Obituary: Louis Balta / Clairton High teacher and drive-in theater operator
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Teaching at Clairton High School for more than three decades, with a few years as principal thrown in, would have been plenty enough to occupy one man.
Running South Park Drive-In and places like it during the heyday of such outdoor venues would have been more than sufficient work for another.
Louis Balta made a living juggling both -- educating young people by day and entertaining them and their parents after dark for many years. He squeezed a family dinner and nap in between for himself to avoid exhaustion, while maintaining a schedule that had few equals.
Also one of the region's top promoters of Serbian music, as a lifelong devotee of that Eastern European land's culture, Mr. Balta died Tuesday of acute myloid leukemia at the in-patient residence of Family Hospice and Palliative Care in Mt. Lebanon. He was 84.
Mr. Balta had lived in Whitehall since he and his wife, Nancy Ann, moved there as a young couple in 1952. He had close attachment to Clairton throughout his life, however, from attending school there; rising from altar boy to president of the former St. Mary's Serbian Orthodox Church there; serving as an educator in the school district from 1952 to 1984; and taking pride in the state football titles of the Clairton Bears long after his retirement.
Mr. Balta, whose father was a native of Bosnia and whose mother's parents came from Serbia, enlisted in the Naval Air Corps once he turned 18 near the end of World War II. He was never sent overseas, but after his discharge, the GI Bill helped him get a degree from Duquesne University in 1950.
He earned a secondary teaching certificate and became a longtime social studies teacher at the high school from which he had graduated. A master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh enabled him to become a principal as well for several years, but teaching about government was his longtime passion.
To help support his wife and three children, he began working evenings for the Associated Theaters chain in 1955. He supervised multiple locations while also running the South Park Drive-In along Route 88, which was open year-round up until its closure in 1985.
First Published February 12, 2011 3:06 am
