Thursday, April 28, 2011

THE ART OF NOT GAMBLING

These are among the finalists in LEAF Inc.’s anti-gambling art contest,  The grand winner of the $1,000 prize will be announced during a reception and poetry reading, 6-10 p.m. Friday, April 29, at the UCCCA gallery, 11 Ford Ave., Oneonta....

Should You Be Worried About Gambling? Take This Test And Find Out
This is the self-diagnostic test to determine if you might have a gambling problem, developed Gamblers Anonymous:
• Did you every lose time from work or school due to gambling?
• Has gambling ever made your home life unhappy?
• Did gambling affect your reputation?
• Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?
• Did you ever gamble to get money with which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?
• Did gambling cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
• After losing did you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?
• After a win did you have a strong urge to return and win more?
• Did you often gamble until your last dollar was gone?
• Did you ever borrow to finance your gambling?
• Have you ever sold anything to finance gambling?
• Were you reluctant to use “gambling money” for normal expenditures?
• Did gambling make you careless of the welfare of your family?
• Did you ever gamble longer than you had planned?
• Have you ever gambled to escape worry or trouble?
• Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance gambling?
• Did gambling cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
• Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to gamble?
• Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours of gambling?


“The Queen’s Laughing At You,” by Doug Jamieson, Treadwell

“The Loser,” by Alyssa Smith,
SUNY Oneonta

“Storm Clouds,” by Barbara Murray Sullivan,
Cooperstown

Despite Economy, Springbrook Soars

$25 Million Addition Starts Opening In Fall

Jim Kevlin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Fred Seidel of Syracuse retrieves a tool from his pickup during construction of Springbrook’s new gym.
By JIM KEVLIN : MILFORD CENTER

You don’t see some of the most important construction work:  The infrastructure – water pipes, sewerage, drainage, Springbrook’s executive director, Patricia Kennedy, will tell you.
Perhaps so, but there’s plenty above ground to capture your attention.
As you surely have noticed, while driving up and down Route 28, the largest construction project in the region – Springbrook’s $25 million expansion, five years in the planning – has been rising apace.
You’ve seen the deceptively delicate steel beams spanning the 10,000-square-foot gym where, for the first time, disabled youngsters will be able to play full-court basketball.
You probably haven’t noticed the low-slung new classroom building, 6,700 square feet, tucked behind the 1960s main building; that’s rising quickly, too.
In a major enhancement of student safety, the renovations will result a pedestrian campus, circled by a single arterial road, separating people from traffic except at a couple of crossings.
The main parking lot will be in front of the campus, accessed directly from Edson Road, which runs west from Route 28; employees will park there, then walk up steps to the main building.
The buses that bring students to school will enter the arterial at the far end of Edson, then will circle up, drop the youngsters off at a new cafeteria – construction is still to begin – then circle directly out onto Edson again.
That ‘60s-like half-octagon bay that sticks out of the front of the main building – Kennedy makes a face – will be removed.
But the crowning achievement – the three “cottages,” 5,000-square-feet each – is visible to all, speeding toward completion atop the hill at the back of the campus with panoramic views north along the upper Susquehanna Valley.
Always the height of fashion, Kennedy was deftly navigating the muddy grounds around those Craftsman-style cottages after last week’s heavy rains in black high-heels, guiding a tour past the roaring heavy equipment into what will be a refuge where the most challenged autistic youngsters will live.
“They have so many things working against them, let’s have an environment working for them,” said Kennedy, referring to the two dozen residents who will start coming home from out-of-state institutions by this fall.
Inside, caulkers, painters and tile-layers create a whirlwind of activity.
But you can see how the sheltered interior, soothing colors, private bedrooms, even time-out rooms where the residents, if they need to, can cool off alone, will provide the atmosphere Kennedy desires.
Each cottage has a central module that includes a sitting room, dining room and kitchen.  (Eventually, some of the residents will be able to cook for themselves, but supervised.)  Two four-bedroom wings fold off on each side.
“We’ve been as ‘green’ as we can possibly be,” Kennedy added.
The expanded campus – it will add 100 permanent jobs to what, with 900 jobs, is already the fifth largest employer in Otsego County – began in 2007 with an RFP (request for proposals) from the state:  The goal, to start bringing the most severely autistic youngsters closer to home.
There was a humanitarian reason for this, to allow their families to more easily visit.  And a fiscal one:  The money saved on expensive out-of-state tuition will more than pay for the in-state expansions.
Most of the institutions that submitted proposals and were funded had space in existing buildings, but Kennedy believes Springbrook’s idyllic rural setting, amid fields, across from Goodyear Lake, with the namesake brook bubbling past Edson Road, put the local project on the approved list.
The state’s $15 million paid for a “bare bones” project. Another $5 million was obtained.  Then, Paychex founder Tom Golisano, the former gubernatorial candidate, visited the campus and offered a $2.5 million challenge grant.  The match, raised locally, was fulfilled a few weeks ago and announced at Springbrook’s annual April gala at The Otesaga.
Two decades ago, most of Springbrook’s students were physically and mentally handicapped.  “A lot of those children, now we’re supporting in their homes,” said Kennedy.
The new challenge is autism, which is being diagnosed at an accelerating pace.  It’s a confounding ailment – it can be mild; it can be severe – but the goal here is to apply the “best technology” and practices to allow these teens to live productively.
“On the spectrum,” said Kennedy of her prospective students, “these will be on the upper end.  This is the last shot for some of these people.”

