Deaths, blazes darken 2006
While economic events made the top news in 2006 in Butler County, there were many other events that impacted residents' lives.
A recap of business items is on Page 1 today. Here are some of the other, more significant things that occurred in the past 12 months.
Two deadly stabbings and two murder-suicides were among the high-profile crimes in Butler County in 2006.A Butler County man, meanwhile, is accused of fatally beating his wife of just six months at her parents' home in Grove City — the first murder in the Mercer County borough in more than 40 years.Scott Dunn, 27, could go to trial in early 2007 for the Jan. 14 death of his wife Brandi, 22. He is charged with first-degree murder.The Dunns were house-sitting for Brandi's parents when the woman's badly burned body was found after fire destroyed the home.Scott Dunn reported an intruder had killed his wife and set the fire. But authorities determined there was no intruder and accused Dunn of setting the fire to cover up the crime.• On Feb. 4, an alleged robbery plan spiraled out of control and ended in the death of a Mars High School senior, stabbed in the parking lot of a Butler Township fast food restaurant parking lot.Robert "Robby" Naser, 18, of Valencia bled to death in a van that traveled to Mars High School after he and a friend were stabbed outside the Burger King on Route 8 south of Butler.Police said Naser and three friends had gone to the restaurant to rob an acquaintance, who also was stabbed in the melee.But, despite the bloody confrontation that ended with one dead and two others seriously injured, no homicide or assault charges were filed.Instead, three men are awaiting trial on robbery and another for drug-related crimes in the incident.• On April 8, a man broke into his ex-wife's Clark Avenue home in Butler Township and killed her with a shotgun before fatally shooting himself.The murder-suicide unfolded in the living room as the couple's 16-year-old son listened while hiding in the attic, police said.Gary Eury, 38, left a note explaining he planned to kill himself in front of Rene Eury, 36. Police said Gary Eury was still upset over his recent divorce and learned his wife had a new boyfriend.• On Sept. 19, aButler man was fatally stabbed inside his Virginia Avenue home by a house guest.Aquarrel over money led to the deadly altercation, city police said.Levi Carl Hayes, 48, of Butler Township is awaiting trial on homicide charges in the death of 30-year-old Donald Schaeffer.• And on Christmas Day, a Butler man killed his girlfriend and her son before killing himself.Debby and Andrew Chuba of West Boyd Avenue died from gunshot wounds. Joel Bodley shot himself in his head.No motive for the shootings has been released by the city police.
Three years of speculation and accusation came to an end in November when Butler Health System officials announced they will build new and renovate on their current campus.Ken DeFurio, interim president and chief executive officer, said the health system's board has decided on a $140 million, three-pronged project that starts with building a six-story acute care tower on Butler Memorial Hospital's campus.The other two aspects of the project are the expansion of the hospital's outpatient facilities and programs and updating and expanding the hospital's information technology.Construction will begin with demolition of the Nixon-Sarver building at the northeast corner of the hospital's campus.Butler Health System's board has spent a great deal of time on this project, starting when then-BMH president Joe Stewart announced in 2003 the board wanted to build a new hospital.As the plan moved forward, a group of residents, including Eagle publisher Vernon L. Wise Jr., called for a more open dialogue with the hospital, saying they were concerned about moving the hospital out of Butler and whether the hospital could afford the project.The hospital's board engaged in several additional studies through the years, which weighed the hospital's options to build on a new site or to renovate and build on the current campus.Stewart, who guided the project from its inception, retired in November, just before the board's construction announcement. With Stewart's retirement, DeFurio was picked to be interim president and was charged by the board to move the project forward.The tower will house a new emergency department, critical care units, beds for less acute or recovering patients called medical/surgical beds and a new surgical suite with prep, operating and recovery rooms.DeFurio said the board expects to spend $90 million to $100 million on the new tower with the balance of the cost on the outpatient facilities and the expansion of the hospital's information technology. The project, which will include no tax money, DeFurio said, will begin this spring with the acute care tower and outpatient facility work to be completed by 2009.He believes the hospital will add about 200 new jobs in the next five years as these changes are made.
