| 12/02/2006 |
| Shamokin man delivers good news to front page |
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It’s often said that newspapers and the media in general
thrive on bad news. Do we thrive on bad news or do our
readers thrive on bad news?
That’s a chicken-or-egg question for another day. The topic this week is good news. It was a pleasure for us to feature Shamokin’s own Dave Kaleta in a photograph on the front page of Thursday’s edition. He was in the company of a prominent state official, Kathleen McGinty, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and, as such, a member of Gov. Rendell’s cabinet. The picture was taken at the inaugural COALS Summit in Nanticoke the day prior. Kaleta was recognized at the function by McGinty and others for his efforts to rid the coal region of illegal dump sites, sparking the creation of COALS — Clean up Our Anthracite Land and Streams. With Wednesday’s summit, COALS, which had already grown from a local concept to a regional one, went statewide. And it all started with Kaleta’s efforts. Shamokin and its neighbors should be proud of his accomplishment, a sure piece of good news that we were happy to place on Page 1. As reported by staff writer Eric Scicchitano, Kaleta received a round of applause from the folks at the summit. The story was told of how he first took a group of local and state leaders on a tour of illegal dump sites 20 months ago along Snake Road between Ashland and Mount Carmel. (There was another piece of good local news from the summit, as Rachael Long, a senior at Line Mountain High School, was awarded $250 for winning the COALS logo design contest.) While Kaleta’s physical work deserves every bit of the attention it gets, it’s his mindset that must really catch on for the coal region to truly clean up his act. Community-minded, environmentally conscious people can always be found to clean up other people’s messes; but can we get those people to stop creating the messes in the first place? That is the challenge. Steve Bartos, the COALS project manager for DEP (who also deserves a pat on the back for his tremendous efforts), made this very interesting point about the project’s starting point: “A new environmental awakening is happening and, in all places, the middle of Pennsylvania’s coal region.” Certainly, that is good news. (Heintzelman is editor of The News-Item. If you have a subject to discuss for The Week in News, write to andy_h@newsitem.com)
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