Heres a column I wrote for the H-S Sunday. See what you think Our area has a lot to cheer about One of the favorite parts of my job is writing the Jeers and Cheers editorial every Friday. It gives me the opportunity to cover a variety of topics that I might not be able to comment on otherwise. The interesting thing about writing the editorial is that I always have more cheers than jeers. A lot of times, I have to really scour our newspaper to find things detrimental to the community. But there are always plenty of good things to write about, forcing me oftentimes to make some very difficult decisions about what to highlight. Consider my choices for cheers this past week: The appointment of Mark Bettway as the new commander of the state police station in Greene County. He brings 22 years of experience with the state police to his new job, including time on the state police strike team. Chaz Kellem, a 31-year-old wheelchair-bound man who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta. The manager of diversity initiatives for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he gave an inspiring speech at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, in recognition of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Kellem said he loves “being the underdog’’ and overcoming low expectations. Members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) Care Fund recently donated $2,500 to the Ben Franklin School in the Uniontown Area School District. The money will be used to provide for two trumpets, two concert snare drums, a concert bass drum, a clarinet and a flute. Ben Franklin music teacher Karen Fullmer noted that many students in the school come from low-income families and don’t have the money to pay for instruments. She said the donation will spur interest in music among students in the school. Laurel Highlands High School students Jordan Saghy and Tess Vanik were among 185 students across the county selected to perform with the Great American Marching Band in the 88th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. In a letter to the editor, Sean Caskie of Arlington, Va., recounted how on a recent visit to Fayette County his car went dead. Luckily, he called Joey’s Auto Repair in Lemont Furnace on a Saturday afternoon and the owner, Joey Cellurale answered. Cellurale not only agreed to have the car towed to his garage so he could fix it, but he also gave his car to Caskie and his wife so they could continue their visit to landmarks in the area. Caskie noted the area couldn’t have a better ambassador than Cellurale. Uniontown native Marny D. McLee Sr. was recently honored in a ceremony at the White House for his work with the Delaware Emergency Management Agency He accepted one award on behalf of the agency and another for himself for being honored as one of 10 people chosen as an Individual and Community Preparedness Champion of Change. See my predicament? I ended up going with the LH students and McLee, but a good case could have been made for the other four candidates. Overall, it’s a good problem to have, but I think it speaks volumes about the people who live in our area. I know we often hear about the high crime rate locally and the enormous drug problem we have here. We also hear a lot about our high poverty rate and the lack of jobs, especially for young people. But despite all the problems, there’s a heck of a lot of good people in our area doing a lot of good things. I think people realize that generally, but sometimes it’s overlooked in the face of so much bad news these days, ranging from the Ebola outbreak to the ISIS beheadings. But make no mistake, there’s a lot of good people in our area, and it’s something we shouldn’t take for granted. In fact, it’s something we should celebrate and sing from our rooftops. It’s something we need to tout these days to let the world know that not all is wrong with our area. We need to let people know there exists something about the people of Fayette County who make it such a special place.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 12:38:24 +0000
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