Chris Sevor, left, and Monica Clark created these scarecrows today. They had the giggles trying to stuff them into the car.
Photos by Peggy Barringer
MEDINA – The Orleans County YMCA hosted a Scarecrow Festival today at the Armory building on Pearl Street. The event is sponsored by the Medina Lions Club.
Phyllis Misso of Albion and her granddaughter Cathleen Mastrodicasa of Lockport work together on a scarecrow. The Clothing Depot donated the clothes and sheets for the scarecrows.
Freckles the Clown entertained the crowd, and also did face painting.
Wyatt and parents Sara and Andrew Szatkowski came out for the festival.
Ed Grabowski, a member of the Medina Lions Cub, is a scarecrow surgeon at the operating room table.
Arie and her mother Trudy Decker pose with a scarecrow.
Scarecrow heads were painted by the Medina School Art Department.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 10 October 2014 at 12:00 am
Agency wants to send gifts to soldiers for holidays
Provided photo – Jared Ostrander, 7, (left) and his brother Jorden, 10, help sort and pack holiday boxes to be sent to American troops overseas.
ALBION – Kristen Ostrander said she loves the Christmas holiday season, the family memories that are made and the celebrations.
Many local families will miss those close interactions this season because a member of their family is serving with the military overseas.
“We take that for granted,” Ostrander said about the family time over the holidays. “But many soldiers won’t be able to be home.”
Ostrander wants to send soldiers packages with various goodies as a reminder that their community cares about them. She is heading a “Treats for Troops” effort. Ostrander would like to fill at least 50 boxes that are about shoebox size and send them to troops.
The community is welcome to donate items – personal care products, packaged food, magazines, games and other activity items. Ostrander also is raising money to mail the boxes at $15 each.
Community Action led the effort for filling the boxes about a year ago. A donor paid the postage last year. That funding isn’t available this year.
Donations for the packages can be dropped off at Community Action on East State Street in Albion and at its center in Holley, at GCASA in Albion and also at the Kendall Elementary School.
Kendall fifth- and sixth-graders are collecting supplies for the packages and also writing letters to the soldiers.
The deadline for donating is Nov. 1. Ostrander said volunteers will then fill all the packages and have them mailed by Nov. 19 so they can be delivered in time for Christmas.
For more information, contact Andrea Skowneski, case manager at Community Action, at 585-589-5605 ext. 105 or by email at askowneski@caoginc.org.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 10 October 2014 at 12:00 am
MEDINA – A consultant has studied the market for a hotel in Medina and concluded a small hotel with 41 to 49 rooms would be profitable.
The Orleans Economic Development Agency hired a consultant, Interim Hospitality Consultants, to do a feasibility study for a new hotel in Medina. The firm, led by Edward Xanders, sees a project as a success in Medina with at least an average daily occupancy rate of 60 percent.
The EDA is talking with Cobblestone Inn and Suites about a project in Medina. That company has built many hotels in small towns, typically working with investors in the host community.
The project is Medina would need about $1.6 million in investment, said Jim Whipple, EDA executive director. In addition to the hotel rooms, the project would have a swimming pool, conference room and a gym.
The EDA thinks a spot on EDA-owned land on Maple Ridge Road across from GCC would be an ideal location because the site already has infrastructure access within the village.
“It has water, sewer and power,” Whipple told the EDA board of directors this morning. “It could ramp up quickly.”
Investors would be needed to make the project a reality. Those investors would ultimately determine the location for the hotel, Whipple said.
Gabrielle Barone, the EDA vice president for business development, said Cobblestone has worked on projects in smaller communities than Medina. A chain hotel would be a lift for the area, boosting bed tax for tourism, sales tax for the county and state, and other spending in the community, Whipple said.
Orleans County ranks last in the state among 62 counties with visitor spending, according to a state report in 2012. The state report, prepared by Tourism Economics, puts the total visitor spending in Orleans at $21.13 million.
The county doesn’t have a chain hotel. That limits many visitors to day trips when they come to Orleans. With a chain hotel some of those visitors would be more inclined to stay overnight, spending more money in the county.
The report from Interim Hospitality Consultants said about 30 percent of the Medina hotel visitors would be on business-related trips, while the others would be people visiting family, or in town for class reunions, weddings and other special events.
Cobblestone prefers the site in Medina versus Albion because it’s farther away from competition in Batavia, where there are numerous hotels by the Thruway, Whipple said.
For more information on Cobblestone Inn, click here.
