Click Here Windsor Park Stories to Screen Episodes in Cape May Windsor Park Stories is going on the road and will be screened in one of the most popular resort towns on the east coast, Cape May, New Jersey. Making its debut in 1997, Windsor Park Stories, a series about ordinary people who have done extraordinary things, will begin its fourth season, but not before the people of Cape May, New Jersey, get a chance to see some of the episodes that were produced in Cape May this summer. According to Tony Mussari, producer of Windsor Park Stories, "Taking the series on location to Cape May was the best thing we did this summer, and it was something we never planned to do." A sentimental journey to Wildwood and Cape May to retrace the steps Mussari and his wife, Kitch Loftus, used to take with their children 20 years ago led to a chance meeting with several people on Jackson Street. An unplanned meeting with a former colleague from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Linda Loughlin, who now runs The Summer Cottage Inn convinced the producers of Windsor Park Stories that Cape May was fertile ground for their series. "It's all here," said Mussari, "great people, great architecture and wonderful stories. We just could not stay away." On October 29 at 7:30 p.m., two of the Cape May Windsor Park Stories episodes will be shown for the Cape May residents in the auditorium of City Hall. Then on October 30, the King's College Alumni Association of Philadelphia and South Jersey will have the opportunity to see two episodes, one of Cape May and the other of Fr. Thomas O'Hara, C.S.C., the president of King's College. An art exhibit of Sue Hand's watercolors of Cape May will precede the screening. More than a third of Windsor Park Stories 2001 will focus on Cape May people and events: The Many Faces of Jackson Street Renaissance: The Virginia Hotel, Curtis Bashaw A Victorian Mayor: Bruce Minnix CBS: The Golden Years, Bruce Minnix The Greatest Loss: Linda Loughlin On the Way to Cape May: Skip and Linda Loughlin Painting Jackson Street: Sue Hand At a time when celebrity journalism fills the airwaves, Windsor Park Stories dares to be different. It focuses attention on the compelling, interesting and motivational stories of ordinary people. The series airs on WVIA TV in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania, Sunday evening at 7 p.m. The award-winning team of Mussari-Loftus Associates of Dallas, PA produces Windsor Park Stories. "Laurel Garden Club To Be Featured in WVIA's Windsor Park Stories" Dallas, Pa. -- The Laurel Garden Club of Scranton recently visited the set of the PBS television series "Windsor Park Stories," and will be featured in an upcoming segment of the television show. The show's producers, Kitch Loftus-Mussari and Dr. Tony Mussari, transformed the Back Mountain one-acre lot from a desolate, overgrown dumping ground into a vibrant, perennial four-level garden where a variety of plants, flowers, trees and ornamental grasses thrive. All segments of "Windsor Park Stories," which highlights ordinary people who have accomplished extraordinary things, are filmed in the park. "We are delighted to have the Laurel Garden Club as our guests," said Mussari. "As we start filming episodes for our fourth season on WVIA, I am sure that this segment will make a wonderful segment for the new season." The Laurel Garden Club began the evening with a tour of the park and the adjoining gardens. "It's absolutely gorgeous," said club president Karen Fritz of Clarks Summit. "This is the largest turnout I've ever seen," Pauline Reedy of Duryea said of the nearly 60 members that arrived for the tour. The club, meets every month, tours members' gardens, and hosts speakers at the Tripp House in Scranton, said Reedy. "The view is just spectacular," said Sandy Sokash of Wyoming of the garden's view overlooking the Wyoming Valley from the Back Mountain. "I've been to the Botanical Gardens in Bronx and in Brooklyn, but this garden is just as beautiful as those," she said. The current season's episodes of "Windsor Park Stories" can be seen every Sunday evening on WVIA-TV Channel 44 at 7:00 p.m. Auction Painting on the Small Screen The board of directors of the Back Mountain Memorial Library saw a preview of an episode of "Windsor Park Stories" that features the creation of the annual auction painting by Sue Hand and the furious bidding to get each year's new work. The sale is a highlight of each auction with bidding reaching over $4000 last year. Producers Kitch and Tony Mussari stood by a television monitor as Randall Glidden, the new president of the board, looked on. The show entitled Auction will be broadcast Sunday, February 20 at 7 p.m. on WVIA-TV 44. King's Mass Comm Student To Assist "Windsor Park Stories" Production Team Lacey Banis, a senior from Florida, majoring in Mass Communications at King's College will