John Charbonneau, Watervliet, cuts floor tiles in the hilltop cottages.
Rocky Martini, Unadilla, is on the crew studding out the cafeteria.

Village’s Workers Unionize

Crew Signs Cards For Teamsters 693


By JIM KEVLIN : COOPERSTOWN

The Teamsters are coming – again, the Village Board has been advised.
Enough village employees have signed solicitation cards that Teamsters Local 693 has gained the right to represent them in negotiations, Village Attorney Martin Tillapaugh told the trustees Monday, April 25.
The village received notice from the state Public Employee Relations Board advising them of the development, and the trustees asked for verification of the signatures, which Tillapaugh said is a routine step at this point.
The letter from the PERB listed HEOs (heavy equipment operators), laborers and all members of the street, sewer, water, parks and Public Works departments, according to Village Clerk Teri Barown.
The letter was not specific, she said, but position-by-position specifics will be provided when the process goes to the next step.
Teamsters 693 already represents police officers, and the village recently negotiated its second contract with that unit.
The trustees appeared surprised at the development.
“We don’t really have contracts currently,” said Trustee Lynne Mebust.
“You will now,” Tillapaugh replied.
Until now, village crew members have represented themselves, negotiating informally with the village on pay and benefits.   Under the strictures of the state’s Taylor Law, it will be tightly structured, the attorney said.
Negotiations with the new Teamsters unit will begin “from a blank piece of paper,” said Mayor Joe Booan.
Maybe, said Tillapaugh, but the unit will seek to negotiate from the current levels of wages and benefits.
The generosity of the village contribution to employee health insurance has been discussed recently by trustees seeking to bring it in line with general standards.
Perhaps some money can be saved in that area, said Deputy Mayor Walter Franck.

Cooperstown, Oneonta Teams To Play Twice

The Oneonta Outlaws and Cooperstown Hawkeyes will be playing two non-league exhibition games this year.
The first is at 5 p.m., Thursday, June 16, at Cooperstown’s Doubleday Field.  The second is at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 23, at Oneonta’s Damaschke Field.

COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND

HERE, GONE:  Prospective inductee Roberto Alomar slipped in and out of Cooperstown Tuesday, April 25, for his Hall of Fame orientation.  (Details, A13)

STILL TALKING:  Diana Nicols remains as Cooperstown police chief as negotiations continue on her retirement and to resolve her lawsuit against the village.

LOTS OF RUMMAGE:  Big tag sales are planned Saturday and Sunday, April 30-May 1, Cooperstown Rotary’s at Railroad and Leatherstocking and the OCCA’s in Pioneer Alley.

READY TO TAZE:  Cooperstown’s police officers have undergone a day’s training and been certified in the use of the Taser X26 Electronic Control Devise.

FROM THE PAST:  400 high schoolers from across the state are due at NYSHA Friday, April 29, for New York History Day competitions.

The Freeman’s Journal
Augie, Martina and Cecilia Franck, visiting relatives from New Jersey, were among the youngsters who greeted the Easter bunny in Lakefront Park Saturday, April 23, then escorted the rabbit to festivities at the Tunnicliff Inn.

BASSETT VP:

Scott Bonderoff has been named Bassett Hospital’s vice president for Patient Services, providing administrative oversight to the lab, cardiovascular imaging center, radiology, emergency services, service excellence, patient access services and call handling.

Nominations OK’d For Village Committees

COOPERSTOWN

Deputy Mayor Walter Franck has named Dick Blabey, Carolyn Lewis and Tim Hayes to the Village Board’s new Economic Sustainability Committee.
He is also seeking representation from the Clark Foundation and the CCS board.
Chairman Jim Dean nominated Jeanne Dewey, Kathy Raddatz and Jim Herman to the new Environmental Conservation Committee.

Cellist To Teach At Local Arts Center

COOPERSTOWN

Cellist David Gibson, a graduate of Juilliard and Yale, is offering classes at the Cooperstown Performing Arts Center, 103 Main St.
 Gibson, who recently retired to Gilbertsville, taught cello privately and at colleges and universities such as Bennington, Mount Holyoke, RPI, the Hartt School Community Division, and Mannes Conservatory Preparatory Division for 40 years.
He has also maintained a performing career as a soloist, conductor, and chamber musician and coach.
Specializing in students as young as 5, he has placed students in major conservatories in the country.  At one point, 10 former students of his were studying at Juilliard at the same time. 
Gibson’s wife Kathryn has taken an administrative position at Hartwick College, and their daughter Lindsay lives in the area.  The Gibsons are very familiar with Cooperstown because David’s great uncle was Louis C. Jones, a Cooperstown legend.

RN Veseley Wins Association Prize

COOPERSTOWN



Coleen Vesely, R.N., B.S.N., coordinator of Bassett Hospital’s Trauma and Stroke Program, received the Ginny Hens Emergency Medical Services Award during the state Emergency Nurses Association meeting April 8 in Saratoga Springs.
Vesely, a certified emergency nurse and certified pediatric emergency nurse, has worked at Bassett for 19 years, in the ICU and the Emergency Department.

