Eileen Leiby, a graduate of the Kutztown Area School District, and currently a resident of Hamburg, is a well-known staff member at the Hamburg Area Middle School, having been an aide in the library since 2001. What people may not know is that Eileen had a career as a court reporter for almost ten years.
Why would someone give up a career for which they put time and money into an education and a certification? Eileen Leiby gave up her career when she learned she was going to become a mother.
Allen Leiby, a 2008 graduate of Hamburg Area High School, was born to a family who believed in traditional values. Starting as a toddler, Allen Leiby was indoctrinated into St. Michael’s Church as a member of the Mother and Baby class taught by his own mother.
“That’s the way it was. We went to church and Sunday School,” stated Eileen when she described how Allen even attended adult Sunday School classes as an older teenager.
Eileen Leiby relayed the activities to which she transported Allen as a typical elementary school student, starting with soccer and t-ball, but eventually moving toward music with Allen’s love of playing drums. He started school drum lessons in fourth grade, but by sixth grade, Eileen was driving Allen to West Lawn for private lessons that continued for years.
Eileen said that as an involved parent, “you go all over the place.”
As Allen’s interest in the drums grew, he played with the middle school and high school jazz bands, and played with the Hamburg Area High School Marching Band from eighth to twelfth grades. True to her commitment to her son, Eileen Leiby enlisted in the Hamburg Area Music Association, where she served several years as the secretary.
Leiby confirmed that she “made funnel cakes for every football game,” as she volunteered at the concession stand, but during away football games, she was on the bus as a band chaperone. Four years of dedication to her son’s interest in drums had Leiby committed from August to June of every school year, giving of her time with the band students, faculty, and the Music Association.
Past HAMA member, Dave Chandler of Windsor Township, remembered Allen Leiby during those years in the marching band. “He was conscientious and dedicated. You could tell he was raised to be a good person.”
Despite Allen Leiby’s love of drums, his career aspirations were not toward music.
“He always wanted to be a policeman,” confirmed his mother, Eileen. “My uncle was a state trooper.”
Allen entered the Criminal Justice program at Kutztown University and graduated early in 2011, starting a frustrating search for a job in his field. He graduated from the Reading Police Academy, but it took a suggestion by a retired member of the Philadelphia police force to apply in the city.
Due to meeting dead ends in his hunt for a job on a police force in an economy of cutbacks, Allen almost turned his back on a notice from Philadelphia requesting for him to take the fitness test to be accepted into their police academy. Eileen Leiby pushed Allen to go saying, “you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t go.”
Allen Leiby, previously from Hamburg, currently resides in Northeast Philadelphia.
“He likes his job,” said his mother. “There are a lot of people who go to college and don’t get jobs.”
As a mother who has the distinction of raising a son who has achieved his dreams, Eileen Leiby’s words of wisdom for the parents of young children include that “it’s good for them to volunteer and help out. There’s always someone worse off than you are,” but she believes the most important message that she taught her son was “to treat people like he wants to be treated.”
Traditional values seem to be at the core of this success story from Hamburg.
