RIGAS DIDN'T RUN AT 'HIGH NOON'
John Rigas compares himself to character in old western movie

During several media interviews and casual conversations, John Rigas has compared himself to actor Gary Cooper's character in the classic western movie, "High Noon."

In that 1952 film, Cooper portrays Will Kane, a retiring lawman who receives assurances from townspeople that they'll show up at noon to help him take on a gang of ruffians coming in on a train.

As the train rounds the bend into town, Marshal Kane discovers that he is all alone.

"As former Adelphia employees, and the auditors, and the legal advisors all abandoned us, I felt like I was Gary Cooper," Rigas said. "All of this time, people were saying, 'You can depend on us.' But when you really needed them to help you get the truth out, they were nowhere to be found."

A World War II veteran and the son of Greek immigrants, Rigas grew up in Wellsville, N.Y. After graduation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rigas began his professional career at Emporium's thriving Sylvania electronics plant in the early 1950s.

In 1953, he began building a small community cable company in Coudersport that would become Adelphia Communications Corp., one of the nation's largest cable operators, with more than 5 million customers in 30 states.

Adelphia's payroll in Coudersport was close to 2,000 at the company's peak. In 2002, however, Adelphia spiraled into Chapter 11 bankruptcy after revelations of alleged accounting fraud caused its stock price to plummet.

Time Warner and Comcast bought Adelphia's assets for about $17.6 billion in 2006. After initially keeping hundreds of employees working in Coudersport, Time Warner shut down most of its local operations in February.