NEVILLE ISLAND — Nolan Stott’s trip from center ice to the boards, yelling toward the crowd and lifting the Class 1A Pennsylvania State Finals trophy above his shoulders wasn’t long enough. The Garnet Valley senior forward was around the program for lean years. After the Jaguars beat Avonworth, 7-2, Saturday at the RMU Island Sports Center, he wasn’t eager to look toward the future.

“This is the experience of a lifetime,” Stott said. “I’m never going to forget this. This is one of those moments you want to live in a little bit longer, but I can’t do that right now.”

The Jaguars reached a number of historical markers with their win over the Antelopes. Garnet Valley won its first state title and in the process, extended the Flyers Cup champions streak of beating the Penguins Cup champion in Class 1A to 13 years.

Garnet Valley is the first Delaware County team to win a state title in 15 years and the first public school from the county to win a championship since Penncrest did in 2005.

Jaguars coach Stephane Charbonneau said this group will majorly impact the groups below them who watched them play.

“This is huge,” Charbonneau said. “We have some young elementary and middle school kids who came to our games during the playoffs. That is our future, you know?”

Stott, who scored twice against Avonworth, remembers what it was like for the Jaguars his freshman year. Garnet Valley was on the wrong end of a few double-digit losses.

“We were brutal,” Stott said.

But the Jaguars continued working and steadily improved. Stott was worried Garnet Valley may take some time to come together after losing a few key seniors from last year’s team. But the Jaguars didn’t need much time.

Garnet Valley finished the regular season with a 19-2 record and won the Inter County Scholastic Hockey League division title.The Jaguars outscored their opponents 143-34 and earned the top seed in the Flyers’ Cup playoffs.

Garnet Valley won all three games to win their first Flyers Cup since 1998.

Charbonneau said this is a tough group of kids.

“I had these guys three years ago and we were getting beat 12-0,” Charbonneau said. “They stick together and my captain, Nolan Stott, keeps these guys together. I told them if you have an individual with a little popsicle stick, you can break it very easily. When we have 20 of them, try to break them. It’s very tough to break.”

Avonworth was making its first appearance in the state final after flattening perennial contender Mars in the Penguins Cup. The Antelopes’ school is only around 7 miles from the arena, while Garnet Valley had a 307-mile trip to Neville Island. The Jaguars didn’t let the long trip slow them down.

Jake Morrow opened the scoring with a power-play goal around seven minutes in. Cooper Powell tied the game for Avonworth two minutes later.

However, the Antelopes couldn’t sustain the momentum.

Kaden Longo added a goal late in the first period to put the Jaguars up 1-1. Kevin Walton, who scored twice, and Stott would add goals in the second period to stretch the lead to 5-1.

“Them tying it up just made us play harder,” Walton said. “I thought we came out harder in the first five minutes.”

The Antelopes scored their only other goal late in the third on a strong effort from Austin Dzadovsky.

Avonworth coach Chris Chiusano said Garnet Valley was tough to slow down.

“They had a lot of speed,” Chiusano said. “They have guys on the puck constantly and don’t give us a lot of room to work from an offensive standpoint. They were committed to the backcheck.”

The Jaguars’ offensive attack allowed them to put their battle with Avonworth out of reach early. Aiden Delfin also scored goals for the Jaguars. Garnet Valley netminder Garrett Stoops stopped 24 of the shots.

Stott, who tied for a team-high three points with Walton, is happy to go out as a winner. Having the moment where he raised a trophy wasn’t something he thought much about during his first year.

“Our freshmen year, we were so bad during our high school season we didn’t even look to the future,” Stott said. “We didn’t even do anything like that. To be here right now, it’s a blessing.”

–Josh Rizzo | rizzo42789@gmail.com | @J_oshrizzo

“I had never worked with mushrooms before,” Luis said, reflecting on his time in Chester County’s mushroom industry. “But my family has always worked in agriculture, so I like it. I’m used to hard work.”

