the almanac A P R I L 20, 2025
SOUTH HILLS COMMUNITY NEWS
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COURTESY OF MT. LEBANON MUNICIPALITY
The Mt. Lebanon Public Library “Book Sanctuary” logo
Making a pledge Finley, Hayden and Lottie Snee from Bethel Park hold up the yellow eggs they discovered on the lawn.
‘Hoppy’ Easter
Christ United Methodist Church in Bethel Park combined the secular with the sacred during its annual Easter Eggstravaganza last week. According to the church’s event planning director Jessica Gilman of Peters Township, the event has always been free to the public. “We want the community to come in and be able to go around, see the Easter Bunny, enjoy an egg hunt and hopefully see Jesus as love through all of us.” More than 400 children and 500 adults and caregivers hopped down a bunny trail that led to a visit with the Easter Bunny as well as an encounter with baby llamas, kid goats and lambs.
Ariah Sebroski, 2, from New Eagle, is uncertain about sitting on the Easter Bunny’s lap until her sister, Brynn, joined. Sebroski also attended the Easter egg hunt with her mother, Deanne, and her friends, Isabella, 5, and William Marmie, 7, from Monongahela.
Mt. Lebanon Library declares itself a ‘book sanctuary’ By Brad Hundt Staff writer
bhundt@observer-reporter.com
Children collected colored eggs in pastel baskets and exchanged them for delicious treats. Among the stops along the trail was an encounter with Pat Miller. The church’s congregational care pastor explained the story of Jesus Christ’s passion, death and triumph over the death through the use of Resurrection Eggs. Each egg contained an object that told a segment of the saga. In addition to a sand art station, where children created colorful crosses, there was a play room where kids could toss bean bags into a bunny’s mouth, balance an egg on a spoon and receive Easter-themed temporary tattoos.
ABOVE: The Wauthier family from Bethel Park feeds the baby animals at the petting zoo. LEFT: Jiselle Clark, 4, and Jennifer Jackson of Castle Shannon hunt for pink eggs.
Photos by Eleanor Bailey/ The Almanac
Izabella and Elizabeth Wargula of Bethel Park listen as Pat Miller explains the “Greatest Story Ever Told” through the use of Resurrection Eggs.
MT. LEBANON – The late author Paul Auster once said that libraries are “places apart” and “sanctuaries of pure thought.” And the Board of Trustees at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library has declared that it is a “book sanctuary.” Robyn Vittek, the library’s director, said it is the only library in Pennsylvania to make itself a book sanctuary, which means it will, according to the resolution approved by the library board, “pledge to collect and protect endangered books that meet the standards of the library’s collection policy.” As a book sanctuary, the resolution stated, it will also “carry out its mission in providing a forum to exchange ideas through conversations and programs about intellectual freedom and related topics.” Declaring the library a book sanctuary is simply a way to underscore that “libraries are for everyone,” Vittek explained, and “simply asserting our essential services will not change.” SEE BOOK PAGE A4
Introduction of polio vaccine 70 years ago changed lives
The Rev. Noah Evans, rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, presides over a service at Washington Elementary School, 100 years to the day of the parish’s first service, held at that school.
By Brad Hundt Staff writer
bhundt@observer-reporter.com
Advertisements for freezers, lounge chairs and remedies for itching, gas and constipation were on the fifth page of Uniontown’s Evening Standard on April 16, 1952, which was a Wednesday. As they scanned the page, readers were also greeted with a listing of admissions and discharges at Fayette County hospitals and news of a band concert at German High School. There was also a dispatch from the Associated Press in the middle of the page that carried the headline “Discovery Points to End of Polio.” The story, written by Howard W. Blakeslee, the agency’s science writer, outlined how researchers at Johns Hopkins and Yale universities discovered that polio “strikes first in our blood instead of our nerves” and that “there is a possibility that a vaccine can be made” that would prevent the viral disease that had bedevilled humankind since at least the days of ancient Egypt. Almost three years to the day after the article appeared, on April 12, 1955, readers of the Evening Standard were greeted with an urgent headline displayed across the newspaper’s front page: “Salk Polio Vaccine Gets Approval.” A subhead below the headline said a vaccine had been found to be safe and effective
COURTESY OF THE REV. NOAH EVANS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dr. Jonas Salk holds test tubes at a Pittsburgh laboratory.
in “exhaustive tests,” and that Dr. Jonas Salk, the researcher and virologist who developed the vaccine, believed it would offer “complete triumph over polio terror.” It did. The overwhelming majority of people alive in the world today were born after the polio vaccine was introduced, so have no recollection of how the fear of polio once cast a shadow on everyday life. “Every time one of us kids came down with something, there was always the thought that it was polio and life as we’d
WASHINGTON Beyond Survival Ministries opens new location PAGE A5 What’s happening, B3
SEE POLIO PAGE A2
Centennial celebrations Trio of Lebo churches mark 100th anniversary By Paul Paterra Staff writer
ppaterra@observer-reporter.com
This is a special year for three churches located just a half-mile apart on Washington Road in Mt. Lebanon. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1066 Washington Road; Mt. Lebanon United Methodist Church, 975 Washington Road, and Southminster Pres-
SPORTS Peters Twp.’s McGarrity grabs MVP honors for wrestling PAGE B1 Real estate transactions, A6
byterian Church, 799 Washington Road, each are in the midst of marking 100 years as a parish. The Liberty Tunnels opened in 1924, offering a quicker route to the South Hills and sparking new development and growth. Between 1920 and 1930, the population in Mt. Lebanon grew 500% – from 2,258 to 13,403. Residents were seeking places to
worship and churches began to crop up in the area.
St. Paul’s Episcopal
On Dec. 21, 1924, the new St. Paul’s Episcopal congregation held its first service at Washington Elementary School, the church’s place of worship for its first five years. To mark that occasion, the church held a service at that SEE TRIO PAGE A2
SCHOOL NEWS Upper St. Clair students raise funds through U-THON PAGE B3 Classifieds, B4-6