Bronze statue in honor of Charles W. Howard to be dedicated June 10; more parade entries sought

Photo by Tom Rivers: The concrete footer that will be the base for a new bronze statue was poured in early May at Waterman Park on North Main Street. A bronze statue looking like Santa Claus will be dedicated after  the parade on June 10 at approximately 11:30 a.m. The 24-foot-long mural of Santa in flight over downtown Albion was created by Albion native Stacey Kirby Steward in 2018.

ALBION – The upcoming 35^th anniversary Strawberry Festival has a theme “Here Comes Santa!” The festival committee wants to celebrate the dedication of a bronze statue of Santa Claus.

The Albion betterment Committee has been raising money for the statue for about a decade. It will be dedicated after the parade on June 10 at about 11:30 a.m.

The statue is in honor of the late Charles W. Howard, who ran a Santa school in Albion from 1937 to 1966 and also operated Christmas Park. Howard is revered in the Santa community and a school still bears his name in Midland, Mich. that trains people portraying Santa Claus.

The Albion Betterment Committee encourages people, especially in the parade, to wear Santa hats, elf costumes or other Christmas costumes.

Participants in the Strawberry Festival 5k/8k will be giving Santa hats for the race at 8 a.m. on June 10 and the shirt for the race has a Santa and strawberry design. Click here for more on the race.

June Persia, the festival chairperson, said the event is coming together and will include some changes due to the Main Street lift bridge being out of service for a major rehabilitation project.

The parade route will end by turning onto West Bank Street, instead of crossing the bridge. With the bridge out of commission, that has allowed organizers to use part of North Main Street for some activities.

The section from Bank Street to Beaver Alley will host a cornhole tournament on Friday evening, June 9. There also will be alcohol available in a wine and beer tent in an event organized by Dubby’s Tailgate.

Persia said the festival mainstays will be back with about 60 craft vendors signed up so far, a full food court, a classic car show and a lineup of bands and entertainment.

She welcomes more floats and entries in the parade that starts at 10 a.m. on June 10. Those floats are needed to space out the marching bands and other musicians in the parade. For more information about being in the parade, reach out to Persia at 585-704-1994.

The “amazing turtle race,” which features 1,000 rubber turtles floating on the Erie Canal, will have a different starting point. The turtles are usually launched from the Main Street lift bridge. This time they will be let go from a Sheriff’s boat.

“I’m looking to bring the community together and to welcome people from outside Albion to see what our village is really about,” Persia said. “This has been a very successful event in the village. We want to see it grow.”

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – The drums, sound equipment and other instruments are ready for Sunday’s musical performances at the Pratt Opera House at 110-114 North Main St. in Albion.

This will be a rare musical event on the stage, one of only few in the past century. The event on Sunday starts at 2 p.m. and is expected to continue until 4:30 or 5 in an event called, “Sharing – the Joy of Music: Act 1.”

Michael Bonafede and his wife Judith Koehler has been working to restore the opera house since 2005. Bonafede hopes Sunday’ performances will be the beginning of a new era of live music on the third floor stage of the Pratt Music Hall. He has welcomed many of his friends and local musicians to perform on Sunday, and also is extending an invitation for other musicians to perform a solo on the stage, or bring their own band or play with the Pratt Music Hall Pit Band.

The pit band includes: Alona Kuhns – Bass; Don Mancuso – Guitar; Doug Egling & Marj Ketchum – Horns; Erin Moody – Vocals; Gary Simboli – Keyboard & vocals; Karen Conn – Vocals; Kate Egling – Vocals; Leon Corky Zak – keyboard; Lonnie Froman – Percussion; Mike Bonafede – Drums; Ron Albertson – Vocals; Shannon Vanderlaan – Vocals, Warren Jayne – Guitar.

The sound technicians include Larry “Rose” Crozier and DJ Button, with Mark Scarborough serving as the theater tech.

