Press Release, Albion Central School

ALBION – Albion Central School District will be offering free breakfast and lunch for all students throughout the 2024-25 academic year.

As part of the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, each student grades PreK-12 will be offered a free breakfast and lunch every day.

“We are excited to announce that Albion Central School District will continue to offer all of our students two free meals a day,” said Mickey Edwards, superintendent of Albion Central School. “It’s crucial that our students enter the classroom ready to learn, and that begins with a nutritious breakfast. The more we can prepare them for success, the better their outcomes will be.”

In order to continue this wonderful program for our entire district, it is extremely important that families who meet the income eligibility guidelines complete the Household Income Eligibility Form.

Please return completed forms to:

• Mail: Albion CSD Re: CEP Form 324 East Avenue, Albion, NY 14411
• Fax: 585-589-2059
• Email: kmcgaffick@albionk12.org

We are excited to be able to provide this opportunity to our students and their families. Please contact Katie McGaffick at 585-589-2056 with any questions.

Press Release, Albion Police Chief Dave Mogle

ALBION – On behalf of the Village of Albion and the Albion Central School District, the Village of Albion Police Department would like to remind motorists that the start of the new school year is just over two weeks away, with staff returning to Albion Schools on Tuesday, September 3rd and students returning on Wednesday, September 4th.

As such, the Albion Police Department is asking motorists to take their time and use extra caution while driving through the Village of Albion, especially along Route 31 in front of the school district as there will be an increase in pedestrian and school bus traffic.

With funding from the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee, the Albion Police Department will have extra patrols on for the start of the new school year to ensure the safety of our School District Staff and Students. We would like to remind motorists that the speed limit in the School Zone on Route 31 is 20 mph from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on all school days.

We would also like to remind motorists of the crosswalk on State Route 31 at McKinstry Street, which is used heavily by our students as they go to and from school, especially between 7:15-7:45 a.m. and 2:15-2:45 p.m. Even more caution will need to be used during this time while passing the schools.

The Albion Police Department is excited to see the return of our students and with your help, we hope to have a fun and safe school year.

Charlie Nesbitt has scoured internet, estate sales for yearbooks, postcards, other Albion area artifacts

Photos by Tom Rivers: Charlie Nesbitt last week donated boxes of old Albion Chevron yearbooks, newspapers, postcards and other memorabilia from the Albion. Nesbitt has been collecting the items the past 25 years. He gave them to Hoag Library where they will be in the local history section. Pictured from left include Betty Sue Miller, Hoag Library director, Charlie Nesbitt, Vllage of Albion Historian Sue Starkweather Miller, County Historian Catherine Cooper and Dee Robinson, local history librarian.

ALBION – Charlie Nesbitt for the past 25 years kept up an intense hobby of collecting memorabilia from his beloved hometown.

Nesbitt, a retired state assemblyman, often searched eBay and other websites to see if there were postcards, old newspapers and other interesting items from Albion. He expanded that hunt to Barre, Gaines, Carlton, Waterport and Point Breeze.

He checked out estate sales, and bought old Chevron yearbooks from Albion, as well as the school literacy magazine. He has company reports from Liptons, Albion’s largest private employer until it closed in 1980, and the annual statements from Arnold Gregory Memorial Hospital.

Nesbitt filed protective sleeves with many postcards from the early 1900s, and throughout the past century, depictions of a vibrant downtown and a thriving community.

Nesbitt’s friends and others in the community heard he would eagerly accept their scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. Nesbitt knows many people, and he would gladly copy and share the clippings, which could include the team photo of the 1947 Albion football team.

But now Nesbitt is ready to share the massive collection. Last week he delivered about a dozen banker boxes full of Albion yearbooks and memorabilia. They were donated to the local history collection at Hoag Library. He was happily greeted by local history librarian Dee Robinson, and historians Susan Starkweather Miller and Catherine Cooper.

“It’s remarkable what we have here,” Starkweather Miller said about the collection.

Robinson said residents or former Albionites in the past have donated a few items to the collection, often a few letters or a book. Nesbitt by far has exceeded those contributions with the big trove of materials.

Charlie Nesbitt hunted down many old newspapers, including this copy of The Orleans Whig from July 11, 1827. The Whig was published every Wednesday in Gaines. “That’s a beauty,” Catherine Cooper, the county historian, said about the newspaper.

There are about 100 yearbooks donated by Nesbitt, going back to 1912. Those yearbooks plus what Hoag already had, should make for a complete collection, with duplicates. Those “extras” could be borrowed and taken out for people to comb through.

Robinson will work on cataloguing and organizing the materials.

“This is the largest collection that has ever been given by a citizen,” Robinson said.