Some of the year's blazes will likely remain burned into peoples' memories for many years to come.Some resulted in death, others in people being displaced from their homes and, still others, their jobs.That was the case on Feb. 2, when a welder accidentally started a fire that destroyed the raw materials processing building at the former Freeport Brick Co., now known as Refracting and Industrial Supply. The accident resulted in about 12 workers being laid off.• A week later, tragedy struck a Summit Township family in a fire at their Valley View Drive home.Jeanne Monaghan returned for lunch about 12:30 p.m. and found her house on fire. She tried, but was unable to help her 350-pound disabled husband escape. Darrel Monaghan, 44, died in the fire.The state police fire marshal said the fire may have started from a cigarette.• Later that month, the night of Feb. 22, a fire of unknown origin destroyed a barn, a retail building, three of five greenhouses and numerous supplies and equipment at Brenckle's Greenhouse and Vegetable Farm on Glen Eden Road in New Sewickley Township, just outside Cranberry Township. No one was injured.• On March 9 about 3:40 a.m. Ambrose Justin Hartz, 81, died in a fire in the family's home on Route 422 in Prospect.Fire officials said his wife awoke when she heard a smoke alarm. She escaped and got help from a passing motorist with a cell phone. But it was too late to save her husband, who had been in the living room. The fire marshal said he believed the fire started when Ambrose Hartz fell asleep while smoking.• An intentionally set fire destroyed the wooden Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad's Diverner Trestle just west of Chicora on May 10, disrupting shipments to and from the Petroleum Valley's major industrial plants — Indspec, Penreco and Sonneborn.The rail line reopened June 22 after the railroad moved about 90,000 cubic yards of earth to fill in the 700-foot-long, 50-foot-deep valley rather than build a new bridge.The companies were forced to use trucks for transportation in the meantime.Fire officials quickly ruled the fire was arson. The three companies have funded a $40,000 reward to help the FBI find the person or persons responsible.• One-hundred thirty-seven elderly people were displaced from their assisted living apartments on Nov. 5 when a fire destroyed the Haven I building at Concordia Lutheran Homes on Marwood Road in Jefferson Township.Fortunately, the fire started about 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday when many residents were either at church or otherwise out of the building. No injuries were reported.No cause was determined for the fire, which destroyed 114 apartments. The fire started on the third floor on the east end of the building then swept across the structure.Most residents were moved to apartments in the newly constructed Lund Care Center at the complex.• Fire struck in Freeport again on the night of Dec. 10 when a blaze swept through a pair of apartment buildings at Fifth and Market streets. At about 10 p.m., borough police Cpl. Scott Hess quickly alerted the 10 residents inside, who all made it out safely before the blaze raced through the structures.About 150 firefighters from 15 departments stopped the fire from spreading.Fire officials determined the fire started in the rear of the building on Fifth Street, but were not sure of the cause.
The state Department of Transportation continued to concentrate on replacing and repairing bridges in 2006.The new $23.1 million General Richard Butler Bridge, which carries Route 8 over the Connoquenessing Creek, opened Nov. 9. It replaces the old Main Street Viaduct, built in 1917, in the city.• A $3 million emergency project to repair the Freeport Bridge, which carries Route 356 over the Allegheny River with a smaller span over Buffalo Creek into the borough, was finished Dec. 8.<B><I> </B></I>A 3-ton weight limit imposed Aug. 2 after deterioration was discovered, and a 20-mile detour was eliminated. The bridge was built in 1962.• Construction of the new $15.8 million East Brady Bridge, which carries Route 68 over the Allegheny River between East Brady in Clarion County and Bradys Bend Township in Armstrong County, continues. It is expected to open in the spring.• Replacement of the deck of the bridge that carries Route 8 over Route 422 north in Butler Township was completed in December. Work began in March when deterioration was discovered last winter.• The new Wayne Street Bridge project entered the final design phase late this year. The bridge carries Route 356 over the Connoquenessing Creek and railroad tracks, connecting downtown with the city's south side. The old bridge was built in 1915. Construction is set to begin in 2008. Completion is scheduled for Oct. 28, 2009.PennDOT estimates the new bridge will cost between $10 million to $15 million.
