FAIRVIEW TOWNSHIP Retiring official recalls the long road to success

After more than 50 years at the township helm, Dewitt Palmer is calling it quits.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
MERCER, Pa. -- Most of the streets in Fairview Township were just dirt roads when Dewitt S. Palmer became a township supervisor.
The brush along the roadways was so bad that it brushed both sides of a car as it drove along, he recalled.
That was 54 years ago, and Palmer is still a township supervisor.
"We cut brush, widened roads and started paving roads about 1960," he said, adding that about half of the township's 20 miles of roadway are paved now.
He was first elected to the township post, which is similar to a township trustee post in Ohio, in 1947, taking office in January 1948.
"Back then, if you could wallow through a road, it was fine," Palmer said.
The township had only an old dump truck and a pull-along grader as road equipment then. Today, it has a road grader, a dump truck, a backhoe and a tractor with a mower and brush.
He was helping grade the township roads back in 1947 when a then-supervisor suggested he run for the office. He did, won and has never left.
Supervisors were paid 60 cents an hour for working on the roads then. Today, it's $9.75, he said.
It's time: At 78 (He'll be 79 in December), Palmer has decided it's time to retire from political life and will leave office Dec. 31 upon expiration of his term.
Arthritis in his knees had been giving him a bit of trouble and he's had artificial joints put in both, and that has slowed him down some.
His wife, Marjorie, also 78, has been having some health problems too, he said, adding that he needs to spend more time at home helping her.
Running the township was something of a family affair for the Palmers. Marjorie served as township secretary from 1948 until she retired in 1993.
"She was a big help all these years," Palmer said. In addition to keeping tabs on the township finances, she would monitor the base radio during winter storms when the supervisors were out plowing the roads, he said.
Palmer was born in Fairview Township, has lived nearly all of his life on Stoneboro Drive and says he will be buried in the township when he dies.
The Palmers still live on their 171-acre farm but gave up their milk cows in 1966. Part of their farm is now leased to a neighboring farmer.
Loves his work: Palmer went to work as a heavy equipment operator after getting out of the milk business, retiring from Foster Grading Co. in 1987, and said driving a road grader is something he just loves to do.
"This is my machine," he said proudly as he stood next to the township's John Deere road grader in the municipal building on U.S. Route 19.
"It's going to be hard for me to get out of the idea of getting up to plow snow," he said.
"I kept the roads open for mothers to get to the hospital to have babies. Twenty years later, I keep the roads open for those babies to go to the hospital to have babies," he quipped.
He ran for election as a Republican nine times and never really had a close race.
"This is a Republican stronghold out here," he said.
Sometimes, he had no opposition at all in the township of just 1,000 people.
He always responds immediately to calls of problems in the township and people appreciate that, his wife said. Mont Clark and John Bromley are the other two township supervisors.
Palmer doesn't have much time for recreation.
"I love to work,"' he said, admitting he does have a weakness for deer hunting and a general disregard for big social events.
"I would as soon take a walk in the woods as go to a big party," he confided.
The biggest accomplishment during his tenure was the construction of a new municipal building in 1992, a 40-by-108-foot structure that boasts an office, a community room and three large equipment bays, he said.
Financial work: It cost just over $100,000 but the township was able to do it without borrowing any money, he said, crediting his wife with some smart financial management.
It opened without carpeting and some other amenities but it was debt-free, added his wife.
The Palmers have two sons and four grandchildren. Their daughter died in April of this year.
Palmer reflected on his years of service.
"I enjoy grading roads and plowing snow and improving the community. I wanted to make it a better place for people to live," he said, adding that he thinks he succeeded.
He's been in office longer than any other elected official in Mercer County.
The Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors doesn't keep any records for that sort of thing, but spokeswoman Ginny Linn said Palmer is certainly one of the longest serving supervisors in the state.
Palmer said the man expected to be his successor, Barry Struthers, is a good man for the job. He's running unopposed for the office in the November election.
"I think he'll make a good supervisor," Palmer said.