Nesbitt said he wanted to share the materials with the community.

“I’ve collected it and someone should benefit from it,” he said. “Some of these treasures are so interesting.”

Cooper, the county historian, said the postcards includes quick remarks about life in the day. She enjoys seeing people reflections on their lives and what was going on in the community and world.

Nesbitt said he isn’t done gathering mementoes about the Albion area.

“It’s been fun,” he said. “I still look every day.”

County Historian Catherine Cooper, left, and local history librarian Dee Robinson look through the trove of items Charlie Nesbitt delivered to the library this past week.

The arch leading into Mount Albion Cemetery is featured here in a memento from the early 1900s.

The group shares a laugh over comments written in an old Chevron yearbook.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – About 75 people attended a tour on Sunday evening at the cemetery for the Orleans County Alms House on County House Road.

The event is part of the Sunday evening cemetery tours this month organized by the Orleans County Historical Association. The first tour on Aug. 4 featured the West Ridgeway Cemetery. The next tour at 6 p.m. will be at St. Mary’s in Medina followed by Mount Albion on Aug. 25.

Tim Archer, a retired teacher at Albion, speaks during Sunday’s evening highlighting a once-forgotten cemetery.

Archer was working as a service learning teacher at Albion in 2010 when his seventh-grade students became interested in the site. Bill Lattin, the county historian at the time, was speaking in Archer’s class about how there used to be the Alms or “Poor House” on County House Road from 1833 to 1960. The Alms House closed in 1960 when the county nursing home opened on Route 31 in Albion.

The Alms House was torn down and now the site is the Orleans County Emergency Management Office with a fire training tower.

Bill Lattin speaks during Sunday’s tour of the cemetery. In 2010, Lattin visited Tim Archer’s classes and Lattin mentioned there was a cemetery behind the former Alms House. At the time the site was overgrown and largely inaccessible.

Archer went on his own and found a headstone with a number on it. He then brought three students and they found 10 more head stones with numbers.

Archer and his class addressed the County Legislature about having the site cleared and cleaned up. The students researched the site and found old records with names of 250 people who died at the Alms House.

An interpretive panel was unveiled in 2019 with the names of 250 people who were buried in the cemetery. Some had headstones with numbers, and others were just buried with no marker.

Lattin praised Archer and the students for their concern and action in pushing to get the site cleared and to provide a more fitting final resting place for the residents.

“Tim is a great citizen, a great teacher and a lifetime friend,” Lattin said about Archer. “He did a great job cleaning up this mess. Tim you’ve put a great of your heart and soul into this.”

The reclaimed stones were reset at the cemetery in 2011. The project led by the Albion students garnered widespread media attention around Western New York. Archer said it was perhaps the most ambitious and most meaningful of all the service-learning projects during his career.

He spoke to the crowd on Sunday about the residents of the alms house, some whose stay was short-term for a few weeks while they “dried out” from intemperance.

Others were there for years, suffering from mental and physical disabilities. Some of the oldest records from the alms house were destroyed in a fire. But Archer has looked through an annual reports about the alms house, where staff lists why people needed to stay there.

Some of the reasons listed that caused people to be at the alms house: vagrant, homeless, “pain in the bones,” delinquent, paralysis, dropsy, consumption, syphilis, hernia, “feeble minded,” “bad business management,” senile, lunatic, opium habit, breast cancer, “peg leg,” “frozen hands,” skull wound, “one arm off,” cirrhosis of the liver, crushed foot by railroad car, fingers cut off by a buzz saw.

He saw 1,500 entries over decades for the “inmates.” They weren’t prisoners or in trouble with the law. But they were away from their home, or they didn’t have a home.

“These were real people with real lives that ended unceremoniously,” Archer said.

The cemetery is in the back behind the Emergency Management Office, surrounded by a corn field. When the cemetery was rededicated in 2011, 74 grave markers were reset.

The site is open to the public and continues to be maintained by Orleans County.

Scouts from Albion’s Troop 164 raised the flag at the cemetery during Sunday’s event.

ALBION – Tax bills in the Albion school district will soon be coming out and will show significantly lower tax rates for property owners in the towns of Albion and Gaines, which completed townwide reassessments earlier this year.

In Albion and Gaines, the tax rate dropped $4.25 per $1,000 of assessed property for the school while the library rate is down 32 cents. The rate is down from $14.69 to $10.44 per $1,000 in both towns.

The school district’s total taxable value is at $775,416,283, which is up 22.7 percent or by $143,199,243 from the $632,217,040 a year ago. That increase is driven by the changes in Albion and Gaines. The Town of Albion’s assessed value is up $92,793,967 – 39.3 percent, while Gaines is up $50,703,658 or 37.4 percent.

