cKeesport City of McKeesport News
Recognizing the Vietnam Veteran
On November 12, the McKeesport Regional History and Heritage Center hosted a slideshow presentation called,“ Recognizing the Vietnam Veteran.”
Walt Yager, a heritage center member and longtime advocate of native McKeesporters who were killed in Vietnam, shared a special presentation that his grandson Sean Yager produced for a community service project in 2004.
Yager’ s discussion focused on the McKeesport 23, which includes the 11 young men who are memorialized at the LaRosa Boys and Girls Club with a monument that is thought to be one of the first Vietnam memorials in the nation.
The“ McKeesport 23,” in the order they died, are Pfc. Norman Wallace“ Boots” Johnson; Pfc. Michael Nemchick; Pfc. Michael Dennis Pliska; Pfc. James Francis Brooks Jr.; Staff Sgt. Thomas John Winklevoss; Pfc. Tyrone Gregory Burse; Gunnery Sgt. Raymond Gibel; Pfc. James West; Staff Sgt. David Lloyd George Moser; Lance Cpl. Gregory Francis Popowitz; Spc. Curtis Taylor Gay; Lance Cpl. Thomas James Sweeney; Pfc. Louis Howard Huff II; Maj. Jack Claire Plumb; Spc. John Alan Germek Jr.; Spc. James Robert Long; Pfc. Tibor Sotak; Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick McNelis; Silver Star recipient 1st Lt. Richard Michael Arnovitz; Pfc. Kenneth Jordan Kline; 1st Sgt. Donald Robert Donaldson; Capt. Terry Jack Martell; and Spc. Vincent Edward Galka.
28 McKeesport Area
McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery Tour
The McKeesport Regional History and Heritage center hosted its second annual walking tour of the McKeesport and Versailles cemetery.
“ Although we talk about some of the more affluent and well-known McKeesporters of the past, we go under the pretext that everyone has a story,” the center’ s executive director Robyn Tedesco said.“ Not everyone is a Cox or a Crawford, but all of these people have a story that has significance to the community. They all have a prominent place in McKeesport’ s history.”
Community members dressed as historic figures, including William Sample, a Civil War soldier who carried President Abraham Lincoln from Ford’ s Theater; Helen Richey, the first female commercial airline pilot; George Washington Simmons, the city’ s first black police officer; and Joseph Wampler, telescope manufacturer.