INDEX DEATHSVOL. 150, NO. 25

Business .......................... 6Classifi ed ....................... 14Comics ........................... 12Crossword ..................... 13Editorial ........................... 4Community ...................... 8

Horoscope ..................... 12Lottery ............................. 2Sports .............................. 9Sudoku .......................... 13TV ................................... 13

PA-026751

• Painting • Commercial • Residential • Carpentry Repairs • Home Improvements • Wall Coverings

• Wallpaper Removal • Plaster Repair • Drywall Repair • Waterproofing • Fire & Water

Restoration • Roof Cleaning

Thank you for voting us one of the best in

INTERIOR & EXTERIOR PAINTING SERVICES

FREE Estimates •

Family Business for Over 50 Years

• Fully Insured & Bonded

BE

-143

2659

By Alexandria Mansfi eldEagle Staff Writer

CRANBERRY TWP — Hundreds of young women from around the re-gion were lined up before daybreak Saturday at the Cranberry Communi-ty United Presbyterian Church with hopes of fi nding their dream dress.

The church’s annual “I Found the Gown” event, where attendees can purchase lightly-used prom dresses and wedding gowns, offered a selec-tion of 2,040 dresses, as well as shoes, wraps and jewelry.

Greta Bender, a North Catholic High School senior, was one of the fi rst through the door Saturday. She

said one of the best parts of the day was getting to go on an adventure with her best friend and fellow North Catholic senior, Emily Gregor. The two showed up at 4 a.m. to get their tickets for the sale and were 69th and 70th to be allowed in.

“I love getting this experience with my best friend,” Emily said.

Emily added that the event offers affordable prom dresses rather than having high school girls spend, “$500 for a dress (we’ll) wear once.”

Both Greta and Emily said they were looking for more form-fi tting, sleeker gowns and hadn’t found any-thing almost an hour into the event’s

beginning.“We’re still shopping around,”

Greta said. “We have a lot to try on still.”

Both said they were happy for the sale.

“If it weren’t this structured, it’d be a wreck,” Greta said. “It’s really amazing what they do.”

About 100 volunteers, including 40 students from Seneca Valley High School’s National Honor Society, help by either acting as “runners” to put rejected dresses back on the racks, helping girls and women get into their dresses or acting as seam-

‘Found the Gown’ draws hundreds

See Gown, Page 3

By Steve FerrisEagle Staff Writer

EVANS CITY — Install-ing an electronic mes-sage board for community events, building a motel and fi nding activities for youth and senior citizens were some ideas pitched Saturday to make Evans City an even better place to live.

A dozen residents and business owners talked about what they like about the borough and shared ideas about how to im-prove the quality of life for residents and attract tourists. The meeting was the fi rst of what organiz-

ers said will be quarterly“Community Conversa-tions” meetings.

The Rev. Lisa Griffi n ofSt. John’s United Churchof Christ and MichelinaStickney, director of theEvans City Public Library,organized the fi rst meet-ing that was held in thelibrary.

Public safety, a smallgrocery store, a drugstore,churches, EDCO Park, ac-cess to Interstate 79 andchurches are what makethe borough a nice place tolive, group members said.

More tourists wouldcome to town for the an-

Group discussespossible upgradesfor Evans City

By Nathan BottigerEagle Staff Writer

Is Butler County ready to tackle climate change?

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has been conducting public hearings this month while working on a special re-port about Pennsylvania’s preparedness for climate change.

“The climate crisis will impact public health and safety, disrupt our econ-omy and create new bur-dens on taxpayers,” De-Pasquale said. “In light of how little serious work is being done about the crisis at the national level, it’s up to states to make certain

they’re prepared for thesepotentially devastating im-pacts.”

Shawn Davis, a SlipperyRock University assistantprofessor of parks andconservation, said But-ler County residents cansee the effects of climatechange in the weather. Hesaid there has been an in-crease in the number ofhigh-impact events.

“We’re seeing increasedheavy downpours. I thinkeveryone has seen an up-tick of that,” Davis said.

Davis said fl ooding,droughts and tornadoscould become more com-mon.

“The fact of the matter

County getsprimer onclimate change

See Climate, Page 3

See Evans City, Page 3

North Catholic High School senior Emily Gregor, right, helpsher friend and fellow senior Greta Bender try on a gown atthe Cranberry Community United Presbyterian Church’s an-nual “I Found the Gown” sale Saturday.