The tax levy remains at $8,449,039 for the school district. Albion hasn’t increased the school taxes in 16 of the past 18 years.

The school tax bills also include the bills for the Hoag Library. The library’s tax levy will be $664,510, up from $654,510 last year.

Albion, Gaines and Elba are all at full 100 percent equalization rates after completed their town-wide reassessments. Other towns have lower equalization rates set by the state which results in higher tax rates. That is done to try to have those property owners pay their fair share.

Ridgeway and Carlton are at 97 percent equalization rates, Kendall at 94 percent, Barre at 80 percent and Murray at 66 percent.

Here is a snapshot for each town in the school, with the past year in parentheses:

• Albion, assessed value – $329,042,669 ($236,248,702); tax rates: $10.44 school, 82 cents for library
• Barre, assessed value – $105,801,769 ($106,749,208); tax rates: $13.05 school, $1.03 for library
• Carlton, assessed value – $146,333,432 ($145,684,900); tax rates: $10.76 school, 85 cents for library
• Gaines, assessed value – $186,362,530 ($135,658,872); tax rates: $10.44 school, 82 cents for library
• Kendall, assessed value – $1,247,077 ($1,240,031); tax rates: $11.10 school, 87 cents for library
• Murray, assessed value – $5,977,846 ($5,989,786); tax rates: $15.81 school; $1.24 for library
• Ridgeway, assessed value – $252,759 ($251,914); tax rates: $10.76 school; 85 cents for library
• Elba, assessed value – $398,201 ($393,627); tax rates: $10.44 school, 82 cents for library

Site will add monument to 1859 bridge collapse victims, and bench and lamppost made of old steel from Main Street lift bridge

Photo by Tom Rivers: The park by the canal recently added the concrete planters with flowers. More elements are headed to the site.

ALBION – The small park along the Erie Canal across from the Albion Fire Hall has been referred to as Canal Park and Firemen’s Park over the years.

Now it has an official name,” Erie Canal Park.”

Village Clerk/Treasurer Tracy Van Skiver said the park has never been formally named. She and her staff combed through the village records.

Provided photo: Bill Schutt made a lamppost from old steel from the Main Street lift bridge.

The village plans to dedicate the park with a ceremony at noon on Sept. 28. During that event, a monument will also be unveiled to the 15 victims in the Sept. 28, 1859 bridge collapse. The Main Street bridge at the time gave out when 250 people crammed on the bridge to watch a wirewalker. The Albion Rotary Club is taking the lead in working with Brigden Memorials of Albion on the project.

The village also is installing two pieces made from old steel from the Main Street lift bridge which has been closed since November 2022 for a major rehabilitation.

A park bench is being made by village employees from some of the discarded steel from when the bridge was originally built in 1914.

The village also used a grant from GO Art! to pay artist Bill Schutt to make a lamppost from the old steel. The lamppost will provide another light at the park.

The village also has moved some of the concrete planters that were in the downtown to the park. They are on the back perimeter of the site.

The gazebo also will get new shingles and paint as Albion tries to create a more inviting spot for local residents and visitors on the canal. The Village Board said it is open to naming the gazebo in honor of someone and will take suggestions from the community.

The park includes a historical marker dedicated for a Revolutionary War hero, Marquis de Lafayette. The French military officer provided critical aid to George Washington in securing American independence. Lafayette traveled on the Erie Canal from Lockport to Rochester in June 1825 to great fanfare.

There also is an interpretive panel at the site about different facets of the Erie Canal in Albion.

The park is between Platt and Ingersoll on the south side of the canal.

Group will take ideas from public at Sept. 10 meeting

The late Charles Howard, leader of a Santa Claus School and also Christmas Park, works with a Santa portrayer in Albion in this undated photo. Howard died in 1966. The Betterment Committee may utilize some of his designs and concepts in a new Santa House.

ALBION – The Albion Betterment Committee is ready to tackle its next project celebrating Albion’s Santa legacy.

The group wants to build a Santa House on village-owned land next to the First Presbyterian Church on Main Street. The Village Board has given the Betterment Committee permission to pursue the project, with the understanding the board gets a final say on the design of the building and site layout.

The Betterment Committee wants to hear from the public about the project. The group is planning an open house from 5 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 10 at Hoag Library. The public can share its ideas for the how the building should look.

The village doesn’t want the structure to be more than 200 square feet.

The Betterment Committee has $21,000 raised already towards the project. It is pricing out materials and other expenses for the Santa House and site improvements.

The group is also planning to have a sleigh built and installed in the Waterman Park where there is a bronze Santa statue. The Betterment Committee unveiled that statue during the Albion Strawberry Festival in June 2023. The new sleigh will also be a tribute for Howard’s grandson, the late Charles Bergeman. He passed away at age 64 on Oct. 31, 2023.

