Forty-five years of Mt. Lebanon Magazine. That’s 450 issues delivered to Mt. Lebanon homes and businesses without interruption, even during states of emergency and one memorable pandemic.
Over four and a half decades, the magazine naturally underwent changes: The switch from black and white to color print, the coming and going of dozens of talented, award-winning staff and freelance contributors and the launch of an online magazine with exclusive stories.
But what hasn’t changed is the dedication to quality, local journalism that spotlights major issues impacting the community, changes in public policy and municipal services, thriving businesses and economic trends and the many achievements of our residents.
In honor of the magazine’s anniversary, take a trip down memory lane with some standout stories over the years.
SEPTEMBER 1983
Stressed kids
By Judith Donohue
Michael, a 10-year-old Little Leaguer who delivers newspapers and collects matchbox cars, carries Maalox in his lunchbox to alleviate the pains from the ulcer he has developed.
Chris, 16, an honor roll student, hospital candy striper and “all around good kid,” has recently been complaining of headaches. Although she has been sleeping nine or ten hours each day, she complains that she is too tired to go to school.
Michael and Chris (pseudonyms) have recently been diagnosed as “stressed children,” youngsters who suffer from a syndrome previously assumed to have been an adult problem. Faced with disintegrating families, increased academic pressures and the omnipresence of drugs and alcohol, many young people today are carrying burdens their parents never experienced.
Read more. [1]
Fast forward to 2024, Mt. Lebanon Magazine featured a three-part series on mental health, including one dedicated to children and teens.
JUNE 2024
The kids aren’t all right
By Rachel Windsor
Almost 20 percent of children in the U.S. age 3 to 17 have mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral disorder. Only half will receive the treatment they need.
Kaitlyn Campbell, clinical director at Outreach Teen & Family Services, says perfectionism and anxiety are the prominent issues counselors see from kids in Mt. Lebanon. She describes many patients as “internalizers” who experience distress but don’t express it or display inappropriate behaviors.
“We’re also seeing a big struggle with social skills because of the pandemic and social media.”
Read more. [2]
MARCH 1985
Bird Park | Anatomy Of A Decision
By Jacqueline Bies
The Bird Park Controversy. Share Bird Park. Save Bird Park. Where is Bird Park? …
The subject of locating an athletic field in Bird Park has polarized some citizens, left others sitting on the fence and continues to provide spirited, often emotional debate …
By placing the field in the 1985 budget, the Mt. Lebanon Commission reaffirmed its May, 1983, decision to build the new field in Bird Park. Opposition to the Bird Park location and efforts to place the question before the voters led to two lengthy lawsuits, which reached the level of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and halted work on the field through a number of injunctions.
Read more. [3]
MARCH 1986
If Disabled Once Meant Invisible It Now Means Dialogue
By Susan Fleming Stroyd
“For a disabled person, living in Mt. Lebanon stinks,” reports wheelchair athlete Barbie Baum, 26, of Academy Place, who spent her teenage years here after becoming paralyzed as a result of an automobile accident, then went to college in the heart of the midwestern flatlands.
In addition to the architectural and geological barriers, Mt. Lebanon’s disabled face obstacles created by human ignorance or insensitivity …
With the exception of teenagers, disabled citizens expressed the lowest degree of satisfaction with life in Mt. Lebanon. As a result, the [Community Relations] board resolved to make seeking solutions to some of the expressed problems a top priority in the coming year. The annual Community Relations report targeted the Denis Theater, Sodini’s restaurant and the municipal building as specific problems and pledged to work toward alleviating subtle forms of discrimination against the community’s disabled citizens.
Read more. [4]
JUNE 1987
Suddenly Chic: Sears
By Bill Metzger
Sears does not sell houses anymore, but they did from 1908 to 1940. Not real estate, mind you, houses. In kits.
Back then, Mr. and Mrs. Mt. Lebanon Homebuyer could pore over Sears Modern Homes Catalogs with Buddy and Sis, then go down to the regional sales office, which in Pittsburgh was in the Jenkins Arcade downtown, and make their selection. Or they could simply mail-order a house, just like anything else Sears sold. Illustrations were marvelously detailed, down to such design particulars as where to place the piano and what the catalog called a “graphophone.”
