Some weeks are busier than others. We understand that sometimes there isn’t any time to take a minute to catch your breath in your personal life, let alone catch up on what’s going on in your community — the local or the national one.
So we’re here to help. Every Saturday morning we’re going to offer this round-up a handful of the stories we think are important to read. These might be light and uplifting conversation starters or they might be deep dives into the dimly lit corners of a breaking news story. What we hope each offering has in common, though, is that they get you thinking, get you involved and get you informed.
This week we’re shining a light on:
• A man who emerged as the face of pain and voice of reason for Tree of Life’s broken congregation
• A football coach who considered himself lucky long before he reached a WPIAL title game
• The “what-now?” for Pittsburgh’s HQ2-less tech community
• A bird that nobody ever thought would exist
• An overlap of Pittsburgh’s past and present
• An appreciation for Mac Miller in the words of a millennial
Here are the best stories you might have missed from the past week:
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How Tree of Life’s Jeffrey Myers became ‘America’s Rabbi’
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers was seen and heard around the country following the mass shooting Oct. 27 at Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, the congregation he led for just more than a year. Peter Smith explains what many wondered as Rabbi Myers was interviewed on national TV: How is he handling himself so well in the wake of tragedy he experienced first-hand? His voice, offering earnest compassion and hunger for change, is a big part of what led him to his dual role as spiritual teacher and worship song leader at Tree of Life. Read the full story here.
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Seneca Valley's Ron Butschle is a story of a comeback coach
Seneca Valley has a shot at its first WPIAL football title in school history Saturday night at Heinz Field. If there’s a bigger storyline in the game, it’s that the coach standing on the sidelines is just that — a coach standing on the sidelines.
After his wife had recently passed away and his 4-year-old son had beaten a rare form of cancer, Raiders coach Ron Butschle just wanted to focus on being a dad. This was in 2012, months before the start of what would have been his 11th year as a high school football head coach. He was Seneca Valley’s coach from 2004-08 before stepping down and had two stints as Sto-Rox’s coach (2004-08 and 2010-11). Now Butschle, the Raiders and his son, Nate — now 11 and the team’s “director of football operations” — have a chance to make history. Mike White tells the story here.
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Pittsburgh's tech community weighs in on Amazon HQ2 loss
Pittsburgh’s tech community reacted to Amazon’s decision to pass on locating its HQ2 here. The general consensus after the promise of development and high-paying jobs (from this megalith of a company, at least) is no more? Relief. No, really.
“We have a lovely standard of living,” the CEO of one tech company here told Courtney Linder. “... If you have sudden, explosive growth, there are great benefits that come with that, but [also] some of the disproportionate negative things that you’ll find in markets like San Francisco, where hyper growth has really started to create a stratum of social challenges.”
Some executives raise points that the application process will pay off eventually, while some want to see a home-grown workforce blossom first. Read how they see things shaking out here.
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In five years, this Pittsburgh attorney went from knowing “nothing about warblers,” to having one named after him. Lowell Burket discovered Burket’s warbler in a small town south of Altoona, but we still haven’t gotten to the truly wild part about this story — which is that this bird exists through hybrid mating that “shouldn’t happen,” according to one expert.
In this story, that expert tries to explain in relatable terms just how rare this three-species hybrid bird is. You’ve never read anything like it.
“A wolf-dog-red fox hybrid shouldn’t happen, but that’s what happened among these warblers.”
There is, unsurprisingly, a ridiculous build-up to that ridiculous conclusion. Read all of it here.
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This one’s as captivating for its visuals as it is for its narratives. John Hamilton pored over a collection of preserved photos and negatives from Pittsburgh created from 1890 to 2002, many of which were captured by the city’s Division of Photography. With this documentation of how parts of Pittsburgh have looked throughout the 20th century, John set out to put the past right next to the present, photographing locations as they appear today. You can see the result of his work in this interactive here, which lets you slide the images of the new and old over of each other.
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The importance of Mac Miller, the late rapper who inspired a generation of Pittsburgh youth
Mac Miller was a big deal here, and his death is a big deal, too. Seamus Roddy, a writer living in Pittsburgh, explains through our Next Page op-ed why that’s the case, invoking the jubilant memories from his high school days when the rapper was beginning to make a name nationally and the raw feelings from just a couple months ago when we learned that Mac had gone too soon. Even at both ends of that course, Mac had an honest way of bringing people together, Seamus says. Read the full appreciation here.
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Did we miss anything? Let us know and share what you’ve been reading in the comments below.
First Published: November 17, 2018, 2:00 p.m.
