New to voting in PA or need a refresher? Visit our Election Center 2024 »
Skip to main content
Main content

Are you smarter than a US senator?

Let's see if you know Pa.'s map as well as Bob Casey.

Welcome to PA Local, a free weekly newsletter about the great people, amazing places, and delicious food of Pennsylvania.
Your Postmaster: Tanisha Thomas

November 10, 2023
 
Inside this edition: Park a Pub, Christmas music, fast feast, Mister Rogers' house, meet a lumberjill, and a test of your Pennsylvania prowess.
 BUT FIRST...  Time is running out to TRIPLE your gift to Spotlight PA. We need to raise just $7,000 more to hit the first big milestone of our year-end fundraising campaign in support of our essential journalism.

Invest in reporting that gets results for Pennsylvania. Will you
help us end the week strong and hit this milestone goal? There's only a little more time to get our triple match for every dollar you donate.

Make a gift now, and thank you!

— Colin D., Newsletter Editor
🏆 SEVEN QUESTIONS: Stay on top of the news this week? Prove it with the latest edition of The Great PA News Quiz: Election results, swapped votes, and a Hollywood celeb’s pet plea.
A Pennsylvania-centric trivia question.

What is the correct way to pronounce the name of the Pennsylvania-made Reese’s candy: Ree-siz or Ree-seez?

(Keep scrolling for the answer, but don't miss all the good stuff in between. Like what you read? Forward this email to a friend.)

Our five favorite Pennsylvania stories of the week.

» One pub worth renting: Want a pub of your own without the effort? You can rent one. A Delco man brought his homeland of Ireland to Philadelphia with his Park A Pub, Inquirer (paywall) reports.

» One album worth hearing: Mariah Carey is not the only one defrosting for the season. The new Philadelphia Eagles’ Christmas album is almost here, and Billy Penn provided a track-by-track review

» One Thanksgiving idea worth stealing: Inquirer columnist Stephanie Farr was tasked with creating a Wawa-inspired Thanksgiving meal. Farr even paired it with a Wawa-purchased bottle of pinot noir.

» One home worth seeing: If you’re looking for a new Zillow fixation, you can look at a listing of Fred and Joanne Rogers' summer estate home in Unity, via TribLIVE. A virtual tour is available to watch.

» One person worth knowing: Have you ever heard of a lumberjill?  Pennsylvania native Martha King is making a name for herself through the male-dominated lumberjack circuit, showing women can do it too.  

The top stories published by Spotlight PA this week.
» Official remade city while allegedly fleecing it

» Democrat Daniel McCaffery wins Supreme Court race

» Dems win open Pa. Superior Court seats

» Democrat Matt Wolf wins Commonwealth Court seat

» Voting machine issues seen in Northampton County

» Penn State denied students access to campus crime data

» Pennsylvania's new 'environmental justice areas'
Support Spotlight PA and for a limited time your gift will be tripled.
A screengrab from the first installment of U.S. Sen. Bob Casey's ongoing map challenge.
A screengrab from the first installment of U.S. Sen. Bob Casey's ongoing map challenge.
ON THE MAP

U.S. Sen. and #CertifiedMapGuy Bob Casey (D., Pa.) has been putting on a clinic on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The commonwealth's senior senator has been challenged by his reelection team to blindly identify every Pennsylvania county on the map, and as of Thursday, he was about halfway there. The video is being released in installments.

In each, he stands before an oversized state map with green tape obscuring the names of all 67 commonwealth counties. Asked by phone if there was any chance he could see through the tape, a campaign rep laughed. 

The campaign affirmed, in a followup email, that there wasn't any tape trickery involved. Campaign manager Tiernan Donohue joked that there also weren’t any “stunt doubles or cheat sheets" used.

We made a scaled-down version of the Casey challenge comprised of 13 unmarked counties. And since we aren't sadists we made it multiple choice. But it's still pretty difficult. Best of luck!

Note: Click an answer in the image below to start. The quiz will open in a new browser tab.

Forward this email and quiz to a friend

Our favorite quote about Pennsylvania — or from a Pennsylvanian — this week.

“It seemed like this wild thing then, and now it just sort of seems like a choice you can make if you want to, and as long as you're being a decent human being, it’s just the same as any other choice.”

Celine Roberts, of Pittsburgh, talks about being in polyamorous relationships in “the most nebby town in the universe”

Our favorite reader-submitted photo of the week.
Tuscarora Creek in Spruce Hill Township, Juniata County, via Ruth K. Have a photo you'd like to share? Send it to us by email, use #PAGems on Instagram, or tag us @spotlightpennsylvania.
bare trees hovering over a stretching creek
The answer to this week's Pennsylvania-centric trivia question.

The correct pronunciation is Ree-siz. 

Laura Renard, who is part of the Reese's corporate communications team, gave the correct pronunciation in a video from AV Club. Have you been pronouncing it wrong this whole time? 

The candy is named for H.B. Reese, a York County native who hit candy fame with his peanut butter cups before selling the brand to his friend, Milton Hershey. The Hershey company is making Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (like this) today in factories from Pennsylvania to Mexico. 

SUPPORT SPOTLIGHT PA
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan & nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds the powerful to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania.

Copyright © Spotlight PA. All rights reserved.

Spotlight PA
PO Box #11728
Harrisburg, PA 17108-1728

newsletters@spotlightpa.org

You're receiving this email because you subscribed to PA Local.


This email was sent to: <<Email Address>>

Receiving too many emails from Spotlight PA?

To change your newsletter subscriptions and frequency, you can update your preferences.

To stop receiving fundraising messages, you can update your preferences and select "Opt out of Fundraising."

To stop receiving ALL EMAILS from Spotlight PA, including all of our investigations and newsletters, you can completely unsubscribe here.