GOING FOR THE GREEN

Paul Donnelly for The Freeman’s Journal

Ethan Dilorenzo tries out the greens at the Leatherstocking Golf Course Tuesday, April 26, as The Otesaga opened for the season.  A CCS graduate who played on the golf team, Ethan has been attending SUNY Cobleskill, but hopes to transfer to SUNY Delhi for its turf-management program.  The resort hotel had opened four days before with a reception in the lobby, where pianist Mark Lubell performed.

TAUGHER KIN HONOR PATRIARCH



The family of Stuart P. Taugher, left, the former mayor, county representative and a force in the establishment of the Cooperstown Emergency Squad, gathered at Doubleday Field Monday, April 25, for the unveiling of a plaque in the patriarch’s memory.  “His appreciation of Doubleday Field led to a renewed appreciation for this important piece of baseball history,” the plaque reads in part.  Mayor Joe Booan and Ted Peters, a colleague of Taugher’s in community-improvement efforts, spoke.  Taugher and wife Jody raised five daughters on Maple Street, four of whom were at the ceremony:  seated from left, twins Jacqueline Ruck and Colleen Sheldon, both of Milford, Pa.; Karen Taugher, New Hartford, and Patricia Schultz, Fly Creek.  (The fifth daughter, Marcia Pugliese, Cooperstown, was ill and could not attend.)  Standing are, from left, Jacqueline’s husband Richard; Colleen’s husband Scott and their son Liam; granddaughter Stephanie Nelen and her children, daughter Rory, son Miles and baby Lanie (on Colleen’s lap); granddaughter Bridget Bertram and her son Tyler; granddaughter Jacqueline Sheldon, and granddaughter Rebecca McManus with husband Jon and son Park.

Alomar Gets His Hall Footing

By CRAIG MUDER : COOPERSTOWN

Roberto Alomar was born into a world of baseball.
On Tuesday, April 24, Alomar made his first pilgrimage to the home of baseball – and for Alomar, it felt like he was coming home.
Alomar, one of three members of the Class of 2011 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, visited Cooperstown for the first time as part of the annual Orientation Tour for new electees. Looking confident and relaxed in blue jeans and a black blazer, Alomar learned about the Hall and the July 22-25 Induction Weekend – when he will return to Cooperstown to be enshrined along with Bert Blyleven and Pat Gillick.
“It’s unbelievable – a dream for me,” said Alomar, whose induction is Sunday, July 24. “Getting to know some of the history of the ballplayers I never saw. When I was a little boy, all I wanted was to play the game of baseball. Now to be here… it’s amazing just to be walking around here.”
As part of the tour, Alomar saw a screening of “The Baseball Experience,” the film that greets Museum visitors as they enter the Hall of Fame. At the end of the film, the 43-year-old Alomar found himself singing along with former Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray during “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Marilu Lopez Fretts/National Baseball Hall of Fame Library
Roberto Alomar examines Rickey Henderson’s plaque during his orientation Tuesday, April 24.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Touch Of Vesuvius Arrives Locally Inside Brick Oven

COOPERSTOWN


Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal
Restaurateur Joe Vezza, who plans to open Bocca Osteria to the south of the village in a few weeks, peers inside the hand-made brick oven from Stefano Ferrara, Naples, Italy, that arrived in the village Monday, April 18.

At 8 a.m. sharp Monday, April 18, a Mediterranean Shipping Co. flatbed pulled up to the log-sided restaurant just south of the village.
Inside the shipping container was rarity for these parts, a 6,200-pound hand-made brick oven from Stefano Ferrara, a century-old family-run enterprise in Naples, Italy.
Inside the rarity is a novelty:  The bricks are made from ash spewed forth by Mount Vesuvius, which famously buried the resort town of Pompeii in 79 A.D.
“They are able to withstand 900 degrees,” said Joe Vezza, the restaurateur who by the end of May plans to open Bocca Osteria, a full-service restaurant, in the former Java Joe’s building, now expanded.
This didn’t just happen.  Vezza, proprietor of New York Pizzerias in Cooperstown and Richfield
Springs, researched who produced the best brick ovens in the world.
To verify his findings, he took road trips – to Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizzeria in Denver, Colo., and Dough Pizzeria in San Antonio, Texas – in a quest that eventually identified Stefano Ferrara, which operates in the U.S. under the name, Uno Forno, (one oven).
The company’s namesake founded his enterprise in 1920 in Naples, birthplace of Pizza Napoletana.  (GIs stationed in Italy brought back a craving for the spicy flat disc of dough to the U.S. after World War II.)
Stefano passed the company to his son, Natale, who passed it to his son, also Stefano.  Today, it has the reputation for quality that Vezza was seeking.
Because of its high temperatures, the Ferrara oven can cook a pizza pie in 90 seconds.  Also, Vezza and his chefs will be able to top a dish with cheese, pop it into the oven and have the cheese melted in a flash.
Vezza’s mother’s brother, Fiorentino Falso, has been making pizzas in very similar ovens in a Naples trattoria, and he will be arriving in Cooperstown May 6 to help his nephew in the new undertaking.
Does he plan any specialty pizzas?  “There is no specialty pizza,” Vezza replies.  “They are ALL specialty pizzas.”
But that’s not all.  While his existing parlors offer some dishes beyond pizza, 50-seat Bocca Osteria will offer a full menu – inspired in part by his mother’s cuisine when Joe was growing up in Utica – and a full bar and wine list. 
“Italian bistro-style.  Sit down.  Casual attire.  Moderately priced,” Vezza describes it in his staccato style.  “I want locals.  I want to be open all year, for local people to come by and enjoy themselves.”