People are welcome to watch the musical acts in the theater. Spectators are encouraged to bring their own folding chairs, a cushion or a blanket for the show.

The Pratt Music Hall, built in 1882, has been a long-term project for the Bonafede-Koehler family and their friends.

They will be filming a promotional video for the theater as part of Sunday’s performance.

Tickets are available for free but people need to reserve a spot by calling Michael Bonafede at 585-749-1413, Judy Koehler at 585-749-1515 or DJ Button at 585-200-2400. Musicians seeking to perform should also call Bonafede.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Al Hand of the Albion Marching Band plays Taps to start the Memorial Day Parade in Albion this morning with local veterans in the Honor Guard.

Isaac Robinson carries one of the flags as part of the Honor Guard in today’s parade that went down Main Street to East Avenue, ending at the middle school where there was a service.

Charlie Nesbitt, a former assemblyman and helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, gave the keynote address during a service outside the middle school by the Vietnam War Memorial. Assemblyman Steve Hawley also gave remarks.

Mike Dalle of the Albion Fire Department mounted an American flag on a motorcycle.

Sophie Kozody carries the American flag for the Albion Marching Band today as the band lines up on East Park Street for the Memorial Day parade.

These three play the trumpet for the Albion marching band. From left include Al Hand, Dillon DiGiulio and Gabriella Dobo. This year’s theme for the marching band is Jersey Boys.

Jason Anstey leads the band as one of the drum majors.

The Boy Scouts joined the patriotic procession. Jax Gotte and Stryker Braley are carrying the flags.

Girl Scouts carried flags and waved to people along Main Street.

Camila Herzog, 2, watches the parade on Main Street with her family.

These members of the Ladies Auxiliary for the American Legion gather for a photo before the parade. They include, from left: Pam Taylor, Carolyn Gibson, Beverly Pualaski and Susan Befus. The auxiliary raised $1,626.55 through their poppy sales at Tops, Save-A-Lot and other businesses. The group will have its 5^thannual American Legion Auxiliary golf tournament on Aug. 26 at the Brown Road Golf Club in Albion.

File photo by Tom Rivers: Many Girl Scouts, Brownies and Daisies were part of the parade on May 29, 2017.

ALBION – Organizers of the Memorial Day parade in Albion are asking for participants in the May 29 parade and service to follow in front of the Albion Middle School.

The parade has typically included a procession of veterans, firefighters, the Albion Marching Band, scouts, the Knights of Columbus, and local elected officials.

The parade will form between 9 and 9:30 a.m. along North Main Street, facing south and on Park Streets on the east side of Main.

The parade will start at 10 a.m. south on Main Street to East Avenue, and then to the middle school.

The service will be held in front of the middle school at approximately 11 a.m. There is no rain date.

Those wishing to participate in the parade should contact parade co-chairmen Phil Warne and Matt Passarell by May 24, by sending an email to philwarne69@yahoo.com.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – There are seven “Hometown Hero” banners up for soldiers from Albion who were killed in the line of duty, including William Barnum who was killed on July 14, 1944. (His brother Eugene Barnum also was killed in World War II.)

Albion is placing seven of the banners up before Memorial Day. They are placed on Route 31 near the middle school campus where there is a Vietnam War Memorial and also where the community’s Memorial Day service is held.

Jason Johnston is the last soldier from Albion to be killed in the line of duty. He was 24 and a specialist and paratrooper in the Army when he was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Dec. 26, 2009.

The banner behind him shows the portrait of Rick Engle, who was killed in Vietnam when he was 19 on Feb. 2, 1968.

The Albion Department of Public Works also set up the banner in the downtown on Tuesday to promote the upcoming Strawberry Festival on June 9-10. Vance VanSkiver and Scott Bradshaw, DPW workers, put up this banner.

After the festival, the other Hometown Hero banners will be displayed and should be up until November. There are about 100 banners of soldiers in all.

