Photo by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Dan Conrad and Christina Nenni on Friday are shown putting together activity buckets that will be distributed to local kids. Those buckets include toys, bubbles, jump ropes, paddle balls and other activities.

Conrad is coordinating the effort. He did it last year and was able to deliver 50 of the activity kits to children in Orleans County.

On Friday, he and a team of volunteers put together 38 of the buckets, and they will be doing more. Conrad promoted the project on Facebook and received $500 in donations right away.

He wants to do more and welcomes people to send him a direct message through Facebook on details for donating or for receiving a bucket.

Nenni, co-owner of Best of Tymes Party Rental with Michelle Wiseman, offered part of their space at the Arnold Gregory Office Building in Albion to store and assemble the kits.

Conrad said he got the idea for the activity buckets after seeing people promote wine, beer and meat fairies for adults last year during the Covid pandemic. Adults could sign up and receive bottles of wine and beer, or packages of meat.

“I saw all of the things for adults but there was nothing for kids,” Conrad said.

Provided photo: Lt. Steve Fox of the Orleans County Sheriff’s Office picked up six of the buckets on Friday that will be distributed by the Sheriff’s Office.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Lloyd Wright, a member of the Albion Lions Club, cuts and pulls down vines and branches that grew on a community sign on Route 98, north of the Village of Albion near the property known as Green Acres.

The sign shows some of the churches and service organizations in Albion. However, some of those groups don’t exist anymore because the sign was put up an estimated 40 years ago.

Jake Stinson of the Lions works on taking down small trees and brush that were obscuring the sign. The sign project was part of today’s environmental cleanup effort by the Lions Club. The group worked on other sites in the community.

Alexis Stinson, 8, is Jake Stinson’s daughter. She picked up lots of trash in the area near the sign.

Henry Smith Jr., an Albion Lions Club member, pulls down branches and vines on the blank side of the sign, facing south. The Lions Club and Rotary Club would like to turn this side of the sign into a mini billboard promoting a popular location in Orleans County. One idea floated around this morning was having this side with an image or artwork of a giant Chinook salmon, perhaps saying “Catch Me If You Can” and noting Point Breeze is located north on 98.

The surface area of the blank side of sign is about 14 feet wide and 9 feet high. The Lions and Rotary see it as untapped potential to promote the area.

Mark Johnson, left, and Kevin Howard of the Lions Club clear out the grounds near the sign. The Lions Club is planning to put flowers in the big flower box at the sign.

Provided photo

ALBION – A 16-year-old found this gun sticking partly out of the mud in the Erie Canal this morning during the Canal Clean Sweep. The gun was almost directly underneath the Ingersoll Street lift bridge. It was slightly to the east of the bridge.

Hunter Hering was out with his mother, Statira Holtfoth, on the annual Canal Clean Sweep, where volunteers pick up trash along the canal.

Hunter saw the handle of the gun with the rest buried in the bottom of the canal. He went down to get it, and then his mother called the police.

The Albion Police Department will clean the gun and try to find a serial number, Lt. David Mogle said. If that number can’t be found, Mogle said the gun will be turned over to a lab to see if it can find an identifying number.

Mogle said it appears the gun had been in the canal for a while, probably 10 to 20 years.

“It could have been used in a robbery or crime and thrown in there,” Mogle said.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Bryce Wilson, an Albion FFA member, shows a sprayer to students in Emily Stavange’s kindergarten class during today’s FFA Mini Farm Day. The sprayer is owned by Panek Farms.

The event was cancelled last spring due to Covid-19, but is back this year with some changes. The Mini Farm Day in the past was open to all grades in the elementary school. This time it was limited to grades kindergarten through second. FFA members will make a video that will be available to other classrooms and students who are studying remotely.

Natalie Bertsch introduces second graders in Pat Levandowski’s class to a pig from the Neal farm in Albion. The stations were spread out more than in the past.

“A fun fact about pigs is they don’t have sweat glands so they like to roll around in the mud,” Natalie said.

Gina Sidari shows these students Josie, a week-old calf owned by Samantha Basinait, an Albion sophomore and FFA member.

Kyle Van Ameron shows these students a John Deere tractor owned by Panek Farms. Kyle said the tractor weighs 37,000 with 375 horsepower. The thick tires give the tractor traction in a muddy field, Kyle said.

The Van Lieshout farm in Barre also brought a tractor for the day.

