In the news this week 24 years ago:
•D.T. Watson was in the process of divesting its hospital-based services, including the hospital building on its campus. The sale to HealthSouth Corp. was still under review by state lawmakers. Herald editor Dona S. Dreeland wrote that “the physical rehabilitation services, including inpatient, outpatient and transitional care services, will be eliminated from Watson’s purview.” The organization’s focus would turn entirely to education programs for children with special needs, as well as teacher training and family support services.
“There will always be a service presence on this campus,” said Laurie Nichol, director of corporate communications and community affairs. “We couldn’t walk away from an 80-year history.”
Upon finalizing this change, D.T. Watson was renamed The Watson Institute, as it is known today.
• The Herald published the second of its two profiles of the candidates for Allegheny County’s first chief executive. Each candidate — Republican Jim Roddey and Democrat Cyril Wecht — had been interviewed by Gateway editors Alan Wallace and Eric Poole. The switch to a chief executive structure came after many decades under the oversight of a three-person county commission. Roddey defeated Wecht later that year to become the first Allegheny County Executive.
• Staff members and volunteers from the John Guest Evanglistic Team, headquartered in Ohio Township, visited Mantanzas and Havana to perform missionary and charitable work there. JGET partnered with Cuba’s Evangelical Theological Seminary to perform the work in a country where religious practice is heavily restricted to this day. The team worked to build a three-story dormitory for seminary students, as well as providing medicine, tools and toys for the organization’s orphanage.