Vance VanSkiver (in orange) and Scott Bradshaw work together to put up this banner in front of the Pullman Memorial Universalist Church on Main Street. The upcoming Strawberry Festival will be the 35^th time for the festival. For more on the Strawberry Fest, click here.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Womba Africa performed at Hoag Library on Monday evening. The group is from the town of Nungua in Ghana, West Africa.

They now live in Rochester. They perform in the region, promoting West African music and culture and seek to empower indigenous cultural groups to share their heritage through preforming arts.

Womba Africa performed in Albion as part of the new Hoag Music Series. The library doesn’t charge admission for the concerts and is welcoming musical artists to Orleans County who haven’t performed in Albion before.

Womba Africa is a cultural drum and dance group formed in the town of Nungua. The members are part of the Ga Adangbe People in greater Accra, Ghana, a tribe with a very rich history and culture quite distinct from other major ethnic groups.

The Hoag concerts include funding from the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by GO ART!

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Mary McCormick, an Albion student, reads “The American’s Creed” on Saturday during a book unveiling celebration about Mount Albion Cemetery.

Students in Tim Archer’s seventh-grade service learning class worked to create the book that is about 50 pages and includes many details about the historic cemetery on Route 31 that opened in 1843.

Adelaide Pettit hands out copies of the book to people who attended the book unveiling celebration. The Orleans County chapter of DAR paid for the costs to print 200 of the books. They are available on a first come, first served basis at Hoag Library.

Julia Graham, an Albion seventh-grader, shares how the cemetery was accredited as an arboretum in 2022. The cemetery has more than 1,100 trees in 66 different species. Graham also spoke about the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a Civil War memorial that is 68 feet high and lists 466 people from Orleans County who were killed during the Civil War.

Other students speakers included Aniela Wilson, Cordelia Rivers, Sophia Bouchey, Omer Fugate and Adelaide Pettit.

Tim Archer, the service learning teacher, thanked the students and many people who contributed to the book, providing documents, photos and other information.

Archer’s class has done several preservation projects in the community in the past two decades, including at Mount Albion.

Some historical facts about the cemetery include:

• The Village Board appointed committee on April 12, 1842 to find land suitable for a public cemetery.
• Mount Albion established on Sept. 7, 1843 with Marvin Potter serving as the landscape engineer.
• First lots for Mount Albion sold on Sept. 11, 1843.
• More than 25,000 graves
• Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Sept. 27, 1976, first site in Orleans County to go on the list.
• 310 obelisks, 1,167 trees, three entrances, eight mausoleums, 10 hitching posts, six horse foot stompers and nine marble slabs in the Civil War memorial tower.
• 68-foot high tower, in honor 466 Orleans County residents killed in the Civil War
• The First Baptist Church in 1859 offering vault to cemetery to store bodies during the winter. • • In 1881, the sandstone archway with iron gates constructed at the entrance.
• More recently, in 1982 the spring house and lagoon were dedicated to firefighters who have departed from the Albion Fire Department.
• In 2022, the cemetery was officially accredited as an arboretum with over 1,100 trees and 66 species.
• The book includes highlights of about 50 notable residents of the cemetery. Rufus Bullock, who was elected governor of Georgia in 1868, is among those included. More recently, Craig H. Anderson was buried in the cemetery in 1973. He died of leukemia following his senior year after a standout career in Albion as a student athlete. The high school gym is named in his honor. Donna Rodden, a former Albion mayor who advocated for historical preservation, died in 1985. The cemetery chapel is dedicated in her memory.
• 25 miles of avenues, roads, walks and pathways
• The book also lists about 80 other cemeteries in the county, including several with less than 10 burials.
• There also is a list of caretakers and superintendents in the cemetery’s history. Jason Zicari has served in the role for 27 years since 1996. (Archer thanked Zicari, the superintendent foreman, for his dedication to the upkeep of the cemetery. “This is a beautiful place,’ Archer said. “It is not easy to maintain.”)

