September of 1980 will mark the end of one era and the beginning of another in the long history of Catholic school education in Jim Thorpe.

Members of the Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph’s parishes were informed during the weekend Masses that the former’s school on West Broadway will close at the conclusion of the 1979-80 school year and that its students will transfer to St. Joseph’s with the commencement of the 1980-81 term.

The decision was made, in part, because the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the order whose sisters staff Immaculate, notified the Diocese of Allentown it could no longer do so because of dwindling vocations and decreasing enrollment.