Cheers & Jeers

Cheers: Fair season in the region officially kicked off last week with the start of the Jacktown Fair in Greene County and continued Thursday with the start of the Fayette County event. From now until the West Alexander Fair wraps up on Sept. 9, area fairgrounds will be bustling with entertainment and showcasing local agricultural pursuits. Don’t miss out on any of the fun. Fayette’s fair continues through Aug. 5; Greene County, from Aug. 6 to 12; Washington County Agricultural Fair, Aug. 12 to 19; Westmoreland Fair, Aug. 18 to 26, and West Alexander, Sept. 4-9.

Cheers: Everybody hates politicians, right? Well, maybe not as much as we might think. Members of Congress tend to be reelected, and most local and state officials end up keeping their jobs when they come before voters. Some run unopposed. Sure, in recent years, presidents have been lightning rods for animosity and criticism, but most Americans have fairly rosy views of presidents once they leave the Oval Office, as shown by a recent Gallup poll. And now, a poll freshly released from Morning Consult shows that most Americans are pretty satisfied with their governors. The poll finds that only three governors have approval ratings below 50% — Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Tate Reeves of Mississippi and Tina Kotek of Oregon. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has 56% approval, which is exactly the percentage of the vote he received last November. Two of the most popular governors in the country are Phil Scott, a Republican in deep-blue Vermont, and Andy Beshear, a Democrat in very-red Kentucky. They have 76% and 64% approval ratings, respectively. If you want to go into politics and be popular, being a governor seems to be the route to go.

Cheers: Students attending one of the schools within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) got some good news this week — tuition rates will remain flat for the sixth consecutive year. This means that an in-state, undergraduate student attending one of the universities will pay $7,716 in tuition. The tuition freeze has been the result of the State System streamlining some of its functions, such as the merger of California, Edinboro and Clarion universities into PennWest University, but it is also the result of the General Assembly increasing funding for the public, state-owned institutions. This year, PASSHE received a 6% budget increase, which translates to an additional $33 million, and over the last two years, funding has gone up by $108 million, or nearly 23%. Investing in higher education is one of the smartest ways a state can spend its money, and these increases in funding are welcome.

Jeers: McDowell County in West Virginia is mountainous, there’s no access to an interstate highway, cellphone or internet access that is spotty at best and no local radio or TV station. Now, the county is losing the weekly newspaper that held it together. The Associated Press reported this week that the Welch News is closing after a 100-year publishing run. The article pointed out that the community’s residents “suddenly have no way of knowing what’s happening at public meetings. Local crises, like the desperately needed upgrade of water and sewer systems, are going unreported. And there is no one to keep disinformation in check....” Howard Wade, a 97-year-old retired Black history professor, told AP, “It was like a heartbeat, like a thread that ran through our community.” Missy Nester, the final owner and publisher of the Welch News, said, “Our people here have nothing. Like, can any of y’all hear us out here screaming?”

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