Many Panther Valley Junior/Senior High School students have family members who worked in the area mines, or grandparents or great-grandparents who served their country in wartime.

But those family stories shared around a dinner table during the holidays are often just that — stories for the younger generations.

The reality of working underground or risking life and limb in bloody battles doesn’t resonate.

An after-school club at Panther Valley is changing perspectives and bringing history to life for its members.

The brainchild of eighth-grade social studies teacher Ben Turrano, the History Club gives students an opportunity to explore historical topics of interest beyond the classroom.

Beyond athletics, the school didn’t have a lot of after-school clubs at the time, let alone academic-based clubs, he said.

“Most colleges have a history club, but it’s not something high schools tend to have,” Turrano said, and found that Panther Valley never had one. “I’m like, ‘Let’s make it historic and have our first one.’

“I wanted to tell the kids that there’s more than just what meets the eye here in school. Every historical topic has a million rabbit holes. If you’re interested in history, stay after school. We’ll talk about what you want to talk about.”

Early topics ranged from Genghis Khan to the Revolutionary War among those initial 20 or so students who chose to stay after the last bell, he said. Then, they shifted to historical movies, such as “Saving Private Ryan,” “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Platoon” and “Schindler’s List” to name a few.

“These kids love history,” Turrano said, pointing out that they’re talking about the Russian Revolution and asking about Stalin — well beyond the American history taught in high school.

“They’re now walking circles around me with what they look into on their own time,” he said. “Now, you can see the world’s kind of cracked open for them.”

Turrano expanded that quest for historical knowledge further with some field trips, exploring other facets of history closer to home.

Back in June, club members, along with some students from World War II class, went to an air show in Reading, where got to see and touch the planes, tanks, gear, uniforms and weapons used in war.

But more importantly, they learned about history from WW II veterans who lived it, he said.

Club member Kendalise Pimentel won’t soon forget meeting one veteran, who lost his arm in combat.

“I remember him because of the sacrifices he made during the war,” she said in an email. “He told me he fought for all the right reasons and he doesn’t’ regret it one bit.”

Pimentel said she felt honored to have met him.

“It was an all-around great experience,” Turrano said. “I wish we had more time with the vets that day, because they were awesome for being 99, 100 and 101. They had a lot to say.”

More so, his students realized that history wasn’t just textbooks or epic Hollywood productions on a screen, Turrano said.

“You can meet history,” he said. “You can talk to history. You can collect history.”

More recently, the club visited the No. 9 Coal Mine and Museum, just 3 miles from the school complex and underneath the Borough of Lansford — and not unknown to the students who visited in fourth grade.

But now teenagers and beginning to get jobs to earn money, his students saw the mine with different eyes, Turrano said.

“They’re starting to respect that era more and realize what those men went through going underground and not seeing the sun for months at a time.

“They couldn’t believe the working conditions. Our tour guide showed us how they got in and out of the mine back in the 1800s before they modernized the mine and brought them in on train cars.”

“You literally hoisted yourself up a rope or down it to get in, and you were down there for 16 hours with a candle on your head, breathing in dust,” he recalled the tour guide explaining.

His students were simply floored, Turrano said.

Club President Bradley Bartlett felt the trips helped deepen his own knowledge of both World War II and the coal region.

He found the mine particularly interesting, because he and others had ancestors that worked in the mines or were connected to them somehow.

“Unlike most other topics, it wasn’t distant history,” Bartlett said, because they had connections to it.

“It was their history,” he said.

Future trips may include Jim Thorpe, Gettysburg and Philadelphia, Turrano said. The City of Brotherly Love is of particular interest with the country’s 250th anniversary next year, he said.

His students want to visit Independence Hall to sign their newly written History Club Constitution in the spirit of nation’s founders.

And make a little history of their own.