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Hummelstown Pool
Information
DIVING
RIGHT IN
Monday, July 10, 2006
BY MARY KLAUS
Of The
Patriot-News
In 1959, Ruth Goepfert opened the Hummelstown
Swim Club by climbing a ladder, walking to the end of the diving
board and plunging headfirst into the water.
Forty-seven years later, the 80-year-old mother
of two and grandmother of four is still diving, performing two
consecutive jackknife dives yesterday as effortlessly as she
lifts her glass of iced tea.
"Swimming is a lifelong sport," she said, water
dripping from her swimsuit and her hair. "Anybody of any age,
any size and any ability can do it. It's easy on the joints,
gives you a good cardiovascular workout and is fun for the whole
family."
In an era when many communities have lost their
swimming pools, the Hummelstown Swim Club thrives, attracting
300 people on a slow day and up to 1,000 on a hectic one.
Goepfert, the club president since its founding, attributes this
to a family atmosphere.
"We are a nonprofit, private swim club," she
said. "I grew up in a swimming town and wanted my children,
Linda and Doug, to swim, too."
Goepfert, who was a swimmer, diver and gymnast at
East Stroudsburg State College, said that her father started a
community swimming pool in Palmerton. When she and her husband
moved to Hummelstown, she missed the community pool.
"There was a pool in Hershey but no guarantee
that it would stay open," she said, adding that it closed
decades ago. "I decided to seek memberships for a private swim
club."
She and other Hummelstown residents went door to
door seeking 250 pool members to join for $100 each "before the
hole could be dug," she said. "We only got 200 people. When
three people from Chambers Hill asked if Chambers Hill residents
could join, we said yes. They passed the word, and we got the 50
extra people we needed."
With $25,000 start-up money, the Hummelstown Swim
Club Board bought nearly five acres from Verdelli Farms in
eastern Hummelstown.
"I was 4 and my sister, Linda, was 7 when the
pool was being built," said Doug Goepfert of Derry Twp. "I
remember the bulldozers digging out the pool and the concrete
being poured. My mother taught me how to swim when I was a
toddler, and I've been swimming ever since."
Ruth Goepfert and her late husband, Jack Goepfert,
taught physical education and health for a combined 64 years.
She taught for three years at Allentown High School and for 26
years at Middletown High School, where she also was the
cheerleading adviser. Jack Goepfert taught for 35 years combined
at Hummelstown High School, John Harris High School -- where he
also coached football -- and Lower Dauphin High School.
The Hummelstown Swim Club opened with the main
pool, 120 feet by 50 feet and 3 to 12 feet deep with underwater
lights, two one-meter diving boards, a three-meter diving board
and a stainless steel sliding board.
Linda Goepfert Walters of Derry Twp. recalled the
pool's grand opening on July 3, 1959. "My mother dove into the
pool. Then everyone else did with a big splash." Her brother
recalled July Fourth swimming parties that included penny tosses
in the lower end, adults diving after a greased watermelon, and
inner tube and relay races.
   
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