Photos by Tom Rivers

MEDINA – Several downtown Medina businesses are decked out for the holidays with lights, decorations and Santa themes as part of their window displays.

Some businesses, including Della’s Chocolates (below), have even decorated the second floor of their buildings.

The Medina Business Association and Medina Tourism Committee on Saturday will celebrate their seventh annual Old Tyme Medina Christmas Celebration. The events run from 9 a.m. to late in the evening, highlighted by a parade of lights at 6 p.m.

To see the schedule, click here.

DPW strings lights on trees at State Street Park, with Main Street planned for Monday

Photos by Tom Rivers – Ben Lacy of the Medina Department of Public Works strings lights on a tree at State Street Park today.

John Fike, left, and Ben Lacy of the DPW get a tree ready for the holidays. They used a bucket truck to string lights on two trees in the park today. The DPW is scheduled to hang the lights and decorations on Main Street on Monday.

The Main Street lights won’t be turned on until before the Parade of Lights starts at 6 p.m. on Nov. 30. About 40 lighted floats are expected for the fifth annual parade.

The DPW will also set up a 30-foot-high tree by the Santa House in Rotary Park next week. That tree will be lighted in a ceremony at 5:30 p.m. before the parade.

Medina has many activities planned for Nov. 30, its seventh annual Olde Tyme Christmas celebration. New to the event will be a 5-kilometer run at 9 a.m.

For more on the day’s events, click here.

Provided photo

MEDINA – The Medina Lions Club is embarking on its annual poinsettia sale, where profits are used to fight blindness, decorate State Street Park for Christmas and to help fund other causes in the community.

Pictured include, from left: Lions Club member Bridgette Yaxley, President Dave Bellucci and Lions member Laura Gardner.

The flowers are for sale from any Lions member or they can be ordered through the Medina Lions Club Facebook page or by emailing dbellack@yahoo.com. There are two delivery dates. To have poinsettias for Dec. 6 they need to be ordered by Dec. 2. For the Dec. 13 delivery, they need to be ordered by Dec. 9.

Provided photo – Elizabeth McCarthy, 9, for the third time has donated some of her hair to Locks of Love. She holds the donated hair on Saturday after getting it cut.

MEDINA – Every two years since she was 5, Elizabeth McCarthy has had her long hair cut so she could donate her tresses to Locks of Love, an organization that provides wigs to children suffering hair loss from cancer and other illnesses.

Elizabeth, 9, had 10 inches cut from her hair on Saturday. Gretchen Carr of Sheer Elegance in Medina cut the hair. She put the hair in special bags to be sent to Locks of Love.

“She feels like she is helping kids who are going through something very difficult,” said Stacy McCarthy, Elizabeth’s mother.

Elizabeth first had her hair cut for Locks of Love when she was 5. It took her two years to grow her hair long again. Then she told her mother she wanted to have it cut for Locks of Love.

She did it again on Saturday.

“I’m very proud of her,” Elizabeth’s mother said. “She doesn’t just want her hair cut. She has the presence of mind to want her hair donated. It makes me proud.”

For more of Locks of Love, click here.

Photos by Tom Rivers – A former carriage barn was in a pile of rubble today after a fire Monday at the site on the Walsh Alley off Prospect Street.

Press release, Medina Fire Department

MEDINA – A fire on Monday at a former carriage house behind 228 Park Avenue has been deemed a total loss. Officials from the Medina Fire Department and Police Department are investigating, and no cause has been ruled out at this point.

The Medina Fire Department was dispatched to the scene at 6:08 p.m. along with one engine from Shelby and a FAST crew from Lyndonville.

Initially the call was for a structure fire behind the old Maplecrest restaurant. But the fire proved to be at an old barn behind Park Avenue. The structure was a carriage house in the alley behind the property, known as Walsh Alley.

On arrival, Engine 11 encountered heavy fire blowing out the doors and windows of the structure. Two sides of the fire building had exposures close by, one being a garage to the west and the house to the south side.

Firefighters douse the blaze with water. Several fire companies responded to the scene.

