If you’re not satisfied with the status quo
As I mulled around at last Saturday’s hog roast festivities at the Adah Volunteer Fire Department, on familiar turf not far from where I grew up, I felt lucky and angry at the same time. I saw some former teachers and a handful of people I’d grown up with, all having a resoundingly good time, highlighted by the impressive musical ability of the band River Rock. Fronting the group was Marty Bergman, a heck of a singer, whom I last saw when he suited up more than two decades ago as a German Uhlan football player. If anyone in Pennsylvania was having a better time than that crowd assembled in “downtown” Adah, winning Powerball tickets must have been involved. But as I surveyed the scene, picking out this or that familiar face, I realized that we as a group would qualify to appear on a show called “Fayette County Survivor.” We’re the ones who were able and/or willing to stay here – and we are clearly in the minority.
Most of my peers, and the other folks’ as well, long ago moved away from their roots, and having established themselves in more prosperous areas, they are likely to never return. In my German Township hometown, whole families have disappeared because of a lack of job opportunities. This diaspora has occurred before and during my lifetime. And it continues to this day.
But I wonder: What might Fayette County be like had these people been able to stick around? I happen to think it would be a much better place. Instead, thousands of our best and brightest and most ambitious young people have been transplanted to places like the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Cleveland, or to high-growth states like Florida and North Carolina.
I don’t want to say it’s been a forced emigration, but I can’t help believe that the first choice for many of them would have been to stick around had a good job been available. Most of the time, it hasn’t been, so they simply move on if they have the skills or education to do so.
Now comes the tricky part of this column, where the reporter in me asks a very pertinent but potentially inflammatory one-word question:”Why?”
As in “why” are we still the second-poorest county in Pennsylvania after all these years? And “why” do we continue to trail the pack so badly, despite all of the supposed clout of the people we keep electing to local, state and federal office? And “why” is this the case after the spending of millions of state and federal dollars, ostensibly to eradicate the county’s poverty rate?
Are the people to blame for their own low standing? Maybe in some cases that’s true, because no government program can give someone a strong worth ethic or a higher IQ. But I don’t think a lack of education or job training is the problem. I think it’s a lack of opportunity.
On one of my recent appearances on WMBS’ “Let’s Talk” with my friend Bob Foltz, I made the point that each year, literally hundreds if not thousands of students graduate from Fayette County high schools, and they are academically equipped to go out and achieve great things. They achieve success all the time – they just don’t get to do it here.
I later got a private phone call from one Fayette County school superintendent, thanking me for pointing out, if only in a tangential way, that our schools are doing a good job. I appreciated that.
I believe that we, as Fayette Countians, all need to start paying closer attention to what’s happening – and yes, to what’s not happening – to make our county at least as vibrant as those surrounding it. I’ve seen some positive signs in the last four or five years, but that doesn’t mean we should let up in our demand for top-notch results.
As we all discovered during the battle for the Mon-Fayette Expressway, the squeaky wheel usually gets the proverbial oil. If you’re tired of seeing your children and grandchildren move away when they wanted to stay, then you should keep on squeaking, particularly at the ballot box.
When you want a change in direction or a move out of last place, there really is no other way to send that message.
Paul Sunyak is editorial page editor of the Herald-Standard. He can be reached at 724-439-7577 or psunyak@heraldstandard.com