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clear and warm tonight.
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Advice D7
Bridge D7
City&Region B1
Classified E1
Comics D8
Crossword D7
Editorials A7
Fanfare D1
Horoscope D7
Living D1
Lotteries A8
Movies S5
Obituaries B4
On the Grid B7
Sports C1
Television D6
INDEX
Vol. 127 · No. 217
Five sections
48 pages
CALLINGALLCHOOLOVERS Luxury
shoemakertoholdtrunkshowinRossParkMall D4
PLANBRB WithBellout,
WilliamstocarryloadforSteelers C3
LABOR DAY 2015 An edition of the TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Michael Klitsch practices aiming his K’NEX set in the toymaker’s headquarters near Philadelphia. Klitsch, 41, has been
with K’NEX since he was 20.
STEPH CHAMBERS | TRIB TOTAL MEDIA
Dennis Miller of Donora
always wanted to be Santa
Claus.
That job was taken.
So he set out on a different
path, spending four decades
as a private investigator in
Atlanta but never abandon-
ing the notion that the best
job in the world would be
bringing joy to children
through toys.
Miller, 64, now is living
his dream.
The former private eye,
who sports a Santa-like
white beard and red sus-
penders, is one of 22,000
Pennsylvanians in the
state’s $3.2 billion toy indus-
try. They make everything
from crayons and model air-
planes to spinning tops and
construction sets.
Though Pennsylvania’s
presence in the global toy
sector is small — 90 per-
cent of children’s toys are
made overseas — it remains
steady, according to indus-
try experts.
This Labor Day, as we
pause to honor the grit
and determination of the
American worker, we take
a moment to examine the
whimsical creativity that is
the trademark of Pennsyl-
vania’s toymakers, a group
of hard-working men and
women for whom a day at
work is all about play.
For Miller, returning
home to do something as fun
as crafting wooden boomer-
angs, whistles and puzzles
in North Charleroi’s Chan-
nel Craft was too good to
be true.
“It’s really refreshing.
There’s such a positive at-
titude here,” Miller said. “I
spent all those years looking
at the negative (as a private
investigator). It’s invigorat-
ing to work in a positive
place.”
The bustling assembly
by CRAIG SMITH
Workers say they’re
fulfilled by bringing
joy to kids via toys
“I spent all those years looking at the negative (as a
private investigator). It’s invigorating to work in a positive
place,” said Dennis Miller (center).
EVAN SANDERS | TRIB TOTAL MEDIA
TOYS · A6
CRAYOLA
FOR SOME IN PA., PLAY IS
SERIOUS BUSINESS
Military veterans and the issues impor-
tant to them once again are factoring into
the partisan politics of Pennsylvania’s U.S.
Senate race.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Val-
ley, touts his record on veterans
issues as Democratic challenger
Joe Sestak, a former Navy admiral
and congressman, jabs Toomey
about whether he’s really support-
ive of those who served and their
families.
Thereare21.8millionveteransof
thearmedforces—nearly1million
in Pennsylvania — so those votes
could be important when Toomey
defends his seat in 2016.
Katie McGinty, an environmen-
talist who was Gov. Tom Wolf’s
chief of staff and has the backing
of former Gov. Ed Rendell, stepped
into the Democratic primary race
in August. She has not weighed in
on veterans’ issues.
Toomey, a member of the Senate Con-
gressional Veterans Jobs Caucus, told the
Tribune-Review that recent problems, such
as the Department of Veterans Affairs’
backlog in processing health care claims,
“were completely unacceptable. We have
made improvements, but we still have a
long way to go with that.”
In July, Toomey voted to support the Sur-
face Transportation and Veterans Health
Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 that
makes money available to pay for veterans’
health care provided by sources other than
the VA.
In 2014, he co-sponsored a bill
that allows the VA secretary to
fire poor-performing employees
and gives veterans flexibility on
where they receive medical care,
according to his campaign website.
The law authorized $10 billion to
improve veterans’ access to care.