Jeffrey Brown talked with these second-grade students in Mark Skurzewski’s class about a rabbit.

Chris Glogowski, Albion’s school resource officer, stops by to greet Oops, a mini horse owned by ninth-grader Meganne Moore.

‘We just wanted to lift up her spirits. We want her to know she is loved by many.’

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – About 15 vehicles, decorated with balloons and birthday greetings, drove by the front entrance of The Village of Orleans Health and Rehabilitation Center this afternoon. The vehicles all stopped so the drivers and passengers could wish Angela McNeil a happy 52^nd birthday.

McNeil (second from left) is known also by her nickname “Bookie.” She worked as an aide at The Village for about 30 years. She recently suffered several strokes and is a resident now at The Villages and shares a room with her mother, who worked in the kitchen at the nursing home.

Sandy Flugel gives Angela an enthusiastic greeting. Flugel worked with McNeil for many years.

“She was the best aide ever,” Flugel said. “She took care of so many people. She has so much love.”

Robin Davis has been best friends with McNeil for 40 years, since they were kids. Davis and Latricia Poole organized today’s birthday celebration for McNeil.

“We just wanted to lift up her spirits,” Davis said. “I want her to know she is loved by many.”

Many of McNeil’s close friends presented her with a card and then danced to “We are Family” in the parking lot.

McNeil waves to one of her greeters.

The group gathers around McNeil for some dancing.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Harvest Christian Fellowship, which is looking to establish a new ministry next to the church on Route 31 in Albion, was helped in gutting the upstairs of 574 East Ave. on Saturday.

A team from the New York Adult & Teen Challenge Buffalo arrived in the morning and stayed through the afternoon in the project. They removed insulation, took out bathroom fixtures and did other work to get the site ready for a remodel.

The new ministry will be known as Trade 180 and will be a caring community of support for the young marginalized people in Orleans County, ages 18-25, said Heidi Dorpfeld, coordinator of the program.

She wants to connect the young adults with trades professionals in the community. The young adults can learn job skills, and receive spiritual support, Dorpfeld said.

“We want to help people discover their purpose,” Dorpfeld said on Saturday. She is shown outside the Trade 180 building. “We believe every individual is created in the image of God.”

Dorpfeld works as a job coach for students at the Niagara-Orleans BOCES in Medina. She said Trade 180 will assist younger adults who often “fall through the cracks” and need some help connecting to a career.

The team from Buffalo Teen Challenge assists men 18 and older who struggle with life controlling issues. The team is shown removing some of the insulation form the upstairs. The group spoke at Harvest Christian Fellowship during today’s church service.

Dorpfeld, shown upstairs with some of the team from Buffalo, said fixing and upgrading the old house is a strong symbol for the new ministry. “We’re restoring a house that has been forgotten,” she said. “We want to do the same with people and help to renew and restore and put them on a path for success.”

For more on Trade 180, click here or send Dorpfeld an email at tradeoneeighty@gmail.com. She is hopeful the program can start in the fall. She welcomes businesses and mentors to be a part of Trade 180.

Show can be viewed through online streaming

Photos courtesy of Albion Central School: Myleigh Miller, center, is Ellie Blake who switches bodies with her mother in Freaky Friday. She is joined on stage by Leah Kania, left, who is Gretchen and Emily Mergler who is Hannah.

Press Release, Albion Central School

ALBION – With Broadway stages still shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, the excitement is palpable as Albion High School’s Theatrical Department gets ready to launch its virtual spring production of Disney’s “Freaky Friday.”

According to Director Connor Doran, while a lot of thought went into choosing this year’s show, taking into consideration the ever-changing safety restrictions but wanting to carry on the tradition of a spring musical, the goal remained the same: “choose a show that will make the students shine.”

Aubrey Boyer, right, portrays Katherine Blake, the mother who turns into a teen. She is on stage with Annalise Steier, who plays Fiona.

“As a new teacher, having no previous knowledge of the student make-up, and working in the confines of a pandemic, I wanted to choose something that would be meaningful, musically catchy, and also a challenge,” Doran said. “We made the decision back in November once we got the go-ahead from our administration.”

One of the deciding factors was that “Freaky Friday” has streaming options, which was ideal for the pandemic and ensured they could share the show with the greater Albion community.

According to Doran, one of the best parts of producing this show was finding creative solutions to the challenges it posed.

