30 of 42 prisons reopen for legal visits today

File photo by Tom Rivers: Orleans Correctional Facility, a medium security men’s prison on Gaines Basin Road in Albion, will resume legal visits inmates today.

ALBION – The state is resuming legal visits at 30 of the 42 prisons beginning today. That is the first time for legal visits after a strike at the prisons started about a month ago.

The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision declared the strike over a week ago, and said 2,000 corrections officers had been fired after not reporting to work on the March 10 deadline.

The strike started on Feb. 17 at Elmira and Collins, and by the next day spread to most of the other prisons, including Albion and Orleans.

DOCCS said legal visitations for incarcerated people and their attorneys returns today at Orleans, Wyoming, Wende, Attica, Collins and 30 prisons in all.

Albion Correctional, a women’s prison, is listed to reopen for legal visits in the next 1 to 2 weeks but a specific date is to be determined. Albion is among nine prisons to have legal visits resuming in 1 to 2 weeks. Three prisons – Bare Hill, Sing Sing and Upstate – are “indeterminate” for when visits will resume.

Press Release, Orleans/Niagara BOCES

MEDINA – Congratulations to Culinary Arts teacher Chef James Atzrott and his ProStart team of Emily Chambers (Medina), Selena Wolf (Lockport), Tirsa Converso (Medina) and Justine Fitzsimmons (Medina).

The team, from the Orleans/Niagara BOCES’ Orleans Career and Technical Education Center, took first place at the NYSRA (New York State Restaurant Association) ProStart Invitational held at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. They will be representing the state at the National ProStart Invitational May 2-4 in Baltimore, Maryland.

ProStart is a two-year, industry-backed culinary arts and restaurant management program for high school students that integrates practical skill sets and allows students to become familiar with restaurants and food service and prepare them for the workforce.

The team’s menu consisted of flat iron steak with tri-colored baby carrots, polenta fries with a chimichurri sauce and strawberry fraiser for dessert. The team competed against seven other teams and were thrilled they came out on top of the competition.

“We cried every day from the stress of everything,” says Selena Wolf.  “We were very emotional and they were things that were going wrong like the burners being higher than what we practiced with and having to use plastic thermometers as opposed to metal. We finished with seven seconds left.”

The team said they started screaming when they were announced as the winners and then it was Chef Atzrott’s turn to cry.

“We were so excited and so glad to have won it for our teacher,” Selena Wolf said. “We are so ready to go to Baltimore and hopefully win there, too!”

HOLLEY/ALBION – The Holley Interact Club prepared more than 600 meals last week to be served at the Open Door Mission in Rochester and the Orleans Koinonia Kitchen in Albion.

The Interact Club includes about 80 students committed to community service. The club embraced a “Feed the Need” initiative.

Photo by Tom Rivers: Interact Club members are shown are making 140 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches last Wednesday in the junior/senior high school cafeteria.

Those sandwiches were delivered to the Open Door Mission on Friday. Students decorated bags with artwork and added inspirational messages for 70 bags. Each bag had two sandwiches, chips and juice.

Provided photo: High School Principal Matt Feldman greets students working on the bagged lunches for the Open Door Mission.

This was the second year that the Holley Interactors made sandwiches for the Open Door Mission. Thursday the group served at the “OK Kitchen” for the first time after club advisor Sam Zelent saw a social media post by kitchen director Faith Smith, seeking help preparing and serving meals for one of the Thursdays.

The Holley community donated the food for a sloppy joe dinner, including 90 pounds of ground beef, 83 cans of Manwich, 83 jars of peas, 500 Little Debbie snacks and a $100 from Wegmans. The Holley school kitchen staff cooked the sloppy joes which were then reheated at the OK Kitchen.

“Honestly it was the community that did this,” Zelent, a social worker, said Wednesday about the food.

The following day she and club co-advisor Erin Dibble were with eight Interact students to prepare and serve the food at the OK Kitchen, which is located at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Albion on Route 31.

