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Jazz and Oktoberfest

Of jazz and Oktoberfest:

* A couple of recent events that shared the theme of jazz helped to showcase a couple of important organizations in our area.

The first happened on Sept. 15, when the Jefferson Society of the United Way of Jefferson County held its annual 22nd-annual Jazz in the Garden event at the home of Francesca Carinici on Sunset Boulevard in Steubenville.

The event helps to recognize members of the Jefferson Society for their outstanding leadership giving. According to officials with the United Way, those individuals have contributed more than $2.4 million during the past 20 years.

Also honored during the evening were members of the Class of 2016 of the Jefferson Society Hall of Fame. This year’s class, the 13th, included Anthony Mougianis, former United Way campaign chair and current board president; John J. Mascio, longtime board member and past president; and Tami Cashioli, administrative assistant.

Of course, the evening was made complete by the great music of the Sunny Sunseri Jazz Group.

And then on Sept. 17, the Ohio Valley Music Guild presented its All About that Jazz event at the Steubenville County Club. The event, which was co-chaired by Debbie Elias and Marie Wilson, featured the music of the Jenny Wilson Trio. It was an annual presentation by the guild, which works to bring cultural music theater to the region.

Both events brought members of the community together for interesting evenings.

* With fall comes annual Oktoberfest celebrations around the world — and that includes our region, according to WalletHub.

One of its most recent surveys indicates that Pittsburgh is the second-best U.S. city for celebrating Oktoberfest. Cincinnati is first, with Columbus 13th and Cleveland 18th.

WalletHub says it came to its conclusion after measuring 20 metrics that ranged from percentage of German population in a metropolitan area to the number of beer gardens per capita.

According to some of the numbers, there’s a four-way tie for the top spot in the U.S. cities with the highest percentage of German population among Omaha and Lincoln, Neb., Fort Wayne, Ind., and Madison, Wis.

Toledo ranks fifth. Cincinnati is tied with five other cities for the most German restaurants per capita — the others are San Francisco, Seattle, Milwaukee, Colorado Springs and Portland, Ore. Cincinnati also is tied for first in most pretzel shops per capita — the others are Las Vegas, Orlando, Buffalo and Scottsdale, Ariz.

Included with the lists are some interesting facts about Oktoberfest, which this year opened Sept. 17 and runs through Oct. 3 in Munich, a tradition that begin Oct. 12, 1810, to celebrate a royal Bavarian wedding. The 5.9 million who attended last year’s event was the smallest crowd since 2009. Every year, the information shows, attendees drink 1.9 million gallons of beer and eat 510,000 whole roasted chickens and 240,000 sausages.

If you’re planning to attend, it will cost you just about $5,000 per person. If that’s too much, the most popular Oktoberfest celebration in the U.S. is Oktoberfest Zinzinnati. About 650,000 people attended last year and ate 80,500 bratwursts and drank 2,000 barrels of beer.

In case any of those numbers surprise you, another survey by WalletHub tells us that Pittsburgh is the 14th most-fun city in the United States. Cincinnati is listed as the sixth most-fun city.

WalletHub, but the way, is a Washington, D.C.-based personal finance website that also produces research reports and surveys.

(Gallabrese, a resident of Steubenville, is executive editor of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times.)

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