be spending a lot of time on the web this semester. Ms. Banis will study "Graphic Design for the Web" with Mr. John Augustine, and she will take an independent study experience in public relations for a television series with Dr. Anthony J. Mussari and his wife, Kitch Loftus-Mussari, the producers of "Windsor Park Stories." These individually crafted learning experiences will enable Lacey to immerse herself in design and writing for the Internet. During her Christmas vacation, Lacey used the World Wide Web to conduct interviews with many of the people who will be telling their stories this season in Windsor Park. "It's a unique and very rich experience for a college senior," said John Augustine, Internet Marketing Specialist for the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business & Industry. "I wish I had this type of opportunity when I was an undergraduate." WINDSOR PARK STORIES TO FEATURE KING'S OWN   The second season of Windsor Park Stories, the television series which profiles inspirational people of our area, will feature people from the King’s family during April. Tiesha Feimster ’98 and Brian Tate ’98 will be featured on the Sunday, April 4, installment entitled, "Searching for Success." Louise Wasserott ’75, King’s director of alumni relations, will be profiled in the April 11 segment, "Beating Cancer." (Reprinted from Monarch Notes, March 29, 1999) Season '99 Begins with Private Screening   Season'99 Begins with Private Screening More than 200 guests made their way to the Public Broadcasting Center at WVIA TV on Saturday, January 16, 1999. They traveled from New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC, and Ohio to join Kitch Loftus, Tony Mussari and Bill Kelly for the kickoff of the second season of Windsor Park Stories. For 8 months the production team of Windsor Park Stories has been writing, shooting, interviewing, editing, and gardening in preparation for this special evening. Since May 1998, more than two dozen people have been interviewed in Windsor Park. "These are the people who make the show so special," said Mussari. "They are what Windsor Park Stories is all about, people like Tiesha Feimster and Brian Tate." Tiesha and Brian came to Windsor Park to explain how they are searching for success in the Workplace 2000. Tiesha, now a producer at Black Entertainment Television in Washington, DC, and Brian, a graduate student, are alumni of King's College in Wilkes-Barre. Their story is one of overcoming obstacles, and it is told with an honesty and sincerity which helps the viewer better understand the hopes and fears of young people. On Saturday, January 16, Tiesha and Brian were in the audience to celebrate the beginning of the second season. They heard Bill Kelly, CEO of WVIA TV, welcome the audience, and they watched Success Washington Style: Pat Mulloy. Mulloy was recently appointed Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Market Access and Compliance. His story is the first episode of the new season. Mulloy, his wife Marge and several of their friends attended the private screening. Immediately following the Pat Mulloy story, Brian and Tiesha saw a program entitled Magic Moments From Windsor Park. Here they met many of the people who are featured in the second year of the series. Following the Magic Moments video, Bill Kelly thanked the producers and he asked Pat Mulloy to react to his episode. The Producers were called to the stage and Mussari offered brief comments about the series. He and his wife presented gifts to members of the production team. After the program, Kelly invited everyone in the audience to join him and his staff in another area of the broadcasting center where food and beverages were served. Begun in 1998, Windsor Park Stories attempts to offer its viewers extraordinary stories about the lives of ordinary people. Viewer response to the show's initial year was so strong that the series has been expanded to 26 new episodes, including 4 special programs. Windsor Park Stories is shot in the serene setting of Windsor Park, a four-level perennial garden designed by series creator Tony Mussari and his wife Kitch Loftus-Mussari. The natural beauty of Windsor Park provides a special place where visitors tell their stories. "Each episode of Windsor Park Stories focuses on the extraordinary experiences of a person not so different from our viewers," explained Mussari. "As the story unfolds, we learn about our guest's special experiences and the impact these events have had upon them. The guest also details how these experiences have shaped their moral character and their personal system of beliefs, and we learn what skills they developed to overcome the special adversity they faced." Mussari expressed gratitude for services provided by S.E. Whiting Advertising Associates and Internet services provided by The Times Leader, a Knight Ridder newspaper.