CARLTON – A boil water advisory issued Tuesday night in Carlton was lifted this afternoon by the Orleans County Health Department.
The advisory was issued at about 9 p.m. on Tuesday when the town’s water system was back on-line following a repair to a water main leak. The system was down for about 12 hours.
The Health Department issued the advisory as a precaution. It took samples of the water on Wednesday and Thursday and results from those tests showed the water was safe to drink, said David Krull, the town highway and water superintendent.
The Health Department at 2:04 p.m. today gave the clearance that the advisory could be lifted, Krull said.
The town was forced to shut off the public water system for about 700 residents on Tuesday after a hole burst in a 16-inch main between Brown’s Berry Patch and the Route 18 bridge. The water had to be shut off so Carlton and Village of Albion crews could weld a patch on the transmission line.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 10 October 2014 at 12:00 am
ALBION – A state grant will pay for advanced soil testing at 25 farms in Orleans County, a project intended to help farmers boost yields and better utilize fertilizer and resources for soil health.
Orleans County Soil and Water Conservation District received a $20,674 grant from the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. It will contract with BCA Ag Technologies to do the samples and take them to Cornell for testing.
Dennis Kirby, the Soil and Water district manager, would like to do the soil sampling in the spring. He welcomes interested farmers to call Soil and Water at 585-589-5959 to inquire about participating in the project.
Kirby would like to have a cross-section of farms of different sizes and crop types across the county.
The samples will provide a baseline for soil health. The goal is to improve soil health so farmers can maximize their yields while maintaining optimum soil health and reducing the impact of farming practices on the environment.
The soil tests will an expansion of the typical soil tests done at farms, Kirby said. The Cornell Soil Health test emphasizes the integration of biological and physical measurements along with the chemical measurements done in the existing test.
Soil and Water will look at water holding capacity, organic matter content and soil microbial activity. The report card on the soil will point to the best soil management practices.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 10 October 2014 at 12:00 am
DiLaura helped keep Sandstone industry alive
Provided photos – Pasquale DiLaura, right, and his son Ellis DiLaura discuss stone specifications. Ellis went on to succeed his father as owner of the O’Brien Quarry and DiLaura Construction.
This photo, taken about a half century ago shows the completed Manitou Road bridge over the Lake Ontario State Parkway. The DiLaura Stone Co. did the Medina Sandstone work on the bridges and culverts on the Lake Ontario State Parkway in the 1950s and 1960s, perhaps the last major public works project with local Medina Sandstone.
BROCKPORT – A new exhibit opens in Brockport today by the great-granddaughter of a man who kept the Medina Sandstone industry alive in Orleans County from the 1920s through the 1960s.
The sandstone business was a powerhouse in 1900, employing about 2,000 people. But by 1920, it was struggling against cheap competition – cement.
In the 1920s and ’30s, Pasquale DiLaura was urged to leave the Albion area and join many of his quarrymen friends who left the area to the work in the auto factories in Detroit and Michigan.
DiLaura decided to stay put. He bought a quarry on Howard Road in the Town of Clarendon. The quarry was cheap. Its previous owner, the Orleans County Quarry Company, hadn’t paid the taxes.
Workers are pictured at the O’Brien Quarry on Howard Road in the Town of Clarendon. Pasquale DiLaura purchased the O’Brien quarry in 1939 after the previous owner, the Orleans County Quarry Company, owed back taxes. Although his quarry company was named DiLaura Stone Co., he never changed the name of the quarry. This photo is one of about two dozen featured in an exhibit opening today at A Different Path Gallery on 27 Market St.
Sadie Malone, left, and Gerry DiGirolamo dress stone at the quarry.
While many of the quarries shut down, DiLaura kept promoting the product and gave it about 40 more years of life.
He wrote letters to U.S. senators and the Works Progress Administration in Washington, D.C., urging them to pick a project with Medina Sandstone for the public benefit. DiLaura led the crews that built the Hamlin Beach State Park. He taught the young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps how to cut stone. Many of those structures endure about 80 years after they were built.
Jennifer Wells-Dickerson was looking over family photographs, and showed them to a friend in an arts guild in Brockport. That friend helped Wells-Dickson enlarge and display photographs of her great-grandfather and his employees working in the quarry and on major local projects, including Hamlin Beach and the Parkway.
There is an opening reception for the exhibit today from 7 to 9 p.m. at A Different Path Gallery on 27 Market St.
