Jun 26, 2025 4 min read

Cheers: Cheers to Brownsville Area High School for choosing a solid candidate to lead their football program in Uniontown graduate Cody Castor, who was an excellent football player for the Red Raiders and played four years with the Penn State Nittany Lions. Castor helped out at Penn State during their spring drills after graduating, then obtained valuable coaching experience as an assistant coach at Bloomsburg State and at Berwick High School before taking his first head coaching job with the Falcons. The 34-year-old Castor comes in as a young, enthusiastic coach with a good background and a plan to resurrect Brownsville’s once proud football program that has won only one game in the past five seasons.

Cheers: A shout-out to all of the summer camps out there that are getting kids to put down their smartphones, tablets and video games and engage – and enjoy – the world around them. In his story Sunday, Zach Petroff cited a 2024 study that found children ages 8 to 12 are spending four to six hours daily on devices while teens are devoting up to nine hours – a 33% increase over 2023. Teacher Lynne Roy, who has been a summer camp counselor for the past 15 years with Penn State Fayette’s summer program, said she’s witnessed firsthand the impact of increased screen time on developing brains. “(T)here is a literal addiction with these kids and their phones. It’s one of the first things we address when they get (to camp), and it seems to work if we address it upfront and keep them constantly engaged.” In addition, Roy noted that the camps help to provide lessons in teamwork, problem solving, adaptability and communication. How refreshing: kids actually talking to one another – without the use of their thumbs.

Jeers: A drop in natural gas prices along with a fee schedule that tails off as wells are farther into production contributed to the second lowest amount of drilling impact fees paid out this year to counties and municipalities in the state. The amount distributed through Act 13 statewide dropped to just under $164.6 million, representing a 10% decrease from 2024 and less than two-thirds of the record amount distributed in 2023, which was $278.8 million. The impact on small municipalities in rural areas can be debilitating, though local officials view the money as more of a luxury than a dedicated revenue stream. Franklin Township Board of Supervisors Chairman Corbly Orndorff told staff writer Mike Jones that the Greene County municipality used some of its share the past two years to bolster the volunteer fire department, so less money means a smaller percentage going to fire services. The erratic nature of the revenue prompted the township officials to use it for more fluid purposes rather than a line item in the budget they would have to fund annually, like a full-time police department. “We realize there’s no guarantee. It won’t always be there,” Orndorff said. “This is totally an unknown, and we don’t want to get our budgets relying on it.”

Cheers: Blighted properties large and small are being removed from the local landscape, thanks to the action of the Washington County Board of Commissioners. Last summer, the commissioners established a blight and demolition fund using $13 million in federal COVID relief money that had to be earmarked by the end of 2024. So far, 45 projects have been put out for bid, targeted for removal or razed. Among them is the former Washington Mall, an eyesore for far too long at the intersection of Interstates 70 and 79. The old mall will be torn down to make way for Costco and other businesses, providing an infusion of tax revenue into the region’s economy. Smaller projects are benefitting as well, such as Chartiers Township, where three blighted properties in the 500 block of Pike Street are being removed. “The township has been actively working on condemning those buildings and getting them demolished as an unsafe structure for several years. … This allows us to clean up the corner for the neighbors there and make that whole area safer without a large cost to the residents, the taxpayers and even the property owner,” said Chartiers Township Manager Jodi Noble. A win-win all the way around.