Matt Ballard, a former Orleans County historian who now works at Davidson College in North Carolina, wrote the epilogue for the book. He also spoke during Saturday’s ceremony.

“This cemetery stands not only as a sanctuary for the mourning, but as a destination for community gathering and shared experience,” Ballard writes in the book’s epilogue. “Despite the common end for all those who rest eternally within the gates of Mount Albion, the grounds represent both an end and a beginning, where those who are gone are never forgotten.”

Ballard, during his remarks, said walking in Mount Albion in the spring, when the flowers and trees are in bloom, “is one of my most cherished memories.”

DAR members attended the celebration, including from left Patrice Berner, the chapter’s treasurer and a national officer; Penny Nice, a member and state officer; and Sharon Schneider, the local DAR regent.

The DAR was happy to contribute to the project highlighting Mount Albion.

“Our objectives are education, historic preservation and patriotism, and this fits those objectives,” Nice said about the book.

Penny Nice of the DAR thanked the students and Mr. Archer for their work on the book celebrating Mount Albion Cemetery. Behind here are Boy Scouts from Troop 164 – Jax Gotte, Stryker Braley and Owen Monaghan.

Bill Lattin, retired Orleans County historian, led a tour of Mount Albion after the book unveiling. Here Lattin and the group stop by the grave of Stewart John Flintham. His collection of bird eggs from more than a century ago is on display at Hoag Library. Flintham was killed in a California forest fire in 1925.

They are shown just west of the chapel. Lattin noted that structure is symmetrical and one of the chimneys is fake and was included to give balance to the building.

Lattin also discusses Amos Clift and the statue of a dog that is symbolically guarding Clift’s grave. Clift’s gravestone and the dog were recently cleaned are are nearly white, compared to others nearby that need a cleaning. Clift was a farmer by the canal in the Gaines Basin. He died in 1872.

Lattin shared many anecdotes, humorous and poignant, about other residents in the cemetery in a 45-minute tour.

Jeremy Graham takes over as new fire chief for AFD

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Albion Deputy Chief John Papponetti, left, and outgoing Fire Chief Rob Conner present the firefighter of the year award to Emma Klaver during the ALD installation banquet and awards presentation on Saturday evening at the Carlton Rec Hall.

Klaver was praised for completing training to serve as an interior and exterior firefighter, and also as an EMT (emergency medical technician).

Klaver, 19, joined the department almost two years ago and pushed to complete training to better serve the department an community. She is among the top responders for the fire department, and also works full-time for Mercy Flight EMS based in Albion. She also is working on a college degree in equestrian management.

“When I join something I like to push it as far as I can go,” she said.

Klaver said she has made many friends through the Albion Fire Department and Mercy Flight, and the groups have been very welcoming.

She joined the fire department partly through her boyfriend AJ Fisher’s involvement. He was the department firefighter of the year for 2021-22. Klaver also said she was inspired by her grandfather Paul Gillette, a long-time member of the Barre Volunteer Fire Company.

Jeremy Graham, shown in this file photo from January 2018, is the fire department’s new chief, taking over for Rob Conner, who served two years in the role. Graham’s term was effective beginning May 1.

Graham, 43, was the department first lieutenant in 2022-23, and previously served five years as a deputy chief.

He joined the department soon after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, including 343 New York City firefighters.

Graham works as a maintenance mechanic for the Village of Albion water treatment plant. He will lead a fire department that responds to about 500 to 600 calls a year.

“I like the Albion people and it’s rewarding to help the other people in their time of need.”

Graham will represent the fire department at Village Board meetings, monthly firehouse meetings and with the County Fire Advisory Board and with the Fire Chiefs’ Association. He praised the commitment of 50 active volunteer firefighters in the department, and also said the AFD has an experienced and dedicated group of officers.

Fred Piano presents Dylan Marx with EMS Responder of the Year.

Steven Papponetti, left, accepts the officer of the year award from Rob Conner, the outgoing fire chief.