“Between producing a theatrical work while masked, making sure everyone was comfortable, creating our protocol sheet and following it to a ‘T’, reimagining the way some things are done in a pandemic world, pushing our students to reach their potential, and allowing everyone’s creativity to shine through, there was a lot to consider,” Doran said.

The cast rehearsed for two hours a day, Monday through Saturday, every week leading up to the filming of the show.

“What you don’t see are the countless hours of practicing lines, music, choreography, set building, lighting design, props creation, organization, and general creativity,” Doran explained. “What one would see in a rehearsal is only a fraction of the time that led up to the preparation of that moment.”

Myleigh Miller, who plays one of the leads, Ellie Blake, in the show, said that even with all the hours of preparation, she was still finding new ways to improve and learning about her character during the live shows.

“The most challenging aspect was the limited amount of time we had,” Miller explained. “I found myself learning new things about the characters I portrayed in the middle of a live performance, and having to be done with the show, just as I was getting to truly know the characters, was a bit hard.”

The show went on for the Albion High School Theatrical Department with the production of Freaky Friday. There won’t be an in-person audience but the show will be available to stream online Friday through Sunday.

Another difficulty was learning how to communicate their characters’ emotions while wearing their masks.

“In order to be heard, I had to learn some techniques on how to project [my voice] more and adjust my breathing since it was so much harder to hear us,” Miller explained.

The production’s costume team – led by Kathy Winans and Karen Dibley and included countless other volunteers like members from Winans’ Life Skills class – created, designed, and sewed each performer their own “singing mask.” Each costume received a matching mask and, for some performers, that means they had four masks.

“The masks were one of the hardest parts about the show because you had to rethink as an actor how to express emotion and tell a story using only your eyes,” said Miller’s co-star Aubrey Boyer, who played Ellie’s mother Katherine Blake.

Annalise Steier is Fiona and Rowan Ford is Adam in the Freaky Friday musical.

Despite these challenges, the duo said that the best part about this year was getting to perform again, especially since their production of “The Little Mermaid” was canceled last spring due to the pandemic.

“The whole process of putting together a show was something I’d worried about missing this year,” Miller explained.

Boyer agreed, adding, “my favorite part of the show was working with the cast. These people are so amazing and are like one big family. The memories you create will last a lifetime.”

With the first virtual show set to premiere Friday, April 16, at 7 p.m., the actors promise the show will be fun yet sentimental.

“Audience members can look forward to fun songs, fun costumes, and fun characters; Freaky Friday is an all-around fun time,” Miller said.

“This show is an absolute rollercoaster but an amazing ride,” Boyer emphasized. “The audience can look forward to a laugh and maybe even some tears.”

This vibrant, colorful, funny, heartfelt performance can be streamed on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. as well as on Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5 and can be bought online by clicking here.

Marquis de Lafayette, French military officer, provided critical aid to George Washington in securing American independence

Photos by Tom Rivers: Justin Kania, an Albion seventh grader, shares about a farewell tour in 1824-1825 to honor Marquis de Lafayette, a young French aristocrat and military officer served with George Washington. Lafayette traveled on the Erie Canal from Lockport to Rochester in June 1825 to great fanfare.

ALBION – A new historical marker, in a distinctive blue background with red trim, was unveiled on Wednesday by the Erie Canal in Albion in honor of a French military officer who provided critical aid to Continental Army in securing American independence from the British monarchy.

Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States in 1824 for a farewell tour that was intended to last four months. It turned into a 16-month visit that included a journey along the Erie Canal through Orleans County.

Lafayette rode in a packet boat in full regalia that was pulled by a team of white horses from Lockport to Rochester on June 6-7, 1825, four months before the canal officially opened.

The new marker is located between the Ingersoll and Main Street lift bridges in Albion.

Lafayette was given a hero’s welcome from the Americans. He passed through Albion which was then known as Newport.

Albion service learning students and the Seventh Grade History Club teamed with the DAR (Daughters of American Revolution) and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation to erect the marker, which was installed by the Village of Albion Department of Public Works.

The marker notes Lafayette’s journey on the Erie Canal during the farewell tour, and includes the Lafayette Trail logo. The Lafayette Trail Inc. is planning bicentennial celebrations of Lafayette’s farewell tour in 2024-2025.

The group is pushing to have 175 markers in place to commemorate the tour. That includes 11 in New York State.

