The Boy Mayor of Pittsburgh

Funeral services are scheduled to be held tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 7) for Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor, who died Friday of a rare and ravenous form of brain cancer. The Post-Gazette offers an elegaic piece about the late mayor that tells the tale of O'Connor's rise and his sudden and sad fall to disease. KDKA has a piece that sums up O'Connor's career. Again, at the PG, an oncologist, who was also a friend of the mayor's, tells of O'Connor's fight against his disease, saying that once it was discovered the mayor had T-cell lymphoma of the brain his physicians knew he could not survive.

The new mayor of Pittsburgh is Luke Ravenstahl, who was serving as city council president at the time of O'Connor's death. Ravenstahl is 26 years old. The city solicitor has ruled that he can serve in the job until 2009, though there is some dispute over that. The PG offers up a short profile of Ravenstahl and his quick rise. I've also included Ravenstahl's official biog as posted on his City Council web site.