The week of the election, the local news was dominated by politics, and the negative seemed to be far more heavily emphasized than the positive.

Judge-elect Joe Kubit and Mayor–elect Bob Dandoy ran successful positive campaigns. Those were two of the more high-profile races in the community, and while the judge competition wasn’t even close, it still drew plenty of negative campaigning from the last-place finishers.

One thing to be learned is that focusing only on your opponent’s past as opposed to showing the voting public that you have something to offer besides blaming others and trying to rally other negative-leaning people is not the way to get elected in Butler County.

Butler County voters again saw through that poorly conceived style of campaigning again and gave the persons trying to fool them into believing the nonsense exactly what they deserved — another dismal loss. Add to that the deplorable acts that occurred at the Mars Hockey game (by the Armstrong fans) and you can draw the conclusion that not all was well in the north suburbs last week.

This past week, though, kicked off in celebratory style with community pride bursting at the seams. WPIAL and PIAA championships highlighted the pages of the Eagle on Sunday and Monday morning. It is time people started asking what we are feeding these distance runners, soccer teams, volleyball teams and tennis players up here in the north.

We remember when schools closer to Pittsburgh used to aim rude cheers at our kids for being from rural and farm communities. These amazing athletes at Knoch, Butler, Freeport, Mars, North Catholic and Seneca Valley gave them a good taste of what hard work and dedication by players and coaches can do. Whether it be team sports such as volleyball and soccer or more individualized efforts that are rewarded in tennis and cross country, these student athletes have rewarded themselves, their coaches and their parents with measurable proof of the work they put into becoming the best at what they do.

Not everyone or every school was able to stand at the top step of the podium, but Butler County as a whole stood proudly and successfully in many events.

Now we await the finish of the football and soccer playoffs for the Districts 9 and 19 schools from the county.

Win or lose, they will most likely finish with their heads held high, their fellow students, the administrations and their families proud as always for the superb effort they have given.

Yes, politics and poor losers are hard to swallow, but just when they get your spirits down, our youth step up and do something to make us proud once more.

And you won’t hear any of these kids say a negative word about the opponents. What’s the matter with kids today? Absolutely nothing. Maybe they will someday fix the ugliness of politics in this county too.

— RV