Westmoreland category, Page 295
Work to close roads in Ligonier, Fairfield, Mt. Pleasant townships, county covered bridge
Road closures are slated to begin Monday in the Ligonier Valley and in Mt. Pleasant Township as state road and bridge projects get underway. PennDOT announced traffic restrictions also will be enforced as work begins on bridges in several Westmoreland County communities. The closures will affect sections of Route 271...
Export, water authority differ on removal of asbestos-infused waterlines
Export officials’ issues with the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County are well documented. Borough council members have chafed as they’ve watched recently paved streets reopened for waterline work. Councilman John Nagoda, in particular, has pushed for the agency to do something about the waterlines in the borough — at least...
Jeannette stained-glass artist crafts windows for Mt. Pleasant park gazebo
Mt. Pleasant’s Veterans Park is getting a unique upgrade. Jeannette stained-glass artist Doug Davis is creating eight windows that reflect the borough’s history. The windows will be affixed to each side of an octagonal gazebo at South Diamond and Washington streets, just steps from the landmark World War I doughboy...
Salem woman on probation for theft from Derry Presbyterian church now accused of theft from Methodist church
A woman on probation for stealing $20,000 from a Derry Borough Presbyterian church in 2017 and 2018 was arrested this week on accusations she racked up $5,560 in personal expenses on a credit card belonging to another borough church. Teri Sauers, 39, of Salem was working as a secretary at...
Grant funds tapped for Westmoreland human services reorganization
A $250,000 grant from the Hillman Foundation will pay for reorganization of Westmoreland County’s human services department. Commissioners accepted the grant that will pay for the hiring of three administrators and further an effort to integrate multiple programs into a consolidated department for social services, including the children’s bureau, behavioral...
Greensburg Salem parent calls for change after teacher caught reading racial slur aloud in classroom
A Greensburg Salem High School parent is calling for change after a substitute teacher voiced a racial slur while reading aloud to her classroom from the 1937 John Steinbeck novella “Of Mice and Men.” The incident happened March 24 in a 10th-grade language arts class. According to parents, the moment...
Thinning the herd: East Huntingdon farm family auctions Brown Swiss, Ayrshire cows
Susan Spadaro wasn’t expecting to get emotional about auctioning off 100 of her family’s Brown Swiss and 25 Ayrshire cows on Thursday. “We’ve just always had a passion and love for these animals and the dairy industry,” said Spadaro, the fifth generation of the Miller and Love families, which have...
Convicted Latrobe sex offender ordered to serve up to 20 years in prison
A Latrobe man will serve up to 20 years in prison for failing to register as a convicted sex offender. Douglas Arthur Truxal, 45, was convicted by a Westmoreland County jury in December. He was sentenced Tuesday. According to court records, Truxal pleaded guilty in 2000 to charges connected to...
Mt. Pleasant man receives 25-year prison sentence for girlfriend’s roadside assault
A Mt. Pleasant woman told a judge she remains haunted by memories of her assault nearly three years ago. The 42-year-old woman crawled two miles after being beaten and left to die in a roadside ditch. “I screamed for my mom and dad, and I screamed, ‘Please help me.’ It...
Police seeking truck that hit Hempfield toll booth
State police are looking for a vehicle towing an oversized load that damaged a toll booth Tuesday on Toll Route 66 in Hempfield. Troopers said the white truck tractor was headed south at 3:15 p.m. when the blade of the bulldozer it was towing on a semi trailer hit several...
5 things to do in Westmoreland County this weekend: April 14-16
Music for a new day The Pitt-Greensburg Chorale and Chamber Singers will present a spring concert, “One Day, A New Day,” at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Campana Chapel at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, 150 Finoli Drive, Hempfield. The Chorale will sing music by various composers, including Elton...
West Penn Power volunteers distributing trees in Jeannette
West Penn Power employee volunteers are giving away 300 tree saplings Friday in Jeannette and preparing 20 raised garden beds for the season. The flowering dogwood saplings will available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., or until they run out, at the corner of South Seventh Street and Clay Avenue....
Stage Right cuts loose with ‘Footloose’ at The Palace Theatre
Even though it’s set in the 1980s, “Footloose” has a message for today’s audiences. So says Christopher McAllister, executive director of Stage Right, which will present the musical Friday and Saturday at The Palace Theatre in Greensburg. The story, familiar from the 1984 movie starring Kevin Bacon and the 2011...
