Laurels & lances: Working, moving, rewarding, destroying
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Laurel: To a change of plans. For some, a youth group trip cancellation would be the end of a very short story. Cornerstone Ministries made it the start.
When middle schoolers from the Murrysville church couldn’t go to New York on a mission trip, the trip didn’t happen, but the mission is still going forward. They are putting good works into their own backyard.
The coronavirus pandemic might stop them from going out of state, but it will mean some sprucing up of the West Jeannette Playground and Jeannette Midget Football’s Russ Wiley Memorial Field House. Kids will also clean up three abandoned properties on 12th Street.
Aside from the work the kids are planning, they are setting a good example, too. Just because plans change doesn’t mean something good can’t happen.
Laurel: To a promotion. The people of Catholic Diocese of Greensburg will be saying goodbye to their bishop after just five years in the post. On Thursday, Bishop Edward Malesic was named bishop of the Cleveland Diocese in Ohio.
Once installed in September, Malesic will lead the larger diocese that ministers to more than four times as many Catholics.
Greensburg will then await the appointment of its sixth bishop in its 80-year history.
Malesic has helmed the diocese through the difficult times of the church’s sexual abuse scandal and recently saw the receipt of the diocese’s largest donation, $2.4 million which will go toward tuition assistance for parochial schools.
Laurel: To putting a cold case on the front burner. Tiffany Miller was just 5 years old when she died in 1979. The New Kensington girl’s death was ruled a homicide, but 41 years later, there are few answers.
Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers announced an award for information on Monday.
There is no statute of limitations on a homicide case, and it is never too late to find out what happened to a child whose life was cut short.
Lance: To repeated destruction. Vandalism is becoming sadly repetitive. This week, both the Christopher Columbus statue in Schenley Park and the Black Lives Matter mural in Downtown Pittsburgh were targets.
This was the second time the Columbus statue was hit, painted with words like “no more racist,” “BLM” and “abolition now.”
The mural includes pictures of people central to the BLM movement’s police brutality protests, including Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Antwon Rose II, who was shot and killed in 2018 by an East Pittsburgh officer. Rose’s image was defaced with the word “thug.”