Laurels & lances: Pilsners, planes and partners
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Laurel: To a round for the house. Or the neighborhood. Or the whole darn town. While many festivals have been canceled for months or are still being put off because of the coronavirus pandemic, other communities are trying to look forward. Tarentum is one of those.
A craft beer festival, with live music and food trucks, is being planned by the borough’s special events committee for Aug. 28 at Dreshar Stadium. Organizers confidently say it will be a turnaround from the 2008 “Tarentum Festival” that drew thousands and that councilman Brian Snyder called a “drunk fest” It prompted council to ban alcohol at events on borough property.
The festival will be a great introduction to the community, welcoming newcomers to Tarentum and its gorgeous river views. And there’s a key difference: The August craft beer festival intends to host about 10 vendors of speciality brews, served in small glasses for sipping and sampling. The only arguments are going be over whether a certain hazy IPA is too “hoppy” or nicely “juicy.”
Lance: To carrying on. It isn’t a hard idea to understand. Guns can’t go on planes.
This isn’t something that should need to be explained in a post-9/11 world, but apparently it’s a message that some have trouble accepting. Just seven weeks into 2021 — with air traffic still vastly curtailed due to covid-19 protocols and social distancing — Transportation Security Administration officers at Pittsburgh International Airport have found five guns — four of them in just 12 days.
It’s not just a Pennsylvania issue. The TSA announced last month that 2020 was the highest catch rate for armed passengers in history. Twenty-one were in Pittsburgh. While the number traveling was down, the percentage carrying guns was up, and of those taken, 83% were loaded.
It’s a bad idea on several levels, not the least of which is that it can result in criminal charges. Just leave it at home or follow TSA guidelines for transporting firearms in checked baggage.
Laurel: To helping out. It’s been a rough year for nonprofits. Some have had trouble fundraising. Others have struggled to carry on with their missions. What most have needed is just a little bit of attention to help them do their work.
That’s what the entrepreneurship program at Franklin Regional High School has tried to do.
“We wanted to get our students exposed to a bunch of different, real projects,” said co-teacher Roger Crider.
The 25 students have teamed with Export Historical Society, Murrysville Area Meals on Wheels, the Delmont Public Library, and the Westmoreland Conservancy to find ways to boost their work with innovation.
They’ve organized a “Story Walk” for the conservancy in Murrysville and developed social media promotion for the Murrysville Recreation Department. They are building a website for the Murrysville-Export Rotary Club and creating a logo for the Monroeville Foundation.
And this is amazing because it hasn’t just been a tough year for nonprofits. It has also been rough on students, but this partnership benefits them both.