(Photo Provided by Councilman Donald Walker)
Story by Beaver County Radio news Correspondent Sandy Giordano
Monday, January 24, 2022 at 7:14 AM
(Aliquippa, Pa.) Aliquippa Councilman Donald Walker reported Sunday, January 24, 2022,  that  T-Mobile presented  a $50,000 grant to the City of Aliquippa’s Parks and Recreation  Department last Thursday, January 20, 2022,  at the T-Mobile Store located on Brodhead Road in Aliquippa.

(File Photo)
Monday, January 24, 2022 at 6:18 AM
(Greene Township, Beaver County, Pa.) Pa State Police in Beaver are reporting that they were dispatched to the scene of a one vehicle roll over accident on Lincoln Highway in Greene Township, Beaver County, on Sunday January 16, 2022 at 5:02 PM.
Troopers said via release that upon arriving on the it was discovered that a 200g GMC Envoy that was being driven by 35-year-old Ronald Burkhammer was involved in a single vehicle rollover crash on US 30 near Pa 151. Burkhammer and an unnamed passenger were transported to East Liverpool Hospital for minor injuries sustained in the accident. Troopers cited Burkhammer for driving too fast for conditions after investigating the accident.

(File Photo)
Monday, January 24, 2022 at 6:08 AM
(Darlington Township, Pa.) Pa State Police in Beaver are reporting that they were dispatched to a home in Darlington Twp. around 11:15 AM Friday, January 22, 2022 after Alan Irwin and his son found Alan’s brother, 63-year-old Gary Irwin dead in his residence.
Troopers said via release that Gary Irwin died from apparent natural causes as they continue to investigate.

Keystone State News Connection

Emily Scott

Interest in trade schools is growing across the country, and a new one in Pennsylvania aims to fill the nationwide workforce shortage of auto and diesel technicians.

New Village Institute Blairsville’s (NVI) inaugural cohort kicked off earlier this month in Indiana County on the former campus of transportation program WyoTech, which closed its Blairsville site in 2018.

Amy Mulligan, campus vice president, formerly worked at WyoTech Blairsville and recalls watching the student population grow from 30 to 1,500 in a few years. She expects the same for NVI, as an asset for the local economy.

“Bringing in students from other areas does also bring in revenue,” Mulligan pointed out. “And we’ve seen it in the past, and I feel like it’s going to be almost similar to where you’re going to see a lot of those younger folks that want to be in this area because there is still opportunity.”

Enrolled students will receive a fast-tracked six-month education to support the immediate need for technicians. There will be 228,000 diesel technician openings by 2025, according to data from the American Diesel Training Centers.

Enrollment in vocational schools has been on the rise over the last two decades, with enrollment numbers up to 16 million in 2014, compared with 9.6 million in 1996, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Chris Barton, campus director for NVI, thinks the affordability of the schooling plus competitive wages are bringing people, both young and career-changers, into the trades.

“People are realizing that you can have a really good career for yourself and really start at an early age making good money that provides for yourself, your family and the rest of your life,” Barton observed. “There are just really unlimited jobs, so you never have to worry about being out of work.”

Diesel technicians made an average of $24 an hour in 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Barton added new cohorts will start each quarter, the next class beginning in April.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

DANVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Federal authorities say the last of the escaped monkeys from a Pennsylvania highway crash of a truck towing a trailer load of the animals has been accounted for. State police said several of the 100 cynomolgus macaque monkeys escaped after Friday’s collision between the pickup truck and a dump truck, prompting a search for the missing monkeys. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday evening that all 100 monkeys have now been accounted for but three had to be euthanized. It didn’t elaborate. A CDC email said the monkeys were en route to a quarantine facility after arriving in the U.S. from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation.

Pennsylvania payrolls grew in December amid labor shortage
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s payrolls are continuing to grow, but a persistent worker shortage is still keeping labor markets tight. The state Department of Labor and Industry said Friday that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate dropped three-tenths of a percentage point to 5.4% in December. The national rate was 3.9% in December. In a survey of households, the labor force shrank for the seventh straight month, reflecting a worker shortage that some economists attribute partly to an increase in people who have recently gone to work for themselves. In a separate survey of employers, payrolls in Pennsylvania grew in December by more than 14,000, driven primarily by hiring in trucking and warehousing.