Robert W. Klenk Scholarship

Established by the Mountain View School District Alumni Association in honor of Mr. Klenk, a long-time teacher and principal of the District. Provides a scholarship to a graduate who will attend college to pursue a degree in education.  

Mid-November to Mid-March

Robert W. Klenk of Harford

Date of Birth: 12/11/1920
Date of Death: 11/28/2011

Robert W. Klenk, also known as “Mr. Mountain View,” had a long and illustrious career with the Mountain View School District, dating back to the 1950s when he was hired as a Health and Physical Education teacher at the Harford High School. He would eventually serve as Principal of the Mountain View High School, and Principal of the Elementary School as well.

Mr. Klenk himself is a 1937 graduate of Olney High School in Philadelphia. During World War II he served in the Coast Guard and the Navy as an Atlantic Area Submarine Chaser, Philippines Submarine Chaser, and participated in V-5 Flight Training. After the war he married Miriam Dohner Seager (herself a long-time teacher and coach at Blue Ridge School District) and in 1950 graduated from East Stroudsburg State Teachers College. Robert and Miriam have four children and six grandchildren.

From 1950 to 1956 Mr. Klenk taught Health and Physical Education at the Harford Township High School, and also coached basketball, volleyball, and track. From 1956 to 1976 he was the Principal of the Mountain View Junior/Senior High School and also served as Athletic Director. From 1976 to his “retirement” in 1981 he was the Principal of the Mountain View Elementary School. For the next twenty years he was a substitute teacher, Driving Instructor, and assisted the district’s administration. In 1981 the School Board recognized him as an Honorary Alumnus, and in 2006 the Alumni Association named him Distinguished Alumnus of the Year.

For 50 years he had been a member of the Harford Lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons. For 40 years he had been a member of the New Milford Rotary Club, where he was very involved with the Student Exchange Program. For the same amount of time he served on the Board of Directors of the Scranton-Pocono Girl Scout Council. For 25 years he was Treasurer of the Harford Congregational Church. He had also served as a Director of Region III of the PA Association of School Retirees, and also as a Board member of the Pocono Environmental Education Center in Dingman’s Ferry.

In 1979 Mr. Klenk won the Joe M. Butler Sports Award from the Scranton Times, and in 1998 he was inducted into the Northeastern Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. In 2001 the Mountain View School District Board named its sports facility the Robert W. Klenk Sports Complex in his honor.

The Robert W. Klenk Scholarship with The Community Foundation recognizes his lifetime of contribution to education by providing tuition assistance to future generations of Mountain View graduates who will work toward a degree in education during their college careers.