According to Sharon Fronabarger, president of New Hope Celebrates, the town has experienced its troubles over the last few years — floods, hurricanes and crazy snowstorms, to start with — but it has emerged on the other side, even better than ever.
There’s a new spirit of cooperation between New Hope and its sister city Lambertville. The chamber of commerce has some new blood and has been taking a renewed interest in New Hope and supporting the local businesses in new and innovative ways. Lambertville is hosting a “NiteFare” June 12 with more than a dozen gourmet food trucks and 15 restaurants joining forces for an exciting food festival, and from June 20-22, New Hope celebrates its history with the “Liberty” Canal Festival, complete with a three-day Revolutionary War-era reenactment, colonial-period crafts, 18th-century music, Revolutionary War lifestyle exhibitions and a colonial treasure hunt for the children. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can witness the new spirit firsthand this weekend as, for the first time, New Hope Celebrates opens its annual parade on the Jersey side and takes it into New Hope for the exuberant celebration. Speaking of traveling from place to place (nice segue), this week we spoke to Fronabarger about her life as a world traveler and why she chose to put down roots in our area.
PGN: I understand you’re a world traveler. SF: Yes, I’m a Navy brat so I’ve lived all over the world. I arrived in Pennsylvania 20-something years ago. I’ve lived in such places as Virginia Beach; Mount Laurel, N.J.; Athens, Greece; Morocco; San Diego; and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — before it was a prison.
PGN: How did you end up here? SF: I went to college at what was then Trenton State College — it’s now the College of New Jersey — and during my senior year I started working at Bloomberg Financial Markets. After I graduated high school, my parents — because of whatever Navy gene or job they have that causes them to move so much — moved to Kuwait but I stayed in the area since I already had a job here. My sister is four years younger and had just graduated middle school so she went to high school overseas. At Trenton State, I was introduced to New Hope and I just loved this area. I’ve traveled around quite a bit but this is such an amazing area of the world. We have the wonderful river that travels through our two towns of New Hope and Lambertville. It’s beautifully scenic with so many outdoor things to do, not to mention the awesome town that we have. I landed here and have not regretted it one bit.
PGN: Did you get to visit your family much in Kuwait? SF: Yes, I actually ended up getting trapped there when Iraq invaded Kuwait the first summer I visited. We were stuck there for two weeks under Iraqi control. I was the first person to get out of there with first-hand photos of the invasion. Let’s just say I was happy. With what I received for them from United Press International, I was able to turn a negative into a positive.
PGN: Were both of your parents in the military? SF: No, just my dad. But he’d retired and started working for a private contractor at that time. Between escaping and going back, they were in Kuwait for several years. They’ve now since moved to the much-safer Annapolis, Md., area.
PGN: Describe for me what that “Uh oh. We’re being invaded!” moment was like. SF: It was quite interesting, which I can now say being a few years out from it. But let me try to take us back. I clearly remember the day prior to the invasion. We had no clue something was about to go down. We were out shopping and touring with some embassy friends and there was no indication even in the local media of any remote trouble brewing. That evening, we were home and the same embassy friends called us. We’d had plans for the next day and they said, “We’re going to have to cancel the plans, something’s happening. We’re not sure what yet, we’ll get back to you.” Fast forward to six o’clock in the morning and my parents were waking me up by saying, “The country was invaded last night and we need to get a plan together.” I was still trying to wake up and thinking, Wow, this is an unusual way to start the day, so we ran to the grocery store around the corner and stocked up on food and supplies and made sure everything was charged up. Though this was 20-plus years ago and it was more a landline world than an electronic world, so we didn’t have iPads and Facebook and everything to keep abreast of what was going on. We actually called friends back home and kept on the line with them for several days. We didn’t hang up until the phone went dead. From that point on, we had no communication outside of Kuwait because the Iraqis took over the TV and radio stations. And it was all, what I guess you would say was, propaganda. It was also in Arabic, which I’m not fluent in, so we really had no idea what was going on. It was a scary time.
PGN: I’m sure! SF: Since we were stuck there, I went up on the roof and took pictures of the helicopters flying over and the tanks rolling through and everything else. There were bullets flying past and lots of noise. In retrospect, I’m not sure I’d do that today. The situation really caused the family to bond quite closely together. It was just us and after a few weeks it became clear that this wasn’t just a passing incident. We got together with some other folks and devised a plan to get out of the country. We heard about some people who had been successful using a specific compass point and we followed their trail. There were 22 people in our caravan. We didn’t take much —only what we could fit in an away bag — and headed out through the desert. There were no roads. We drove straight through the desert. Mind you, we were not in Jeeps, we were in regular cars. I think ours was a Mitsubishi Gallant or something. I don’t know if you’ve ever driven a car over sand, but it’s quite difficult. You sort of hydroplane because it’s so soft and you have to keep going or else it’s really easy to get stuck. I was holding my breath I was so nervous about whether or not we were going to make it. This was the stuff from movie plots and we were living it!
PGN: Where did you end up? SF: We crossed the border in Saudi Arabia and had to stay there for three days because, at the time of the invasion, we were being processed for permanent visas so that we would have a quicker trip through the immigration line (going back and forth to the U.S.), so the Kuwaiti government had our passports. So here we were trying to get into Saudi Arabia with no passports … [laughs] and they don’t really like that. Eventually they let us through and gave us a police escort to the U.S. embassy in Riyadh. We were able to leave three days later after our new passports were processed. It’s funny. I think I’ve blocked some of this from my mind until just now. I don’t think I’ve really told many of my friends about this. People are going to be surprised!