ALEXANDRIA MANSFIELD/BUTLER EAGLE

Gaiser’s 1st show packs houseBy Steve FerrisEagle Staff Writer

PENN TWP — Glitz and glamour were on display Sunday at the Butler Coun-try Club for the sold out El-len O’Brien Gaiser Center Spring Fashion Show, the fi rst fundraiser in the drug and alcohol treatment cen-ter’s 49 year history.

Seventeen female mod-els and one male model displayed fashions from several area clothing shops to 220 people. The show was the centerpiece of a fundraiser that includ-ed a Chinese auction of 32 gift bags and a door prize donated by residents and businesses.

“This is our fi rst ever. We’ve never had a fund-raiser,” said Linda Fra-niewski, Gaiser Center executive director said. “We’re happy for the sup-port of the people from the community.”

The money will go to-ward building serenity gardens where clients can meet with visiting family members. It will also help add playground equip-ment for children at Gais-er’s separate men’s and women’s inpatient treat-ment centers in Butler.

Franiewski said the gardens have benches, fl owers and ornamental trees making them more comfortable than the im-personal group meeting rooms or lunch rooms. Neither center currently has playground equipment for kids brought to spend some time with their moth-ers or fathers, she said.

Donald Bullman, a mem-

ber of the center board of directors and fashion show committee, said the board wanted to hold a dif-

ferent type of fundraiser to bring attention to the cen-ter. Members spent a year organizing the show.

“We wanted to shine the light on something posi-tive that improves people’s

FASHION FUNDRAISER

See Fundraiser, Page 3

Power pointsBeaver-Butler Solar Co-opgenerates interest locally

PAGE 6

Learning for lifeStudents learn transitionskills in AERO program

PAGE 8

Aaron J. Best, Grove CityKenneth Dean Boyle,

LyndoraMarilyn McKee Elder,

New CastlePatricia Gayle Hurd, Hill-

iardsRuth M. Isenberg, CabotShirley A. Ulisky Kaste-

lic, ButlerEllen P. (Beneigh) McEl-

haney, Chicora

Rita J. Wilbert GondaWest, Butler

George Whitesell, Butler

See Page 7

Eva Carney models an outfi t for a sold-out crowd at the Ellen O’Brien Gaiser Center Spring Fashion Show on Sunday at the Butler Country Club.

STEVE DALTON/SPECIAL TO THE EAGLE

APRIL 1, 2019SINGLE COPY $1

BE

-143

56

25

724-482-6288 520 Evans

City Rd., Butler

MON - FRI 8-5 SAT 8-2

Giveaways Complimentary Lunch

Special Pricing

SATURDAY, APRIL 6 8AM-4PM

MO

ND

AY

APRIL 1,11

C CC

SATU

Monday, April 1, 2019 - BUTLER EAGLE 3

BE-1429734

ANNUAL MEETING Wednesday, April 3

Crossfire Campus 1802 N. Main St. Ext. • Butler

3:00 – 4:00 Social Hour 4:00 – 5:00 Meeting All Members Invited

Lots of prizes including 6 lucky $100 cash

prize winners!! Each member, or designated individual on a Business Account, is entitled to vote at this meeting to elect Board, Credit Committee, and Supervisory Committee members.*

*Voting will continue on the following day at the Credit Union office on Hollywood Drive

during regular business hours. BE-1435513

Members of the Community Development Corporation of Butler County gather for a photo at the group’s annual breakfastFriday. Front row, from left, are Nadine Tripodi, Kim Geyer, Tracy Vitale, Leslie Osche and Joe Saeler. Second row areBrian White, Bill Hunter, Chris Panian, Mike Denny, Stan Kosciuszko, Joe Taylor, Scott Docherty and Kevin Boozel. Thirdrow, Brian Podolec, Mike Cully, Joe Gray, Joshua Fye, Tom Genevro, Nicholas Neupauer, Ed Mauk and Rubi Lombardo.Fourth row, Neal Jackson, Mark Gordon, Chuck Boory, Aaron Steinheiser, John McCarrier, Jim Saeler and Jerry Andree.Not pictured are Janice Pakozdi-Luffy, Jack Cohen, Bill McCarrier, Ken Raybuck, Lee Ligo, William Behre, Chip Wise, BobBowell and Eric Griffi th. HAROLD AUGHTON/BUTLER EAGLE

CDC MEMBERS GATHER

stresses to add zippers, hem skirts, fi x straps and more.

