Conway Sign Honors Hall of Famer Jimbo Covert

Article by Scott Tady, Ellwood City Ledger
Reprinted with permission

Route 65 motorists will notice a new sign of hometown pride.

“Welcome to Conway: Hometown of Jimbo Covert” proclaims the can’t-miss-it, double-sided sign installed last week in a grassy island near the Arby’s. The sign lists the Super Bowl XX and fresh Pro Football Hall of Fame credentials of Covert, a Conway native.

A star offensive lineman for the Chicago Bears from 1983-1990, Covert is one of 15 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Centennial Class. That special 20-member class, whose playing careers ended more than 25 years ago, includes former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach and Crafton native Bill Cowher, and Steelers safety and four-time Super Bowl champ Donnie Shell.

Their August induction is postponed until next year.

“But we couldn’t postpone the sign,” Conway Mayor Debbie Giska Rose said. “Jimbo is our hometown celebrity and we’re proud of him.”

Covert, a Freedom Area High School grad, planned to attend local ceremonies in his honor scheduled this weekend at The Club at Shadow Lakes in Hopewell Township. But that event got postponed — like so many things this summer — due to the coronavirus.

A consensus All-American lineman at the University of Pittsburgh who the Bears selected in the first round of the NFL draft, Covert now lives in Florida, but visits western Pennsylvania monthly for his job as an executive in the healthcare industry. And so in his future is a selfie with his sign, which was paid for by a group of hometown friends, the mayor said.

“We are in the process of coordinating dates when Jimbo is in town to dedicate the sign and take pictures,” Rose said.

“If you talk to Jimbo, or have heard him interviewed about the past, when he gets asked about Conway, the one word that comes to his mouth is ‘home.’”

Next time he sees that home, he can smile at the sign that bears his name.