Sad news, Denny.
My best friend and training partner, Whitey, who died unexpectedly last Sept., and I trained at the Gold Plate Gym in Norristown. We competed in a powerlifting meet they put on in the basement of the church there. Those were the days when the bar was still simply loaded up in weight and I remember starting my DL at 9 PM. I don’t think we got done till midnight. Anyway, as I remember, and my memory is admittedly foggy, Vernacchio and Durante were there judging. They had big names even in PL circles.