The Betterment Committee has also put “Believe” signs in Albion, a welcome sign with an image of Charles Howard in a Santa suit, while supporting other projects to highlight Howard and the Santa School that operating in Albion from 1937 until Howard’s death in 1966. (The school continues in Howard’s name today in Midland, Mich.)

The new Santa House will include display areas for memorabilia from the Santa School and the Christmas Park that was also run by Howard.

Natasha Wasuck of the Betterment Committee wants the house to be “cute with a lot of personality.”

The Santa statue is shown in June 2023 with a mural of Santa in flight over the courthouse and downtown Albion. Stacey Kirby Steward created the 24-foot-long mural in 2018. Brian Porter made the bronze statue.

Photo by Tom Rivers

ALBION – The Town of Albion Highway Department has added more signage to draw attention to the underpass on Butts Road.

The signage warns to not have tall trucks go under the bridge and orange flags to draw more attention on previous signs. Together they should alert drivers to an underpass that is struck about three times a year, said Mike Neidert, the town highway superintendent.

The highway department added the new signs and orange flags north and south of the underpass, which has a clearance of 7 feet, 2 inches.

There is another underpass on a railroad bridge not far away on Keitel Road with an 8-foot, 6-inch clearance. Neidert thinks some drivers may confuse the two leading to some of the accidents and scrapes on Butts Road.

The town spent about $1,200 to try to reduce the accidents with the underpass.

9 churches, 65 volunteers joined in hosting event

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Jovannie Canales, associate pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship, speaks from the amphitheater stage on Saturday during Family Fun Day at Bullard Park. Harvest and eight other churches put on the event with a Christian message and also many free activities and food.

Canales is joined on the stage by his wife Melisa, left, and Faith Smith, director of the Orleans Koinonia Kitchen at Harvest.

Jovannie and Melisa Canales used to be the pastors at the Oasis Church in Medina, which started Family Fun Day. That church has merged with Harvest Christian Fellowship.

There were six Family Fun Days in Medina at Butts Park before the change to Albion on Saturday.

Jovannie Canales said eight people were baptized on Saturday, and 202 people made commitments or rededications to be Christians as followers of Jesus Christ.

These children use sling shots to fire away at Goliath, a giant, in one of the activities. There were several bounce houses and other games.

About 900 people attended Family Fun Day which used to be held at Butts Park in Medina. This year it shifted to Bullard in Albion.

Volunteers cooked 1,000 hot dogs which were given away for free. Charlie Broadway of the Risen Café, left, works the grill and is joined by John Austin.

There were 65 volunteers for the event on Saturday from nine different churches.

Several local agency leaders spoke at the event about services they provide in the community.

Alaina Fleming, who works for the county’s Office of Child and Family Services in the Department of Social Services, encouraged people to consider being foster families. She also spoke about the Safe Harbour program which tries to educate children and the community about the dangers of human trafficking. Fleming also shared about the youth court program with peers providing accountability for minor delinquent acts.

Faith Carini-Graves of Hillside Family of Agencies works as a psychiatric nurse practitioner at Hillside Family of Agencies. She said Hillside works across the state with youths and families that have experienced trauma and helps them to overcome challenges.

Sharon Sugar, office manager at Care Net of Greater Orleans, shares about the services offered at Care Net including pregnancy testing, education and limited ultrasounds. Besides pregnancy testing and support, Care Net also offers STI testing and parenting classes for both males and females.

Care Net gives out material aid such as diapers, wipes, blankets and clothing up to size 24 months, when available. The center also recently opened an art gallery.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – A ministry continues that was started by the late Angela English, who filled purses with personal care kits and offered to pray with people.

Eddie and Rose English, Angela’s parents, on Saturday were joined by friends in making 87 purses available for free. They were at the courthouse lawn for about six hours, giving away the purses and praying with people.

Eddie and Rose are leaders of The Lord’s House, a church in Waterport.

Angela was 37 when she passed away on Oct. 19, 2020. She was diagnosed with cancer on Dec. 27, 2019. Angela started the “Purses with a Purpose” ministry in 2018. She would give purses with toiletries to women in the Albion community.

There were 87 purses available on Saturday. They were filled with soaps, lotions, conditioners, a mirror and earrings. The purses also included messages from Angela’s children, Omar and Olivia Peterson, and information on the HPV vaccine that can help prevent cervical cancer.

Yolanda Rice, center in back, and Evelyn Brady pray with a group of young people.

Rose English said many in the community helped to acquire the purses and fill them, especially the women’s ministry group at the Oak Orchard Assembly of God in Medina.