(Butler, PA) Butler County Community College’s largest graduating class in four years will hear that commencement “is not a finish line” and to “allow yourself to wonder” from an author and children’s advocate whose lifelong work has been inspired, in part, by Fred Rogers and who has been honored nationally, including by the White House.

“It’s important,” keynote speaker Gregg Behr plans to say, “that you continue to invest in yourself, continue to explore your curiosities, your creativities.”

Behr, of Pittsburgh, is the co-author of “When You Wonder, You’re Learning.” The 2021 book written with Ryan Rydzewski has introduced a new generation of families to the lessons of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and to Rogers’ learning tools such as curiosity, creativity and collaboration.

A friend and colleague of Rogers’ widow, Joanne, is also an adviser to the Fred Rogers Institute that houses Fred Rogers’ archives and is located in Latrobe, Fred Rogers’ birthplace.

While on BC3’s main campus May 13 Behr plans to tour the year-old Dr. Robert L. Paserba Teaching and Learning Lab and its simulated elementary school classroom before telling graduates in the college’s Field House that “If you commit yourself to excellence, you’re also committing yourself to continuing to be awed by the things around you.”

 

214 earn credentials for high-priority occupations

The 488 members in BC3’s Class of 2026 are the most since the 503 in its Class of 2022.

Eight-two percent will graduate debt-free, according to Juli Louttit, BC3’s director of student financial services, as a result of the college’s affordability, financial aid options and record 164 scholarships awarded by the BC3 Education Foundation in 2025-2026.

Graduates attended BC3’s main campus in Butler Township; additional locations in Armstrong, Butler, Jefferson or Lawrence counties; a program in Ellwood City for seniors at Lincoln or Riverside high schools; or online.

A record 106 students will graduate in a registered nursing program established in 1973, joining 108 others who will also earn an associate degree or certificate that aligns with state Department of Labor & Industry high-priority occupations.

BC3’s Class of 2026 includes 31 graduates of an early childhood education (Pre K-4) associate degree program who gained hands-on experience in the Dr. Robert L. Paserba Teaching and Learning Lab by creating settings and evaluating intended lesson-plan outcomes.

It was during his elementary school years when Behr, his brother, Scott, and mother, Karen, would gather to watch “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” in the den of their home in Pittsburgh.

“We loved it,” Behr said. “It draws you in. And it is so cleverly done with how he takes you from things that are so familiar to you as a kid, like a crayon and drawing, then takes you off to, say, a crayon factory, to a place of mystery.

“I am sure we were transfixed because he was a genius about the way that he structured and scripted those episodes.”

 

“Giddy” when meeting Rogers as adult

During his four years at the University of Notre Dame, the graduate of North Allegheny High School in Wexford volunteered at a homeless center in South Bend, Ind., where he developed an interest in education policy when helping to establish individualized learning plans for the center’s young people.

“I saw the really impactful but also complex ways that a place like the Center for the Homeless could, and now over years, such other places as an after-school program, a library or a school, can support the entirety of a person and the people in that person’s life,” Behr said.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in government from Notre Dame, Behr’s interest in education policy continued as he attended and graduated from the Duke University School of Law and its Sanford School of Public Policy.

The Grable Foundation, Pittsburgh, was established in 1976, eight years after the first national broadcast of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

It mission, according to its website, is to help children and youth become independent, caring, contributing members of society by supporting programs critical to children’s successful development.

It was in 2000 that Behr first met Rogers – and “became giddy like an 8-year-old because how could you not be in the presence of Fred Rogers?”

 

Fred Rogers the technologist, futurist

Behr became executive director of The Grable Foundation in 2006 and in the next year founded what’s become known as the Remake Learning Network.

“Really early in that work,” Behr said, “we started talking about Fred Rogers, but not Fred Rogers in the way that viewers came to know him, but rather Fred Rogers the technologist. Fred Rogers the futurist. Fred Roger as the person who noticed how the technology of his day was attractive to young kids and said, ‘How do I make this newfangled technology of television good and constructive?’

“And it was a great hometown analogy to use as we were convening not only teachers but also technologists and roboticists and museum exhibit designers and artists and others who were trying to understand what is attractive to today’s kids and think about ways that we make it good and constructive in all of those learning settings.”

“And so that Fred Rogers narrative has been part of my DNA as an adult.”

 

Remake Learning attracts White House attention

Former President Barack Obama recognized Behr as one of 10 champions of change in July 2016, arising from his leadership for Remake Learning.

The 20-year-old Remake Learning involves more than 800 schools, museums, libraries, early learning centers, after-school programs, colleges and creative industries across southwestern Pennsylvania.

The thousands of people involved in Remake Learning, Behr said, are at the forefront of designing next-generation teaching and learning experiences in and out of schools, Pre-K through higher education, so that all youth might acquire the knowledge, skills and dispositions that will help them invent brilliant futures for themselves and for the Pittsburgh region.

“Today is an incredible launching point and also a celebration of the skills and mindsets you’ve acquired during your time at Butler County Community College,” Behr plans to say to BC3 graduates. “But it is also the beginning of something else. And that something else is continuing to be learners as you age.”

Other speakers will be Megan M. Coval, BC3’s president; Joseph E. Kubit, chair of the college’s board of trustees; Aaron Schlott, president of BC3’s faculty organization; Kimberly D. Geyer, a Butler County commissioner and ex-officio trustee; and graduating students Taylor Voloch, Gina Rhoades and Kaela Malis.