The class of 1960 is offering a $1,000.00 scholarship in Oberlin’s memory to an Exeter High School student who is overcoming an obstacle. The winner will be announced in May in a program before graduation. To contribute, checks should be made payable to Exeter High School Eagles Alumni Association, Oberlin Scholarship, 200 Elm St., Reading, PA 19606.

Everyone has a story about David Oberlin

John David Oberlin took a window seat and ordered a steak at Effie’s Charcoal Chef in ExeterTownship.  The waitresses looked forward to his arrival.  “Everyone liked David,” said Effie Clauser, restaurant owner. “He was so smart. He was so nice.”  David had cerebral palsy, a brain disorder that results in poor motor coordination. By 2010 the disease had gotten to the point where David could no longer drive.  That’s when his friends from the Exeter High School Class of 1960 began driving David to Charcoal Chef and other restaurants.  “He was such a joy, and he was so smart,” his friend, Ross Lloyd, 73, West Grove, Chester County, recalled of John, who passed away July 6.

Ross, Barbara Cregar, 74, and Barry Smith, 74, both of Exeter Township, met recently for breakfast at the Charcoal Chef, the same restaurant where the friends went in the 1950s for burgers, to share memories of David.  They shared a bond created by helping care for David when his cerebral palsy advanced to the point where he became wheelchair-bound.  They moved David from his home in Exeter Township to Hearthstone, Amity Township.  Ross took care of the financial work.  Another friend, Phil Hite, 74, of Wyomissing took care of the day-to-day living needs.  “We took him to his old haunts,” Phil said. “David was a big part of my life for the last six years.  I miss him so much.”

The friends admired David’s tenacity for life. “We grew up with a guy who had cerebral palsy, and he was just one of us,” Ross said. “We had so much admiration for him. He was beloved by all.”  As a young boy, David lived in a  school for the disabled provided by Wood Service in Langhorne, Bucks County, for several years.  “There he learned how to develop life skills,” Phil said.  He was raised by his grandparents, Oscar and Margaret Funke. He went to St. Lawrence Elementary School in second grade and continued in the Exeter district until he graduated.  The school friends recalled that David used a manual typewriter, which he carried around, to take notes.  “He would bang into people in the hallways with his typewriter,” Barry said. “We realized it was better to carry his typewriter for him than to be hit by the typewriter.”

Barbara said she sang in a church choir with David.  “I remember he was very intelligent,” she said.  After graduating from Exeter High School, David attended Albright College for a year.  He then worked in highway maintenance for PennDOT for 43 years.  The majority of the group retired when they were in their 60s.  “We started going on a trip once a month,” Phil said. “We went to a battery plant, we went to see a battleship in Camden, and Gettysburg. We always included David.” Ross said he and David often went to Philadelphia Phillies games.  During the breakfast gathering, the friends pulled out a binder dated 1954 to 2009.  It was David’s typedup weather statistics. “Ask David Oberlin what the weather was like on your birthday, and he will tell you,” Ross said.  The friends are planning to give the weather book to the Berks History Center, 940 Centre Ave. “Every day he wrote what the weather was and what was going to happen the next day,” Phil said. “He was like a junior meteorologist.  The book will preserve the weather of Berks County from a personal viewpoint.”  Once the friends got started talking about David, they had a hard time running out of stories to tell.  “Everyone who knows David has a David story,” Phil said.

On Easter Sunday, the four young Formiconi sisters arrived at church in holiday finery — Easter dresses, hats, gloves and patent leather shoes — and when they came home, Kathleen Formiconi-Sola was the first to strip off her frilly duds and slip on her cowboy boots.

She liked to play basketball, softball, anything athletic, as a child in the 1960s, for “she was always the tomboy, the tomgirl,” said Cindy Jo Kohl, one of her sisters.

Society seemed to be following her lead: Congress passed Title IX, a civil rights amendment that sparked public schools to offer school-sponsored sports to girls, in 1972, a year before Kathleen graduated from East Stroudsburg University with a degree in physical education.

Upon her return to Berks County for a job as a physical education teacher at two Reading elementary schools, she found herself in a breakthrough moment: She was hired as the first coach of the newly formed Reading High School girls basketball team.

While other school districts quickly created basketball teams for girls after Title IX became law, Reading was the only high school in Berks without a team, so student government leaders circulated petitions demanding the school board to act.

The board approved a team, and in 1974, 20 young women became the first Reading High School Red Knights basketball squad, coached by Kathleen, fresh out of college.

She was eager and patient, teaching plays, teaching basketball strategy to girls who may never have received formal, organized coaching, recalled Marita Gehret of Sinking Spring, one of the players on that inaugural team. With Kathleen at courtside, the Red Knights won the first game in their history, a 35-33 victory over Exeter Township High School, Kathleen’s alma mater, in 1974 and won five of their eight games that first season.

Under Kathleen’s coaching, the Knights were even better in 1975. They joined the Berks County Conference and qualified for the PIAA district playoffs.

Kathleen eventually left teaching and worked in health care, retiring from St. Joseph Hospital, where she was a ward clerk. She died March 13 at the age of 67 in Colorado Springs, Colo., where she lived with her son, according to family.

Marita, a junior, joined the Red Knights that first season, even though she wasn’t very good at basketball and wasn’t familiar with Kathleen, who taught phys ed at Riverside and Millmont elementary schools.

Kathleen was eager but calm, not the type of coach who intensely barks orders from the sidelines, recalled Marita.

“She wasn’t a yeller,” said Marita. “She was quiet, but she was into it. She was genuinely nice, and she was young, not much older than us.”

When the Red Knights took the floor for the first time, Kathleen stood at courtside in a pants suit, which was her preferred fashion choice. The Geigle Complex, Reading High’s gym, had just opened, and “it was exciting, just exciting for us to have a team,” remembers Marita.

After Kathleen’s death, Marita has attempted to search for teammates from that inaugural team, for a private memorial service that is planned for Kathleen in the future. She’s using her high school yearbook as a reference, including a team picture featuring the squad in uniform, and standing with them, coach Kathleen in a plaid pants suit.

Contact Jim Lewis: 610-371-5059 or jlewis@readingeagle.com.