Kecia Bal

Anyone who’s ever resolved to create better habits knows how hard it can be to stick with them. In fact, studies show that fewer than 10 percent of Americans keep their New Year’s resolutions. That’s because most people don’t create habits that work…

The next time you walk into a vacant city lot, take note of the greenery muscling its way through cracked concrete or the stalks cropping up along the sides of buildings. Some see weeds. Full-time forager Tim Clemens sees flavors. Aside from the…

She may have a degree in aerospace engineering, but Dr. Anita Vandyke uses her social media platform to promote sustainable ideas that aren’t rocket science. While many of the skin products you purchase at the store are packed with potentially…

Providing energy year-round has so far presented one of green power’s most insurmountable challenges — but now the world’s first fully functional sand battery, which can store green power for months, could present a valuable solution. According to…

What if, instead of filling up landfills, plastic waste could safely become part of our soil? Plastics, which are used to package a ton of products people purchase every day, can take centuries to break down, which is why some companies are now…

In the ’80s, the decade after Pittsburgh’s Carrie Blast Furnaces shut down, sculptor Michael Walsh would sneak into one of the remaining cavernous structures and make the century-old brick walls his canvas. This summer, he returned — not to paint the…

Under The Tusks and Sun The ICC enters a new era and its one we may not soon forget … and…why half a degree changes everything By KECIA BAL Correspondent, Johnstown Magazine When the Pittsburgh Zoo broke ground on the International Conservation…

Last spring, Quintina Mengyan was living in a 618-square-foot apartment in Chicago with her boyfriend and their German shepherd. Her job as a customer experience director had become permanently remote, and after 10 years in the city, she was looking…

Priscilla Dwomoh models a hand-felted and naturally dyed piece from fashion and textiles designer Celeste Malvar-Stewart’s “Local Sound Collection.” // Tariq Tarey Celeste Malvar-Stewart’s first encounter with Gandalf, a gentle giant of a sheep, was…

Sue Strohm was at her church, Shanksville United Methodist, one Sunday in early 2002, when a fellow church member, Donna Glessner, stood up with a call to action. People were coming to the crash site near Shanksville, and there was no one to greet…

Hulking machinery. Stacks of proudly made products. Vast, sprawling campuses. The fossil record of an industrial past is often shaped by its collective outcomes, but the individual level — and the everyday level — can be just as compelling, as a…

As a travel writer, I’ve seen my share of mountain towns. Asheville. Aspen. Jackson. Each has something unique to offer, from art scenes to pristine national park land. I’ll be honest. Pristine was not what I expected when I followed a trail of…

Incorporating visual, tactile and audible representations of the written word, “Stanza in Blue: Caol Áit,” a new art installation in Johnstown, Pa., celebrates the art of poetry and the work of local poets. For the last six months, artist Asa Ana has…

Chalk it up to a certain long-running medical drama or decades of soaps set in hospitals: physicians have a reputation for high-intensity romantic antics, at least on television. People sometimes assume the profession is flooded with divorce,…

Ray Rizzo has lived a life full of adventure, flying high with the U.S. Air Force and then with commercial airlines and finally with General Motors, taking up residence on land near Detroit with his wife, Nancy. No matter where his career in the sky…

Before she moved to Johnstown last year, Lael Haselrig was stepping up to stages and open-mic venues to join in slam poetry sessions, an intense, in-the-moment iteration of her passion: writing poetry. “When it comes to writing, poetry has always…

Roberta Schomburg was a senior in college when she first noticed something special happening in child development. It wasn’t what she was learning in her courses. It was unfolding on TV, of all places. “I can remember coming home from college and…