Photo by Tom Rivers: Sam Zelent, the co-advisor of the Holley Interact Club, gives the group a pep talk before they served sloppy joes last Thursday at the OK Kitchen. Clockwise from Zelent include MacKenzie Fiorito, Lily Moore, Brianna Pellegrino, Leon Wilcox, Charli Gearing, Madie Lowell, Kylie Dann, Joscelyn Underwood and the back of Erin Dibble.

Provided photos: (Left) Brianna Pellegrino and Lily Moore are on cleanup duty at the OK Kitchen. (Right) MacKenzie Fiorito and Joscelyn Underwood greeted the community with smiles while working in the OK Kitchen last Thursday. The students arrived at 1 p.m. and stayed until well after 6.

The Holley Interact Club was amazed by the OK Kitchen and the commitment of the volunteers led by director Faith Smith.

The Interactors would like to be back again soon helping at the kitchen, even though it isn’t located right in Holley.

“Orleans County is a small county and we need to stick together,” Zelent said.

Charli Gearing, right, and the Interactors serve in the food last Thursday.

“I gained a lot of knowledge about my community and its needs and that there should be more opportunities like this for us younger kids to help make a difference,” she said.

Another student, Madie Lowell, said the experience was “eye opening.” She is impressed by the volunteers to help out every week, preparing and serving an average of 500 meals.

Faith Smith, the OK Kitchen director, said she appreciated the service and the enthusiasm from the Holley students. She welcomes more groups to try preparing and serving a meal. They can contact her at (585) 319-1578 or by email at mesilly12@yahoo.com.

The Interact Club is also looking forward to its next big event, the community cleanup on May 17 when they pick up litter along the canal trail, village streets and parks.

Photos by Tom Rivers

KENDALL – Mike Hallowell starred as Willy Wonka in Kendall’s production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on Friday and Saturday.

He is shown singing the “Golden Age of Chocolate” with the Oompa-Loompas, which work in his chocolate factory. Wonka announces that he is retiring and he must choose a new successor.

Kayla Minster is in the role of Charlie Bucket and she comforts her father, Ryan Gaesser after he was laid off from his job at the toothpaste factor. Charlie sings “Think Positive” and encourages her dad to not give up.

Charlie lives in an impoverished with four bedridden grandparents. From left include Grandpa George (Sammy Conte), Grandma Georgina (Kierra Davenport), Grandma Josephine (Brooke Rodas) and Grandpa Joe (Karter May).

Grandpa Joe predicts Charlie will one day be working in the Wonka factory.

These kids hold lollipops while performing “The Candy Man.”

The Candy Man (Mike Hallowell) greets the children and sells them Wonka bars. Charlie is the only kid too poor to afford a candy bar. She helps The Candy Man and is given a lollipop and a newspaper. Charlie takes the newspaper home and finds out Wonka has a contest with five golden tickets hidden in candy bars. The winners get a tour of his factory and lifetime supply of chocolate.

Augustus Gloop (Noah Morehouse), an over-sized German boy who loves to eat, gets the first golden ticket. He sings, “I Eat More!” and tries to sample the desserts.

Phineous Trout (Emma O’Neill), a reporter, interviews the very spoiled Veruca Salt (Adrianna Schiavone) who has the second golden ticket. Her father Mr. Salt (Lucas Wachtel), owner of a very successful nut company, made his factory workers open hundreds of thousands of candy bars in search of the ticket.

Violet Beauregarde (Elli Baker) gets the third golden ticket. She is abrasive and loves to chew gum. She is joined in the interview by her mother, right, played by Irelynn Maloney.

Maddie Teavee, played by Madison Hults, finds the fourth golden ticket. Teavee loves video games and cell phones. Riley Passer plays her mother, Ms. Teavee.

Grandpa Joe (Karter May) is delighted when Charlie wins the fifth and final golden ticket. Charlie invites Grandpa Joe to join her on the trip to the chocolate factory and grandpa is so happy he gets out of bed for the first time in years, singing “(I’ve) Got a Golden Ticket.”