Photo by Tom Rivers – Jennifer Wells-Dickerson and her mother Suzanne Wells are pictured in the gallery displaying photos of quarry workers in the 1950s and 1960s, with a few photos from before that era.
Wells-Dickerson, 34, works as a professional jewelry maker. She lives just across the Orleans County line in Hamlin. She first researched the local quarry industry as a high school student for a class project.
She has become more interested and appreciative of the quarry workers and her family’s role in the business because she sees the stonework almost every day at the Parkway and Hamlin Beach.
“I appreciate hand-made things and the craftsmanship,” she said. ‘It’s the opposite of what we have today.”
Her great-grandfather kept detailed records with his ledgers and calculations for how much stone would be needed for projects. Jennifer’s mother, Suzanne, remembers Pasquale always having a ruler in his pocket or hand.
Masons from the DiLaura Stone Co. check their work on the walkway on one of the bridges of the Lake Ontario State Parkway. Pasquale DiLaura is at center with the ruler.
This crew takes a break in 1962 while working in the quarry. Pictured include Roosevelt Fields (leaning on truck at left), Pasquale DiLaura (center), Sadie Malone, Gerry DiGirolamo, (?) Passarell, Margaret Ann DiLaura, and Ellis DiLaura (in cab).
Suzanne, a retired Albion art teacher, has looked over Pasquale’s records and developed deep respect for his drive to keep the industry alive in the county – and keep local men employed.
He was a Medina Sandstone ambassador and persuasive salesmen, securing the contracts and work at Hamlin Beach and the Parkway. The family also has his rough drafts of letters he sent to Cleveland and other cities, suggesting Medina Sandstone for public works projects.
The Brockport exhibit includes one of his drawings of the Manitou Bridge stone work, a list of names of his employees and a letter from the Albion branch of the Journeymen Stone Cutters Association of North America.
The union sent a letter on May 27, 1938 to Harry L. Hopkins, director of the W.P.A. in Washington, D.C. The letter says that Pasquale DiLaura had operated a quarry for 20 years, including during the Great Depression, keeping “a large number” of the stone cutters on the payroll even without an outlet for the material.
The Stone Cutters said, in its letter to the WPA, that DiLaura “has proven himself a real friend of the working men of this community.”
DiLaura would pass the business to his son Ellis, Suzanne’s father.
Wells-Dickerson hopes the exhibit in Brockport will shine a light on the quarry workers.
“A lot of people drive down there and they don’t know who’s behind it,” she said.
She also hopes to have the exhibit at other locations, including libraries and galleries in Orleans County.
Photo by Jennifer Wells-Dickerson – The DiLaura Construction Company did the stone work on the culverts and bridges along the Lake Ontario State Parkway.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 9 October 2014 at 12:00 am
Commission is working on projects, improvements for site
Photos by Tom Rivers – Stone pillars hold up large iron gates at the entrance of Boxwood Cemetery on North Gravel Road. The entrance also includes a chapel, built in 1903 from Medina Sandstone.
MEDINA – One of the area’s grandest burial grounds, Boxwood Cemetery, may soon be recognized as a historical asset, a status that could help Medina secure grants for improvements at the cemetery on North Gravel Road.
The Village of Medina and the Boxwood Commission are working with the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to have Boxwood put on the state and national registers of historic places.
Kathy Blackburn, Boxwood Commission chairwoman, said a decision at the state level is expected in December. If approved, Boxwood would join three other Orleans County cemeteries with the historic designation: Mount Albion Cemetery, Millville Cemetery and Hillside Cemetery in Clarendon.
Boxwood Cemetery has many retaining walls made of Medina Sandstone. Some of the walls need repairs.
The commission was reinvigorated last year and wants to draw more people to the cemetery for events and also make needed improvements to the site, Blackburn said.
The historic designation from the state and federal government could help the village obtain grants for resetting headstones, fixing sandstone walls, fighting erosion and tackling other projects.
The commission has made progress in the past year, Blackburn said. It has replaced the door in the chapel from 1903. A house on the cemetery has been cleaned out and the commission is debating the future for the house, perhaps as a museum.
The cemetery is home to many prominent Medina residents, including S.A. Cook who operated a bustling furniture company in Medina.
Blackburn wants to see more events at the cemetery, including lantern tours. She wants to see more flowers by grave sites.
For the second year Boxwood is participating in “National Wreaths Across America Day” on Dec. 13. For $15, wreaths can be purchased and placed at the graves for veterans. For more information, click here.
