The opening of the Fred Rogers Center at St. Vincent College continues to get play in the press. Here’s an excerpt from a nice piece in Allentown PA’s The Morning Call:

“Fred Rogers, during his lifetime, was not only the most powerful producer of children’s media, but he was the standard setter,” Maxwell King, executive director of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media, said at its dedication Thursday at St. Vincent College.

The heart of the center, King said, will be to create national programs to help parents and children deal with media and help media producers create better media for children.

His widow, Joanne, said the center ”keeps Fred alive and he’s been alive for me all along, mostly because of this. Right away, we got busy with this,” she said, adding her husband would have been humbled and fascinated.

Archabott Douglas Nowicki said Rogers made it clear that ”he did not want a museum to himself.”

Still, a modest interactive exhibit focuses on ”Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and includes artifacts such as several of Rogers’ trademark hand-knit cardigan sweaters and a pair of his worn blue canvas sneakers.

Puppets from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, including King Friday, Queen Sara and Daniel Striped Tiger are also on hand. So is the black Royal typewriter and paper on which he taught himself to type in 1943. The original manuscript for ”Won’t You Be My Neighbor” is also on display.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a nice piece as well, which features a look at part of the exhibit area. Meanwhile, The Pittsburgh Tribute-Review has an article that also includes an image.

We hope to pay a visit to the Center soon to check it out for ourselves. If any of you happen to beat us to it, please let us hear from you. Watch for more stories related to the center popping up online here.