The Back Mountain Buzz - October 8, 1998

Lois Diamond

There's a charming "secret" I was recently introduced to. Some friends who live in the Orchard View Terrace area told me they had discovered a beautiful park right in their neighborhood. It is a place with benches, terraces, lovely plantings, and an incredible view.

A few phone calls uncovered additional information. Windsor Park is the creation of husband and wife team Kitch Loftus and Tony Mussari. They have transformed what was once a neighborhood eyesore into a beautiful, serene setting that is a source of pride for them and their community.

This wonderful park is also the backdrop for a TV series they produce. Windsor Park Stories can be seen on channel 44 at 7 p.m. on Sundays.

We can consider ourselves lucky to have people like Tony and Kitch as our neighbors.

King's teacher aids oil giants' big day - December 3, 1998

Mark Guydish Times Leader Staff Writer

Anthony J. Mussari, King's College chairman of mass communications/media technologies, found himself with a new -- if temporary -- job Tuesday during the press conference announcing Exxon's purchase of Mobil.

Outside his academic duties at King's, Mussari runs a video production service called Mussari Loftus Associates, which handled the video end of the press conference broadcast, beamed around the globe from New York by satellite and offered live on the Internet. Mussari also was technical director.

"We never did anything this big before," said Mussari, a 1963 King's graduate. "It was an incredible experience, and when you think of the magnitude of transmission it's phenomenal. We transmitted via satellite as far away as Tokyo, Australia, San Francisco and Paris."

Mussari has done corporate industrial video productions for clients in New York and other East coast cities. He said that 10 days before the press conference he was contacted by a person "who knows our work and knew we would maintain confidentiality and that we were very experienced, and so they asked us to come in and do it."

Secrecy was essential. Mussari was "kept in the dark" about the press conference specifics.

"All told we were one part of a 14-person operation," Mussari said. "There's a lighting component, the satellite time, the direction, the engineering. We just had the video. They had another crew to do audio, which was really complex. I think there were 120 or 140 table-top microphones."

Though he declined to discuss his fee for the work, Mussari said he initially expected it to be a single-camera job, but ended up using two cameras and three recording decks. He worked with a former student and frequent collaborator, Patrick Romano, a 1987 King's graduate.

Such real-world experience helps in his classroom work, Mussari said.

"I do it because it's what I do and my whole focus is to provide unique opportunities for highly motivated students," he said. "I also think it makes me a better teacher.

"If I never did another thing in my life, this is the icing on the cake."

TV's 'Windsor Park Stories' tells inspiring tales of Pennsylvanians - September 25, 1998

Tara Reilly, Pocono Record Writer

In a lush and serene Windsor Park, in Dallas, Pa, Northeastern Pennsylvania natives and residents delve into their personal histories and share emotional stories of their struggles, pains and adversities, but most importantly, tell of their strength and determination to fight back and overcome.

"We wanted to provide viewers with an opportunity to see people who not only have good stories, but who have experienced problems that are universal," Anthony Mussari, WPS creator said. "We wanted to offer people effective, noble ways of dealing with problems."

Mussari and his wife, Kitch Loftus, produce the shows together.

WPS is shown on WVIA-TV, channel 44. The show began its first season in January 1998 as a 13-episode series, but because of its rising success, 10 additional episodes have been added for the second season beginning in January 1999.

Inspiring series topics include the story of Eric Lehman, a young man coping with the death of his mother, Leon Bass, an American Third Army veteran who helped liberate a Nazi death camp during World War II and John and Marilyn Gregorski, a married couple battling cancer.

Leon Bass describes the horrors of Buchenwald, and how the experience led him to a life of speaking out against racism and hatred.

"The Nazis placed all of them there (in Buchenwald) because the Nazis said they, too, were not good enough," Bass says in WPS. "I know there was a reason for my being in the military. There was a reason for my going to Buchenwald. I travel around...to speak to people, to let them know that the evil is still with us."

Mark Thomas, Vice President of Programming at WVIA, wrote,"Windsor Park Stories is clearly reaching out and touching many people in many communities."

"It's important for people to know this kind of TV is available," Mussari said. "Within each individual there's a wonderful and rich story. Nobody comes to the park to tell a story of success in monetary terms. They don't count the numbers in their bank accounts."

The positive deep-rooted messages of WPS have also caught the eye of social workers, as the stories of Eric Lehman and John and Marilyn Gregorski will be used as a professional training tool at Johns Hopkins University Oncology Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

Windsor Park Stories is a television show that does humanity a service by restoring virtue and reinforcing the positive, in a time when other shows dare not.

In the words of Eric Compton of the New York Post, also featured in an episode, "The show asks questions that need to be asked.... The show works because everyone has at least one part of his life that is fascinating... Every story is interesting and good television. Here's hoping the show lasts forever."