On Centre: Bald Eagle Area

Quitting not in the cards for pair

Chris Rosenblum

If practice makes perfect, then Jerry Halderman and Jane Gillette are as close to flawless as anyone.

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Both have stayed on the job for longer than many of their neighbors have been alive.

Halderman, 68, of Miles-burg, has 50 years as an elections volunteer in charge of organizing and storing everything the county’s precincts need. Last week marked his 100th election.

Gillette, 88, a Clarence hairdresser, still curls, cuts and perms after 70 years. Since 1939, customers have come to Jane’s Hair Salon, a small room on the first floor of her home, for coifing and coffee.

During a meeting last week, the Centre County Board of Commissioners thanked Halderman for his service, presenting him with a framed citation in honor of his milestone.

Seven years retired from the county maintenance department, he began working elections in 1959 in the county courthouse. Voting has gone from paper ballots to punch cards to optical scanners to touch screens, and then back to scanners.

Except for the fact that he no longer delivers materials to precincts, as he did for 42 years, Halderman’s routine hasn’t changed.

Downstairs in the Willow-bank Building, he begins preparing for elections at least a month in advance — pulling items out of storage, testing equipment. Then comes supplying each of 89 precincts.

Into the black bags that replaced metal green ballot boxes years ago he places sample and absentee ballots, voting place signs, extra pens, tape rolls and other crucial items. Every time, he follows the same order of precincts.

“You have to have a system,” he said.

After the election, he carefully stores the nuts and bolts of voting for the next election — a task occupying him this week. His eventual replacement, he jokes, will need a day at first to do what he accomplishes in three hours. But despite a heart condition, he’s not planning on quitting any time soon.

Neither is Gillette, who beautifies three or four customers a day — perhaps over homemade cookies or cream puffs — in what used to be her grandparents’ parlor.

“Friendly, big-hearted, she would do anything for anybody,” said John Daughenbaugh, a Clarence funeral director and friend.

Apparently, she hasn’t lost much of the vigor that once served her well as the first female president of the Snow Shoe Lions Club. Not long ago, she put down her scissors and curlers and caught a Broadway show in New York with Daughenbaugh.

“She walked around the city like a trouper,” he said.

Chris Rosenblum writes a weekly column about happenings in the Bald Eagle area. Send him news at crosenbl@centredaily.com or call 231-4620. And visit the Bald Eagle area community site on CentreDaily.com for previous On Centre columns, news and photos and much more.