“It’s remembering and honoring the fallen, and teaching our children,” Blackburn said.
She would like to have 100 wreaths in Boxwood, and expand it to other local cemeteries next year. The Dec. 13 event will also include a ceremony with the Honor Guard and a 21-gun salute.
KENDALL – A Rochester man escaped serious injury last night after crashing the all-terrain vehicle he was operating in the Town of Kendall.
The incident was reported to Orleans County 9-1-1 shortly after 7 p.m. Philip J. McLaren, 24, had been operating the ATV across open land east of the 1800 block of Kendall Road (State Route 237).
McLaren, who was not familiar with the area, came upon a drainage ditch and made a sharp turn to avoid it. In doing so he lost control of the ATV, which then overturned. He was ejected.
McLaren was not wearing a protective helmet at the time of the incident. He was flown by MercyFlight helicopter to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, where he was treated and later discharged.
The incident was investigated by Deputy J.J. Cole. Kendall Fire and EMS personnel also assisted at the scene.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 9 October 2014 at 12:00 am
Photo by Tom Rivers – Charlie Nesbitt, the honorary chairman for the United Way fund drive, announces a $325,000 goal with Marsha Rivers, executive director for the United Way. Penny Nice, president of Orleans County Adult Learning Services, is pictured at right. OCALS receives funding through United Way.
MEDINA – At a downtown center in Holley, Community Action runs an after-school program that wouldn’t happen without support from the United Way.
Community Action also uses United Way dollars to help run the Main Street Store in Albion, which provides job training and skills to many local residents.
The United Way funding is steady each year, bringing stability to an agency that also relies on grants and other government funding that often varies each year, said Ed Fancher, executive director of Community Action of Orleans & Genesee.
“The grants are hit or miss,” Fancher said. “If we don’t have them we flex the size of the program to meet the resources we have.”
Community Action is one of about 20 agencies that receive funding through the United Way of Orleans County. The United Way kicked off its annual fund-raising campaign this evening and set a goal of $325,000.
The Boy Scouts (Iroquois Trail Council) is one of the funded agencies through United Way. Jim McMullen, the Scout executive, said the United Way dollars help keep down the costs of the Scouting program.
“Unlike other sources, it’s consistent,” he said about the United Way dollars. “We can rely on it every year. It provides programs for families in need. Without it, everything would be higher.”
File photo by Tom Rivers – Boy Scouts and their families are on a fishing expedition at a former quarry on Keitel Road, now owned by the Albion Sportsmen’s Association.
The Iroquois Trail Council serves Scouts in five counties. McMullen said each of those counties contribute funding through the United Way.
He would welcome more money so the Council could expand Scouting programs and push to attract more youths into the program.
“With even another $1,000 you’d have more opportunities to recruit kids in the community,” McMullen said.
Several agency leaders attended the kickoff celebration at Leonard Oakes Estate Winery in Medina. Marsha Rivers started as United Way executive director last month. She said the campaign “is all about building stronger communities.”
Before joining the United Way, she worked for Hospice of Orleans, which provides palliative care for people with advanced illness. Prior to that she worked with younger families through the Care Net Center of Greater Orleans, which offers ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, testing for sexually transmitted infections, and other resources for families.
She thanked a dedicated United Way board of directors for giving its time to support the United Way mission, and the many residents and businesses for contributing money to the campaign. Those funds will help the agencies provides services to residents.
“Everybody here is a giver, whether you’re giving money or time,” said Charlie Nesbitt, the honorary campaign chairman and former state assemblyman. “It’s about individuals and their needs. That’s why we will make a meaningful commitment to those that need us.”
Jodi Gaines, president and CEO of Claims Recovery Financial Services in Albion, serves on the United Way board. She has been pushing the United Way campaign for more than 20 years.
“It’s about helping the community,” Gaines said. “I know these agencies are top notch and well run.”
Some of the funded United Way agencies include 4-H and Cornell Cooperative Extension, Camp Rainbow through the Arc of Orleans, Meals on Wheels, Boy Scouts, Community Action’s Main Street store and after-school program, Community Kitchen at Christ Episcopal Church in Albion, GCASA and Students United for Positive Action, Girl Scouts and Hospice of Orleans.
Other funded agencies include Just Friends, Medina Youth Commission, Ministry of Concern, Habitat for Humanity, Orleans County Adult Learning Service, PathStone Domestic Violence Shelter, Regional Action Phone, Senior Citizens of WNY, and the Orleans County YMCA.
