Cheer

Congratulations and best wishes to the bride- and groom-to-be, Adam Fleeger of Butler and Crystal Schroth of Fenelton, who are both blind.

Fleeger popped the question Tuesday during a party hosted by the Cranberry Township Lions Club at the Blind Association of Butler County’s building on North Cedar Street in Cranberry.

Schroth said yes.

It seemed only appropriate to propose then and there, they both said afterward. They first met in the same location at a similar party about a year and a half ago.

Many family members were on hand for the surprise proposal. Fleeger kept his fianceè-to-be in suspense, telling her the relatives were on hand to celebrate his approaching birthday.

But their extended family includes the regulars at those Blind Association/Lions Club events. It was kind and thoughtful to include them in the celebration.

Best wished to Adam and Crystal in their pending marriage.

Jeer

We all tend to regard activists and advocates as noble renegades. Love them or hate them, we can’t ignore their maverick righteousness when they lash out against injustices that the rest of society tolerates.

The activist stereotype is an angry young man or woman, defiant, dedicated to a cause and of pure intent.

But the thing about stereotypes is that they don’t fit every example, and there are some — let’s call them the renegades among renegades — whose actions damage the mission and reputation of the rest.

That’s apparently what happened when an animal rights group recently released a video showing alleged animal neglect and abuse inside a Lancaster County egg farm.

Mercy for Animals said the undercover video of Shady Brae Farm in Marietta was taken by an activist who had gone undercover as a farm employee. The video shows injured and sick chickens and a pile of hen carcasses stacked against a wall.

But the tables turned when two independent inspectors — one from the company that buys Shady Brae’s eggs, the other from the Penn State Agricultural Extension — both determined that it was the negligence of the activist, while employed five weeks as a farmhand, that caused any compromise of health or quality standards.

Overzealous? Perhaps. But the activists did set out to expose a villain, and they succeeded.

Cheer

Technology is a great tool for historians, and we salute the Butler County Historical Society and Slippery Rock University’s new venture, butlerhistorical.org.

The website is designed to be interactive. It welcomes residents to share their images of the county’s past. The page hasn’t even launched yet — it should by the end of April — but residents already are submitting old photos of historic events, which are being scanned and identified with corresponding points on an interactive graphic map.

May we suggest an added dimension? Maybe an Eagle Scout candidate would consider starting a video library to be entrusted to the historical society. The library would feature interviews with senior citizens talking about their early days, school and wartime experiences and times gone by.

The sooner someone takes up this project, the better. Every resident is the curator of his or her own history, and when the technology to preserve some of that history is so widely available, we should take advantage of it.