individual medley event. He later competed in Barcelona during the 1992 Summer Games.
