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Return of Historic Glass Making at Dorflinger-Suydam Wildlife Sanctuary

TEXAS TOWNSHIP — On a hot and sunny day, most people wouldn’t be inclined to step outside. However, Jim Harmon says this is heat is nothing compared...
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TEXAS TOWNSHIP -- On a hot and sunny day, most people wouldn't be inclined to step outside. However, Jim Harmon says this is heat is nothing compared to his 2,000-degree furnace on wheels.

"It was one of those things that as soon as I tried it, I fell in love with it, and I've been doing it ever since, and the heat doesn't bother me," said Jim Harmon, art designer and glassblower professor at Keystone College.

At the Dorflinger Wildlife Sanctuary near Honesdale, Harmon crafted a Roemer, a traditional German drinking glass from the 1600s.
Harmon says it takes plenty of patience and skill.

"Everything that comes out of my mouth, while I'm doing something, I'm telling them what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and why you should do this," said Harmon.

This glass piece was the first piece of glassware to be blown in nearly a century in Wayne County, where Christian Dorflinger operated a world-class glass company around the turn of the 20th Century.

Now, this mobile glass studio project in conjunction with Keystone College comes with a furnace, pipe warmer, and even a section to cool off the glass once it's complete.

Devin Connolly became interested in glassmaking at an early age and he's happy to be a part of something so unique.

"It's definitely different. It's wonderful to be a part of," said Connolly.

Harmon has been making different glass products for over 40 years. He says having the mobile glass studio gives him endless options on how to educate children on the importance of glassware.

"We can go to a high school. We can get all the kids in different grades out there grade by grade or all in one big assembly if we want, and either do a demonstration or we can do hands on," says Harmon.

The presentations will continue this weekend and Harmon hopes to take the mobile glass studio to nearly a dozen school districts in the northeast Pennsylvania region, to teach the next generation about the area's past.

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