October 27, 2025 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Conflict of Interest Disclosure: The author of this piece has a conflict of interest. See Editor’s Note.
Homestead-based Mon Valley Initiative held its 37th annual community awards dinner at the Palisades Ballroom, Downtown. (Tube City Almanac photo)
At a time when many Americans are struggling to feel a sense of unity and purpose, the volunteers of the Mon Valley’s many non-profits have created “a very unique hub.”
“The way the world is, we struggle so hard to find community,” said April Hoover, chief financial officer of Mon Valley Initiative, during that organization’s 37th annual awards banquet. “So I want to remind you that this is a community. Tap into the other people in this room. Just remember, where there is service, where there is hope, lasting impact can happen.”
More than 200 people attended the event at the Palisades Ballroom in Downtown McKeesport. Awards were presented to three individuals and four Mon-Yough area organizations.
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October 13, 2025 |
By Adam Reinherz | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Adam Reinherz photo for Tube City Almanac)
McKeesport Area School District recognized students, staff and school director achievements during an Oct. 9 school board meeting.
Eighth-grader Evan Durst was celebrated for his selection to the US Youth School Junior Olympic Development Program. The program, according to Superintendent Donald MacFann, is a “pathway for identifying and developing top players across the country.”
Retiring golf coach Joe Bower was honored for 12 seasons of leading McKeesport golfers.
School director David Donato called Bower’s contributions to the program “incredible,” and said, “it takes a very special person to get these guys together and want to come every day.”
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October 08, 2025 |
By Vickie Babyak | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Vickie Babyak photo for Tube City Almanac)
If you go...
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Encore Presentation: Living History Tour
Where: McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center, 1832 Arboretum Drive (Renziehausen Park)
When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9
Tickets: $12 members, $15 non-members, $6 kids (12 and under)
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Cemeteries are usually a solemn, serene place of final rest, but on Saturday and Sunday the McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery was alive with historical figures of McKeesport’s past, portrayed by local actors.
The McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center presented its 11th annual Living History Tour featuring characters like Thomas Tilbrook the first mayor of McKeesport, trail blazing journalist Phyllis Garland, and Woodene Merriman, a longtime reporter and lifestyle editor for the McKeesport Daily News.
All together, 10 historical figures were represented by actors, Isaac Richardson as the gravedigger, Greg Nemchick as John Corey, Kim Moore as Woodene Merriman, Ellie Valentine as Jane Berry Smith, Ellis Michaels as Thomas Tilbrook, Wayne Minnicks as Russell Goetz, Ashden Burgman as B.B. Coursin, Isabel Newport as Sarah E. Johnson Phillips Means, John Patalona as John Sellman, and Nie’Zhay Jefferson as Phyllis Garland.
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October 07, 2025 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(With reporting from Vickie Babyak and Jason Togyer)
Residents wait outside Midtown Plaza Apartments on Sunday after fire forced the evacuation of most of the high-rise building. (Vickie Babyak photo for Tube City Almanac)
Six residents and four firefighters sustained minor injuries Sunday after fire broke out in a trash chute in a Downtown high-rise apartment building.
McKeesport fire Chief Jeff Tomovcsik said the blaze at Midtown Plaza Apartments went to three-alarms and that some residents — who have heard false alarms in the past — were reluctant to evacuate.
The Allegheny County fire marshal’s office is investigating.
Many of the residents of the building are senior citizens or on fixed incomes. The building was previously owned by a subsidiary of PNC Bank, but was sold in December 2024 for $500,000 to a New York-based company, according to county records.
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October 03, 2025 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
McKeesport City Council has denied a request for a conditional use variance for Noise Makers Motorcycle Club to use this former bar on Ringgold Street as a meeting space. (Tube City Almanac photo)
City council has voted down a request for approval to open a motorcycle club on Ringgold Street in the Downtown business district.
By 4-3 vote, McKeesport council rejected the recommendation of the city’s planning commission to approve an application from Noise Makers Motorcycle Club to turn the former Bubba’s Bar & Grill into a private club.
Council Members Jim Barry Jr., Richard Dellapenna Jr., Brian Evans and Jill Lape voted no. Council Members Keith Soles, LuEthel Nesbit and Amber Webb voted yes.
