PRESS RELEASE – The Tamaqua Community Art Center is honored to exhibit the work of R. Thomas Berner.  Most in the area are familiar with his Facebook posts on the “Tamaqua Then and Now” page.  We invite and encourage everyone to join us for this fun evening celebrating Tom Berner “60 Years Later.

Title of Event: 60 Years Later: A Photo Exhibition & Presentation by Tamaqua’s Own R. Thomas Berner
Date of Event: Friday March 20, 2015.
Time of Event: 6:00pm – 9:00pm.
Address of Art Center:  125 Pine Street, Tamaqua, PA 18252

Name of Artist(s) or performers:

Although he was born in Harrisburg during World War II, R Thomas Berner thinks of himself as a native of Tamaqua. He’s lived at Still Creek Dam, the East End and West Broad Street. He attended school at Arlington Street, South Ward, Junior High on East Broad Street and Senior High on High Street. Three of those buildings no longer exist.
While in high school, he decided he wanted to be a meteorologist. That came in handy during a spelling bee in 10th grade when he spelled temperature and meteorologist to win the competition. Eventually he joined the staff of the Blue and White newspaper and late in his senior year got a job with Tamaqua’s daily newspaper, the Evening Courier. He had been accepted at Penn State but had no money to pay the bill.
After two years, he joined the Navy and would have made a career out of it had it not been for the G.I. Bill of Rights, which provided some of the money to pay his way through college. At Penn State, while working for newspapers and studying, he received a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in journalism.
He parlayed the second degree into a faculty position at Penn State, teaching journalism for 28 years before retiring in 2003.
He is no stranger to foreign lands. As a sailor, he was stationed in Morocco for one year and visited most of the European countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. At Penn State, he received two Fulbright lectureships to teach in China.
While he is a professor emeritus of journalism and American studies, he prefers to say that he’s a freelance writer and photographer. He and his wife, Paulette, a native of West Hazleton, have self-published books about Tuscany and Cuba under their Pixels and Bristles® imprint.
When not traveling, the Berners reside in Bellefonte in Centre County.

Silent auction to benefit Tamaqua Blue Raider Foundation, Tamaqua Library and the Tamaqua Community Arts Center. Monetary donations are also accepted. For more information, contact 570-668-1192

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1562351080679468/

Artist’s Statement:
Several years ago, an English professor at Penn State, referring derisively to one of his colleagues, told me to be suspicious of anyone who called himself a “writer.” I am okay calling myself a writer, but I am reluctant to call myself an “artist.”
To me, an artist is someone who creates something out of his or her imagination. My wife, for example, makes beautiful paintings on her iPad. She’s an artist.
I, on the other hand, point my camera at something that I find attractive and click the shutter. I do some manipulation in Photoshop, and the result is usually pleasing to the eye, at least to my eye.
I love to take photographs. Let’s leave it at that.

All framed photographs are $200 apiece. The revenue will be distributed this way:
•      20 percent to the Tamaqua Blue Raider Foundation
•      20 percent to the Tamaqua Community Arts Center
•      20 percent to the Tamaqua Public Library
•      25 percent to the Internal Revenue Service
•      15 percent to the starving photographer
Check out the online gallery at www.berner.printroom.com. If you do buy anything through the gallery, please let me know so I can share the proceeds with the groups named in the previous paragraph.