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Two officeholders’ combined tenure at courthouse totaled 92 years

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When the Washington County Courthouse opens its doors Monday, it will be welcoming more than the new year.

Two new row officers will be sworn in, replacing women who have either worked there and/or have been elected officials since well before the 21st century.

Barbara Gibbs, who has been a county employee or officeholder for 54 years, chose last year not to run for a ninth, four-year term as clerk of courts. Phyllis Ranko Matheny started as a clerk in the prothonotary’s office in the 1970s and is wrapping up 38 years there, 20 years as an elected official.

Both began working for the county during the typewriter era and oversaw the transition to computerization of records in their respective offices.

The county commissioners originally hoped to note the retirement of both women at their final meeting of the year on Dec. 17, but Matheny was scheduled to have eye surgery, so her office threw a farewell gathering for her a few days earlier that commission Chairman Larry Maggi, plaque in hand, and others from the commissioners’ suite at Courthouse Square were able to attend.

Arriving at the courthouse a few hours before the festivities was Peter Suwak, longtime solicitor for the prothonotary’s office who is now the Rev. Peter Suwak. A graduate of Gettysburg Theological Seminary, he is now pastor of three Lutheran congregations in western Maryland.

“Thank God for him,” Matheny said of Suwak during a break from greeting a throng of well-wishers. “He’s a fighter. We’ve been to Superior Court, Commonwealth Court. If it weren’t for him, I’d have been gone long ago.”

Matheny’s election totals in 2003 make the recent Shober-McCormick contest for Washington County commissioner – decided by 35 votes – look like a landslide. A Democrat who had secured a Republican write-in nomination that year, Matheny won re-election by just seven votes over Judith Fisher, who chose to litigate the outcome.

Matheny, a formerly clerk in the row office, previously served nine years as deputy to Prothonotary Bob A. Franks.

When Franks decided to retire, Matheny made her first run for prothonotary in 1991. She lost to Colleen Murphy Arnowitz and promptly found herself out of a job. Matheny worked in the private sector and for the Washington County Housing Authority before making a second, successful run for the office in 1995.

“I never had an easy campaign,” she said. “I was running not just against opposition, but stiff opposition. Twice, I lost my own party’s nomination and won a Republican write-in. I can thank all the voters. They all kept me here.”

Matheny said she has no particular plans for her retirement. “I’ll just take one day at a time and enjoy my family and my friends.”

Matheny was back on the job this week to finish out her fifth, four-year term as the clerk of the civil division of Washington County Court, handling the filing of lawsuits, divorces, injunction requests, driver’s license suspensions, liens and myriad other documents.

Gibbs is Matheny’s counterpart in the criminal division of the courthouse.

Earlier this month, commission Vice Chairman Diana Irey Vaughan, her voice raw with emotion, read Gibbs’ commendation into the record of the public meeting.

“You were one of the first elected officials I got to know when I became commissioner,” said Irey Vaughan, who was elected in 1995.

Gibbs’ staff was on hand for the occasion, and she introduced each member.

“She has one of the most efficient and best-run offices in the state, maybe the country,” said Maggi. “I never have heard of an issue from her office.

“You are an integral part of the court,” he told the retiring clerk of courts.

Her first day on the job at the courthouse in summer 1961 was in the office of Clerk of Courts Joseph Mouyard of Donora, and, gathering encyclopedic knowledge of the thousands of cases filed there, she became his deputy.

Gibbs later worked in court administration, emergency management and equal employment offices, making her first run for elected office in 1983 and emerging as the Democratic nominee from a field of nine candidates.

“I totally enjoyed it,” she told those in attendance at the public meeting room of the Courthouse Square office building. “I had such a wonderful time. I loved every single day. I wanted to go to work. There’s a lot of energy in that department, even though we deal with criminal defendants.”

Gibbs has been president of the state Clerk of Courts and Prothonotaries’ Association, and she is a two-time recipient of the Liberty Bell award from Washington County Bar Association, in 1987 and 2015.

Gibbs’ daughter, Laural Ziemba, holding her own daughter, Leah, 3, also spoke of her mother. “She’s taught me everything I know,” Ziemba said. “She’s such a hard worker, such an inspiration.”

Gibbs may have a reputation as a “taskmaster, but they respect her and they love her and they consider her a friend. She did it in such a way that endeared her to them. That’s a very tough balance to strike,” Ziemba continued.

Gibbs said in retirement she plans to exercise more and do additional charity work. She hopes to take classes leading toward a degree in a major as yet undecided, and watch appellate court arguments and legislative sessions on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

Among those taking oaths of office for the first time at ceremonies scheduled for Monday morning in Courtroom No. 1 will be two Democrats, prothonotary-elect Joy Schury Ranko and clerk of courts-elect Frank Scandale.

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