Go online:
To view the petition on Change.org, visit bit.ly/2kqB6Jd
Sign up for one of our email newsletters.
Updated 15 hours ago
A movement to rename Pittsburgh International Airport after Fred Rogers has gone global even though it hasn't been cleared for takeoff.
In the week since Pittsburgh native Ian Miller posted a petition on Change.org to rename the Findlay operation Fred Rogers International Airport, fans across the nation, as well as those in Great Britain, Canada and a South Pacific island, have signed on. The petition urges the Allegheny County Airport Authority to honor Rogers, the iconic children's television pioneer and Latrobe native who died in 2003.
As of Friday, the petition had attracted about 12,300 of the 15,000 signatures Miller hopes to secure before presenting it to the airport authority.
Signers referred to the creator and star of “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood” on PBS as an “icon,” “saint” and “hero.”
Across the Atlantic, Jackie Reddy signed on from her home in Windsor, England.
“The world needs kindness and goodness right now; no one embodied this more than this famous son of Pittsburgh,” she wrote.
Chances of the airport authority renaming the sprawling air transit facility for Rogers seem dim.
County Executive Rich Fitzgerald declined to comment. Airport officials issued a statement noting that Rogers already is a part of the airport experience at an exhibit dedicated to him in Concourse C.
“In 2016, we completed a rebranding of the airport to better match the ongoing renaissance of the Pittsburgh region, and at this time our focus is on continuing to advance ‘Pittsburgh International Airport' as a global aviation leader,” authority spokesman Bob Kerlik wrote.
Still, Rebecca Rosenbauer, 54, a professor of engineering at Lafayette College in Eastern Pennsylvania, said she signed the petition as soon as she saw a link to it on Facebook.
“Fred Rogers represents the best of American values. It's a great idea to name the airport after him. I'm inspired by this possibility!” wrote Rosenbauer, who grew up in Ellwood City.
Joe Serkoch, 38, of Pittsburgh, another fan who'd love to fly into Fred Rogers International, tunes in to reruns to give his 2-year-old son, Jasper, a taste of the “Neighborhood.”
“I watched (Rogers) growing up nearly every single day. And the message is still clear after all these years. It's accepting of everyone. What a fitting message to welcome people to Pittsburgh with every single day,” he said.
Miller, now a graduate student at the University of Toronto, said he and a friend bounced around the idea briefly not long after Rogers' death, then put it on the back burner. He launched his petition after hearing the PIT had been named 2017 Airport of the Year by a trade magazine.
“Growing up in Pittsburgh, Mister Rogers was hugely meaningful to me,” Miller said.
His mother, Susan Miller remembers Ian and his friends storming into the house every day at 4 p.m.
“When they were 6 or 7 years old, Ian and the whole neighborhood would come and watch Mister Rogers. It was their afternoon break,” she said.
James Okonak, executive director of the McFeely-Rogers Foundation in Latrobe, likes the idea.
“I think it has merit for the city and the region. And if there are those who feel the Fred Rogers (airport) would be a destination that would be good for the city and the region, it's probably an excellent idea,” Okonak said.
Rogers' name and work live on at the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at St. Vincent College in Unity. Statues of Rogers keep his memory alive on the North Shore of Pittsburgh and in the James Hillis Rogers Memorial Park in Latrobe.
Naming an airport for a local celebrity isn't unprecedented. The regional airport outside Latrobe was named for the late golf superstar and Latrobe native Arnold Palmer on his 70th birthday in 1999. Visitors to Sonoma County's wine country can use an airport named for Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, and those visiting New Orleans can fly in and out of the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
Debra Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 412-320-7996 or derdley@tribweb.com
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
