This week’s good things: Great program at Wickersham Elementary, a literary family, Trains and Troops event and weekend outing ideas [editorial]

THE ISSUE: It's Friday, the day we take a few moments to highlight the good news in Lancaster County and the surrounding region. Some of these items are welcome developments on the economic front or for area neighborhoods. Others are local stories of achievement, ingenuity, perseverance, compassion and creativity that represent welcome points of light as we face serious issues in Pennsylvania and deal with stressful and divisive matters in our nation and world. All of this uplifting news deserves a brighter spotlight.

Leading off, we're wowed by the great things happening at Wickersham Elementary School in the School District of Lancaster.

As LNP | LancasterOnline's Ashley Stalnecker wrote recently , the school "will be a model for more than 5,000 schools across the world due to its success employing a tool that helps students identify and communicate about their emotions."

RULER (Recognizing Understanding Labeling Expressing Regulating) is a social-emotional learning approach developed by Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence. It's designed to build skills that help students identify and communicate emotions.

Yale designated Wickersham Elementary as Pennsylvania's only 2025 RULER Spotlight School. And it's one of fewer than 10 schools around the globe to receive the designation.

Wickersham staff who helped to implement RULER will lead webinars to teach educators worldwide.

Stalnecker described how RULER's four-color "mood meters" are posted in almost every Wickersham classroom:

"Class begins with students placing a magnet on the part of the mood meter correlating with their emotions. Different emotions are grouped together by four color quadrants — red, blue, green and yellow — based on pleasantness and energy level," Stalnecker wrote.

It helps everyone understand how everyone else is feeling, so they can adjust their interactions accordingly.

"We recognize that many of our students come with a backpack full of trauma and this is almost like a remedy," Korynn Wagner, the district's interim assistant director of school climate, told LNP | LancasterOnline. "It helps give their brains the tools that they need in order to make responsible decisions, be able to focus and have memory retrieval."

We applaud Wickersham Elementary School for successfully implementing this program and for being recognized by Yale. For an in-depth look at how the program works, read Stalnecker's .

In other good things:

— We enjoyed the feature story by LNP | LancasterOnline correspondent Rebecca Logan about three sisters from Lititz who have all achieved literary success.

Riley Kilmore's fantasy novel, "Shay the Brave," was released in January.

K.M. King's debut novel, "The Bomber Jacket," was released in August.

And playwright D.W. Gregory is best known for "Radium Girls," a play that's been performed in more than 1,800 productions in the United States and abroad.

"The general consensus among the sisters is that if their success does come in part from nature, it is also due to a large dose of nurture. (Their) attic bedroom, and the rest of the home below, was filled with well-used reading material," Logan wrote.

We endorse that view. A solid education and ample access to books — whether they're at home, at school or in a public library — are crucial for young minds.

"I could see her reading the encyclopedia like it was a novel. Page after page," Kilmore said of Gregory. "Even as a young kid, I always thought she was wise beyond her years."

Some of us were avid encyclopedia readers, too. Curiosity paired with access to quality reading material is a glorious combination for children.

And now these three sisters who grew up in Lancaster County are contributing books and plays that will spark the imaginations of current and future generations of readers.

— Music is an important part of the arts, too. Congratulations to the Jess Zimmerman Band, a local southern rock/country group, which won two Josie Awards at the recent ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee.

The band won Group of the Year Southern Rock/Country Rock and Best Performance at the awards show, which highlights talents among independent musicians and bands.

Read more about the band in this coverage from LNP | LancasterOnline's Mickayla Miller.

— Check out the gallery of photos that LNP | LancasterOnline correspondent Tim Card took at the Trains and Troops event hosted this week by the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.

The event included a salute to veterans involving the Lancaster Red Rose Veterans Honor Guard, performances by the Strasburg Community Band and displays of military memorabilia.

It was a wonderful way to honor veterans in advance of Veterans Day on Monday.

— Finally, if you're looking for something to do this weekend, LNP | LancasterOnline's Mickayla Miller has compiled a list of outstanding possibilities from across the county .