What Vezza saw inside the oven were these bricks, made from the ashes of Mount Vesuvius, and thus able to withstand temperatures up to 900 degrees.

Deal Due For Chief To Depart

By JIM KEVLIN : COOPERSTOWN

They answered the second question first, and it became clear that Police Chief Diana Nicols’ retirement application has been approved, and she will soon be leaving the helm of the village Police Department.
What is about to happen surfaced when the village trustees Wednesday, April 13, began to debate how much to budget for police chief in the 2011-12 budget under consideration. 
If the position were filled by an interim chief from the ranks, how much would that cost the village?  In the course of filling the position, how much of the chief’s salary and benefits, a $97,000 per year cost, might be saved?
The chief was present and participated in the discussion.  While details were sketchy, it appears Nicols has accepted a position in academe.
Village Attorney Martin H. Tillapaugh declined to discuss the matter, but said he expects the Village Board will be making a related decision at its monthly meeting on the 25th.
Mayor Joe Booan was out of town on vacation, and unavailable to discuss the matter, and the chief didn’t return phone calls.
Conceivably, the state Retirement Board decision – Nicols had been seeking to retire on disability for two years, since an ACL injury during job-related martial arts training – will clear the slate on a troubled picture in recent months.
The chief had been hired in 2005 – she had been an Oneonta patrolman for more than a decade – under the administration of former mayor Carol B. Waller, and tilted at various points with Waller’s successor, Mayor Booan.
The climactic disagreement came last summer, when Nicols clashed with Jane Forbes Clark, National Baseball Hall of Fame president, about whether village or state police should lead the Induction Weekend parade.  Booan had told the chief to drop the matter.
Charged with insubordination, Nicols agreed to a one-week suspension, but then sued the Village of Cooperstown and Mayor Booan personally, arguing that her First Amendment rights had been impinged upon.
Since the Village Board supported Nicols’ retirement application this time, it might be expected that she will now drop her suit.
As the trustees debated the matter, the job description for the job – it doesn’t include filling actual shifts, although past chiefs, and Nicols before she was injured, have done so – was pinpointed.
“The job description, as written, does not warrant a full-time chief of police,” Booan said.  The trustees appeared to agree it would be rewritten for Nicols’ successor.

What’s A Bigger Issue: Spending Or Revenues?

By JIM KEVLIN : COOPERSTOWN

If Mayor Joe Booan’s strategy was to cut costs, shift surpluses and aim the savings at addressing what he termed an infrastructure “crisis,” what was the new bloc’s counter-vision?
“What I see in Joe’s budget is nothing different then what I’ve seen in the six years I’ve been on the board,” Trustee Jeff Katz replied in an interview.  “This tentative budget was presented as a new direction and a new way to handle our troubled streets.  To me, that’s not accurate.”
He and Trustee Lynne Mebust are the two holdovers from the last board in a new governing bloc that appears to be forming.  Newcomers are Trustees Jim Deane, Walter Franck and Ellen Kuch.
While no money was appropriated for temporary street repairs in 2010-11, Katz said, trustees had appropriated $120,000 the year before, Katz said.  Recent boards have all tried to do a major street project every couple of years, he added.
The main difference between his approach and Booan’s, Katz said, is, “How you get that big money?  That’s the big difference.
“The problem with not shifting some of the burden to our visitors is that we are losing what could be another consistent three- or four-hundred grand a year.
The law allowing paid parking to be expanded from the Doubleday parking lot to Main and Pioneer streets was repealed three months ago, and “I don’t have any plans of bringing it up,” Katz said, adding,
Trustee Mebust responded similarly:  “You can’t just look at it from the spending side.  You have to look at it from the revenue side.  You just can’t cut jobs for road repairs.”

Nicols To Retire, But Clancy Stays

New Bloc Adds Cut Jobs Back


By JIM KEVLIN : COOPERSTOWN

If Mayor Joe Booan’s budget looked to take the Village of Cooperstown in a new direction, things are back to normal.
At the final budget meeting before the spring break, the new bloc on the Village Board, vote by vote, dismantled the Booan budget, adding back the $56,360 public-works superintendent position, held by Brian Clancy, and all other proposed personnel reductions except seasonal ones.
By the end of the evening Wednesday, April 13, the stable tax-rate Booan proposed had risen to a 4.28 percent increase, although Trustee Jeff Katz, a member of that new bloc, said it’s his intention to reduce the increase to zero again before the May 1 deadline for adoption.
Booan’s budget, presented to the outgoing Village Board Monday, March 21, sought to repair and rebuild  the city’s streets and sidewalks in two budget cycles.  To accomplish that, the Booan plan eliminated four fulltime equivalent (FTE) positions, three seasonal jobs, and sought to shift $300,000 from the water-fund surplus.
The new trustees – in the March 15 election, four candidates allied with Booan were defeated – took office April 1, and they now reset the priorities.  In each case, either Trustee Lynne Mebust or Katz made the motion, and the other seconded it. 