In the factory tour, the group gets whittled down after failing temptations until the final person is left. That is the one Wonka wants to take over his factory.

First building was demolished in 1893, and second fell into disrepair and was razed in 1969

The first Presbyterian Church in Knowlesville was constructed in 1832, and then demolished in 1893 when a new building was erected.

By Catherine Cooper, Orleans County Historian 

“Illuminating Orleans” – Volume 5, No. 11

“Like all things earthly, passing away,

“The old brick church may no longer stay,

“Though dear to our hearts as our childhood home,

“Within its walls we may no longer come.

“Now lingering near the old church ground,

“We hear the busy workmen’s sound

“And see the fragments here and there

“Of what was once our house of prayer”

These lines, composed by Mrs. I.O. Root in 1893 concerning the demolition of the first Presbyterian Church building in Knowlesville, still resonate. They capture that acute feeling of loss that is felt when a church closes and remind us that nothing is permanent.

The early settlers in this area, having first built their homes, soon turned their attention to providing a place of worship. On August 27, 1817, the following eleven people convened at the Oak Orchard schoolhouse and formed the First Religious Society of the Town of Ridgeway: Orange Wells, Leonard Dresser, Daniel Gates, Elizabeth Whipple, Mary Ann Taylor, Lois Robbins and Sarah Lawrence, Dr. William White, Archy B. Lawrence, Martha Marsh and Anna Sheldon.

At that time the township comprised the present townships of Ridgeway, Barre, Shelby, Yates, Carlton and Gaines, all but four of the present towns which had not yet been named.

At first, the Society affiliated with the Congregationalists, but in 1820 resolved unanimously to unite with the Presbytery of Rochester. For the first fifteen years, meetings were held in homes, schoolhouses and barns.

The Holland Land Company provided a tract of one hundred acres to the first organized religious society in a township. The new trustees secured this “Gospel lot.”

With the completion of the Erie Canal, a settlement grew in the area later named Knowlesville. In 1831, the Society voted to accept a piece of land from John Aldrich and to purchase as much as was necessary for the site of a church building from John Vedder at the rate of $50 per half-acre.

A Federal style brick building was erected at a cost of $3,500. William Knowles provided half of the cost. The building was dedicated in 1832 and remodeled in 1861. It was demolished in 1893. A second brick church was built on the same site at a cost of $12,000. The Gospel Lot was sold at that time, and the proceeds were used for construction costs.

The second Knowlesville Presbyterian Church building, constructed in 1893, was demolished in 1969.

The “New Brick Church,” Victorian Romanesque in style, was dedicated in 1894. It flourished for many years, but closed in 1964, due to declining attendance. The parish was dissolved, and the physical assets were turned over to the Rochester Presbytery. The church building was demolished in 1969 as it had fallen into disrepair.

Today, a vacant lot remains on the north side of the street where the church was once located but its presence is still remembered by the street name: Presbyterian Street.

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Kyler Preston steers the Batavia Pedal Party down Main Street in Albion for the Sip N’ Stroll. The pedal bar and a bus helped move people to the 15 stops at the event, where registration was at Dubby’s Tailgate and many of the stops were in the downtown.

The Albion Merchants Association organized the event and sold 362 tickets. There was a big increase in men attending the event. Organizers tried to expand the offerings from more than wine to cater to the men. There were also tastings of ciders, beers, meads and other drinks.

Christin Cady pours wine from Lake Ontario Winery and Cidery which is based in Hilton and Webster. She was set up at Brushstrokes Studios.

The crowd makes its way into Brushstrokes to sample some of the alcoholic beverages.

This family from Albion attended the Sip N’ Stroll together. They are pictured at 39 Problems. Pictured from left includes Thomas St. Pierre Jr., Brooke St. Pierre, Ashleigh Barnard, Richard Barnard III and Edwina St. Pierre.

