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Dorney Park Going To Plarr?


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It works on mobile for me.

Dorney named a haunt "Madame Plarr's Chamber of Horrors", referencing the last name of the park's founder, and the family was not intrigued.

Perhaps they got the idea from "G. A. Boekling's Eerie Estate". Which actually was his residence.

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Said Sally Plarr Zelker, granddaughter of the Madame Plarr in question:

Zelker said her first job at age 7 was leading ponies in the park. She called her grandparents "good citizens" who shut the park down the Sunday after Labor Day and never had anything like the park's Haunt, which showcases zombies, vampires and otherworldly beings.

"Little kids trick or treating is fine, but horror stuff is satanic," said Zelker, a minister at Morgenland Church in Orefield.

"She was a kind, gentle, soft-spoken lady who devoted her life to serving the needs of veterans," wrote Kavounas, who couldn't be reached Friday for more comment. Zelker also remembers her grandmother's devotion to veterans. "I never saw her without her knitting," Zelker said. "She was always making black hats for the veterans."

Kavounas suggested that Dorney Park could better honor her grandmother by planting a garden of her favorite flower, hydrangeas.

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Already done. Taken off website, covered on in-park signs.

The Madame Plarr name was removed from the website and the sign at the entrance to the attraction this week, said Carrie Basta, Dorney Park's public relations manager.

"It was never our intention to offend them," Basta says. "We intended it as an homage to our history."

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Yes, probably following the lead of Boeckling and probably sincerely intended as an allusion to park history that not many would "get." Problem is, the Plarr family is still around... Not only that, but the Madame Plarr the maze attempted to reference is traceable to a very real person... whose granddaughters are still in the area, and still care for the park their family had such a hand in creating.

The one interviewed said she rarely saw her grandmother without knitting in her hand, waving at park visitors from their home on the property. To (even inadvertently) recast a very real person in the park's history as a maniac is... unfortunate.

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