Populore client Frank Scafella made the front page of our local newspaper with a great story about him and his motivation for writing a memoir of his many years in city government—Building on Trust: Reinventing Morgantown.
| Feb. 19 “Former Mayor writes memoir”—Pretty good for a kid from Wiles Hill who had dropped out of high school to join up.
Frank Scafella was all ten-hut and squared away in his dress blues, as he stood guard over the U.S. Embassy at Benghazi, Libya, in 1958.
He had to enlist another two years in the U.S. Marine Corps to garner the plum assignment, but it was worth it for the adventure.
The year before, he held the same posting at the embassy in Casablanca, which, for a townie who took in 50-cent matinees at the Warner back home, couldn’t help but conjure noir images of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Berman.
Scafella liked the pomp of embassy duty, he admits, but it was that sense of purpose—the heady, international weight attached—that moved him most of all.
Originally posted on Feb. 19 by Jim Bissett, The Dominion Post