JUNE 1990
No Place Like Home Electronic Worksteaders Say
By Judith Higgins Donohue
[There is] a growing number of Mt. Lebanon people who have traded daily commuting, parking hassles and office politics for a home-based business — a trend sociologists have dubbed “worksteading.” Personal computers with letter-quality printers, FAX machines, door-to-door express mail service, affordable copiers and expanded home telephone options have made it relatively easy to work from home …
Long workdays seem to be a given with home-based workers. The average home worker puts in 61 hours per week.
Read more. [5]
NOVEMBER 1991
Wealth of Gothic churches make Washington Road Mt. Lebanon’s “holy land”
By Carl Apone
Washington Road is Mt. Lebanon’s “holy land.” In a stretch of one and a half miles there are nine churches — the most concentrated and impressive cluster of church buildings in western Pennsylvania. Yet, in the daily rush, motorists and pedestrians who use the thoroughfare may not particularly notice the architecture of churches on both sides of the road.
Mt. Lebanon’s Dr. Arnold Klukas is one who does, however. Klukas wears two hats, as priest at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (one of the grand Gothic churches on Washington Road) and also as acting director of architectural studies in the department of fine arts at the University of Pittsburgh …
Says Dr. Klukas: “The concentration of churches represents the most impressive Gothic examples in Western Pennsylvania. There are other churches which are just as impressive — the East Liberty Presbyterian Church for example — but it doesn’t have the neighbors to compare with what we find along Washington Road.”
Read more. [6]
Earlier this year Mt. Lebanon Magazine covered the “jewels along the necklace of Washington Road” again, this time looking at the social upheaval and congregation trends within the churches.
MARCH 2026
Houses of the Holy
By Mark Roth
The Christian congregations of Washington Road also reflect another larger trend — the rise and decline of mainline Christianity, along with a similar decline in Catholic Church membership in the Pittsburgh diocese …
To cite just one example, Rev. Carolyn Poteet, the senior pastor at Mt. Lebanon Evangelical Presbyterian, said that her church had more than 2,000 worshipers in the early 1960s. Today, it has about 200 members in worship on a typical Saturday …
While the churches of Washington Road seem fairly stable for now, there is no guarantee that some of them won’t have to close.
Read more. [7]
SEPTEMBER 2015
Place Matters
By Laura Pace Lilley
A massive renovation that took 10 years of planning and construction. At a cost of $109.6 million, the [high school] project is in the top 1 percent of school packages in Pennsylvania …
In the new school, an open floor plan, reimagined educational and athletic areas and flexible spaces bring students and teachers together in new ways, eliminating many of the traditional four-wall classrooms in favor of areas that promote collaboration, creativity and fraternization. It has completely changed the culture of the school, say the people who work and study there.
Read more. [8]
DECEMBER 2017
Broken Wings
By Laura Pace Lilley
Exhausted after work, Jean* took a sleeping pill and headed to bed around 11. She was starting to drift off when her ex-boyfriend, Burt,* came into her room and began kicking her. Burt, who had been staying in her Mt. Lebanon residence, then punched her, gagged her by stuffing her pillow into her mouth and pinched her nose shut so she couldn’t breathe …
We don’t have statistics on how many partner violence incidents happen in Mt. Lebanon because the reporting system is fragmented. The county’s 911 system categorizes calls as they come in, but some domestic cases come in as fights, arguments, “unknown trouble” or even ambulance calls. If police make no arrest, they usually do not complete an incident report and they are not able to go back into the county system to mark the call as domestic violence.
But [former Mt. Lebanon Police Chief] Lauth says the county’s new software will help define the problem by facilitating better record keeping. Patrol car laptops will permit officers to write quick reports that help clarify 911 call records. *pseudonymns
Read more. [9]
DECEMBER 2025
Freedom to Read
By Merle Jantz
One thing stood out above all the rest, and caught the eye of the Pennsylvania Library Association’s Library of the Year selection board, which chose Mt. Lebanon from among 630 public libraries, marking the first time any Allegheny County library has received the award. The library is the commonwealth’s first (and at press time only) book sanctuary …
Jessica Miller, director of the Cleve J. Fredricksen Library in Camp Hill, nominated Mt. Lebanon for the award … “This was not a decision that they took lightly. While it would once have been obvious that providing materials for everyone is a basic tenet of library service, this has become far more controversial recently. In spite of potential opposition, they made this declaration to ensure that all of their patrons can see their viewpoints represented.”
Read more. [10]