Cheer

Butler Councilman Bill May raised a valid point Thursday when he criticized parents fighting the Butler School District’s consolidation plans — specifically those against the idea of relocating fifth and sixth graders to the junior high school.

May said a school board member told him of “increasing pressure from these parent groups to close the junior high school.” He added, “I am very concerned (the board) would go through with it.”

The parents’ primary concern, May said, appears to be the safety of their children amid the people who inhabit the neighborhood of McKean and East Jefferson streets — an argument the councilman flatly rejects as unfounded.

“This is fear mongering,” he said. “They are painting the picture that there are people hiding behind trees waiting for their children.”

The school property is not in any way unsafe. In fact, it is literally hemmed in by no fewer than six churches: St. Andrew’s and Covenant Presbyterian, St. Peter’s Anglican, St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s Catholic and First United Methodist — seven, if you count the Country Church, a Methodist offshoot that worships in the former Knights of Columbus hall.

Granted, these churches minister to the practical and spiritual needs of the people who need help — and such people can be seen going to and from these church buildings frequently. Many of them are poor. But as May said it, being poor doesn’t make you a bad person any more than being wealthy makes you good.

If bad came to worse, and these parents succeeded in pressuring the school board to close the junior high building, then all those churches might consider pooling their resources and converting the junior high into a multifaith community Christian center — maybe even with its own charter school.

It might come to that. It certainly doesn’t have to.

Jeer

Good riddance to the frigid imp, February 2015, and it’s not a day too soon to cease her mischief.

The month goes down in history as one of the coldest on record for cities across the Midwest and Northeast. The National Weather Service says it will likely rank as one of the top five coldest Februaries for cities from Boston and New York to Chicago and Cincinnati. In some cases, it will finish as either the coldest or second coldest February on record.

We’ve all seen the effects of the persistent deep freeze, including at the Butler Eagle, where we haven’t heard recently from several of our regular letter writers and assume they have been unable to venture out to the mailbox. Maybe they’ve tossed all their pencils and stationery into the furnace to keep warm. And our news carriers lately have been singing that verse from “American Pie” — you know: “February made me shiver with every paper I’d deliver.”

The good news is it can’t last forever. Eleven hundred miles south of here, the Pirates have commenced spring training; in the Pittsburgh suburb of Hays, the eagles are incubating fresh eggs; and local stores are festooned with Easter candy and decoration. One is even advertising kids’ swimwear already.

And most importantly, February, the longest of short months, is no more.

Cheer

After 10 years of searching, the Butler County Sports Hall of Fame has a permanent home to hang its laurels.

And the new home for our shrine to the region’s finest athletes could not be a more appropriate or more dignified spot.

The county commissioners Wednesday accepted the hall of fame’s pending donation of two display cases to hold the items, which will be exhibited in the government center on Diamond Street, behind the county courthouse.

The hall of fame was established in 1966 to recognize athletic achievement. It hasn’t had a permanent home since leaving the Days Inn on Route 8 in Butler Township a decade ago, although the hotel has continued to host the hall’s annual banquet.

The exhibit includes more than 300 athletes who played for Butler County high schools and colleges. About 90 percent of the collection consists of photographs, says Regis Young, a hall of fame board member and the former county elections bureau director.

Young says Butler vocational-technical students will build the cases, which will be installed along the third-floor hallway leading to the walkway into the courthouse.

The exhibit is expected to be completed this spring.