A second alarm was struck by command and that brought Ridgeway to the scene with an engine and manpower. The firehouse was covered with a crew and a rescue truck from East Shelby, one engine and crew from Middleport, a FAST crew from Albion and an ambulance from COVA in Albion.

Medina Truck 40 established an aerial water stream for extinguishment as well as exposure protection. Shortly after that there was a collapse of the building, which was planned for by firefighters. Albion’s FAST crew then moved up to the scene to stand by with Lyndonville’s FAST crew.

A personnel accountability report was called for by command and all crews were accounted for without any injuries. The bulk of the fire was knocked down shortly thereafter and contained to the carriage house.

To ensure all smoldering piles of the structure were extinguished, the Village DPW crews brought in heavy equipment. This allowed fire crews to have better access to some areas still burning. All crews were clear of the scene at about 11 p.m.

Walsh Alley was a lane for residents to bring their horse and carriages to their barns in an era before the automobile. One hitching post remains in the alley.

MEDINA – Firefighters are battling a fire in an old carriage barn on Walsh Alley, off Prospect Street in Medina. The fire has been contained to one building. We will have more information soon.

MEDINA – It was Columbus Day weekend and Mike and Jaime Beach were out for a walk along the towpath in Medina when they heard some yelling.

The Albion couple was walking along the towpath last month, trying to find a spot to see the Medina Waterfalls. They on a stroll a little west of the Horan Road bridge on the towpath. Then they saw a group of kayakers emerge from a tunnel that allows the Oak Orchard Creek to flow under the canal.

The kayakers had nowhere to go but over the falls. The Beaches watched the group plunge 40 feet over the falls. One of them landed upside down in the water. He was able to right-size and the group kept paddling down the creek.

“I was nervous for them and in disbelief,” Mr. Beach said today.

He took a video of the kayakers with his iPhone and shared it with the Orleans Hub after seeing Friday’s article about the Medina Falls. (Click here to see it.)The Beaches used to live in Medina. That’s when they discovered the waterfalls.

They like to stop back to go see it. They often go for a walk ner the falls and they have also seen it while kayaking the Oak Orchard, using the boat launch at Glenwood Lake.

“It’s a really cool spot,” Beach said today.

Photo by Tom Rivers – The Medina Waterfalls is north of the canal near the Horan Road bridge.

Photos by Tom Rivers

MEDINA – An old carriage barn burned to the ground tonight in a blaze that firefighters feared could have spread to neighboring structures because of the close setbacks on Walsh Alley.

Firefighters were on scene a little before 6 p.m. and discovered the barn was already fully engulfed. Firefighters focused on saving the neighboring structures at the alley off Prospect Street.

At about 8 p.m., when most of the barn had collapsed, an excavator was brought in to knock down the remaining pieces of the building that were still standing. Firefighters didn’t want those pieces to fall on a neighboring garage, causing another fire.

The carriage barn was used at the former Houseman Funeral Home at 228 Park Ave. The property had been vacant about two years and firefighters thought the site was in foreclosure.

The fire is under investigation. The western battalion – Medina, East Shelby, Lyndonville, Ridgeway and Shelby fire companies – all responded to fire. Some of the firefighters were expected to be on scene most of the night.

Photos by Tom Rivers – Library patrons, including Manjaree Mahanti (center), read in the newly remodeled Lee-Whedon Memorial Library. The library closed for five weeks for the renovations. It reopened last week.

MEDINA – The library used to feel and look like a big long room all painted in the same color, a beige-yellow. The carpet was also one solid color.

“It was kind of blah,” said Catherine Cooper, director of the Lee-Whedon Memorial Library.

But not anymore. The library is now full of color – on the walls and on the floor. The walls have been painted green, blue and yellow. The carpet has circles and other designs to help delineate spaces in the library. The library also has many pedant lights that hang from the ceiling.

“People have been very happy,” Cooper said Friday at the redone site on West Avenue. “They like the warmth.”

The contents of the library were removed and put in storage units for five weeks while the contractor, Sicoli Construction Services of Niagara Falls, gave the library a new look inside. The project also replaced the ceiling, and added many new high-speed Internet access points and upgraded computer technology.

