| Central Mountain High School | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
| 64 Keystone Central Drive Mill Hall, Pennsylvania, United States |
|
| Information | |
| School type | Public, Secondary |
| School district | Keystone Central School District |
| Principal | Karen Probst |
| Assistant principals | Steve Turchetta, Robert Kreger, and Nick Verelli |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| Color(s) | Royal blue, light blue, and white |
| Mascot | Wildcat |
| Information | (570) 893-4646 |
| Website | Central Mountain High School |
Central Mountain High School is a public high school located in Mill Hall, Pennsylvania, USA.
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Central Mountain High School is one of two high schools in the Keystone Central School District. Keystone Central is the geographically largest school district in Pennsylvania. Central Mountain's colors are royal blue, light blue and white, and their mascot is the Wildcat. The school is the combination of three other high schools, Lock Haven High School, Bald Eagle-Nittany High School, and Sugar Valley High School, which were heavy rivals in the past. Construction of the building began in 1997 and the school was opened for the 1999-2000 school year. It was designed by the Quad 3 construction group.
Central Mountain sports are football, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls tennis, wrestling, track and field, golf, swimming, softball, and baseball. The school participates in PIAA. The school qualifies as an AAAA school but some sports play in AAA competition. They also participate in the newly formed Mountain League Athletic Conference
Central Mountain is the high school that originally brought to light the alleged sexual predation of minors by former Penn State Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky. The school district reported an incident involving Sandusky and a student (identified in court papers as "Victim 1") after the mother reported it in the Spring of 2008.[1][2]
On November 22, 2011, it was reported that Victim 1, a 17-year-old senior at Central Mountain was forced to leave the school because of bullying. The other students blamed Victim 1 for Penn State University's firing of football coach Joe Paterno.[3]
The Mother of Victim 1 alleged in a subsequent interview that the Principal, Karen Probst, and the Vice Principal, Steve Turchetta - who also serves as the varsity football coach - had actively tried to persuade her not to bring in the authorities to investigate. Although the Grand Jury indictment against Sandusky stated that the school called the police immediately upon being notified, Mother 1 states that is a falsehood. In fact, she was stunned to find that school authorities had given Sandusky complete access to her son during school hours, even to the point of allowing him to remove the boy from school property, and all without any parental notification or permission. Mother 1 also reported (a) that she'd been chastised, and told by, a grandmother in a market "that Turchetta brought [Sandusky's banning from the school] up at his weekly football parent meeting, presumably with family members of the football team. According to Mother One, the woman added, 'Coach Turchetta said these charges are never going to stick and he'll walk away'"; (b) "that her son developed a close bond with a 28-year-old volunteer coach, which Turchetta abruptly ended"; and (c) that "her son told her that Turchetta was in his face, yelling at him: 'With what you've done already, no 28-year-old man needs to be around you.'"[4]
The volunteer coach, Thom Hunter, detailed his own relationship with Victim 1, Victim 1's friends and track teammates, and the school which ultimately terminated his position. Neighbors and friends also spoke of gift-giving, car trips and arguments around the relationship between Victim 1 and Sandusky. Sandusky's attorney spoke of a night alone in a hotel room with Victim 1, with "a pull-out cot ... paid for". A friend spoke at length of a 3-boy trip with Sandusky to a swimming pool, ending with Victim 1 alone in the car with the coach and "Sandusky holding the boy’s hand". Hunter and others spoke of a car accident Victim 1 suffered, and the process of comeback. Hunter also described the process of his interaction with another coach at the school, of Hunter's then being told to “stop showing up to practices”, and of the "Bring Tom Back" t-shirts thereafter "printed ... [by d]ozens of team members".[5]
"'That’s Jerry — he was always a very physical kind of teddy bear, like an overgrown kid,' [Sandusky's attorney Joseph] Amendola said when asked about the friend’s account [of the swim trip]. 'He would hug kids, he kissed kids, but it wasn’t sexual.'" Amendola also questioned Victim 1's accounts -- saying that Victim 1 "has, over time, exaggerated his claims of being molested" -- and spoke of Sandusky's gift-giving habits, in response to the reporting.[5]