Circle B Winery in Elba served fruit wines at Arnold’s Auto Parts. From left include Circle B staff member Ashley Roesch and co-owner Ingrid Bowen. The winery has been in business for six years has 22 varieties with no sugar added. From right include two friends from Medina, Sandy Thaine and Loretta Smith. They said they enjoy trying the different wines at the Sip N’ Stroll each year.

These retired Holley teachers and coaches, Dan Goodwin (right) and John Grillo, try wine inside the Downtown Browsery. It was served by Riley Kibler of Main Street Winery in Arcade.

These friends, many of whom are in a zumba class together, met up for the Sip N’ Stroll. They are shown inside Tinsel and the Lockstone. From left include Mollie Radzinski, Maggie Martin, Tina Neal, Heidi Peterson, Brenda Griffin, Angie Wolfe, Julie Sanford and Carolyn Williams.

They group said the tasting event showcases many of the businesses in the downtown while giving friends a fun outing together.

“We have a lot of nice spots,” Wolfe said the businesses.

The group hopped on the pedal bar after the stop at Tinsel and then crossed the bridge over the canal.

A wind advisory was issued at 3:06 a.m. today for Orleans County and continues until 8 p.m.

There will be south winds from 20 to 30 miles per hour with gusts up to 50 mph, becoming southwest later this afternoon, the National Weather Service said.

The advisory also includes Niagara, northern Erie and Genesee counties.

Today there will be showers and possibly a thunderstorm before 4 p.m., then showers likely between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. There will be a high near 71, with the temperature then dropping to a low of 32 tonight.

The highs then include 38 on Monday, 57 on Tuesday, 66 on Wednesday and 51 on Thursday.

The Swallow Hollow Trail is 1.3-mile loop and includes the 2,000-foot boardwalk that takes pedestrians through a  marsh, forested wetlands and upland habitat.

Press Release, Maison Albion

Provided photo: Maison Albion will celebrate its fifth anniversary on April 12 with a formal gala with a Regency/Bridgerton theme.

ALBION – Maison Albion, a premier event venue in Western New York, proudly announces its fifth anniversary celebration to be held on April 12. This milestone event will showcase the venue’s commitment to creating magical experiences with an exquisite evening of fine dining, dancing, and entertainment.

The anniversary gala will transport guests to the elegant Regency era with a carefully curated experience featuring exceptional cuisine, live music, and artistic elements that highlight the venue’s unique aesthetic and charm.

“We are thrilled to celebrate five beautiful years of creating unforgettable moments at Maison Albion,” said Kerri Glover, owner of Maison Albion. “This anniversary celebration reflects our dedication to excellence and our gratitude to the community that has supported us throughout our journey.”

Event Highlights:

• Culinary Excellence: Zambistro will serve a specially crafted four-course custom menu featuring seasonal ingredients and artful presentation, elevating the dining experience to new heights.
• Live Artistic Experience: Paige’s Creations will offer guests the opportunity to have live watercolor portraits painted as a commemorative keepsake of this special evening.
• Distinguished Musical Performance: The Rochester Symphony string quartet will provide elegant musical accompaniment throughout the evening, performing classical selections that complement the Regency theme.
• Interactive Entertainment: Professional instructors will offer Regency dance lessons, allowing guests to learn and participate in authentic period dances popularized during the era.
• Over the top décor: Fresh floral garlands, dripping wisteria, and more surprises as only Maison Productions can provide!

The celebration will embrace the Regency/Bridgerton aesthetic, and guests are requested to attend in either Regency-inspired or formal attire to enhance the immersive experience.

Event Details:

• Date: April 12, 2025
• Time: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
• Location: Maison Albion, 13800 W County House Rd., Albion, New York 14411
• Dress Code: Regency/Bridgerton-inspired or formal attire
• Tickets: https://www.maisonalbion.com

About Maison Albion:

Maison Albion is a distinguished event venue located in historic Albion, New York. Known for its elegant architecture and immersive experiences, Maison Albion has established itself as a premier destination for weddings, celebrations, and special events throughout Western New York.

