Feb 18, 2005 5 min read

To the fine staff of the Herald-Standard, my unflagging gratitude and respect for your continued investigation and coverage of John Shallenberger. While discussing child sexual abuse is never a popular topic, it is our only defense to protect children and stop predators like Mr.Shallenberger. The only known cure for pedophiles is to continually keep children away from them. The Herald-Standard has worked tirelessly over the decades to expose and stop John Shallenberger’s many schemes to exploit children. Over those decades, you have inevitably kept numerous children from victimization.

Thank you for caring, and taking the difficult but always courageous stance. As for my own post script in this story, through vigilance none of the children in our Chicago children’s choir were abused during our misfortunate Mexican tour with John Shallenberger.

The experiences did bring me to a life-long commitment, and I have spent the intervening years working as a trainer in the Chicago Diocese of the Episcopal Church, working to train parishes in child sexual abuse prevention.

Hopefully John Shallenberger’s true legacy will be to remind all of us we need to actively protect children wherever we are, because this sorrowful problem won’t end with this man. What he really wrote in his own obituary is that he never stopped looking for his next victim.

Carrie Kellogg Garbarek

Chicago, Ill.

Ode to pot holes

Outside my front door, directly in line with my mailbox is a pair of potholes. One large, one small, teardrop-shaped and growing almost daily. They are much like every other pothole in Pennsylvania, I suspect, being deep and filled with water and threatening to rip the undercarriage off of any car na?ve or daring enough to race over them at high speed.

And yet, I’ve fallen in love with them.

Let me explain my newfound love of potholes in two words – speed bumps. The road on which I have lived for five years has become a bit of a speedway for local traffic, with college students racing to the bar and residents racing to other areas of town at breakneck speed. The first summer I spent here, five years ago, I called the police department to ask if there was any way to slow down the speeders on this small, lane and a half, road.

The officer was polite, but honest. There was nothing they could do other than maintain their vigilance on that section of their patrol, but my complaint was registered and I did appreciate that.

But now I appreciate the potholes more.

They serve as wonderful speed inhibitors for my community, slowing down traffic almost to the posted speed limit. I used to wince every time I heard the loud engine of a sportscar coming towards my house, but now I smile; knowing the driver is about to dip almost below the horizon into the pothole next to my mailbox.

And I’ll miss the Dynamic Duo when the county truck rolls on by and fills them in, as they do every year. But I know that a year from now the potholes will return, like the swallows to Capistrano, and the speed demons in my community will swear and curse their existence, while I applaud the pothole-enforced speed limits even more.

And that’s why I love my potholes.

Sheryl Nantus

Brownsville

Up and coming generation

I am writing, as a young professional, who has heard over the years, “The young people are all leaving Fayette County”, or “Fayette County cannot go anywhere, because the young people aren’t doing anything.” And now it’s: “Fayette County is coming back, because of one man.”

I moved here 12 years ago and got a job serving the higher bracket of professionals as my first opportunity in the area. While at this job, I was asked numerous times, “Why did you come to Fayette County of all places?” by professionals who should have been promoting the area.

Fayette County is not coming back because of one man. His torch is burning bright and he certainly is lighting the way. We admire, applaud and most certainly welcome his achievement. But, we wish to let you know that the young people have already been making an impact, revitalizing, if we may say.

Two years ago, I brought together a group of nearly two dozen professionals, all 35 years and younger. We came together to discuss what we were going to do to help Fayette County become a better place. After a few hours, we realized that we were making it a better place. We realized that, as a group we moved more than $100 million through Fayette County, through services, wages, product and spending. We are doctors who stayed and the ones who came back. We are successful business people, who started businesses from scratch. We were those who added to the success of their family’s business. We are young people who restored homes, built anew and created from scratch. We had and continue to have children, who we will want to stay.

Out of this group came an exciting new organization that will help make the county burn even brighter. Fayette Opportunity Network (FayOp.net) was formed. This group is forward-thinking young professionals whose continued goal is to foster an environment that supports new ideas, positive thinking, progressive action and social interaction for young and young-minded people.

FayOp.net was created to have these professionals help each other achieve their goals whether philanthropic, financial, social and/or career oriented. We came together to promote our successes and to build upon them. We are energetic, ambitious individuals who wish to make a difference in Fayette County.

We did not leave.

Joseph T. Carei

Uniontown

The writer is president of Fayette Opportunity Network (FayOp.net).