Driver once worked press, took photos for O-R
When Frank Kramer was in the building, Joe Tuscano was assured of getting quality photos to complement his coverage of the scholastic state wrestling tournament.
“I would bring them back (from Hershey),” said Tuscano, assistant sports editor for the Observer-Reporter. “This was before technology got to where it is now, and we can send them easily. We would run a full-page spread after the tournament. Frank was a freelancer, and his work was good. He was very talented with what he did.”
Kramer, 57, a former pressman at the O-R and former local resident, died with two family members Friday night in a fiery crash on Interstate 70, near the Speers exit in Fallowfield Township.
Washington County Coroner Tim Warco pronounced Kramer, the driver; his wife, Kristy, 52; and their daughter, Taylor, 22, dead at the scene at 11:07 p.m. They lived in Middletown, Dauphin County, outside Harrisburg. An autopsy will determine the cause of each death.
Witnesses, according to the coroner’s report, said the Kramers’ minivan was traveling at a fast speed on the westbound side of I-70, near mile marker 38, when the accident occurred around 9:30 p.m.
According to state police in Belle Vernon, who are still investigating, the minivan was traveling in the right lane when it struck a semi-trailer from behind, pushing the semi into the left lane, where it struck another vehicle. The minivan, police said, then caught fire.
The semi-trailer driver was identified as Yaw K. Oppong, 43, of Denver, and the other driver as Thomas E. Evans, 60, of Allison, Fayette County. Neither was injured, police said.
Charleroi and Fallowfield fire departments and Mon Valley EMS assisted at the scene.
Tuscano remembers Frank Kramer as being soft-spoken and friendly, an individual who “always stopped by and said hi” when the O-R sports staffer was covering the big tournament in Hershey. He said he last saw Kramer about three years ago.
Kramer, Tuscano recalled, was from Canonsburg and has a number of relatives in the area.
Thomas P. Northrop, publisher of the Observer-Reporter, said Kramer was working at The Democrat-Messenger of Waynesburg in 1986, when the O-R purchased that daily newspaper and the Valley Daily Herald of Monongahela.
Northrop said Kramer stayed at the O-R until the early to mid-1990s, when he took a job at a printing company in Silver Spring, Md. Kramer was the head pressman there for years before moving to Middletown for a job with the Press & Journal, another newspaper.
“Frank was a very, very good pressman,” Northrop said. “He was relaxed. He never panicked, never got flustered.”
Joe Sukle, publisher of the Press & Journal, could not be reached for comment.