In January, Butler School District and 584 members of the Butler Education Association agreed to an early-bird contract. The 5-year contract increased pay between 3.7 percent and 4.1 percent each year of the contract, changed health insurance providers and for the first time required employees to contribute to their health insurance. The contract expires in 2011.• In February, a survey found people support moving North Catholic High School from the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh to Cranberry Township. Two months later, Catholic officials said they supported the move if the money to do it is found.• In May, after months of increasingly tense negotiations, teachers in the Allegheny-Clarion Valley School District went on strike, canceling classes for 10 days. Teachers returned from the picket line, entered arbitration, and in August agreed to a new contract. The district and the A-C ValleySchool Education Association agreed to a contract.• In June, Slippery Rock superintendent Lee Beaton announced she will retire at the end of the school year. A-C Valley Superintendent Pat Lukasavich has also announced he will retire at the end of the school year.• In September, Butler County Community College held a big bash for its 40th anniversary, concluding a year of celebration.• In October, Slippery Rock teachers and staff each settled a contract with the district in the middle of the month.• In November, the South Butler School District bought 48 acres adjacent to its campus that could be used if the district needs to expand.
The year is ending with construction of the new Butler County Prison still two months behind schedule.The nearly $40 million project was delayed in the summer when steel deliveries were postponed.County officials maintained they would hold the Pittsburgh firm A.G. Cullen, the general contractor, financially liable for every day the work exceeds the Oct. 13, 2007, final construction deadline.As construction continued, county inmates were spread across the region in various jails. While most prisoners were in the current Vogely Street jail, the remainder were kept in temporary cells inside the city tier garage and other counties' jails.Heading into 2007, numerous questions involving the project remain unanswered.The county still is reviewing recommendations on where to build a vehicle sally port, a secure entrance, so it connects to the existing secure corridor leading to the government center/courthouse.Exactly how many new guards would need to be hired also is up in the air.
New was the operative word for Butler County in 2006.Changes included the opening of a new 911 center, and the approval of new criminal booking centers and a new voting system.The county commissioners in March approved the switch from punch cards to electronic touch screens to meet new federal voting regulations, awarding a $1.48 million contract with the Omaha, Neb., company Election Systems & Software for 490 machines.The decision was met with resistance from the political activist group, Butler Democrats for Change, also known as D-PAC, which filed a lawsuit to block it. The lawsuit eventually was dropped and no major problems were reported in the May and November elections.The new $2 million Butler County Communications Center, formerly in the Sunnyview Home basement, opened in September at the other end of the Butler Township complex.The county commissioners in March accepted a nearly $153,000 state grant, paving the way for two new regional booking centers in the city and Cranberry police stations.
Several tragic accidents during the year included the death of two brothers, the loss of three Cranberry Township family members and several Seneca Valley teenagers.A Cranberry Township man and two of his children died of injuries when their minivan was hit by a 5,000-pound woodchipper that broke free from a truck on Route 8.Spencer Morrison, 37, along with two of his three triplet children, died April 13 in the crash that closed Route 8 in Richland Township, Allegheny County, for eight hours. The third child survived.The truck driver, Bradley Demitras, 34, of Pine Township, Allegheny County, faces homicide by vehicle and involuntary manslaughter charges.• A speeding sport utility vehicle went out of control and hit a tree after the driver tried to get the vehicle airborne at a well-known bump on Plains Church Road on July 13. The accident killed two teen girls and injured four other girls. Both Cranberry and Adams townships have agreed to take over maintenance of the road from the state and will get rid of the bump.• Two brothers died on Aug. 5, less than two hours apart in separate motorcycle crashes on Route 38.Steven Kerr, 37, of Oakland Township lost control of the motorcycle rounding a slight bend in the road. Jeremy Kerr, 29, of Venango Township apparently heard of the crash, hopped on his motorcycle and raced to check on his older brother, but crashed about 100 yards from the scene.