Nathan Bloom, the Albion Fire Department president, presented the president’s award to his wife Chrissy for all of her support helping him in the role. She serves as the secretary on the department’s executive committee.

Rob Conner, right, presented a “Chief’s Award” to John Papponetti. Conner also said a “Chief’s Award” will go to Jeremy Babcock. Conner said the Papponetti and Babcock are instrumental in responding to many calls and with the departments leadership.

Babcock was unable to attend the annual banquet on Saturday. He was the department’s top responder in 2022-23. The top 10 responders based on percentage of calls, training and meetings include Babcock, followed by AJ Fisher, Rob Conner, Austin Zobel, Dylan Marks, Brianna Caldwell, John Papponetti, Fred Piano, Allyson Irwin and Steven Papponetti.

Justin Niederhofer (left) leads the officers and executive committee in taking their oaths of office. Niederhofer is the county’s emergency management coordinator.

The 2023-24 fire company officers include:

• Jeremy Graham as chief
• John Papponetti as deputy chief
• James Peruzzini Jr. as assistant chief
• Steven Papponetti as captain
• Matt Francis as first lieutenant
• Fred Piano as second lieutenant
• Jeremy Babcock as third lieutenant
• Harry Papponetti as chief mechanic
• Brianna Caldwell as EMS lieutenant.

The 2023-24 executive committee includes:

• Nathan Bloom as president
• James Harris as vice president
• Kristen Marciszewski as financial secretary
• Kelly Irwin as assistant treasurer
• Christine Bloom as secretary
• Janet Cheverie, Dylan Marx and Kristen Marciszewski as directors.

Years of Service Awards:

• 5 years – Chrissy Bloom, Kristen Marciszewski, Nick Pahura and Paul Urquhart
• 10 years – Jeremy Babcock, Andrew Cheverie, Janet Cheverie, Dawn Marciszewski, Susan Papponetti, Jim Peruzzini, Beau Piskorowski and Barb Szklany.
• 15 years – Adam Fisher and Will Francis Jr.
• 20 years – Jenny Johnston
• 25 years – Scott Papponetti
• 40 Years – Mike Salvatore
• 45 years – Tim Irwin

Jeremy Graham, Albion’s new fire chief at left, presents a charred flag with a picture of outgoing Fire Chief Rob Conner with his wife Amber who is an Albion firefighter, son Hunter who is a Carlton firefighter, and young sons Lucas and Brantley. Dale Banker, second from left, served as the master of ceremonies and John Papponetti, the deputy chief, assisted with the presentation.

Rob Conner hugs Jeremy Graham after receiving the gift from the department in appreciation for his two years as fire chief.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Saul Harrison cooks chicken and ribs this afternoon behind the Cone Zone in Albion at 317 East Ave. Today was opening day for Daisy’s Sweet Sauce.

Harrison started the business as a tribute to his late mother. He has cooked ribs and chicken for family and friends, and for barbecues at Shiloh Church. He makes his own sauces – barbecue, Liquid Gold and butterscotch. Cooking for other people makes him think of his mother, and how she loved to cook for her family, even when she was going through dialysis. She would make family members their favorite meal when it was their birthdays.

“It’s enjoyment to feed people and get their reaction,” Harrison said.

Saul Harrison and his wife Connie take a brief pause during a busy first day for Daisy’s Sweet Sauce. They sold about 100 dinners in the first two hours. Staci Palmer is in back cooking the chicken and ribs.

Harrison and his family will be behind the Cone Zone on Saturdays from 1 p.m. until sold out, and also will be there on some Fridays.

Harrison works full-time for the county as a youth care worker, and also three night shifts for Walmart during the week.

He will promote other organizations and efforts in the community at Daisy’s Sweet Sauce, including recruiting for foster parents. “We’re in dire need,” he said.

Saul Harrison stands a banner that shows him with his late parents, Saul and Daisy.

The meals from Daisy’s Sweet Sauce will typically include salt potatoes and cowboy beans as sides.