A few local businessmen help town get back on track

Some of the new owners worked at the mill before it closed two years ago.
TYRONE, Pa. (AP) -- By the end of the summer, this borough will be making paper again.
A group of local businessmen -- including several who used to work at the plant that MeadWestvaco Corp. closed nearly two years ago -- announced this week that they had purchased the 123-year-old paper mill.
"Today, we can say that paper-making will start another new chapter at the Tyrone site that started in 1880," said John Ferner, president of Team Ten LLC, the new ownership group.
Team Ten, which consists of about a dozen local businessmen, seven of whom Ferner said had worked at the paper mill, will operate the mill as American Eagle Paper Mills, making uncoated paper products.
The company is taking job applications already, and expects to employ about 170 people within the next six months.
"No one can be any happier than I am about this," said Ferner, the son of a Westvaco worker and himself a 30-year employee of the plant. "This plant has been a part of my life since the day I was born."
Because many of the jobs will be skilled positions, former employees with experience at papermaking and other mechanical jobs would probably have a leg up, Ferner said.
Initial orders are already in place, and Ferner said he expected most of the jobs to be in place when production begins in September.
"I'm about as close to euphoric as I can be this morning," Tyrone Mayor Pat Stoner said. "I'm extremely pleased that the mill will re-employ a lot of people who had to leave the area when the plant closed before."
Paper-making town
For most of its 153 years, Tyrone -- about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh -- has been a paper-making town. The mill first opened in 1880 and was acquired by Westvaco in 1889.
Although there were brief stoppages, Westvaco continued to operate the mill until October 2001, when the plant closed, putting about 270 people out of work.
It was a tough time for local paper producers, once one of the most prominent regional industries in the heavily wooded mountains of central Pennsylvania. International Paper closed its mill in Lock Haven about six months later.
But both mills are showing signs of rebounding. The Clinton County Economic Partnership has purchased the International Paper plant, and First Quality Enterprises Inc. plans to use the plant to manufacture tissue and paper towels.
The announcement attracted numerous regional politicians, including U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa.; state Senate President Pro Tempore Robert C. Jubelirer, R-Blair; state Rep. Larry O. Sather, R-Huntingdon; state Rep. Jerry A. Stern, R-Blair; and the Secretary of Community and Economic Development all were on hand.
The project received a $3 million grant from the state's Redevelopment Capital Assistance Program and direct loans and guarantees from the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority and the federal Small Business Administration.