Corning, just a stone’s throw from the Pennsylvania state line north of Lawrenceville and Mansfield, is a glossy little city in the middle of an otherwise rural expanse of New York state.

It’s the home of Corning Inc., the famed glassworks company that has morphed over the decades into a multi-national powerhouse in cutting-edge science.

Older readers of Penn Lines will likely associate the Corning name with products like Pyrex or Correlle Ware, iconic kitchen brands that revolutionized cooking in the early and mid-1900s. Today, some might even call Corning a romantic gem, with its glass-themed tourist attractions, art galleries, history museums, trendy boutiques, Finger Lakes wines and stylish restaurants.

It was at The Cellar — one of several chic eateries on Corning’s Market Street — where a copy of Penn Lines tagged along on a 24th anniversary dinner date with Lisa and Robert Ross last September. The pair, members of Mansfield-based Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative (REC), call Tioga County home, and their recent adventure earned them a win in our third and final 60th anniversary contest: On a Date with Penn Lines.
 

DATE NIGHT WINNERS: Lisa and Robert Ross, the winners of our "On a Date with Penn Lines" contest, took a copy of the September 2021 issue with them while celebrating their 24th wedding anniversary last year. Why that particular issue? The pair were married in 2001, just four days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The Rosses are members of Mansfield-based Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative.
 

‘It was four days before our wedding’

The couple grew up in Tioga County — Lisa in Millerton and Robert on Buckwheat Hollow Road just outside of Lawrenceville, where they have now lived for the past 19 years.

“We’re about six houses up on Buckwheat Hollow from the main road,” Lisa says, “so we’re just rural enough, you know, that we love our neighbors and we can use our burn barrel whenever the weather’s right.”

Robert, who’s known as Ross to most, was raised by his grandparents and, in his own words, muscled his way through the school of hard knocks. He currently works at Corning Inc.’s Sullivan Park Research and Development Center. Lisa, who studied graphic design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, has spent most of her working life doing layout and design for print publications, including the Elmira Star-Gazette and Mansfield Penny Saver. Today, she does freelance design and other work from home. She’s also taken on a new part-time gig “away from the computer”: working at an area nursery.

The couple met in the late 1990s and started dating while attending Williamson High School in Tioga. They got engaged in 1998 and eventually set a wedding date for Sept. 15, 2001. Then, like so many others, their world was knocked off its moorings by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania’s Somerset County.

“It was four days before our wedding. It was rough because we were hurting as a country,” Lisa says. “How do we celebrate in the midst of what’s going on? It was such a tragedy that we actually thought about canceling our wedding.”

But friends, family and Lisa’s pastor at Jackson Baptist Church ultimately convinced the pair to move ahead with their plans.

“We went through with it, and we all wore little ribbons on our dresses,” Lisa says. “We made sure to have a moment of silence and a special prayer during our wedding ceremony for all the innocent lives lost because of those terrorist attacks.”

A special issue of Penn Lines

Last fall, the Rosses marked their wedding day 24 years later at The Cellar in Corning — but not without a memento or two.

“Always remember” — in bright red type — was the lead headline on the cover of Penn Lines in September 2021. “Legacy of Flight 93 lives on 20 years later” read the subtext.

“I made sure I took that issue with us,” Lisa says of their anniversary date night. She had saved it in a tote filled with other keepsakes.

“I know we’re just two people among millions of Americans who remember that horrific day,” she adds, “but since it happened the exact week we were planning our wedding, it weighs extra on our hearts.”

Today, the Rosses are living their best rural life and have two grown children. Their eldest, Jordan, is a member of the U.S. Air Force, and Leanna is following in her mother’s footsteps and studying at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

As for Penn Lines, Lisa says she loves the recipes, the lifestyle articles and “that funny guy in the back.”

“I read some of them out loud to my husband because I just find them so comical,” she says. “I can relate, and he can relate.”