Paint project leads to career
Jim Koziel was a student at Chartiers-Houston High School when the Christian Youth Organization to which he belonged was offered a chance to fix up an old house to use for youth activities.
But Jim, who is the boy pouring paint from a can in this week’s Mystery Photo, didn’t realize what he was doing would turn into a career.
”Believe it or not, I’m still a painter,” Koziel said when contacted by phone last week. “In fact, I’m painting a house right now.”
Koziel lived in Houston’s Allison plan at the time and was a member of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church, which acquired the vacant house. He still lives in the Allison plan. His daughter and grandchild live in North Carolina.
”We were a bunch of kids that got together to fix that house for dances and other things,” said Joe Mulshen, another member of the C-H class of 1969. Mulshen said he was there the day the photo was taken but was working in another room.
Mulshen, who now lives in Eighty Four, and several others were able to identify Sandy Raspet, the girl pointing to the ceiling, and Janis Petras, who is holding a brush.
Janis Petras Post guessed the picture was taken in 1967 or 1968.
”It was our church youth group that fixed the house across the street,” she said, adding that the house was used for CCD classes.
Post went on to study nursing at Montefiore Hospital. She lived in Akron, Ohio, for a while before returning to the area. Now a registered nurse for Signa Health, she lives in Canonsburg and has a son, a daughter and a grandson.
The house was at the corner of Hallam and Third streets in Meadow Lands, according to Joann Koziel Diesel, Jim Koziel’s cousin. CCD classes are now held in a brick building constructed on that spot.
There were guesses but no confirmation about the boy and girl in the background. And no one seems to know who the guy standing on the ladder is. Mulshen said that kids from several schools comprised the CYO chapter, which might explain why the C-H students could not identify him.
Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.