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Scoppa’s legacy fading into history at city’s Elm Park

How soon we forget.

That must have been part of the sting Lisa Scoppa-DePalo felt upon reading that the park her father, Sam Scoppa, nurtured and cherished for over half a century was named for another man.

Of course, she had no ill will toward the other man, the late Father John Manno, a beloved community figure in his own right. Rather, Lisa Scoppa-DePalo and her family were left with the unpleasant feeling that her father’s life-long contributions were forgotten.

Sam Scoppa established the Williamsport Area Softball Booster Association in 1951 and served as its president from that time until his passing in 2005.

In 1968, the association leased land for a playing field from the city for $1 a year and moved its games from another site on Arch Street.

With that, Elm Park was born. It became Sam Scoppa’s fifth child, in the words of his wife.

He nurtured the child and it grew into a complex with the addition of a second field in the mid-1970s and a third field a few years later.

After his passing, Sam Scoppa was inducted into the West Branch Valley Chapter of the state Sports Hall of Fame for Softball Administration.

A commemorative sign in a dugout reads “Lycoming County Softball Association honors Sam Scoppa, founder and architect of Elm Park.”

The softball association, the successor to the booster association, reportedly has been in discussion about naming one of the fields after him in the future.

That would be a nice gesture.

Certainly, we should not allow his name along with the history of Elm Park — a city treasure — to simply fade away.

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