{"id":168518,"date":"2026-04-17T13:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168518\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:08:09","slug":"paul-skenes-surprises-local-high-schoolers-during-leadership-day-at-pittsburgh-international-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168518\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Skenes surprises local high schoolers during leadership day at Pittsburgh International Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/312b6fe264e3a3f79dc12256f220e92e.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Local high schoolers got an up-close look at some major military hardware and a surprise visit from a Pittsburgh Pirates star player on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The 171st Air Refueling Wing, part of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, hosted its All-Star Leadership Day at Pittsburgh International Airport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">About 400 area students participated in hands-on leadership challenge activities and aircraft tours to explore career opportunities in the Air Force.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Guests included Pirates pitcher and Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes, who played baseball with the Air Force Academy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI just think there are too many kids, too many high-schoolers, who don\u2019t know about the opportunities the Air Force provides, that the Air Force Academy or the Air Force provides,\u201d Skenes said. \u201cThere are a lot of people who are itching to serve, whether they know it or not, and the Air Force is obviously an avenue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:FREE WPXI News app;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;FREE WPXI News app&quot;}\" class=\"link \">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Facebook&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Twitter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Twitter&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Watch WPXI NOW;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Watch WPXI NOW&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local high schoolers got an up-close look at some major military hardware and a surprise visit from a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11829,31338,22146,73,75,74,10997],"class_list":["post-168518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-171st-air-refueling-wing","tag-air-force","tag-paul-skenes","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}