Cheers & Jeers
Cheers: Cheers to Carmichaels softball pitcher Bailey Barnyak for reaching a career milestone in the Lady Mikes’ 9-1 win over visiting West Greene last Friday. Barnyak struck out 14 batters in the game, including freshman Katie Brudnock in the third inning for No. 500 of her career. As impressive an accomplishment as that is, it only ranks second on Carmichaels’ all-time strikeout list. Barnyak’s mother, Nikki Onderko, better known as Nikki Gasti when she was pitching for the Lady Mikes, rang up an amazing 850 strikeouts in her high school career, which included an undefeated season on the way to WPIAL and PIAA championships in 1998. Barnyak came close to matching her mother’s state title last year, but the Lady Mikes fell in the final to DuBois Central Catholic, 2-0. So far this year, Barnyak and Carmichaels are 7-0 overall and 3-0 in Section 2-A.
Jeers: After months of uncertainty and turmoil, the final noontime whistle sounded last week at the World Kitchen Plant in Charleroi. After the last piece of glass came off the production line last Friday, the American flag on the pole at the Eighth Street entrance was taken down and replaced by another to commemorate the plant’s 132 years of operation in the Mon Valley. A total of 270 employees at the plant are impacted, as operations are being moved to another facility in Ohio. The plant, which opened in 1893, has changed hands numerous times in its long history. The most recent owner is New York-based Centre Lane Partners, following its acquisition of the appliances division of Instant Brands. Anchor Hocking is another company under the Centre Lane umbrella. “It’s sad,” said Ruth Belsick, who worked at the plant for 25 years prior to retiring over a decade ago. “It’s going to affect everybody around here in the Valley. Everybody had somebody who worked here at one time or another. My grandmother worked here when the men went off to war and a lot of women worked here. … We spent many days together, more here than with our family.”
Cheers: The idea of opening a gluten-free bakery serving cookies, breads and cupcakes was a winning one for three Greene County culinary students, whose concept earned them a trip to Baltimore next month. Greene County Career & Technology Center students Eleanor Turner, Alivia Minor and Jessie Cooke won the management division in Pennsylvania’s 11th annual state competition, hosted in February by the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association. Students were tasked to come up with a concept for a restaurant and develop a five-year business plan. The three came up with the gluten-free bakery – a women-owned business, which figured heavily into the concept, as 60 to 70% of those diagnosed with celiac disease are female. Culinary instructor Dan Wagner commended all three students as “power players,” saying, “It’s a great team. I don’t think I’ll see another team like it in my career.” Best of luck to the trio in Baltimore.
Cheers: Fifty years ago this month, researcher and virologist Jonas Salk developed a vaccine against polio, saving countless lives and preventing the crippling illness that claimed so many victims since the days of early Egypt. Among notable contemporaries born before the vaccine’s development include “Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola and singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. In a story published Sunday, Brad Hundt examined the history of the viral disease and the toll it took worldwide, noting that the overwhelming majority of people alive today were born after the vaccine was introduced, so they 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 known it was over,” recalled Paul Carson, an East Finley Township resident. “There was a huge amount of anxiety wiped out by vaccines.”