Officers at Go Laurel Highlands acknowledged a number of the area’s leaders in creating memorable tourism experiences at their annual dinner Sept. 28.

The group named Nina and Bob Basile their Trailblazers of the Yr. The husband and spouse staff designed and constructed the Luxurious Treehouse in 2021, and this 12 months opened the Ohiopyle Hobbit Home, a three-bedroom homage to the fictional hobbits’ dwelling of The Shire in J.R.R. Tolkien’ “Lord of the Rings” guide trilogy.

“Nina and Bob acknowledged a chance to raise the area’s trip leases to a completely new stage,” mentioned Go Laurel Highlands Govt Director Ann Nemanic. “These two trip properties supply guests distinctive and memorable in a single day lodging that actually symbolize lodging at its best.”

Father-son duo Mark Brown and Shawn Hresko, homeowners of Hemlock Lane Designs in Donegal Township, had been named the group’s Pathfinders of the Yr. Hemlock creates handmade furnishings and makes a speciality of customized woodworking and repurposed gadgets.

Brown is a sixth-generation resident of Westmoreland County, and might hint his roots again to his great-great-great-grandfather, who lived in what’s now Historic Hanna’s City within the early 1800.

Go’s Worker of the Yr Award went to Violet Costello, a gallery host on the Westmoreland Museum of American Artwork.

The museum’s chief curator, Jeremiah McCarthy, mentioned interacting with Costello and watching her have interaction different museum visitors was an enormous a part of the explanation he utilized for his present place.

Nemanic mentioned this 12 months’s honorees are an enormous a part of what makes the area distinctive.

“Hundreds of thousands of tourists journey to our area yearly, they usually depart with lasting recollections because of the hospitality and noteworthy experiences they discover inside our 3,000-square-mile footprint,” she mentioned.

Scholarships

Go Laurel Highlands additionally awarded three $2,500 scholarships, to Westmoreland County Group School culinary arts main Elizabeth Caglia, Seton Hill College senior and advertising main Bailey Valentine, and Penn State-Fayette enterprise main Hannah Wiltrout.

“As anyone who comes from the Laurel Highlands, I’ve spent 20 years rising up there,” Valentine mentioned. “It’s a significant factor to obtain a scholarship like this. It’s serving to me pursue my desires and hopefully serving to others do the identical.”

Wiltrout is interning at a Mt. Nice salon.

“It actually means rather a lot to me,” Wiltrout mentioned of the scholarship. “School is dear (and) the whole lot else is dear. Any cash that I can save I can put towards my dream of hopefully proudly owning a salon.”