PGN: We have such a narrow view of the world from here. What was it like before the invasion? SF: It’s interesting because it’s far enough away from Mecca that you don’t have everybody wearing the traditional Islamic wardrobe. It’s a mix between traditional and Westernized clothing. You’d see plenty of people in jeans and long-sleeve shirts. Even though it was hot, everyone was still respectful of the culture and tried to remain somewhat covered. You wouldn’t see any of us running around in shorts or T-shirts. A lot of it was very much like the U.S.: fast-food restaurants, the same stores you might find going down Market Street. The main difference was the color of everything: It’s very, very, very brown and beige. The landscape is all sand and the colors reflect that. There’s not a lot of bright color other than the water, which is beautiful.
PGN: Did you find much anti-American sentiment? SF: I will say we did not run into any of that. Even right after the invasion when we were stocking up at the stores, everybody was very nice. The majority of people we met were very welcoming and kind. There was a language barrier with some people but English is the second language there so almost everybody knew English and we knew enough Arabic to get by and at least have a general conversation. Don’t quiz me on it now, though; I wouldn’t do so well!
PGN: Unfortunately, not many of us here would. SF: You know what surprised me about people outside of the U.S.? How well-versed they are in current events and politics all around the world! Whereas most people in the U.S. tend not to know much about what’s happening anywhere else but here, if that. We’re very U.S.-centric and it’s so not like that outside of our borders. People are much more aware of what’s going on in other parts of the world than we are. It’s a shame. PGN: Very true. So, back to you: What were you like as a kid? SF: I was a typical tomboy. I was very involved in soccer and tennis and other outdoor activities. I was a pretty good skateborder at one point in time.
PGN: You got a bachelor’s in finance and minored in psychology. How did you end up in human resources? SF: I’d always thought that I would end up in the corporate world. My dad was a logistics officer in the Navy and I was part of the Future Business Leaders of America in school. I was fairly good with numbers and took accounting courses, which was what got me to Bloomberg while I was still in school. You know how excited you are when you get your first job? I was telling everybody about this awesome new company that I was working for and no one knew what I was talking about. They were fairly new, with an employee population of 3,000. It was a true start-up at the time. Now they have more than 15,000 employees in 192 locations. One of my projects was to manage their summer interns, so I learned the ins and outs of HR — called “personnel” at the time: immigration, affirmative action, compliance, all that.
PGN: What extracurricular things do you do now? SF: When I get a chance, I enjoy scuba diving.
PGN: Best scuba story? SF: I am a huge shark fan. I realize that they’re big scary creatures, but I just think that they’re awesome. I’ve always had an interest in photography, hence standing on the roof in Kuwait taking pictures as bullets were flying. I took an underwater photography course and, for my test, I got to go swimming with the sharks at the Camden Aquarium, now the Adventure Aquarium. They escorted us in the back and put us in the water. For the first dive, we had to stay as still as we possibly could to let us and the sharks get acclimated and then we did a second dive where we were able to free swim with the sharks. It was an amazing experience.
PGN: Any other hobbies? SF: Right now my time is taken up with New Hope Celebrates. [Laughs] I’m not an elected official, but a lot of people refer to me as the unofficial mayor of New Hope. I try to attend as many meetings and functions as I can and promote the city and the event.
PGN: Ha! I like to think I’m the unofficial ambassador to Philadelphia. SF: So there you go, we have similar titles! PGN: What’s your favorite junk food? SF: Bacon! I don’t consider it junk food. It should be a staple in everyone’s meal plan!
PGN: Do you collect anything? SF: I have about 40-50 gnomes throughout my yard. There’s a special one named Pocket. He has his own Facebook page and his full name is Pocket Frona Gnome. He travels around with me wherever I go.
PGN: I am a … SF: Lefty.
PGN: Me too. There have been an inordinate number of left-handed presidents. SF: Yup. I’ve got that going for me.
PGN: What are some of the things we can look forward to at NHC this year? SF: We have quite a line-up of activities this year. We just launched an LGBT history project called “Retro-Scope.” It’s a snapshot of the LGBT history in New Hope through the years. It’s an exhibit that will be up all month. The theme, “Bridge to Equality,” will highlight the fight for marriage equality in Pennsylvania and, for the first time in history, the parade, which is the signature event of Pride week, will kick off in Lambertville, N.J., and march across the bridge into New Hope. I’m super excited about that because it’s also the 200th anniversary of the bridge’s opening. The theme will highlight the fight for marriage equality in Pennsylvania and we’re going to have a same-sex couple, Charles Young and Fred Blank, get married in a ceremony performed by Lambertville Mayor David DelVecchio. Then the couple will walk across the bridge into Pennsylvania where they will be greeted by a number of Pennsylvania politicians who support gay marriage. They will symbolically bring gay marriage into Pennsylvania. Following the parade, we’ll be having a vendor fair and block party in the parking lot of the Bucks County Playhouse. We’ll have Kristine W as one of our headliners along with special guests Trisha Dasch, Christine Martucci, Dario and Josh Zuckerman. Then we’ll continue our celebration and cap off the night with a Pride Dance Party at the Raven with DJ Tracy Young and a special show from Dario. It’s going to be great fun!
For more information, visit www.newhopecelebrates.com.
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