Owner of Studio Raw Elite salon honored with Citizen of the Year Award

The owner of a Ross Township hairstyling studio has received the Citizen of the Year Award for his contribution to the community.

Dan Burda, owner of the Studio Raw Elite salon on Babcock Boulevard, is this year’s recipient of the Durachko-Gottfried Ross Township Citizen of the Year Award.

The award was created last year to honor Dr. Peg Durachko and her late husband Dr. Richard Gottfried, who was one of the victims killed during the Oct. 27, 2018, shooting spree at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill.

“I’m very happy to see Dan receive this award,” Durachko said. “He’s contributed a lot to the betterment of the community, especially with his dedication to organ donation. It is very appropriate.”

The inaugural award was presented in May 2019 to Durachko and Gottfried.

Commissioner Joe Laslavic, who presented the award, said the people who receive the honor help “make Ross one of the best places in the country to live in” — a distinction that recently was recognized nationally by Money magazine.

Burda said while it is “a great honor” to be this year’s award recipient, it is actually the community at-large that deserves the recognition.

“I just happen to have an outlet with the business to put people into the spotlight when they need it,” he said. “Whether it’s someone who needs an organ transplant or family in our area that we can help.”

Burda said he also feels a personal connection to the man for whom the award is named.

“The day doctor Gottfried died was my birthday,” he said. “Sharing that 10/27 marker of birth and death in one day is somewhat spine-tingling. He was unjustly and unfairly taken too soon from this world.”

Burda said naming the Citizen of the Year for the doctor and his widow is “a wonderful way of keeping Dr. Gottfried’s spirit alive year after year.”

“Keeping spirit alive is important,” he said. “The impact he has made on this community will filter through so many people for years to come.”

Burda said while he, too, has suffered significant losses such as the devastating fire that destroyed his business and the loss of his partner RohnNeugebauer, it did not shake his resolve to help others.

Burda and Neugebauer demonstrated their passion for helping people on the day the hair studio caught fire in May 2012.

As firefighters battled the blaze, they set up shop in the parking lot so stylists could fix the hair of girls preparing for prom.

Over the years, Burda and the staff at his salon have organized or participated in numerous fundraisers and campaigns to help their neighbors in need.

Among them was a popular “sign war” organized by Burda — a friendly competition in which barbs and ripostes were written on signs outside Ross businesses to help raise money for local veterans assistance organizations.

Burda, a long-time church cantor who is known by many as the “singing hairdresser,” is currently involved in the toy drive sponsored by local police to collect holiday gifts for needy children in the community.

He also is working to help locate a donor for a local man in need of a liver transplant.

Burda said finding ways to help others can be a key to healing.

“By banding together, connecting at the arms as one, we’re a community of unity,” he said. “And we as a group will hold one another through the rest of our journeys. I vow to continue to do my part to keep making a better world.”