Last month, Concerned Veterans
for America aired a $1.5 million
digital and television ad campaign
praising Toomey. The group con-
siders him “a leader in the fight
to hold VA bureaucrats account-
able for failing Pennsylvania veter-
ans,” CEO Pete Hegseth said when
announcing the ads, which ran
through Aug. 25.
“Thereshouldnotbesuchathing
as at-risk veterans. Sen. Pat Toom-
ey is committed to making sure every vet-
eran is provided with the health care and
benefits they deserve,” Navy veteran Barb
by SALENA ZITO
Veteranspoliciespivotal
issueinU.S.Senaterace
Toomeystandsbylitigation,while
Sestakquestionshiscommitment
Toomey
Sestak
VETERANS · A6
DALLAS — A police depart-
ment in a Texas Bible Belt
community has placed large
“In God We Trust” decals on
its patrol vehicles in response
to recent violence against law
enforcement officers, draw-
ing criticism from a watch-
dog group that says the decals
amount to an illegal govern-
mentendorsementof religion.
The decision by police this
month to reveal the phrase
in Childress, an agricultural
community of about 6,100
people at the southern edge
of the Texas Panhandle, fol-
lows a similar move by dozens
of other police agencies else-
where in the country.
Police Chief Adrian Gar-
cia said he decided to add the
decals in response to recent
attacks on law enforcement
personnel that have received
broad attention, including the
Aug. 28 killing of a sheriff’s
deputy who was shot 15 times
at a Houston-area gas station.
“I think with all the assaults
happening on officers across
the country ... it’s time we get
back to where we once were,”
Garcia told the Red River Sun
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Policedefend‘God’decalsamidkillings
Foundation threatens
suit over phrases called
religious advocacy
DECAL · A6
MUNICH — Issuing a broad appeal to Europe’s
Roman Catholics, Pope Francis on Sunday called
on “every” parish, religious community, monas-
tery and sanctuary to take in one refugee family
— an appeal that, if honored, would offer shelter
to tens of thousands.
Francis delivered his call as thousands of
refugees — detained for days in Hungary — con-
tinued streaming into Germany and Austria, and
as a small but rising number of volunteers are
offering to take some in. Even as the pontiff was
greeted with a rousing round of applause on his
appeal in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, some
Germans asked how far their country could go
in receiving more refugees.
The pope, who has thrust himself into polariz-
ing debates over climate change and free market
economics, has entered the fray again, this time
over how Europe should handle its largest wave
of migrants since the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
The majority of those arriving are Muslims
from Syria, Iraq and other nations, and Francis
weighed in just as anti-migrant politicians, in-
cluding senior European leaders, are wielding
religion as a weapon.
Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary,
where Roman Catholicism is the largest religion,
last week proclaimed Europe’s “Christian iden-
tity” under threat because “those arriving have
been raised in another religion and represent a
radically different culture.”
Slovakia, for its part, said it would grant asy-
lum only to Christians.
“We don’t have any mosques in Slovakia, so
how can Muslims be integrated if they are not go-
ing to like it here?” Slovakia’s Interior Minister
Ivan Netik told the BBC last month.
Francis, a leader known for mending the
sometimes wobbly bridges between Catholicism
and other faiths, delivered a direct challenge to
such thinking.
“Facing the tragedy of tens of thousands of
refugees — fleeing death by war and famine, and
journeying towards the hope of life — the Gospel
calls, asking of us to be close to the smallest and
forsaken. To give them a concrete hope,” he said.
Popecalls
onfaithful
toshelter
migrants
THE WASHINGTON POST
Gospel urges offering aid to ‘smallest
and forsaken,’ he explains; leaders
struggle to reach consensus on crisis
MIGRANTS · A4
HORSESHOE
PERFECTION
“Practice. Focus.
That’s what it takes,”
Cindy Hoffman of
Mt. Washington
said Sunday
during the 85th
Pennsylvania State
Outdoor Horseshoe
Championship
in Collier. Sixty
competitors from
across the state
squared off during
the weekend.
Story, B1
PHILIP G. PAVELY | TRIB TOTAL MEDIA