KEYSTONE CLIPS Dry spell continues in Valley

It continues to be a dry year in the Shenango Valley as Consumers Pennsylvania Water Co. Shenango Valley Division reported lower-than-normal rainfall for September.
The month normally has 3.94 inches of rain but had only 2.13 inches this year.
The Valley continues to lag behind normal for the entire year, totaling just 24.99 inches as compared with the average 30.34 inches by this time of the year.
Rainfall for all of 2000 was more than 1 inch below the normal of 39.35 inches.
Returning the goods: Pennsylvania Treasurer Barbara Hafer will have representatives at the Oct. 26 Senior Expo at the Grove City Rescue Squad, 1252 S. Center St., Grove City, to return cash and other assets to Mercer County residents.
The state treasury serves as repository for unclaimed bank accounts, payroll checks, unredeemed gift certificates, stocks and dividends and other money that people have forgotten about.
Hafer said she is aware that some people with Grove City addresses are on that list. The treasury has $660 million in unclaimed property and the average claim is about $1,000, she said. Representatives of her office will be at the Senior Expo from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Military academies: U.S. Rep. Phil English of Erie, R-21st, is accepting applications from students in his district interested in attending one of the military academies.
Applicants must be between ages 17 and 22, unmarried with no dependents and legal residents of the 21st District. Entries are judged on a competitive basis.
Requests for applications must be made in writing by Oct. 27 to English's Erie office at 310 French St., Suite 107, Erie, Pa. 16507.
Money for reading: The New Castle School District was awarded grant money to strengthen its reading programs, said state Rep. Chris Sainato of New Castle, D-9th. The district will get $47,204 in Read-To-Succeed grant money from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
The goal of Read-To-Succeed, a four year, $100 million initiative, is to help all Pennsylvania students learn to read and write by the end of the third grade. Sainato said in this round of Read-To-Succeed funding, the state Department of Education awarded $25 million to 686 elementary schools in Pennsylvania.
XContributors: Harold Gwin of The Vindicator Sharon Bureau and Laure Cioffi of the New Castle Bureau.