Serra marching band student leaders for 2020 are: Serafina Szarmach, Ryan Gedman, and Harrison Potts, drum majors; Natalie Makovics and Nina Fassinger, colorguard captains; Jordan Premozic, woodwind section leader; Joe Crossen, brass section leader, and Abigail Bernick, percussion section leader. (Photo by Bonnijean Cooney Adams)
With a senior drum major who plays bagpipes, Serra Catholic Marching Band director Jesse Bush said he didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to do a Celtic-themed show.
So Bush decided on “The Secret of Loch Ness,” with musical numbers “Scotland the Brave,” “Skye Boat Song,” and “The Loch Ness Monster.”
Drum Major Harrison Potts plays bagpipes. He, and Drum Major Serafina Szarmach in a vocalist role, are featured in “Skye Boat Song.”
The annual two-week marching band camp kicked off Aug. 10 and concludes Aug. 21, with some business as usual and other activities modified to meet guidelines in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fourteen vacant properties in Duquesne are scheduled for demolition next year with the help of an Allegheny County Community Infrastructure and Tourism Fund grant.
Six of the properties are on a single block of North Second Street.
At a special hearing Aug. 11, 16 properties were listed for possible demolition by city officials for being either a public nuisance or a danger to other people.
• Arrest records published here were provided by the McKeesport Police Department. • Not all arrest records are published. • An arrest does not mean the person identified has been convicted of a crime. • All people arrested are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
More details have been released regarding the school start plan for East Allegheny School District.
At this week’s school board meeting, Superintendent Alan Johnson clarified the wording of the health and safety plan that was approved by EA directors on July 31.
The majority of students are expected to start the year remotely, but the wording has been changed to more accurately depict how EA’s education plan will be executed for the first nine weeks.
“We have a sizable number, not a majority, but a good number of students who will require some face to face instruction,” Johnson said. “These are students that have learning disabilities who really would probably not do well in a remote learning environment, so we are making arrangements that they can come into the school.”
West Newton Public Library will hold a “$5 fill-a-bag” sale from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 3 in the parking lot of the library, 124 N. Water St., a spokesperson said.
All attendees must wear face masks. The library will be selling cookbooks, children’s books, adult hardcover and paperback books, non-fiction, biographies, audio tapes and DVDs.
(Photo courtesy McKeesport fire Chief Jeff Tomovcsik)
Lane restrictions begin Monday on the Jerome Street Bridge as construction crews begin a two-year, $15.44 million renovation project.
Steve Cowan, district spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said traffic will be reduced to one lane in each direction between Romine Avenue and Gibson Way through late March 2021.
In addition, he said, the sidewalk on the north side of the bridge — facing up the Youghiogheny River — will be closed to pedestrians.
The rehabilitation project includes a new concrete deck and sidewalk, painting, structural steel repairs, bearing replacement, concrete substructure repairs and new expansion dams, Cowan said.
(Editor’s Note: The writer has a conflict of interest. See editor’s note at the end of this story.)
The long-rumored closing of the Downtown branch of First Commonwealth Bank is apparently official.
The location at 225 Fifth Ave. is one of 29 offices that the Indiana County-based bank intends to close, Jonathan Longwill, vice president and communications specialist at First Commonwealth, told Tube City Almanac on Friday.
Official notification will be sent to government regulators in early to mid-September, and the McKeesport branch is expected to close for business on Dec. 31, he said.
The closure will leave only two banks with branches in Downtown McKeesport. PNC has an office at the corner of Lysle Boulevard and Huey Street, and Dollar Bank has an office in the former Midtown Plaza shops.
Huntington Bank closed its office at 1415 Fifth Ave., near UPMC McKeesport hospital, in 2019.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development met Wednesday with McKeesport leaders. Shown at city hall are A.J. Tedesco, McKeesport community development director; state Sen. Jim Brewster of McKeesport; Mike Horvath, HUD Pittsburgh field office director; Jane Miller, HUD deputy regional administrator; Mayor Michael Cherepko; and Joseph DeFelice, HUD Region III administrator. (Almanac photo)
McKeesport should take advantage of the federal Financial Opportunity Zone program to encourage investment in commercial properties and affordable housing in the city.
That was the pitch made Wednesday to city officials by Joseph J. DeFelice, regional administrator of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for five mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C.
DeFelice visited the McKeesport Housing Authority’s Crawford Village as well as McKeesport City Hall during a stop Wednesday morning. DeFelice said he has been criss-crossing Pennsylvania to visit with housing agencies and local governments.
“A lot of people come up with really great ideas sitting around offices, but they don’t know what’s going on at the ground level,” he said. “I want ideas to filter up from places like McKeesport and McKees Rocks. I think that’s a better way to do things.”
McKeesport Area School District plans to offer both in-person and online learning for the start of the 2020-2021 school year.
Superintendent Mark Holtzman has been revealing the proposed plan for the district during a five-part online video series. The fourth video was posted online earlier this week, followed up by a school board agenda meeting on Wednesday.
The district will offer in-person learning five days a week, breaking the students into two groups by alphabet or by family.
“Children will come to school for approximately 3 to 3.5 hours, either in the morning or afternoon, and receive all the instruction necessary for the day,” Holtzman said. “Secondary students will run through their entire schedule, whether it's an eight- or nine-period day for a shortened period of time.”
Musicians and colorguard from McKeesport Area High School rehearse the opening movement of “An Ancient Summoning.” (Bonnijean Cooney Adams photo)
McKeesport Area High School Marching Band students are preparing for a 2020 show full of classic struggles between darkness and light in “An Ancient Summoning.”
“We picked the theme to be vastly different than last year,” band director Drew DeCarlo said.
While the 2019 theme depicted a day in a steel mill, a sneak peek revealed through the band’s Facebook page revealed “an era before time.”
Based on Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” with additional original music by composer and arranger Randall D. Standridge, the show is divided into four movements, reflected in marching and interpretive motions.
The first is “The Summons,” followed by “The Darkness,” “The Light,” and “The Conflict.”