Luis, whose name is a pseudonym to protect his identity, is part of the latest wave of immigrant workers who have, for decades, come to Chester County to work in Pennsylvania’s $1.1 billion mushroom industry. He is a Venezuelan migrant who was granted Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, under the 2023 designation. TPS allows foreign nationals already in the U.S. to remain for six, 12, or 18 months — regardless of how they entered — if their home country is deemed too dangerous for them to return.

In February, President Donald Trump terminated TPS for Venezuelans who received protection under the 2023 expansion. According to the Department of Homeland Security, this designation had allowed approximately 348,000 Venezuelans to remain in the U.S. legally, with many eligible for work authorization. Meanwhile, Venezuelans who were granted TPS under the earlier 2021 designation can retain their status until Sept. 10, 2025. This provides temporary relief but leaves their long-term status uncertain.

The termination of TPS for many Venezuelans, along with Trump’s broader immigration policies — including stricter border enforcement, increased deportations, and tighter restrictions on work permits and asylum protections — will likely shrink the pool of available workers in Pennsylvania’s mushroom industry and other agricultural and food industries.

Changing face of the mushroom workforce

The mushroom industry in Pennsylvania has been shaped and sustained by major waves of U.S. immigration since the late 19th century.

William Swayne, a Quaker florist, is credited with beginning mushroom cultivation in Kennett Square, a small borough in Chester County, in the 1880s.

However, it was Italian immigrants, who began arriving in the early 20th century, who transformed Kennett Square, which bills itself as the “mushroom capital of the world.”

Today, Pennsylvania produces 69% of all mushrooms sold in America, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Chester County alone produced 199 million pounds of mushrooms — mostly white button mushrooms — in the 2023-24 season. While Chester County remains the hub of production, mushroom farms also extend into adjacent Berks County and parts of northeastern Maryland.

Yet, workforce instability remains a pressing issue, as the industry has struggled for decades to recruit and retain workers.

Mushroom picking is physically demanding. Workers in humid, enclosed growing rooms carefully harvest delicate mushrooms by hand to prevent bruising. Pay is structured around a piece-rate system, where earnings depend on speed and productivity. While this model allows some workers to earn more, it also creates instability, as take-home pay fluctuates based on harvest conditions and market demand. These factors make it difficult to maintain a stable workforce.

As a result, mushroom production in Pennsylvania is highly dependent on immigrant labor. While there are no national statistics tracking the nationalities of workers in the industry, our empirical studies and ongoing field research indicate that most of today’s workers are from Mexico and Guatemala. In recent years, more have arrived from Venezuela and elsewhere.

Many of these newer arrivals have entered the U.S. through programs such as TPS and the Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, or CHNV. CHNV allows certain people from those four countries who have a sponsor in the U.S. and who pass a background check to live and work in the U.S. for two years. It was established to grant temporary work authorization to individuals fleeing crises in their home countries.

TPS and CHNV have been instrumental in addressing labor shortages in essential U.S. industries such as agriculture.

At the same time, the long-standing Mexican mushroom workforce is undergoing a generational shift and aging out of field labor. Their U.S.-born children sometimes work harvesting jobs in their teens but are unlikely to stay in agriculture long term.

Rise of mushroom labor contractors

To fill employment gaps, many mushroom farms now turn to labor contractors to recruit, manage, and employ workers.

Contractors typically handle payroll, workers’ compensation, and access to medical care if someone is injured.

On the surface, this system offers benefits for growers. It allows them to adjust their workforce depending on demand while reducing administrative burden and liability.

But for workers, this system can be a double-edged sword.

Evidence from other agricultural industries shows that workers hired through contractors may have less job security, fewer or no benefits, and less direct contact with farm owners — which makes it more difficult to negotiate wages or report workplace concerns.

Some Kennett Square farmworkers we have interviewed see contractors as a source of flexibility.

“I had to miss work for some weeks because my kid was sick, and I lost my spot,” one worker shared. “But then I reached out to a contractor and was able to get another job at a different farm within a day.”

However, that same worker went on to say that this new farm “has wider harvesting beds, and I am getting more tired and have more pain because of it.”

In other words, while labor contractors provide continuity in employment, workers may have less control over where they are placed or the conditions they work under.