Except in one case – Trustee Willis Monie voted to add the street-department laborer job back in – the new bloc (Mebust, Katz and newly elected Jim Dean and Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch; Walter Franck was absent) enacted the changes.
The more than $130,000 in added-back personnel costs included:
• Restoring the police chief position to fulltime ($97,147) from the 3/10th time, adding $60,000 to Booan’s proposal. (See related story, Page A1.)
• A deputy treasurer, $20,512 (from the general fund; the water and sewer funds contributed additional amounts).
• Restoring parking officer from half- to fulltime, adding in $17,143.

At evening’s end, Katz proposed eliminating the 2 percent raise for village employees in the mayor’s budget, saving $22,000, and reduced $140,000 proposed for temporary road repairs to $100,000.
In an interview, Katz said it’s his intention to keep the tax rate stable with enhancements and cuts he’ll detail at the next – and perhaps final – budget session Tuesday, April 26.
On the Clancy position, Mebust said it was created as an information conduit between the water, sewer and streets departments and the trustees, without having to pay overtime, and to coordinate the three workforces.
In particular, she said, Clancy’s oversight role on village jobs that are abidded out is particularly important and cost-effective.  “Paying someone $50,000 to save $500” – Clancy’s supplemental pay for overseeing the Irish Hill project – “is not a good strategy,” added Katz.
But Booan said the Irish Hill project had significant problems – too-narrow streets, a lack of curbs, poor drainage – but because the village’s public-works superintendent signed off on them, “we own the problem now.”
He also pointed out that the water, sewer and streets superintendents all said their departments would function unchanged if the position were eliminated.
Katz argued Booan’s budget is little different from what past boards have tried to do, but the mayor disagreed:  “The street condition we have today is the direct evidence that what we’ve done in the past 10 years doesn’t work.”
He added, “If we stay disciplined, we can really make a difference in the quality of life in this village.”
On the part-time parking enforcement officer, which Booan had proposed limiting to six months, the tourist season, Mebust replied, “This is something that matters to residents.”  Her block of Pioneer, she said, would be lined with parked cars if not for year-’round enforcement of the parking law. 
Plus, she said, the revenues are needed.  And fines collected in the off season – $10,920 – cover the cost of the position.
Off-season fines, the mayor replied, fall on local drivers.  He also expressed worry at the level of complaints.
On the deputy treasurer, Booan asked what technological options had been explored to streamline the workflow in that three-person office.  None, was the reply.

He'll Rise on Easter

Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal

Michael Davis, his mom Nancy, and Ellen Moore, right, of the United Methodist Church, shout “hallelujah!” in the middle of Elm Street at mid-morning Sunday, April 17, during an Ecumenical Palm Sunday service organized by Cooperstown’s churches.



COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND

‘Save Tony’ Lawn SignsAre Stolen

COOPERSTOWN
Tony Pacherille awoke Sunday, April 17, to find five “Save Anthony” lawn signs had been stolen overnight from his Walnut Street neighborhood.
Driving around the village, he discovered “dozens” of the $4 signs had been taken overnight.  Police were called.

GIBSON DUE:  Newly elected Congressman Chris Gibson, R-20th, plans his first Otsego County town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, April 25, at Milford Town Hall in Portlandville.

NEW ROLE:  Patrick M. Hooker, former state Ag & Markets commissioner from Richfield Springs, has joined the Empire State Development Corp. as senior manager, agribusiness development.


The Freeman’s Journal
For the first time in three years, $100,000 is back in the state budget to help farmers install rollover bars on tractors, state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, announced Monday, April 18, at a Town of Richfield farm. 

Bassett Health Network Promotes 3

COOPERSTOWN

Bassett Healthcare Network has announced three promotions:


• Fox Hospital Patrick Mongillo, R.Ph., to network pharmacy director.  In addition to three decades of pharmacy experience, he was COO at The Hospital in Sidney (now Tri-Town Regional Hospital) in 2003-05.  He lives in Unadilla with his wife Lori and two children, Kelly and Mark.


• Connie Jastremski, R.N., to network chief nursing officer. She joined Bassett Hospital in 2003 as vice president of nursing and patient care services at Bassett Medical Center, after receiving numerous awards and accolades and lecturing nationally and internationally on neuroscience nursing, nursing administration and professional issues.




• Tim Williammee, to network laboratory director.  He spent 22 of his 32 years experience at Bassett, as a bench technologist, microbiology supervisor and most recently as manager for core lab services at Bassett Hospital.

Green Shines At Cobleskill

COBLESKILL
The SUNY Cobleskill Department of Sport & Exercise recently named junior Peter Green, Cooperstown, a member of the men’s baseball program, as the department’s Fighting Tiger Athlete-of-the-Week.
The junior utility man led the Orange & Black on the team’s season opening spring trip by hitting .462 going 6-for-13 in five appearances.


CHAMBER SCHOLAR

Sarah Dewey, a 2011 graduate of Cooperstown Central School, has been chosen for the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce’s first Leadership Scholarship. This scholarship was founded with a $500 gift from Rich McCaffery.  The daughter of John and Jeanne Dewey, Cooperstown, Sarah will be attending SUNY Geneseo to study sociology and human relations.