Patrice Birner, state regent of the DAR, spoke at the dedication event. Birner, a Middleport resident, said the DAR is supporting the historical markers for Lafayette, who she called “a rock star” who helped secure the country’s independence.
She plans to attend dedication ceremonies next month for Lafayette in Niagara Falls and Brooklyn.

Birner presented pins with Lafayette’s signature to Justin Kania and Kaitlin Bennett, two Albion seventh-graders who participated in the marker’s unveiling. Tim Archer, left, is the service learning teacher at Albion.

Kaitlin Bennett holds one of the pins with Lafayette’s signature.

Kaitlin Bennett speaks at the marker’s unveiling, calling Lafayette “The Hero of Two Worlds.” He commanded U.S. forces in several battles, including the siege of Yorktown, which proved the fatal blow to the British.

“He was a significant man in our country’s history who can here to help us,” Kaitlin said.

When Lafayette returned to France, he was imprisoned for five years due to his role as a monarch. Lafayette was released by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797.

Lafayette would later serve in the French government. He died on May 20, 1834 and is buried in a Paris cemetery under soil gathered from Bunker Hill.

Albion teacher Tim Archer thanked the organizations for supporting the new marker, which he said helps tell local history.

For more on the Lafayette Trail, click here.

ALBION – The Board of Education on Monday adopted a $37,801,291 budget for 2021-22 that doesn’t increase taxes for the 13^th time in the past 15 years.

The budget keeps the tax levy at $8,449,094 in property taxes, the same for at least the past three years.

“You’ve done very well here,” Bart Schuler, interim business administrator, told the Board of Education on Monday evening. “You’ve had a lot of great vision. There is no need to raise the taxes.”

The district is able to stave off a tax increase mainly due to more state aid. The state funding is budgeted to increase by $669,603 from $27,543,861 to $28,213,464. The state aid accounts for 74.6 percent of the district’s budget.

The budget increases spending up 2.61 percent from $36,841,032 to $37,801,299. The spending plan will go before district voters on May 18 with ballots to be cast from noon to 8 p.m. in the elementary school gymnasium. That is a change from where the election is usually held in the district office conference room. Having the vote in the gym will spread people out, said Mickey Edwards, the district superintendent.

The proposed budget maintains all existing programs and also allows for a $100,000 elevator rehab project in the middle school.

The district will go over the budget in more detail during a budget hearing on May 11 at 7 p.m. That hearing will be held virtually and not in-person.

The vote on May 18 will include a proposition to spend $550,000 from a bus reserve fund, and a proposition to collect $724,260 for Hoag Library.

There will also be two members elected to the Board of Education to five-year terms. Those seats are currently filled by Curt Schmitt and Marlene Seielstad. Candidates for the positions have until April 19 to submit petitions signed by at least 25 qualified voters.

In other action at Monday’s board meeting, the BOE:

• Appointed Richard Recckio II as school business administrator at a salary of $92,000.

• Recognized Bailey Blanchard with the high school leadership award and Dominic DiGiulio with the high school character award.

• Observed a moment of silence for two former district employees who recently passed away.

Elsie Barringer, a former cafeteria worker, was 92 when she died on March 7, 2021.

Gary Parisi, a social studies teacher who also coached softball and football for Albion, was 61 when he died from cancer on March 24 at age 61. Parisi also was part of Albion’s summer camp programs. He retired from Albion this past September.

“He left a positive impact,” said Wayne Wadhams, a BOE member.

• Accepted the notice of retirements on June 30 from Mary Susan Webster, keyboard specialist in the elementary school, and William Webster, a cleaner.

BOE member Margy Brown praised Webster for giving a welcoming first impression for students and visitors to the elementary school for many years.

• Approved a new $500 recurring scholarship to be funded by the Albion Police Benevolent Association, which will choose the annual awardee.

Press Release, Albion Central School

ALBION – This past week the Board of Education and district administrators convened for a diversity training titled “Dismantling Systemic Racism” hosted by the Four County School Boards Association.

The training included detailed discussions on implicit bias, why the language we use is important, racism at an individual, institutional, and systemic level, and how to dismantle it in our schools.

Over the course of an hour, Albion board members and administrators watched instructional videos and participated in educational activities, expanding their knowledge of systemic racism and identifying preventative measures that can be taken to protect our families.

This was the first of many steps Superintendent Mickey Edwards has planned to guide board members and administrators through in order to promote a safe and inclusive learning environment for our students and our staff.