Photos by Tom Rivers

MEDINA – The Medina Jr./Sr. High School Musical Theater Program is performing Mamma Mia! The first show was Friday evening with more performances at 7 p.m. today and 2 p.m. on Sunday at the school auditorium. Tickets are available at the door.

The top photo shows three friends who used to be in the singing group, Donna and the Dynamos, returning to performance with “Super Trouper.” From left in front include Arianna Lake as Tanya, Madelyn Elliott as Donna and Lyla Page as Rosie.

Ava Blount, center, plays the role of Sophie Sheridan, Donna’s daughter. She reads her mother’s old diaries and realizes three people could be her father. She shares this discovery with her best friends, Peyton Kennedy as Lisa, left, and Makenzie McGrath as Ali. They sing, “Honey, Honey.”

Sophie invites the three men noted in the diary to her wedding so she can find out who is her father. The possibilities include an American architect named Sam Carmichael, an Australian writer and adventurer named Bill Austin, and a British banker named Harry Bright.

This is the third year for Medina’s musical program since it returned to Medina after a shared program with Lyndonville.

Medina takes on ambitious musical with Rachel Trillizio and Anna Ferlito are directors of the show for Medina. The school performed  “Little Mermaid” in 2023, “Les Misérables” in 2024 and now “Mamma Mia!”

Sophie (Ava Blount) meets Harry Bright (Logan Trillizio) and Bill Austin (Ryder Jones), who fly in for her wedding. Sam (played by Riley Tompkins) also is in the scene and they sing, “Thank You for the Music.”

Donna (Madelyn Elliott) greets Sam (Riley Tompkins) on his return. Donna is surprised to see her three ex-lovers. She didn’t know Sophie invited them to the wedding.

Donna struggles with running her tavern and also is jolted by seeing the three ex-boyfriends. Her best friends, Rosie (Lyla Page) and Tanya (Arianna Lake), help Donna to get her groove back. They are singing, “Dancing Queen.” The musical includes songs by ABBA.

Jackson McGrath plays the role of Sky, who is engaged to marry Sophie (Ava Blount). He sings, “Lay All Your Love On Me.” There are about 50 students in the cast.

Photos by Tom Rivers

HOLLEY – Holley Jr./Sr. High School will be performing the musical Grease this evening at 7, and then two shows on Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Click here for ticket information.

The top photo shows four of the Pink Ladies at a pajama party. Isla Schultz is Marty and she shows a new ring to her friends, from left: Jayda Shampine as Frenchy, Hanna Ostrom as Jan, and Mallory Davis as Rizzo.

Marty sings, “Freddy, My Love.” She is in a long-distance relationship with a Marine. He sends her gifts while he’s stationed in Japan.

Aidan Kelley is Danny Zuko, the leader of the Rydell High T-Birds. His falls in love with Sandy. He is singing, “Summer Nights.”

Bailey Bibbins plays the lead role of Sandy. She also sings “Summer Nights” about her summertime love affair with Danny. Sandy later transforms from schoolgirl sweetheart into a biker beauty.

Khole Pachla is Doody and sings “Those Magic Changes.” Doody is a member of the T-Birds and Frenchy’s boyfriend.

Holley has 62 students in the cast and crew. Kayla Thrower is making her directorial debut for Holley. Thrower, 25, was in the musicals when she was a Holley student.

She is a social studies teacher for seventh- and eighth-graders. She said the musicals helped build her confidence when she was a student.

“I loved it when I was in school,” Thrower said during a rehearsal this week. “It brought me out of my shell.”

She said the musicals are a supportive environment for students.

“It’s fun because you can take on a different persona,” Thrower said. (She was Ursula in Holley’s production of Little Mermaid.) “Every year it’s a chance to build a family.”

It’s a busy weekend for local school musicals. Besides Holley the shows includes Kendall with Willy Wonka, Medina with Momma Mia, and the Albion Middle School with Little Mermaid.

Lyndonville will be performing Newsies from March 21-23, with Albion High School is doing Cinderella on March 28-29.