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Hits and Misses

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Photo courtesy of Furlough Into Service program

Nine inmates from the Washington County jail worked this week to build a footbridge behind Washington Park Elementary School that will be used for cross-country meets. The crew is working on community projects through the county’s “Furlough Into Service” program.

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Mike Jones/Observer-Reporter

From left, Larry Spahr, Linda Evans Boren and Stephen Parish are sworn-in at attorney Dennis Makel’s office in Washington after being appointed to the Union Township Board of Supervisors. Charles Wilson, who is not pictured, also was appointed to the board and took his oath later in the day.

Serving time in a prison or jail is meant to punish, but it should also provide a means for rehabilitation, so that when sentences are completed, inmates can re-enter society and become productive citizens. Select inmates at Washington County’s jail are learning skills and helping others through their participation in the “Furlough Into Service,” or FITS program. It consists of nine inmates who have been jailed for relatively minor offenses, and have less than a year to serve on their sentences. They’ve helped on projects at Canonsburg Park, the PONY fields in Washington, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and other locations. Scott Becker, the Trolley Museum’s director, said, “We try to do projects where they can learn skills so they can get work when they’re no longer incarcerated. I think that’s really important. I hope it continues. I think it’s a wonderful program for everyone concerned.”

In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” the Elsinore guard Marcellus exclaims in Act I, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” And something is clearly also rotten in Washington County’s Union Township. In recent days, four of the township’s supervisors resigned, citing a hostile and threatening atmosphere. It has left the township with just one supervisor. In addition, the township’s solicitor, accountant, project manager and secretary and assistant treasurer have all departed. The township’s 6,000 residents deserve to know why elected officials, some of whom were veterans in their posts, decided things had become so bad they had no other choice but to walk away. Some Union Township residents successfully petitioned the Washington County Court of Common Pleas to name four onetime supervisors to fill the vacancies on the board. Having seasoned supervisors take the helm in the township might be the best way to restore order.

For 14 years, the remains of Missouri Air Force officer Michael Blassie were interred in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery, representing all the servicemen who were killed in the Vietnam War but whose remains could not be identified. Blassie’s remains were removed in 1998, though, when DNA technology advanced to a point where they could be identified. No remains have since occupied the spot reserved for unknown Vietnam War soldiers. A Pennsylvania family was recently able to gain a similar sense of closure when the remains of U.S. Army Pfc. Edward J. Reiter were identified 72 years after he disappeared on the battlefield during the Korean War. Flags across Pennsylvania were lowered last Saturday in his honor, the day of Reiter’s long overdue funeral. He was buried near his parents, and the Rev. Patrick Lamb of Queenship of Mary Catholic Church in Northampton said that, despite the passage of time, “He has never been forgotten.”

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