There were several surprising upsets and some political upheaval in the Butler County Republican Party as groups within the party battled over political philosophies and ideologies.Longtime Democratic legislator Frank LaGrotta was defeated in the May primary by a handful of votes. The Lawrence County representative acknowledged the pay raise issue likely was a major factor in the support for his opponent, political newcomer Jaret Gibbons. Democrat Gibbons, 26, of Ellwood City, went to the November elections and defeated Republican Chuck Morse of Slippery Rock to take the seat.The state's 4th Congressional District election on Nov. 7 saw political newcomer Jason Altmire narrowly defeat three-term incumbent Republican Melissa Hart. Altmire received 52 percent of the vote compared to Hart's 48 percent.
Here are some of the other events from 2006.• 2nd Lt. Christopher Loudon died in a roadside bomb attack Oct. 17 near Baghdad, Iraq. A Slippery Rock University graduate, Loudon, 23, died when his vehicle was hit by a bomb in West Baghdad.Another soldier, Lt. Col. Michael McLaughlin, 44, of Mercer, was killed by a roadside bomb Jan. 5 in Ramadi, Iraq, at a police recruiting station. He was the first commissioned officer of the Pennsylvania National Guard to die in action since World War II.• Petroleum Valley Regional Water Authority, which was established in November 2002 to bring clean, public water to more than 900 residents and businesses from Bruin to Fairview Township, finally turned on its taps on April 17.• Competition from other summer events, the rising costs of just about everything and a dwindling interest in bucking bulls put the nix on the Butler Rodeo after 26 years.• The Butler Area Merchants Association's BAMA Auction, which was 25 years old, ended its run in October. The auction had relied on item donations from business owners and individuals and then auctioned them off with proceeds going to nonprofit agencies in the county. In 25 years, the auction had raised about $1 million for nonprofit organizations.• Pittsburgh Steelers mania reigned supreme during the team's run to Super Bowl XL culminating with a Feb. 5 victory over the Seattle Seahawks. Fans held parties, attended pre-game rallies and grabbed up Super Bowl merchandise as the franchise, after more than two decades, got its "One for the Thumb."• The Middlesex Township supervisors and the police union came to an agreement on Aug. 16 that extended the police department contract to 2010 and reduced the number of full-time officers, ending months of a saga that saw the department disband and then be later reinstated by the court system. Supervisors had wanted to use the savings from cutting the police department to fix township roads.
Butler County grieved over the losses of an Olympic medalist, a former National Football League player and several prominent community and business leaders in 2006.• Friends, family and an entire community bid a tearful goodbye to Eric Namesnik, an Olympic swimmer who inspired a town.Well-wishers crowded into St. Paul Roman Catholic Church to say farewell. The Butler native died from brain trauma following a car collision Jan. 7 in Michigan. He was 35.• Former NFL football player William "Bill" Saul, 65, who was a two-sport star at Butler High School in the late 1950s, died Sept. 12 after a long illness in Baltimore, where he lived.Saul was the No. 3 draft choice of the Baltimore Colts, where he played for two years before being traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he played middle linebacker for six seasons. He then played a year for the New Orleans Saints and a year for the Detroit Lions.• The Saxonburg community mourned the death on May 3 of Hotel Saxonburg owner Fred Gentile. Gentile was a longtime community activist and business leader.• Fred McCarren, a 1969 Butler High graduate who went on to appear in television shows, movies and commercials, died July 2 at Butler Memorial Hospital. He was 55.• John Yoder, 88, the former owner of the Butler County Mushroom Farm Co., now Creekside Mushrooms, died July 30. His company, which was in a former limestone mine, produced Moonlight Mushrooms for several decades. It is the only underground mushroom farm in the nation.• Influential Butler County business leader Carl Jones died Oct. 22 after a long fight with cancer. Jones, 72, founded Penn United Technologies, a tool and die maker, in a garage 35 years ago and built it into a 500-plus-employee enterprise in Jefferson Township.