Club President Ryder Simpson expressed frustration with the city’s permitting and planning process, especially after finding out that the group would not be able to get an occupancy permit for the property because the previous owner owed thousands of dollars in delinquent property taxes.
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October 02, 2025 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
The Versailles Avenue Viaduct was closed in February 2022, less than two weeks after a similar bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park. (Tube City Almanac file photo)
City residents vented frustrations Wednesday night at a public hearing to discuss the replacement of the Versailles Avenue Viaduct.
A standing-room-only meeting in council chambers became contentious, as citizens questioned why government agencies moved so quickly to replace other bridges — notably the Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh — while McKeesport will have to wait until 2027.
The Versailles Avenue span was closed in 2022, less than week after the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed, after an engineer’s report concluded the bridge was no longer safe for travel. A new Fern Hollow Bridge, which carries 14,000 vehicles a day, opened less than a year later.
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September 30, 2025 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Tony Wills looks on as the Rev. J. Matthew Elanjileth prepares to celebrate his 104th birthday during a luncheon at Di’s Kornerstone Restaurant in Versailles. (Tube City Almanac photo)
When he was born in 1921 in Kerala on the southern tip of India, he was a British subject — the country had not yet regained its independence from the United Kingdom.
When he was ordained by the Right Rev. Bernard Regno in Sri Lanka in 1945, that nation was still known as Ceylon and the Japanese had not yet surrendered in World War II.
When he arrived in McKeesport in 1981, U.S. Steel’s National Works still occupied most of the city’s riverfront.
On Monday, friends of the Rev. J. Matthew Elanjileth gathered at a Versailles restaurant to celebrate the 104th birthday of “Father Matt,” retired pastor of St. Mary’s Romanian Rite Catholic Church in Christy Park.
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September 22, 2025 |
By Bonnijean Cooney Adams | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Musicians and color guard gathered in show attire before their first competition. (Photo courtesy Serra Catholic High School)
For its 2025 competition show, the Serra Catholic High School Marching Band is looking to the Far Fast and into the past, with music and costuming inspired by Japanese culture and the world of the samurai.
“Bushido: The Way of the Warrior” tells a story of a girl who wants to become a samurai, band director Jesse Bush said. The band performed it for the first time in competition at Penn-Trafford on Sept. 6, and again Sept. 13 at East Allegheny, where Serra placed first of three schools in Group 1-A.
The band is next scheduled to compete Oct. 4 at Jeannette and Oct. 11 at McKeesport.
“The 2025 band camp was absolutely successful,” Bush said, noting it was during some of the hottest days of the summer. “We’re off to a nice start. I’m excited to see and hear where this show goes.
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September 15, 2025 |
By Adam Reinherz | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Adam Reinherz photo for Tube City Almanac)
As Pennsylvanians await passage of a new state budget, McKeesport Area School District directors are remaining calm. The nearly three-month delay has prompted billions of dollars potentially headed toward public education to remain in limbo.
Pennsylvania public schools already missed out on $1.75 billion in expected payments in July and August, according to Pennsylvania State Education Association. Spotlight PA puts the number at more than $2 billion.
During Thursday’s school board meeting, during a public comment period, retired state Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Baldwin noted the state budget, as well as changes to the federal Department of Education, before asking directors what efforts, if any, are underway to stem fiscal shortfalls.
School Director David Donato pointed to state legislators as bearing responsibility.
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September 10, 2025 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Members of Noise Makers Motorcycle Club, in a picture from Facebook. City officials are leery of granting the organization to turn a former bar on Ringgold Street into a clubhouse and meeting space. (Photo via Facebook)
A request from a motorcycle club for planning commission approval to open at the site of a former Downtown bar has been tabled by McKeesport City Council after Mayor Michael Cherepko and others asked for reassurance that the facilty wouldn’t become a nuisance.
Noise Makers Motorcycle Club is seeking a conditional use variance to turn the former Bubba’s Bar & Grill on Ringgold Street into a private club. According to Allegheny County Health Department records, the bar was closed in 2019.
Noise Makers Vice President Tiffany Wilson of McKeesport, who attended this month’s council meeting wearing a club jacket, said she and other members have done extensive work to repair the building and correct code violations.
“The whole building has been revamped,” she said. “It is not Bubba’s. I know the headaches and drug activity that went on there.”
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