{"id":168534,"date":"2026-04-17T13:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168534\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:32:08","slug":"paul-skenes-surprises-local-high-schoolers-during-leadership-day-at-pittsburgh-international-airport-wpxi-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168534\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Skenes surprises local high schoolers during leadership day at Pittsburgh International Airport \u2013 WPXI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">PITTSBURGH \u2014 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=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">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=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">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 class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Guests included Pirates pitcher and Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes, who played baseball with the Air Force Academy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\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 lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This week, Paul surprised over 600 local high school students at the 171sst Refueling Wing for All Star Leadership Day, where they learned what a career in the Air Force looks like. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ld7DFElB9v\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/ld7DFElB9v<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Pirates\/status\/2044938146337488900?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">April 17, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 Local high schoolers got an up-close look at some major military hardware and a surprise visit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75828,11833,75829,75831,75832,139,859,75830,73,75,74,420,860],"class_list":{"0":"post-168534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-171st_air_refueling_wing_all-star_leadership_day","9":"tag-air","10":"tag-air_force","11":"tag-air_force_academy","12":"tag-globemaster","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-ott_news","15":"tag-paul_skenes","16":"tag-pittsburgh","17":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","18":"tag-pittsburgh-news","19":"tag-video","20":"tag-wpxi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168534","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=168534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}