Laurels & lances: Scholarship, soil, support and snow
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Laurel: To sharing a life and a loss. The family of Terry Ranieri lost him to cancer last week, and that was a hard blow for them. We previously applauded the band for supporting Ranieri in his final days. Now we acknowledge the Ranieri family’s reciprocation.
Knowing that Ranieri, a Hempfield band enthusiast who was a fixture at football games, was so beloved by the school and community, the family didn’t sit back in their grief. They reached out. The funeral was held in a space big enough to hold the large contingent of mourners, and they are working on continuing that support for the kids with the Terry Ranieri “Everyone’s Friend” Memorial scholarship fund.
Lance: To a bad look on a big project. Project officials for the Franklin Regional School District secured Murrysville’s permission recently to truck 12,000 cubic yards of “poor soil” from the Sloan “elementary campus” site over the next year.
Council President Josh Lorenz, an attorney with experience in construction law, said the request is not that unusual. But the timing of a report indicating poor soil only fuels claims that school officials have not been forthright with the public about the project.
Test borings indicating poor soil were taken a full 10 months before this report was issued. It’s hard to understand why that information was not passed on to the planning commission and the council that would ultimately vote on the project.
“You voted on an incomplete package,” former council President Joan Kearns said. “That’s a problem to me.”
We’d tend to agree.
Laurel: To the flock supporting the shepherd. Clinton Blazevich is the pastor of Cheswick Christian Fellowship. He’s also known for 19 years that a heart transplant was in in his future.
Recently, Blazevich’s heart condition worsened and he had a pump implanted to help him wait out the now-imminent transplant.
His congregation has rallied around him, organizing a fundraiser to take some of the burden off his family’s shoulders.
“I think churches need to bond together in times of things like this,” said organizer Debbie Caldwell.
Lance: To the cold around the corner. Yes, the pumpkin spice has already started, but now Farmers’ Almanac is joining in the pile-on, predicting a “polar coaster” ride for the coming winter. We shouldn’t be surprised after a fairly cool and very wet summer, but come on — it’s just August. Isn’t it a little early to make us think about snow shovels?