Sarah Boyland, left, the 2025 recipient of the ATHENA Award, stands with her mother, Ruth Borland, the 1990 honoree.
Submitted Photo
Diamonds to the ATHENA Leadership Award program, now in its 40th year, and to this year’s recipient, announced Wednesday, Attorney Sarah Borland. Since 1985, the award has gone to an exceptional woman who demonstrates mentorship, leadership and aid in helping women in the community achieve full potential. Borland fits the bill, in large part through 20 years as part of a family that helped coach the Meyers High School Speech and Debate team to numerous successes before the school was merged into the new Wilkes-Barre Area High School. She also organized the Diocese of Scranton National Catholic Forensic League qualifying tournament, volunteered regularly for the Valley Santa program giving gifts to economically disadvantaged children, and serves as president of the Osterhout Free Library board of directors, as well as serving other charitable organizations. Giving her the award also shows how the accomplishments it recognizes can become truly generational: Her mother, Ruth Borland, won the ATHENA in 1990, with a similarly long record of community service.
Coal to the person who opened fire on elementary school children while they gathered in a church in Minneapolis, and to any politician who offers more “thoughts and prayers” or other meaningless expressions of sympathy without also providing concrete proposals to end what have become frustratingly frequent reports of school shootings. As the Mayor of Minneapolis archly pointed out, these students literally were praying. Coal also to the sick people who, as reported in Wednesday’s paper, have launched a string of hoax calls alleging mass shootings at colleges and universities across the nation, including Villanova University here in Pennsylvania. They may have been fake threats, but the impact is all too real on students, school resources and communities.
Diamonds to the North Branch Land Trust for arranging the 4th Annual Barn Banquet, presented by Geisinger Health, on Sept. 16 at Friedman Farms in Dallas. This clever idea gives attendees an excellent location to mark the success and ongoing efforts of the Trust in preserving land, both unused and agricultural. We hope to see “barn banquets” well into the future, each celebrating another year of more land permanently preserved from development. To register, visit nblt.org/events or call 570-310-1781.
Coal to the governor and Harrisburg legislators who, as of Thursday afternoon, still had not agreed on a state budget. Under the state Constitution, this job had to be done by midnight, June 30, yet the factions continue to wrangle, leaving counties, municipalities, school districts and any other entity that requires dependable state money to function in budgetary darkness. Do your jobs, find a compromise, and pass a budget. Oh, and if by some miracle a budget deal was reached by Friday morning, coal to you all anyway, for being so late.
