A tragic death but a legacy worth remembering

I didn’t know the late Scott Babashak. I don’t presume to know him any better than the average careful reader of local news, and I offer no profound insights on the man himself or his life.

But I didn’t need to know him to see that his death hit people I do know and admire hard, and I’ve also found social media posts about him extremely moving.

I know one local cognoscente who actually seems quite down about the death, as if we (ie, Saucon Valley) lost not just a person, but an ideal, a great community member who represented something bigger than himself. I’m starting to understand why.

In case you don’t know, Babashak died suddenly of a heart attack on the Friday before last, age 54.

The main “local” headlines of Babashak’s life are easy to find online now:

Scott Babashak, a former television news reporter who came to know his wife, Liz Keptner, while they worked on the air together at 69-WFMZ-TV, died unexpectedly from a heart attack on Friday.

An excerpt from a March 2017 Morning Call article announcing Babashak’s primary run for director on Saucon Valley School Board

But there’s so much more to Babashak.

We need, as a community, to remember Babashak’s school board campaign of 2017 when he ran, unsuccessfully, for Saucon Valley School Board.

First of all, Babashak seemed more willing to engage the public than just about any candidate I’ve ever seen run for Saucon Valley’s school board. He was willing to present vulnerabilities and admit his ideas were still forming.

A TV presence, with media knowledge and skill, and someone who could clearly write, he also seemed especially bright and a natural communicator. Babashak stressed communication, open-mindedness and new ideas in his campaign quotes.

Let’s not forget: The majority of Republicans and most Democrats elected to anything in Saucon Valley never say squat about their plans except how they want to avoid tax hikes. (Wow, “read my lips” … that’s original.)

Being upfront, publicly articulate and honest about your intentions and truly humble? And smart?

I know what you’re thinking: Huge rookie mistakes in this town, a place where transparency and openness and intelligence are often rewarded with ignorant contempt, envy and suspicion.

Babashak lost in the school board primary in May of 2017, where four open spots were contested by eight people. I don’t know much about his on-the-ground campaign, but he ran at a time before Saucon Democrats had re-organized in Saucon Valley, and he didn’t have the benefit of Saucon Dems’ canvassing operation.

But that’s beside the point—and partisan stuff.

We still have a profound dearth of people even willing to run, as Dems or Republicans or indies, for school board in Saucon Valley. Many well-known and many lesser-known (and often very school-involved) parents with stacks of qualifications have been beseeched, begged, hand-held and sweet-talked to coax them to run for school board, and half the time, they don’t even acknowledge the efforts to tap them.

Not engaging in public issues is the de facto response to calls for sustained community action in Saucon Valley, especially if it involves dealing with the unpleasantries of telling people things they don’t want to hear or being in a potentially negative spotlight.

There is a certain milieu of Saucon schools stakeholders who absolutely thrive on gossip, backbiting, secrecy and “in” cliques. It’s the air that they breathe, folks, and they’re limiting what we can become.

But we need upfront people, desperately, who will stand tall and face rejection with courage, calm and good humor.

So that’s why I, a stranger, mourn Scott Babashak. He tried to do that.

We need more triers. As Shakespeare put it. “T’he good is oft interred with their bones,” but with Babashak, I hope someone will read this and feel inspired to bring his dream of a more communicative, less defensive, more porous and transparent school system to a public that has been begging for one for years.

It’s a dream we all deserve.

I looked at Babashak’s primary vote precinct numbers again, and all I can say is, he would have done much better in 2021 had he run again. That said, he may have been stopped again in November because of Lower Saucon’s election degradations.

The last school board election, in fall 2021, went the way it did for “progressives”—actually, the registered Democrats running were all centrist Democrats, not “progressives”—because a Texas-based landfill poured more than $70,000 into the election in Lower Saucon and got tons of Republicans to the polls. The dumb “mask” and fake “CRT” non-issues also didn’t help.

Which leaves us where we are today:

Saucon Valley School District now has perhaps the most far-right school district in eastern Pennsylvania.

And once again, we don’t have people willing to step up and run for school board. And once again, our schools react, defend, block, delay, bury, and whisper secrets.