May 23, 2025 3 min read

Cheers: Brownsville Area High School graduate and Grindstone native Tessa Dellarose was named captain of the Pittsburgh Riveters SC women’s soccer team. The 21-year-old midfielder, who plays collegiately for the University of North Carolina, led the Riveters onto the field at Highmark Stadium last Friday in the team’s inaugural match for the USL W franchise. Pittsburgh played the Cleveland Force to a 0-0 draw before a sold-out crowd of 6,077, which was the fourth largest in the history of Highmark Stadium. The Force and Riveters are in the Great Forest Division of the W League, which is the nation’s largest pre-professional women’s soccer league. Dellarose won a national championship with the Tar Heels on Dec. 9 and earned Fourth-Team All-American honors.

Cheers: While he was unopposed in the Democratic primary, it is nonetheless noteworthy that a judge from Washington County will be on the statewide ballot in the general election. Judge Brandon Neuman, 43, of North Strabane, received more votes than any statewide candidate in Tuesday’s primary and will face Clarion County attorney Maria Battista in November. “I want to thank today’s primary voters for entrusting me as your Superior Court nominee,” Neuman said in a written statement late Tuesday. “Judges are the cornerstone of your rights and freedoms, and my versatile legislative and judicial experience uniquely qualifies me to best serve the interests of all Pennsylvanians on the Superior Court.”

Cheers: Thanks to the efforts of volunteers from People’s Natural Gas, more than 4,000 veterans buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery now have American flags on their graves.

“I’m here for the veterans and everything they’ve done for our country,” said David Price of Waynesburg, who was among the 40 volunteers who fanned out to plant the flags at the Canonsburg cemetery earlier this week. “The least we can do is take a little bit out of our day to put these flags out to help represent them.” The annual tradition was started about eight years ago when People’s Gas employee Lindsay Coy was cleaning her grandfather’s grave and noticed he didn’t have an American flag, even though others buried nearby did. She mentioned it to the cemetery manager, who said there were limited flags available but no one to place them. People’s Gas eventually took on the project and bought enough flags to decorate all of the veterans’ graves.

Jeers: Local pharmacies are bracing for an onslaught of new customers in the coming weeks with Rite Aid’s bankruptcy and anticipated closing of thousands of stores across the country, including more than a dozen in the region. The addition of new customers, especially seniors and those on Medicaid, can be costly for local pharmacies. Erich Cushey, who owns Curtis Pharmacy in Connellsville, Carmichaels, Claysville and Washington, said a decade ago he “would’ve been dancing in the streets” with the chance to get new customers, but the rise of insurance middlemen known as Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBMs) has taken a bite out of his bottom line. “What happens with community pharmacies like us or Rite Aid on a grand scale, when we dispense those medications, we’re not getting reimbursed enough to cover the costs. We’re going to do our best to help our patients, but this is about rock bottom. Come (this summer), you’re going to see people with pharmacy access issues.”