This is the church’s 10th year hosting this event. Organizer Nancy Hodges said that has given them plenty of time and practice to make sure the sale runs smoothly.

When the event began in 2009, the church collected fewer than 100 dresses, selling 42.

A decade later, those attending Saturday could use one of 57 dress-ing rooms and six seamstresses, with 25 girls permitted in the Fellowship Hall to search for gowns at a time. They are dismissed in groups with about 20 minutes to search before more groups are called.

“It moves very quickly,” Hodges said.

Many of those in attendance weren’t from Butler County but had traveled from Beaver and Allegh-eny counties, as well as West Vir-ginia and Ohio. Western Beaver High School sophomore Justine Snowden, 15, said she woke up at 3:15 a.m. to get to the sale by 4:30 a.m.

Similarly, North Allegheny junior Hannah Bondi and Ambridge stu-

dents Hannah Minitte, senior, and Mackenzie Isles, junior, said they also arrived hours before the sun came up.

Hodges said the event is usually entirely cleaned up with the leftover dresses ready to be donated by about 4 p.m.

Items sold were donated by church members, area businesses and oth-ers.

In addition to the discounted rates for apparel, the church also offers a

few “Fairy Godmother” coupons topay for dresses for girls who mightnot be able to afford the items theyreally want. It is funded through do-nations from church members.

“We’ve got enough that we canhelp a lot of people,” said GretchenPeterson, another event organizer.

The church also donates morethan half of the dresses leftover fromthe event, keeping about 300 to get itstarted for the next year.

GownFrom Page 1

is, we’re seeing these ef-fects already and they’re projected to increase over time,” Davis said.

Butler County Emergen-cy Services Director Steve Bicehouse said the county is familiar with and pre-pared for severe weather conditions.

He said harsh storms this year proved the county has good systems in place already.

“Severe weather is the No. 1 threat in Western Pennsylvania,” Bicehouse said. “We have plans in place. We have exercised those plans not only at the county level, but at the lo-cal level.”

If the number of in-cidents continues to in-crease, the county could see issues with resources and manpower, but that has not been an issue yet, Bicehouse said.

“We feel pretty confi dent in what we have here in the county,” Bicehouse said. “You can’t prepare for ev-erything, but our known hazards we’re ready for.”

Davis said the worsening weather conditions could cause problems for farm-ers. He said heavy rains during droughts do more damage than good.

“They erode the soil in-stead of alleviating the (drought) problem,” Da-vis said. “Agriculturally speaking, it’s a really big problem in Pennsylvania.”

Davis said sweltering heat combined with in-creasing insect popula-tions growing out of milder winters combine to elimi-nate some crops once grown in the state.

“Crops are sensitive to heat,” Davis said. “We’re going to see a decline in sweet corn production just because of the heat by it-self.”

Will Taylor, manager of Jennings Environmental Education Center, said the center has seen a shift in some fl owers that bloom at specifi c times of the year.

Animals have also exhib-ited changes.

Taylor said the center’s unique example of this is the Massasauga rattle-snake.

“We’re seeing that emer-gence happen much ear-lier than in the past,” he said. “We’re seeing snakes up now (in March.)”

Taylor said in the past the snakes generally en-tered hibernation in early November and emerge be-tween late April and early May. He said the snakes ap-pear to be entering hiber-nation later as well — with some going into hiberna-tion as late as November last year.

“That would mean their hibernation would be shortened,” Taylor said.

Taylor said invasive spe-cies of plants and animals have also been an issue. He said the park does the best it can to manage these populations, but some in-vaders, such as the emer-ald ash borer, are diffi cult to defeat.

“We have one mature ash (tree) left in our park-ing lot that we treat, and I don’t know how long we’ll treat it, but other than that, they’re all gone,” he said.

Taylor said witness-ing the effects of climate change is diffi cult, but so is fi ghting the phenomenon.

He said the park has fol-lowed a state Department of Conservation of Natu-ral Resources initiative to convert all its lighting to LED to reduce the park’s carbon footprint. He said another initiative would accommodate electric cars and begin swapping out its own fl eet with electronical-ly-fueled vehicles.