IN SENATOR SEWARD’S SHADOW

State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, briefs students who were “shadowing” him at the state Capitol on Friday, April 15, through a program organized by the League of Women Voters.  The students are, from left, Molly Pearlman of Cooperstown, Amanda Drake of Mount Markham, and Spencer Sherry of Laurens.

PREPARING FOR EASTER

Jim Kevlin/The Freeman’s Journal






Rev. Douglas Deer, pastor, First Baptist Church, delivers the homily when Cooperstown’s congregations gathered Sunday, April 17, on Main Street, for an ecumenical blessing of the palms.  Other local clergy are, from left, Rev. Mark Michael, rector, Christ Episcopal Church; Rev. Elsie Rhodes, pastor, Cooperstown Congregational Church; Rev. John P. Rosson, pastor, St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” Catholic Church, and Rev. Sundar Samuel, pastor, United Methodist Church.  According to the New Testament, palms were strewn in front of Jesus when he entered Jerusalem in the days leading up to his death.

The service ended to the sound of brass from the horns of Katherine Resnick, Ted Peters and Brent Leonard.

CCS Announces More College Acceptances

COOPERSTOWN

The Cooperstown Central School Guidance Office has announced the following recent college acceptances:

• Victoria Anania: College of William and Mary, University of Vermont, SUNY Geneseo
• Autumn Arthurs: Fairfield University, Quinnipiac University, Stonehill College, Susquehanna University
• Austin Bloomfield: Herkimer County Community College
• David Bonderoff: University of Tampa
• Samantha Borgstrom: American University
• Connor Boyle: SUNY Brockport
• Greg Brodersen: Hofstra University, Pace University, Slippery Rock University, Endicott College, Ithaca College
• Emily Brown: University of Delaware, McGill University
• Ann Cannon: Loyola University
• Shanette Couse: Onondaga Community College
• Sarah Dewey: Stonehill College, Saint Michael’s College, SUNY Geneseo, LeMoyne College, St. John Fisher College, SUNY Brockport, Canisius College
• Eleanor Dohner: Bennington College
• Edmund Donley: John Jay College
• Christen Dutkowsky: University of Notre Dame, Catholic University
• Kaitlin Eldred: Tompkins Cortland Community College
• Samantha Fancher: California University of Pennsylvania
• Nancy Fisher: Ithaca College, Gettysburg College, Drexel University
• John Gilbert: Binghamton University, American University, Clarkson University, University of Vermont
• Natalie Grigoli: Elmira College, St. Bonaventure University
• Katie Harrington: Keystone College, Cayuga Community College, Cazenovia College
• Laura Harmon: Union College, University at Buffalo, Stony Brook University, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
• Brian Heneghan: Clarkson University, SUNY Oswego, Buffalo State College
• Nathan Hitchcock: SUNY Cobleskill, SUNY Morrisville
• Robert Katz: Stony Brook University, SUNY Oswego, SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry
• Joseph Kevlin: La Salle University, Saint Joseph’s University, University of the Pacific, SUNY Oswego
• Christopher Knauth: SUNY Potsdam, SUNY Fredonia, SUNY Purchase
• Anna Kramer: Gettysburg College, Pomona College, Pitzer College, College of William and Mary
• Adrian Lynch: Herkimer County Community College
• Noble Mattson: SUNY Brockport
• Shyah Miller: University of Rochester, Ithaca College, University of Vermont, SUNY Brockport
• James Nering: University at Albany
• Raquel Perez: Purdue University, Transylvania University
• Tyler Preston: SUNY Alfred
• Samantha Race: Herkimer County Community College, SUNY Alfred, SUNY Cobleskill
• William Reis: Colgate University
• Emma Ryanmiller: Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
• Emily Senif: University of New Hampshire, Mercyhurst College, Niagara University
• Jacqueline Vacchio-Gibb: Paul Smith’s College
• Laura Weber: Green Mountain College, SUNY Potsdam, Juniata College
• Christopher Wehner: Ithaca College, Hartwick College, SUNY Oneonta, Saint John Fisher College, University of Massachusetts Boston, The Culinary Institute of America
• Emily Yonce: Wells College, SUNY Fredonia, Roger Williams University

Friday, April 15, 2011

Secret Of Success? Attention To Detail

Armao, Davis Disciplined, Driven To Serve


Honorees Tom Armao and Scott Davis are reflected in the hood of a 2012 Camaro.

