Cheers & Jeers
Cheers: Brownsville’s Jolena Quarzo and Ringgold’s Ryan Pajak recorded first-place finishes last Saturday in the Cal U/Marty Uher Invitational. Quarzo won the girls AA race in 18:48.9. Pajak crossed the finish line in 16:33.8. Cheers also to Uniontown’s Hope Trimmer, who finished fourth, and Ringgold’s Charlee Leach, who placed fifth, behind Quarzo, and to Connellsville’s Zach Bigam, who placed seventh in the boys AAA race with a time of 17:21.1. Cheers to the Belle Vernon boys who won the P3R River Trail Invitational team title. And cheers to Albert Gallatin for winning the FCCA Volleyball Tournament title. The Lady Colonials defeated Connellsville, 2-0, in the championship match.
Cheers: When Bentleyville resident Karen Tyler died last year at age 71, she was not widely hailed as a pathbreaking pioneer, but it turns out she was. When Tyler was in her mid-20s, she took on “a man’s job in a man’s world” by becoming Pennsylvania’s first female coal miner. She started working at Mine 51, operated by Bethlehem Mines, in Ellsworth on Aug. 1, 1974. Her employment followed just months after the country’s first female miner started punching a clock in West Virginia. Tyler was the subject of racist and sexist remarks, but she hung in there, as a story in the 缅北禁地 detailed last weekend. Tyler later began work as a nurse as the mining industry shed employees. Her son, Wendell Tyler, told us, “I think of my mom as a pioneer for a lot of women going into the coal mine. She gave her best.”
Cheers: The Greene County recreation department and the many sponsors who worked together to present the inaugural “Greene Countryfest,” a two-day music event held at the county fairgrounds during the Labor Day weekend, are to be commended. The well-attended festival featured a wide array of local and regional performers, food vendors, a fireworks display and a cash bash held to benefit a local nonprofit organization. We applaud the effort made by the county to offer something different to the area, and we recognize the community sponsors that covered the costs of the event so that residents could enjoy a special holiday recreational event.
Jeers: In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it was common to say that the United States was a changed country because of the trauma inflicted by the terrorist attacks. According to a poll released this week by ABC News and The Washington Post, many Americans don’t believe the attacks changed the country for the better. According to the poll, 46% say it changed the country for the worst. That represents a shift from 2002, when 55% believed the country had changed for the better because of 9/11. What’s left unsaid is whether this downcast view is the result of our incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which delivered conclusive victories, or if we have just become a more battered, divided and gloomy nation in the two decades since that bright and sunny September morning.