Library director Catherine Cooper sits in one of the reupholstered chairs. She said the remodeled library adds “warmth” and technology. Many of the new design features also help to delineate spaces in the library.

Lee-Whedon used to have cords stretched across the floor for people to plug into the Internet. Now there are six “power chairs” that have power hook-ups right in the chairs. Cooper said more power plug-ins will be added to tables for patrons.

She likes a new teen area that includes two of the power chairs. There is also a divider with a big circle cutout for people to walk through into the teen space. That helps give teens the feeling of their own spot in the library.

Lee-Whedon opened the 11,000-square-foot library in 1966. The inside of the building didn’t change too much for nearly a half century until the five-week construction project from Sept. 28 to Nov. 1.

Lee-Whedon paid $272,000 for the improvements. A state grant could pay for half of the costs.

Cooper said the project brings Lee-Whedon into the 21^st Century.

The library would like to work on the children’s area in another project next year.

“We’d like to have a storybook entrance and make it more welcoming,” Cooper said. “First we need to catch our breath and then we will do more.”

This picture was taken looking out from the teen area to the main floor of the library. Lee-Whedon wanted to make a space that was dedicated for teens.

Photos by Tom Rivers – More than 100 Civil War re-enactors marched down Main Street as part of the Civil War encampment in April.

MEDINA – They are coming back for another parade through historic Medina, two days of battles in a field next to Genesee Community College, and other “living history” programs.

Civil War re-enactors this past April did a series of events in Medina in a partnership with GCC. The event went so well, with so much support from the community, that GCC has committed to two more years of Civil War initiatives in Medina, including encampments.

Those two years will fall within the 150^th anniversary of the war, which ended in 1865. GCC may extend the Civil War events after 2015. The college has committed funding and resources for the next two years, said Derek Maxfield, Civil War Initiative coordinator and a history professor at GCC.

Re-enactors were prominent in Medina, including a downtown parade, during the encampment in April.

When GCC proposed Medina as a host for the initiative, the village government and several local civic groups joined the effort. The groups planned the parade that went from St. Mary’s Catholic Church, through Main Street and to the Medina Railroad Museum.

The encampment is planned for April 25-27 in 2014. This time the parade on Saturday is planned to start near the museum and go through the downtown, with the re-enactors heading to Boxwood Cemetery for a memorial service.

“The re-enactors said the experience in Medina was unique,” Maxfield said.

The encampment also includes formal lectures and artifact displays.

“We’ve merged the living history with the academic element,” Maxfield said.

Re-enactors “battle” in a field next to the GCC campus on Route 31A during an encampment last April.

Press release, Orleans Habitat for Humanity

MEDINA – Five Star Bank has donated $5,000 to Orleans Habitat for Humanity, money that will go towards a project on West Oak Orchard Street in the village of Medina.

Orleans Habitat is very grateful to Five Star for its commitment to the local community and its willingness to support local projects, Habitat leaders said in a news release.

“Five Star Bank is proud to support such a meaningful causes as Habitat for Humanity,” said Marty Griffith, regional president for the bank. “We firmly believe that as a community bank we have an obligation to support the communities in which we live and work. We thank the Orleans County Habitat for their hard work and dedication to making Orleans County a great place to live.”

Five Star has sites in Albion and Medina.

Orleans Habitat is a non-profit group dedicated to helping provide simple, decent housing to those in need in Orleans County. The all-volunteer organization welcomes new supporters. For more information, check the group’s web site at www.orleanshfh.org.

SYRACUSE – The Medina Mustang Marching Band made it five state titles in a row on Sunday by winning the Governor’s Cup at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse.

Medina scored 91.50 in the Small School 1 category to claim the title from six other schools in the division as part of the NYS Field Band Conference Championship.

The Medina band has 130 members. This year’s program features an Olympic theme, “The Pursuit of Gold.” Marching band directors Jim Steele and Cheri Pritchard lead the program.

Medina’s 91.50 score topped the following schools: New Hartford, 89.90; East Irondequoit, 86.35; Oswego, 85.15; East Syracuse Minoa, 84.65; Mohonasen, 83.00; and Le Roy, 80.75.