By JIM KEVLIN


When Tom Armao was in high school, he spent one summer working for Ralph Johns, a farmer in his Schoharie County neighborhood, and Johns’ self-discipline impresses him still.
“He painted one side of the barn every year,” said Armao, in his bright office on Country Club Auto Group’s Kia-Nissan-Mitsubishi side of Oneida Street.  “He always got everything done when it was meant to be done.”
In applying Ralph Johns’ code today, Armao embraces system and practices self-discipline: “Life is more predictable than random.  It’s not beating the odds; it’s knowing the odds and playing the odds.”
Across the street in his wood-paneled office amid Country Club’s GM offerings, Scott Davis describes his years developing Oneonta’s Rent-A-Wreck franchise into the best of the 500 worldwide.
Because of the franchise’s name, in particular, Davis’ cars “had to be spotless.  They had to look good.  They had to smell good.  They had to be mechanically sound,” he said.
As he got to know his repeat customers from SUNY Oneonta, Hartwick College and other institutions, “I would put on the radio station I knew they would turn to.”
Discipline, customer focus, integrity – they both quote their mentor, Bill Davis:  “We don’t lie, cheat or steal, and wouldn’t employ anyone who does – at least, not for long.”
With those qualities, is it any surprise the two partners, who bought the prime dealership from Bill Davis in 2009 and have continued to expand its reach, are being honored as the Otsego County Chamber’s NBT Distinguished Business of 2011 this Saturday, April 16, at SUNY Oneonta’s Hunt Union?
Business success over time and community service are the two criteria the chamber committee uses to pick its honorees, said chamber President & CEO Rob Robinson, and Country Club certainly has achieved both.
Much of this is Bill Davis’ legacy. “Serving your community is primary if you’re going to be successful in business,” said Robinson, and he said of the founding father, “If I could choose a grandfather for my kids, I would choose someone like Bill Davis, someone you can look up to and respect and learn from.”
But since Armao and Scott Davis bought the business in 2009, they combined two sites and two brands under the “Country Club” umbrella, reducing costs and focusing marketing.  When the Big Three hit the bumps in the national economic road, the dealership was lean, consolidated, ready to weather the travails.
Robinson credited luck, but also vision and foresight.   Armao and Scott Davis’ personalities, he continued, are also being forged into a strong partnership that bodes well for the future, he said.
“When push is needed, Tom is there,” said the chamber exec.  “When restraint is called for, Scott is there.”
Tom Armao was born on a farm in the Town of Summit.  He had three brothers and four sisters. (At a family reunion in Jersey Shore, Pa., two years ago, more than 60 close relatives were present.)
His first car?  A ’55 Belair, “I rebuilt it myself.”
Graduating from Richmondville High School, he joined the Air Force, where he spent three years, seven months, three weeks and two days at basic in Texas, electrical school in Biloxi, Miss., and repairing long-range radar systems at the Blaine (Wash.) Air Force Station.
For the first time, the farmboy was exposed to
PARTNERS/From B7
people from all ethnicities, regions, ages, social classes.  The lesson?   “It made me realize that people react differently.  We’re all different, and that’s OK.”
Back in Schoharie County in the early ‘70s, Tom briefly studied fish and wildlife management at SUNY Cobleskill, then joined brother David in Armao Construction, installing foundations and framing houses.  In 1975, he joined his father Herb and brothers Dave and Steve in Cobleskill’s Amoco distributorship, wholesaling and retailing gasoline and maintaining the fleet.
“It mostly involved work – dirty work,” and in October 1978 Tom answered an ad, was interviewed by Bill Davis, his partner Paul Donowick and the Otsego Automotive GM, Gary McPherson, now of Certified Auto, and was hired as a salesman.
It was a tough time to break into auto sales.  The country was coming out of the second oil embargo, interest rates were approaching 20 percent, but the economy was rebounding.
“I was the newbie in a staff of a lot of experienced people,” he remembered, so he listened and watched, and developed his own approach to sales.  The dealership was selling Jeeps and Chevys at the time.
“It’s really a conversation,” Armao said.  “You listen to people.  Find out what they want.  It’s not any marketing scheme.  It’s just small-town America:  Helping your neighbor.”
Just ask Mack and Kathy Culpepper, to whom he’s been selling cars since she was single and bought a Chevy Nova in 1978.  Recently, he sold a car to one of their grandchildren.
“Sales sells the first car,” he said.  “Service sells the rest of them.”
Armao had married in 1972, and he and wife Cynthia raised three children.  Son Matthew, 38, is at Country Club; daughters are Rebecca, 36, and Sarah, 33.  Armao had six grandchildren.
Within two years with Bill Davis, he was sales manager, directing eight sales people.  When McPherson went on to other ventures in 1988, Armao became general sales manager.
“Some who has the motivation to win,” Tom said when asked the qualities he looks for in a salesman.  “You can’t teach desire.”  And, “you have to like people.”
As the son of an auto sales executive – his father, Bill, bought Otsego Automotive in 1960 – Scott Davis was pushing a broom and washing cars at the Oneonta dealership by the time he was 14.
Even by then, he knew his way around motors.  His father would come home to find the son’s Honda CB160 motorcycle “in a million pieces on the floor” as Scott tried to figure out what made it tick.
From age 10, he’d push the motorcycle three miles from the family’s Sidney home “to where I could ride it on a trail.  From there, I could go to Masonville.”
His first car was a greenish-blue Plymouth Savoy, “the poor man’s Fury,” with a push-button transmission on the dashboard.  He bought it for $100, and immediately spent $50 adding an eight-track tape player.
