Several Salisbury Township residents, including the chairman of the township planning commission, would like a monument placed in Laubach Park to honor a founder of what would become the Salisbury Youth Association.

"We sold bottles and bought baseballs and gloves," Charles Beck, planners' chairman said.

Beck said the Boys' Club, formed in 1951, became the Salisbury Athletic Club which, in turn, became the Salisbury Youth Association.

Beck said the monument would honor Lester A. Young, who he said was a founder of the Boys' Club.

"I'm all in favor of it," Commissioner Robert Martucci, Jr. said, who represents the First Ward, in which Laubach Park is located, and played baseball prior to the SYA's chartering in 1975.

"I think it's a great idea in connection with the master site plan. It can be showcased," Salisbury Township Commissioner Randy Soriano said.

The township plans a use and development study of the east side's Laubach Park, similar to that done for Lindberg Park on the west side. The study would recommend improvements to Laubach Park. Efforts are underway to improve Lindberg Park.

"I like Randy's [Soriano] plan of including it [a monument] in the park," Commissioner Vice President Debra Brinton said.

Beck, along with Young's daughter, Lee Ann Malesky, and son, George Young, attended the Nov. 13 board of commissioners' meeting.

Lester A. Young died in 1992.

Lester Young and his wife, Lillian, who died in 2010, coached youth bowling at Mountainville Lanes, Allentown. He was inducted into the Allentown District Bowling Association Hall of Fame.

"The first years we had it [the Boys Club], I wasn't old enough to play. I was a batboy," George Young said, who, along with his sister and Beck managed teams for the SYA forerunner.

"The township [Salisbury] really changed after [19]'51," Beck said.

"When my father built his house on Tweed Street, there wasn't a Tweed Street," Beck said. "There was no Lehigh Avenue. It was a trolley track.

"It was only a cornfield where Truman [Elementary School] is now," Beck said.