It’s only a tiny stream that begins in Shillington, cuts through Cumru Township for a short piece, then continues through adjacent Kenhorst. There it empties into the Angelica Creek. But now that tiny stream has a name and a sign that local environmentalists hope will discourage people from dumping trash there:  Rabbit Run.

The name was chosen from 20 suggested for an Earth Day contest, and the idea to name the stream was born in 2016 through conversations between founding members of the newly formed Angelica Creek Watershed Association and Governor Mifflin High School biology teacher Jennifer Stinson, who was faculty advisor to the student environmental club.

The ACWA is a program of Berks Nature (BerksNature.org), a non-profit organization devoted to land preservation, water protection, community gardens, education programs, and partnerships that connect people to nature and maintain the natural beauty of Berks County. The ACWA, which has removed over 120 tires and tons of trash from the creek’s edge, has found that naming creeks can make a difference—even with tiny watershed runs like this section that parallels John Glenn Ave. to the south and continues past Highway 625 to New Holland Road.

Once the name “Rabbit Run” was selected, in order to get it officially named by the U.S. Government, the ACWA had to obtain permission and support letters from the three municipalities involved. The association also sought and received a similar letter of support from the Berks Planning Commission. All of this documentation was submitted to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, an office in the U.S. Geological Survey, which approved the naming in May 2018.

When the sign erection comes just one week from another Updike-related sign unveiling. The John Updike Childhood Home will host a Pennsylvania Museum & Historical Commission Marker Dedication Ceremony at 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 2, to which the public is invited. At that event, a National Registry of Historic Places plaque also will be unveiled at the house on 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington. Here is the story that appeared in the Reading Eagle:

Famously before him came poet Wallace Stevens, but John Updike and his fellow writer aren’t the only celebrities to come from Berks County. Susan Miers Smith wrote about Updike and four others in a Jan. 2 Reading Eagle story titled “5 celebrities with Berks County connections”—though the lower-case “is” in one book title and “Poorhouse” written as two words would have made Updike cringe. Also included in this batch are singer Taylor Swift, Hall of Fame football player Lenny Moore, actor Michael Constantine, and artist Keith Haring.

Updike’s “claim to fame,” according to Smith: “Internationally known author and poet. Twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: in 1982 for Rabbit Is Rich and in 1990 for Rabbit at Rest. He published more than 30 fiction books from 1959-2008.”

To that we might add that Updike was one of only a handful of Americans to receive both the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal in White House ceremonies from two different presidents. And he was one of only three literary writers to appear more than once on the cover of Time magazine—the others being Nobel laureates Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Updike published more than 60 books in all genres: fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, criticism, drama, and children’s books.

In an unsigned article published in the Monday, April 23 2018 Reading Eagle, it was announced that the Shillington Borough Council “on Thursday voted unanimously ‘to name a portion of the unnamed tributary to the Angelica Creek, which runs along Gov. Mifflin School District property, in commemoration of novelist John Updike’.”

School officials described the section in greater detail:  “The stream originates within Cumru and winds through Shillington Park, then adjacent to Mifflin Park Elementary and Governor Mifflin Intermediate Schools to eventually join with Angelica Creek in the Ken-Grill area.”

Jeanne E. Johnston, assistant secretary of Cumru Township, said that the name “Rabbit Run” was suggested last September by Cumru Township’s board of commissioners to commemorate the second and perhaps best-known novel written by John Updike, “whose childhood home was in the borough,” and that “the Kenhorst Borough Council already has agreed to support the comprehensive naming. The Berks County Planning Commission is also onboard. Thomas C. McKeon, vice-chairman of the BCPC, wrote a letter of support to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) stating that “The Commission notes that the naming is a great way to honor author John Updike, who was a resident of Berks County. In addition, the stream naming will aid local emergency services in identifying places around the area.”

Since the BGN has already notified Johnston of “its willingness to name the entire stream, including those portions in Kenhorst,” it is expected that the final decision “likely will be rendered this summer,” according to Johnston. Here is the online version of the story; below is a scan of the article that appeared in the newspaper.

Writing for The Inquirer and its online version, Philly.com, Frank Fitzpatrick relates just how big a recent high school basketball championship was for the City of Reading, what a single basketball star can mean to a beleaguered city, and how evocative the whole thing is of a world John Updike described many years ago.

In “Reading is on the rebound, thanks to a basketball star” (Nov. 21, 2017), Fitzpatrick introduces non-area readers to Lonnie Walker, who led Reading Senior High School’s Red Knights to a state basketball title seven months ago and returns soon as a University of Miami freshman for a pre-season D-I game against LaSalle “that will bring 7,300 fans to Santander Arena, a facility that just a few years ago was a lone jewel in a drab and decaying downtown.

“Residents and civic leaders have portrayed this first Division I basketball game ever here as something more than an athletic contest. In their view, it is, much like last spring’s groundbreaking championship and the parade that followed, another sign that Reading is rebounding at last.

“‘I’ve really seen so much positive activity and change since that basketball championship,’ said Robin Costenbader-Jacobson, whose Reading roots go back 10 generations. ‘There’s a lot going on downtown. It looks brighter and cleaner. People are believing again. It’s wonderful to see the city being embraced.’

“Last April, when the champion Red Knights were feted with a parade along 13th Street, consciously or not mirroring a route Reading-born author John Updike famously described in a short story about 1940s’ high-schoolers here, the population of this red-brick city joyfully amassed, as if drawn by an unseen force.

“‘[The parade] was almost a utopian moment for Reading. It was one of the most stunningly good moments I’ve seen in my lifetime,’ recalled Donna Reed, a 65-year-old native and a five-term member of City Council. ‘For a city that’s had so much distress financially, socially and economically, and all the other stuff we’ve gone through, it was a moment where everybody got together, everybody was happy together.”

Read the whole article. 

Related WFMZ-TV story: “Lonnie Walker returns to play in front of hometown fans”

Follow-up:  On Wednesday, Nov. 22, Walker “struggled in his return home,” the Sun-Sentinel reports. “Part of Miami’s recruiting pitch for the projected NBA lottery pick was a game in his hometown. Walker was held to five points and 2-of-8 shooting. . . .”

John Updike is represented in a new mural on the wall behind a music stage at the Berks County YR Club in Wyomissing, but it took a little prodding from YR Club manager Virginia Griffith for him to be included. She had commissioned three sisters who operate an arts business called Turquoise—Melissa, Ashley and Courtney Reed—but the sisters weren’t familiar enough with Updike to have painted him initially in their mural.

As Reading Eagle correspondent Carole Duran reports, “Courtney was asked to include John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who was born in Shillington. She wasn’t born yet when Updike was publishing his ‘Rabbit’ series, and was not familiar with the writer. After her research, she painted the book jacket of Rabbit, Run.” Courtney, 27, the youngest of the sisters, was born before the last of the high-profile Rabbit novels, Rabbit at Rest, was published in 1990, but it only goes to prove that The John Updike Childhood Home might be needed to keep Updike alive for future generations of Berks Countians.

Don’t squint too hard to locate the original hardcover dust jacket. Courtney used a later paperback edition, and you can see it just to the left of the clock post.