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The Wilkes University chapter of Turning Point USA recently collected thank you notes to veterans. From left, Damian Napierkowski, Dylan Clark, chapter president; and Ben Carro, chapter secretary. (Courtesy of Dylan Clark)<\/p>\nRegional college students are moving forward with plans to start chapters of the conservative group Turning Point USA. Interest flared nationwide in September after the shooting death of founder Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n
NEPA Turning Point Action Gen Z Coalition is an umbrella group, not associated with a particular school. Rob Coco, a University of Scranton senior, started it in October.<\/p>\n
So far, events center on encouraging voting and getting the organization\u2019s name out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe preach Christian values, while also promoting conservative ideals, like the safety of the nuclear family, our borders, our freedoms, our right to have fair elections,\u201d Coco said. \u201cWe don\u2019t openly support anything that we would deem as controversial. Certainly we don\u2019t support any people that are controversial. We like to bring people together, not divide them. We\u2019re big on unity here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wilkes University chapter of Turning Point USA recently collected thank you notes to veterans. From left, Damian Napierkowski, Dylan Clark, chapter president; and Ben Carro, chapter secretary. (Courtesy of Dylan Clark)<\/p>\n
The group has seen interest from 50 to 75 people in its target age group, roughly defined as those born in the mid-1990s and after. They are the focus, but others have expressed interest and are welcome, he said.<\/p>\n
He welcomes emails at nepatpactiongenz2025@gmail.com.<\/p>\n
Coco is a political science major from Staten Island, a borough of New York City. Kirk\u2019s death in Utah spurred him to become more involved, he said. He also hopes the group will be a personal steppingstone.<\/p>\n
Other students are involved in the process of seeking support from the university student government, he said.<\/p>\n
Coco said it\u2019s hard to gauge interest at the university, where he thinks some conservatives may be uncomfortable speaking out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that the college that I have attended for the last three and a half years is leaning to the left a lot more, in both the education side of things and the overall demographics of the students here,\u201d Coco said. \u201cI would say that there\u2019s a lot more people that are outspoken on the left.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the university, the decision to form a chapter is in the hands of the student government, which rejected a 2019 application.<\/p>\n
At Wilkes University, a new Turning Point chapter just wrapped up a food drive and gathered letters to send to veterans, said Dylan Clark, the president. He is a freshman marketing major from Avoca.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are going pretty good,\u201d Clark said. There are about 24 members.<\/p>\n
The Wilkes chapter has university recognition and staff advisers, he said.\u00a0But it was turned down by the student government, which means it won\u2019t have access to student government money and other resources. Clark plans to refine his presentation and try again.<\/p>\n
At Misericordia University, junior Ryan DeBellis said he has met with school officials and members of the Religious Sisters of Mercy, the Roman Catholic nuns who founded the university. He is compiling information and expects an answer during the spring semester.<\/p>\n
DeBellis is from the Leigh Valley, studying business administration with a specialty in marketing, and is vice president of the college Republicans. He expects to graduate in December 2026.<\/p>\n
By email, Jim Roberts, vice president of marketing and communications and chief of staff at Misericordia, said no decision has been made about the chapter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe university is still reviewing the student application to start a Turning Point USA chapter on campus and following our internal process to assess the establishment of third-party related student organizations,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Monday Update<\/p>\n
THEN: Following the September shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, students announced plans to form chapters of his Turning Point USA organization at the University of Scranton and Misericordia University.<\/p>\n
NOW: A new umbrella group is reaching out to several schools. Wilkes University has a new Turning Point chapter, without student government support. At the University of Scranton and Misericordia, students have started the process to become official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regional college students are moving forward with plans to start chapters of the conservative group Turning Point USA.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[4998,4433,201,182,883,803,139,28,29,50,178,180,179,2685],"class_list":{"0":"post-48767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-township","10":"tag-lackawanna-county","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-local-politics","13":"tag-luzerne-county","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-pennsylvania-news","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-scranton","19":"tag-scranton-headlines","20":"tag-scranton-news","21":"tag-wilkes-barre"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}