selors regularly work with families and Outreach to ensure
that students are being supported by well-trained, caring
mental health professionals.” Outreach also partners with
the district to provide TeenScreen, a voluntary screening for
serious issues kids in grades eight through 12 may be facing.

Outreach provides some in-service training for teachers and
staff as well.

Outreach provides “a cost effective, trusted, accessible local
option for students to seek additional supports and skills
training,” Berg says.

Accessibility is Outreach’s greatest asset, says Ken Kaleida,
a former longtime Outreach executive director who is now
a counselor at City Charter High School. When a child or
family first realizes they need professional mental health care,
they often start with the insurance company. [The insurer]
gives you this list and it could be 100 [providers], none of
whom you know anything about,” Kaleida says, adding that
people often start calling those providers and find they’re not
taking new patients. “It can be frustrating for someone to
seek help.”
Johnson says that at Outreach, most children can be seen
within a week.

Today’s financial climate is tough for non-profits seeking
grants and donations, making a dedicated, “hands-on” board
all the more important. Says Kaleida: “One thing I always
felt about Outreach, we had a strong board and people cared
about it.”
At left: When Outreach first started, it offered a drop-in center, a sort of
clubhouse where kids could hang out after school, blow off steam and talk
about their day. This photo from the 1970s shows a typical gathering.

began to accept the concept. In that first year, Outreach’s top
cases were: illegal drugs, parent conflicts, school difficulties,
personal problems, peer interaction, sexual problems and run-
aways, according to archived records at the center. That list has
changed only slightly. Much of the drug problem has moved
from marijuana to heroin and abuse of prescription painkillers,
says Karen Johnson, Outreach’s current director of professional
services. Ken Kaleida, a former Outreach executive director who is now a
counselor at City Charter High School, reflects on the changes
he has observed. “The electronic and cultural shift is going to
loom larger,” he says. “Now we’re dealing with things like sex-
ting, even the Jerry Springer culture; a spring break mentality.

... Certainly teen depression is rampant.”
Still Kaleida says there are plenty of good signs: “A lot of young
people still maintain idealisms and have good hearts.”
Michelle and Mike Pesta, parents of two boys, signed up for
Parenting Positively last year after “my child started to get
moody and I didn’t know what to do with that,” Michelle says.

She was speaking of her 12-year-old but learned quickly that
what she gleaned also helped with her 9-year-old. Attending the
classes together helped keep the Pestas on the same parent-
ing page, and they were able to exchange experiences with the
other nine people in the group, as well as the teacher: “It’s an
awesome class.” Michelle found that when she started listening
to her son without judging—a primary tenet of the class—“All
of a sudden, the floodgates opened,” and he began telling her
everything. “Middle school is so difficult. … It gave us a way to
talk to each other.”
It's successes like the Pestas that will continue to build
Though historically, Outreach has made young people a priority,
today the agency serves the entire family. Its Parenting Positively
Outreach’s future. Johnson believes Outreach has a strong team
workshops are well received, and most parents say they get far
and early intervention: “We believe in the mission and we believe
more out of it than they expected.

in helping kids.”
and will continue to flourish by working in education, prevention
www.mtlebanon.org 39



story by m. a. jackson
photos courtesy of Elinor Jaworski Ross
Mary Elizabeth Roseburg Keefer, left, and her
mother, Rebecca McCully Roseburg (daughter
of Jesse McCully), circa 1920 at their home on
Bower Hill Road. Background: An 1878 deed
with Squire Jess McCully's seal.

They were the
m c Cullys
n the 1920s, as the South Hills’ fertile farmland gave
way to residential developments and new roads, the
need for street names became essential. In many cases
the names chosen referenced something people already
were familiar with—their neighbors. When Edward
Abbott sold his farmland to developers, a road on that
property was dubbed Edward Avenue; Mrs. Jennie
Ralston owned land near Ralston Place; and Lavina
Avenue was named for Lavina McKnight, whose back
yard had abutted the street.

Jesse McCully was so well liked that he had two streets within
three miles of each other named for him—McCully Street in
Mt. Lebanon and McCully Road in Castle Shannon (off Library
Road between Castle Shannon Boulevard and Connor Road). Yet
if you asked anyone living on either of those streets today who the
McCullys were, you’d most likely get a blank stare.

The first McCully to live in the South Hills of Pittsburgh was
William, who had served in the Revolutionary War soldier as
a private in Captain John Duncan’s Company, 6th Battalion,
Lancaster County Militia. In 1781, he moved from Lancaster
County to what is now Castle Shannon, purchasing 151 acres
for 100 pounds, 15 shillings. According to the 1923 obituary
of his granddaughter Rebecca McCully Roseburg, William was
40 mtl • april 2010
“the first white man to exercise authority in Castle Shannon, as
the grant of land which he obtained includes about all of that
community.” About seven years after arriving in the South Hills, William
married Sara Mitchell; between 1789 and 1813 the couple would
have 11 children.

If reality TV has taught us anything, it’s that juggling supersized
families is difficult. But imagine doing so in a time when there
was no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no nearby grocery stores,
no roads and no local hospitals. At the time the McCullys started
their family, panthers, bears and wolves roamed the virgin forest,
and there was still a danger of raids by Native Americans.

Perhaps one of the best descriptions of what the McCully family
faced during those early years is the Pittsburg Commercial Gazette’s
August 9, 1894 obituary for 98-year-old Jennie McCully Hultz,
William and Sarah’s daughter. Acording to the obituary, Jennie
was “born in the wilderness surrounded by Indians…her father
settled his claim in what was then a dense forest where his children
spent their early lives. The only other white man in this part of
the country at that time was Robert Long, who had taken a claim
in what is now Mt. Lebanon. The settlers were not aware of each
other’s presence in the vicinity for some time and discovered each
other while cutting timber for a clearing. Each heard the other