For growers, contractors serve as an effective stopgap to keep mushroom farms in operation, but they do not solve their ongoing problem of attracting long-term employees.

Fewer workers, more expensive mushrooms

With fewer workers, mushroom farms may struggle to meet the demand from grocery stores, restaurants, and food processors.

A reduced supply could mean customers pay more for mushrooms at grocery stores and restaurants. If retailers must source mushrooms from other states or abroad, prices could rise further due to transportation expenses, tariffs, and supply chain disruptions.

Without policies that recognize the industry’s year-round labor needs, Pennsylvania mushroom growers will be left scrambling for alternative workforce solutions.

Lawmakers have attempted to address this issue through the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021, which passed the House but stalled in the Senate. If enacted, the bill would create a Certified Agricultural Worker status, which would offer legal protection to experienced farmworkers, and expand H-2A visa eligibility to agricultural workers in year-round jobs such as mushroom farming. The bill also includes a mandatory phase-in of E-Verify for agricultural employers, a federal system used to confirm workers’ legal authorization to work in the U.S.

For now, mushroom farms — and the broader agricultural sector — must prepare for the ripple effects of more rigid immigration restrictions. Without intervention from policymakers, the strain on workers, growers, and consumers is likely to intensify.

Hazel Velasco Palacios is a Ph.D. candidate in Rural Sociology & Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Kathleen Sexsmith is assistant professor of Rural Sociology at Penn State. They are rural sociologists who study labor, migration, and agriculture in the U.S.

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article at theconversation.com/us.

MESSMORE, Pa. – Meteorologists with the National Weather Service say they never know what they’ll encounter during a storm survey and while it’s not unusual to come across something unexpected, discovering a mysterious creature lurking in the background of one of their photos certainly makes for a memorable experience.

During a recent investigation into damage caused by severe weather, something unusual was spotted beyond a fallen tree – the appearance of what many refer to as “Bigfoot.”

The sighting occurred in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, an area nestled within the hills and the higher terrain of the Allegheny Mountains, north of West Virginia. 

The figure appeared to be human-sized, if not larger, as it walked through the wooded landscape, but, according to an NWS meteorologist, there is no need to worry, as what was spotted was likely something purposely staged to add a bit of fun to people’s lives.

Locals said it’s rather common for residents to create figures out of iron or other similar materials, either for decoration or to spark curiosity from passersby.

National Weather Service damage survey in Fayette County, Pennsylvania.

(NOAA)

GIANT BUG FOUND AT AN ARKANSAS WALMART IDENTIFIED AS A JURASSIC-ERA INSECT

While the recent sighting may not have been an actual living creature, there have been historical reports of similar-sized entities in the region. 

According to the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society, in 1977, a family driving along a dark stretch of a nearby roadway spotted a six-foot-tall figure covered in shaggy, reddish-brown hair. When they shined their headlights at it, the creature reportedly disappeared over a 40-foot embankment, never to be seen again.

In 2004, in nearby Greene County, two friends reported seeing a 7-foot-tall creature making cat-like noises during their bike ride, and in 2013, a man reported seeing an 8-foot-tall creature with caveman-like features in the far distance.

According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, Pennsylvania is often a hotspot for sightings and ranks in the top ten of states with the most reports.

The earliest reports of Sasquatch sightings date back to at least the 1800s, according to the State of Washington. 

Many of these early cases lacked photos or video evidence, so they were often dismissed as misunderstandings or gags. 

Advancements in technology have led to numerous modern sightings captured on video or in photos, fueling ongoing debate about the existence of these creatures.

WAR TROPHY FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON’S ARMY DISCOVERED AMID BRITISH SHIPWRECK

Despite actually seeing apparitions of a figure, many believe there’s more to these encounters than meets the eye.

Studies over the years have pointed to some sightings actually being large bears, while others could be pranks or attempts by people to simply gain attention. 

For now, there’s no conclusive evidence to prove the existence of Sasquatch, Bigfoot or whatever name you prefer to call it.

So, if you ever find yourself driving along Messmore Road in Fayette County, don’t be alarmed if you spot something out of the ordinary – it simply appears to be a lawn decoration meant to capture a passerby’s imagination.