The Home Page Network

It’s time once again to take a look at what happened the past week. The Weekly Highlights are a great way to catch up, but don’t forget that you can always watch the full stories from either our front page or the archives section.
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Ag Happenings – Mable the Pig
During the month of February there has been an unusual visitor in the Agricultural Sciences room at Wellsboro High School. A female pig named Mabel was a guest in the classroom for about three weeks as she prepared for her final stages of pregnancy, giving birth, and then caring for her piglets. The idea for this project came from Grand Canyon FFA Chapter President Brody Coolidge. The Coolidge family has raised pigs for many years and had bred two gilts (young female pigs) in the fall to give birth this spring. Brody wanted to give students in the agricultural science classes an opportunity to witness the process of swine reproduction so he volunteered to bring one of his pigs to school. The agricultural sciences program received permission to bring the pig to school and Mabel arrived at school and settled into the animal production lab room on February 8th.
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High School to Host Career & Job Fair
The Wellsboro Area High School in coordination with the Northern Tier Regional Development and Planning Commission hosted the first, Post-High School Career Fair during the day for high school students from 12:00-3:00pm. Then, from 4:00-6:00pm, the event opened to the public as a job fair in the old high school gymnasium.
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Tioga County Special Olympics
Tioga County’s chapter of the Special Olympics is far more active than most of us would guess. Typically, in our area, Special Olympics is synonymous with the Track and Field Event held at Mansfield University. While that is the most attended event, it is far from the only. Multiple sporting opportunities are offered, ranging from basketball, to bowling, to swimming, and more. The Manager of Tioga County’s Special Olympics, Donna Cummings, spoke with Homepage about all that the organization offers and includes.
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Back to Basics – Complaining
We live in a complaining culture. We complain about delays, when it’s too cold, when it’s too hot, when the wifi is a little slow…we feel entitled. In a digital world that gives immediate gratification, people have high expectations. They’re not always so kind when those expectations are not met.

Some research shows that most people complain once a minute during a typical conversation. Complaining is tempting because it feels good, but so does eating an entire bag of candy, which is not good for you! Some researchers have also found that the more you complain, the more your brain becomes rewired to continue doing so. With practice, makes perfect – it becomes part of your personality and how other people see you.
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Preventing and Detecting Cancer
March is National Colon Cancer Awareness Month and Home Page correspondent Sara Vogt had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Darius Abadi, a general surgery specialist with UPMC Susquehanna in Wellsboro, about colon cancer and its prevention. According to the American Cancer Society about one in twenty Americans will develop colon cancer at some point during their lifetime. But the good news is that when colorectal cancer is found at an early stage before it has spread, the five year relative survival rate is about 90%. Colonoscopy is one of the best tests we have to identify cancers in the early stages, and is the only screening that is preventative as well as detective.