Peter Bellis, an AmeriCorp volunteer, spent his summer with the local SPCA and compiled the following information about its history:

• The world’s first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals began in London in 1824 and primarily dedicated itself to preventing the abuse of carriage horses.

• The first SPCA in the United States was organized in New York City in 1866 and expanded its protection efforts from carriage horses to dogs and other household animals.

• Lycoming County SPCA’s first president was Elizabeth L. Nice, who served from 1892 to 1915. In 1895, an 11-foot statue topped by a horse sculpture was erected in her honor in the Vallamont area. It had disappeared by 1939 and its whereabouts remain a mystery.

• Another Lycoming County SPCA president, Margaret Megahan, was an expert on German shepherd dogs and a judge for many national dog show competitions. She and her sister, Helen Watson, helped organize the first local dog shows through the Bald Eagle Kennel Club in the late 1940s.

• Megahan also hosted a popular weekly radio show called “Keep ‘Em Barking” from 1943 through the 1950s.

• The dog shows started by Megahan in the 1940s turned into something of a pet parade in the early 1990s, which included dogs, cats and sometimes pigs. In 1996, a pair of llamas led the parade.