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Right before the Baron Club Award Dinner ended on April 25, the Rev. Dave Pivonka, TOR, delivered a few comments that seemed to strike the right note.
"… I was looking at the title of our school -- Franciscan University of Steubenville -- and I got stuck on the word 'of.' I found myself thinking about all of the other kinds of Catholic colleges that are in the United States, and I'm sure there probably is, but I couldn't think of any that were 'of' anywhere," Pivonka told the hundreds of area residents who had gathered at the Finnegan Fieldhouse on the school's campus.
"'Of' is a preposition -- it's connecting two different groups. The opportunity to be able to be a community of the university and the community of Steubenville. We would not be a community without Steubenville and, hopefully, Steubenville is grateful we are a part of that community as well."
Pivonka has a good grasp on that connection. A member of the Class of 1989, he is the first graduate to serve as president of the school, which was founded in 1946. And those connections -- the things that help bring people together -- were remembered by each of the honorees and speakers at the 55th event, which helps to raise money to support the school's NCAA Division III athletic program.
Receiving Father Terrence Henry Awards were Joanna Bernabei-McNamee and Tom Timmons, while the Kuzma Community Award was presented to the Carol and Todd Phillipson family. The keynote speaker was Matt Birk, who won a Super Bowl championship while playing with the Baltimore Ravens. Among the honors he earned along the way was the 2011 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which means he was not only among the league's top players, he stood with the elite men in the game, those who are willing to step up and help others around them.
Bernabei-McNamee, Timmons and the Phillipsons all discussed how residents of the region have influenced their lives.
Timmons explained how welcoming Steubenville was when he moved to the community with his wife, Tyra, after he took a job in the local banking industry in the early 1980s. Since then, they have raised a family and Tom's been very involved through volunteering with and serving on the boards of numerous nonprofits as well as working as a trustee for local foundations.
For Bernabei-McNamee, growing up in Weirton helped set the stage for a career that has led to the head coaching spot of the women's basketball team at Boston College.
"I travel a lot for work, and I was gone all last weekend recruiting," said Bernabei-McNamee, who among her accomplishments helped to lead the Madonna girls basketball team to the West Virginia Class A title during her senior year.
She added her boys -- 16 and 17 years of age -- were excited when they found out that she was going back to Weirton.
"They, like me, know that family means more than anything in the world," she added. "And that is something that I think this area, the Ohio Valley, growing up in Weirton, showed was that family is the cornerstone of everything, and it is what we know we are all about."
That includes being able to share a meal with her parents every day.
"There was never a dinner where it was just me eating by myself because I had practice during late hours," she remembered, adding that with older siblings, it was just her and her parents. "My parents made it a point to make time for the three of us to sit down at the dinner table, and my husband and I try to do that same thing with our boys."
Experiences like that help to make the region special.
"Weirton is like a melting pot, and I think the whole Ohio Valley is," she said. "There are people from all different nationalities, and I think one thing we have in common is that we like to bond over good food at the dinner table. I don't care what it is -- it could be the biggest moments to celebrate, or it could be the littlest.
"Being a person from a small community, I think what I took for granted is that I could be over at any one of my friend's houses and be a part of their family dinners, and I was just as well accepted at their house as they were at mine. That's something I think that today's kids sort of miss out on. All of our families knew that it took a village to raise us kids. And that's something I hope everybody still does, because it meant a lot to me growing up."
After high school, Bernabei-McNamee made the decision to attend West Liberty and play for the Hilltoppers. A big factor in that choice, she said, was that it allowed members of her family, her friends and those who had supported her at Madonna to continue to follow her.
She scored more than 1,000 points and had more than 1,000 assists there, which places her in some pretty rare company. Her success on and off the court comes back to growing up in an area where people genuinely care about each other.
"When somebody is in need, everybody gathers around them," she said. "Everybody gets together and they make sure that person has whatever it is they need, whether it is literally months of food, or casserole dishes that will just keep coming -- that's what people in this area are all about."
Family and the community also are important to the Phillipsons -- Carol and Todd and their daughter, Veronica -- who carry on the legacy of their late daughter and sister through the work of the Cynthia Rose Phillipson Charitable Foundation.
Cynthia was 15 when she died at the age of 15 in November 2014 after suffering cardiac arrest during basketball practice.
The foundation helps to provide scholarships and supports Mary's Meals, which provides school lunches in the world's poorest communities.
"The community has been a great blessing to us," Todd Phillipson explained. "God has been good, and we have been able to do good things for people. We celebrate a life well-lived and the gift of friendship from so many. We have had people we didn't even communicate with much in the past do great things for the foundation in memory of Cynthia.
"These people have turned into such great supporters of us and, in turn, great friendships have formed. The family support has been unbelievable. Our sisters have been on board, our parents have been great supporters and our daughter, Veronica, has been a miracle and a blessing while supporting us. Our friends on Anthony Drive in Wintersville are the best you could ever find."
Phillipson echoed Bernabei-McNamee's thoughts about the region.
"It is people, it is family, it is friends -- it is this community that has permitted us to serve," he said. "This community comes together like no other in a time of crisis, during the times when things seem the darkest."
While residents of our area, and those who have grown up here, truly appreciate that aspect of our lives, it's always good to be able to get a fresh perspective about the community and the university. And that was offered during the dinner by Danny Andersen, who became the school's athletic director in September.
A 1997 graduate of the university, Andersen served for four years in the Navy's JAG Corps and 16 years as an attorney in the CIA's Office of General Counsel.
He shared a story about how his family, which is preparing to move to Steubenville from Virginia, was recently visiting and looking to become acclimated with their new neighborhood.
"Within an hour, they were out playing with the entire neighborhood," Andersen said. "They were totally integrated, totally welcomed. The university was represented, Bishop Mussio kids were there, kids from Big Red, Catholic Central and Harding.
"I thought, what a powerful, beautiful microcosm of what we have here. And I think of my background, the many years in the military and in national security, and I think about what we were defending. I think a big part of it is this -- the freedom to come together in community, to encounter one another, to unite and commit ourself to noble causes of our choosing without fear or threat from any foreign power. That's a big part of what we were defending."
Which made a return to his alma mater make a lot of sense.
"All of my years in national security gave me a front-row seat to tremendous darkness in the world, a darkness I am thankful that only a few will ever be exposed to," he said. "This place is a beacon of light and hope -- a powerful one. As St. Paul would say, it is a weapon of righteousness in a world of darkness."
(Gallabrese, a resident of Steubenville, is executive editor of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times.)