DePasquale said he will continue to prepare the state for the future.

“I want our state to be ready for what the federal government’s own experts say is already happening and what is yet to come,” DePasquale added.

ClimateFrom Page 1

nual festival to celebrate the 1968 fi lming of “Night of the Living Dead” if there was lodging in the borough, said Rick Reifenstein, a member of the borough’s Historical Society who at-tended the meeting.

Part of the movie was fi lmed in the Evans City Cemetery and a festival is held annually to celebrate it.

“We get thousands of people for (it) and there’s nowhere for them to stay,” Reifenstein said.

Evans City’s slogan

should refl ect the fi lming of the movie, he added. The old slogan “City of Black Gold” no longer applies, he said.

Another resident said homes used to have oil wells in their yards in the early 1900s, but the oil boom only lasted a couple years.

The slogan and a listing of community events could be displayed on an elec-tronic message board sign placed in a highly visible location, others said.

Another resident said the borough should have more news and infor-

mation about upcoming events on its website.

Business owner Pam Greenawalt suggested hav-ing social events or mixers with music on Main Street on a regular basis.

Griffi n said having a mu-sic series in the park might be a good idea and Reifen-stein said an amphitheater could be built in the park to host events.

Greenawalt also sug-gested fi nding activities to bring youth and senior citi-zens together so they can learn from each other.

Children could show se-niors how to use technol-

ogy and seniors can tellkids about their lives anddiscuss history, she said.

Others suggested allow-ing residents and business-es to adopt fl ower plantersor streets to help beautifythe borough.

“If more of us get togeth-er and say let’s make thistown shine, we can make itbetter,” said Sue Ellen Pol-lock, who was raised in theborough, left for a teachingjob and recently returnedafter retiring.

“Positivity creates morepositivity,” Greenawaltsaid.

Evans CityFrom Page 1

lives. I’m so glad the com-munity came together for this,” he said.

A woman told the audi-ence that her stay in the center in 2010 led to her re-covery from alcohol abuse.

“They cared if I lived or died. I felt that vibe right off the bat,” she said.

It was her third trip to a

recovery center that year.“I really wasn’t welcome

anywhere else,” she said.Franiewski said drug and

alcohol abuse remains a problem, but many people are recovering.

“We still have a tremen-dous drug problem,” she said. “People are still dy-ing ... but a lot of people are getting better. We are beginning to see they are getting clean and sober and getting their families back. It’s cool to be sober. We’re beginning to see the recov-ery process take hold. It’s pretty exciting.”

The center opened in 1970 on West Wayne Street as a sober living center for men in recovery. It was named after Ellen O’Brien Gaiser, who served as ex-ecutive director from 1975, the year the fi rst female cli-ent was admitted, until her death in 1994.

A new center opened in 2010 at the current loca-tion on Old Plant Road. A second building was built at the same site in 2017 cre-ating separate housing for male and female clients.

FundraiserFrom Page 1

IN MEMORIAM

In loving memory

ofNoah Wolfe

February 16, 2005 - April 1,

2011

Nephew,We think of you alwaysWe think about you stillYou will never be forgottenAs we hold you close

within our heartsAnd there you will always

stayUntil we meet again.

Uncles,Rob, Leroy, Ryan,

Randy, Larry and Families

IN MEMORIAM

In loving memory ofNoah R.

WolfeFebruary 16, 2005 to April 1,

2011.

Grandson,It’s been “Eight” long yearsBut still feels like yesterdaySince you went to HeavenOur Angel soars aboveWatching over us each dayHe was one of our greatest

treasuresThe twinkle of our eye.We miss what should have

been And all the memories we

should have madeTill we meet again our little

AngelWe love and miss you

every single day.Grammy and Pappy

IN MEMORIAMIn loving memory of our grandson,

Austin Dean Flint, who has been gone

12 years today. May the winds of Heaven

blow softly and whisper in your ear,

How much we love and miss you and wish that you were here.

You are gone from our sight

But you will never be gone from our hearts.

We will always love and miss you precious boy.

Love, Pappy and Gamma

Lisa Smith and Makayla Washington wrap a dress for a customer Saturday at the“I Found the Gown” sale. J.W. JOHNSON JR./BUTLER EAGLE