Officials ponder how to dispose of 3 million gallons of water at Jeannette’s former Fort Pitt Brewery
Enough water to fill five Olympic-sized swimming pools is, in part, delaying efforts to tear down the former Fort Pitt Brewery in west Jeannette. Brian Lawrence, director of the Westmoreland County Redevelopment Authority and Land Bank, said officials are working out the best way to dispose of 3.3 million gallons...
Westmoreland eyes life after blight removal
As Westmoreland officials spend more than $10 million to tackle the county’s blight problem, they find themselves faced with a new conundrum: What do to with the hundreds of properties once they are cleared? A $20,000 study was commissioned by the county redevelopment authority this week to address that issue....
Lawsuit claims Excela secretly shared patient data with Facebook
A lawsuit filed this week in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court alleges Excela Health disclosed personal patient information to Facebook and Google. The court filing on behalf of two unnamed Westmoreland County residents claims the health system allowed confidential medical and personal data collected through Excela’s web portal for patients...
Mt. Pleasant Borough mourns unexpected loss of volunteer fire chief
Mark Kraisinger was a hometown boy. Some say that he lived for Mt. Pleasant Borough, that “he would give the shirt off his back” if it meant seeing the community thrive. Kraisinger, a longtime Mt. Pleasant volunteer firefighter and currently its fire chief, was found dead Tuesday in his home....
Aggressive, distracted drivers targeted by police
It didn’t take long for police with an eye peeled for aggressive driving behaviors Wednesday in North Huntingdon to find a speeding motorist who was using a phone while behind the wheel. The traffic stop was one of many motorists can expect to see around the area as law enforcement...
PBS documentary producer Rick Sebak to conclude Pitt-Greensburg Writers Festival
Pitt-Greensburg has tapped public television documentary producer and narrator Rick Sebak to deliver the keynote speech Friday to conclude the school’s Writers Festival. Sebak’s presentation, set for 8 p.m. in Ferguson Theater, is free and open to the public, as are all festival activities. Pitt-Greensburg digital storytelling students Caitlin Cruser,...
Pennsylvania Turnpike lanes reopen after eastbound crash near New Stanton
Eastbound lanes of the Pennsylvania Turnpike reopened Wednesday evening more than two hours after a tractor-trailer overturned just east of the New Stanton interchange. The crash occurred shortly before 3:30 p.m., a Westmoreland County 911 dispatcher said. According to New Stanton fire Chief Rob Cammarata, no one was injured when...
Volunteer ‘victims’ needed for disaster drill at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport
Officials at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport are in need of volunteers to serve as “victims” in a disaster drill planned for May 10 at the Unity airport. The 6:30 p.m. drill will be held on the airport’s old runway and will simulate an aircraft crash, according to airport manager Moe...
Westmoreland Intermediate Unit will host first education fair in Youngwood
Belle Vernon Area School District Superintendent Kenneth Williams is looking for a few good men and women interested in education. And he is hardly alone. “School districts have been struggling with finding high-caliber candidates to fill positions for quite some time,” Williams said. With that in mind, the Westmoreland Intermediate...
Stotler Drive residents ask for help with trees on Delmont property
Delmont Borough didn’t have possession of a property near Newhouse Park for long before issues began to arise. Actually, it was more than likely the wind that arose, bringing down a few trees on property west of Stotler Drive that brought out several neighbors to borough council’s meeting Tuesday night....
Westmoreland happenings: Education career fair, spaghetti dinner, meetings, more
Submissions from nonprofit organizations for Briefly Speaking can be emailed to Carol Pinto-Smith at cpinto-smith@triblive.com or mailed to Briefly Speaking, 210 Wood St., Tarentum, PA 15084. Include a complete street address and daytime phone number. Submissions are due at least two weeks before the event. Each announcement is printed once;...
PennDOT, police to highlight aggressive driving
PennDOT, the Highway Safety Network, state police and local police from Irwin and North Huntingdon are hosting an event Wednesday on driving safety. The event starts at 10 a.m. at the North Huntingdon police station at 11279 Center Highway. It is part of a statewide Aggressive Driving Enforcement Wave that...