His 1965 MGB soon threw a rod.  (“I got the Savoy back.”) Then came a Chevy Corvair, which he loved despite Ralph Nader finding it “unsafe at any speed.”  It was white with a black interior, and Scott soon had it painted bright red at Scavo’s Body Shop.
Trauma came in 10th grade when the Davis family – Scott, cross-country captain, was newly admitted to Sidney’s varsity club – was uprooted to Otego.  He graduated in 1972 and went on to Keystone College in LaPlume, Pa.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” the accounting major remembered.  “But I wanted to do something in business providing a service that the public can afford.”
He transferred to Syracuse, soon found himself at Utica College, then an SU subsidiary, and by the mid-’70s was enjoying life in Daytona Beach, Fla., managing an EconoCar rental franchise across from the speedway.  The 1-9 p.m. shift was perfect for a 20-something.
During college, he had worked in Country Club’s parts department, bookkeeping and doing title work.  By the end of the decade, he was back, selling Chevys.
As fleet sales manager, he experienced his first big coup, winning a contract that provided eight-passenger Chevy Suburban school buses to school districts “from Montauk, Long Island, to Buffalo.”  (The vans were painted bright orange and adapted to their new use in the dealership’s service department.)
“We were in on the ground floor.  We sold hundreds of them,” said Davis.
As that business became more and more competitive, Country Club decided to dip its toe in the car-rental business and obtained the Rent-A-Wreck franchise, which soon was spun off as a separate business with Bill Davis, Donowick and
PARTNERS/From A8
Scott Davis as equal partners.
He began with five cars – “one of them cost me $500” – and grew it to 55.  Rent-A-Wreck – “Don’t let the name fool you.  They are dependable cars.  They just aren’t new,” Scott said – also grew, to 500 franchises worldwide.
So it was some satisfaction for Scott Davis when his little franchise on Oneida Street, Oneonta, was named Franchise of the Year in 1990, based on two factors.  One, fleet-size growth:  “We were more than double what the population would bear.”  And customer comment cards:  “Out of hundreds, they never got a bad one from us.”
During this period, he and wife Kathy, from Bainbridge, raised two girls, Heather, now 25, a Cornell grad and clinical dietitian at Lenoxville Hospital in Manhattan, and Erin, a Unatego junior, a dancer, and second-runnerup in this year’s Miss Otsego County Teen.
Life was good.  Kathy was helping with the franchise, which also supported a couple of employees, allowing the family some free time.  Then, in 1999, his father asked him to come back into the car business.
“I thought long and hard about it,” he said, finally concluding, “If I don’t try it, I’m always going to kick myself.  I’ll try it for 10 years.”
And so the association began that led to the partnership being honored this weekend. 
Tom Armao was general manager of the Country Club piece, then Jeep and Chevy.  Scott took on Otsego Automotive, then Buick, Pontiac, Cadillac, GMC, Olds and Mitsubishi.
“We all got along, like one big family,” said Scott Davis of Otsego Automotive.  “We took the dealership to new levels.”
At the time, selling 65 cars a month was “a big deal.”  Sales reached  85, then 100, then the peak – 115.  He remembers “walking on air” as he entered Ristorante Stella Luna for the victory celebration.
The secret:  Promotion.  In 2008, when the City of Oneonta rebuilt Oneida Street, Davis took his inventory to a tent in the Southside Mall’s parking lot, and ended up staying there for a record summer.
A key event of the decade came in 2005, Armao said, as manufacturers realigned.  “For some time, Chevy had wanted us to get rid of Jeep,” he said.  When the dust settled, Royal had taken over Jeep from Armao.  Empire Toyota had absorbed Scion from Royal.  And Empire had transferred Kia to Armao.  (For a time, Kia was sold next to the used-car lot on Southside purchased from Bob Harlem in 2002.)
In 2009, Armao and Scott Davis formed their partnership, Country Club Automotive Group; that didn’t signal an end to change, but the beginning of a new round.
Immmediately, all the GM products were consolidated in the former Country Club Chevy lot across Oneida from SFCU.  In April 2009, Kia and Mitsubishi were consolidated kitty corner in the former Otsego Automotive lot.  In September 2009, Flagpole Nissan left the market, and the partners bought that franchise from the Maldonados.
At the same time, they hired Vibrant Creative, Chris Quereau’s ad agency, which developed a consistent look in the advertising under the “Country Club” brand, “to position us in the marketplace as the market leader,” Armao said.
One thing hasn’t changed, both partners said: dependable employees, seven of whom have been with the dealership more than 30 years, “unheard of today,” Armao said.
Despite all the change, both partners anticipate the best is yet to come. 
“The technology today is incredible,” said Armao.  “The new Optima is an incredible vehicle.  The new Kruse gets 40 miles to the gallon.  More than 50 percent of our service is on cars more than six years old.  So cars last.”
“People who don’t change make the decision to go out of business,” said Scott Davis.  “They just don’t know when.”


Reporter’s Listening Skills Ideal

Top Financial Adviser Discovers Liking People Helpful; Listening To Them, Too

By JIM KEVLIN

By the late ‘80s, Erna Morgan McReynolds had been a top broadcast producer for more than a decade, in London and at NBC’s “Today” in New York City.
“It’s not a kind field to grow old in,” she said the other day in an interview at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney on outer Chestnut Street, where the Otsego County Chamber’s NBT Bank Distinguished Citizen of 2011 is managing director.
Casting around for a next step, she went to a party with her husband, Tom Morgan, whose “Money Talk” radio show was nationally syndicated, and met someone who suggested she should consider being a financial adviser.
Tom was already operating Oneonta’s E.F. Hutton office, so Erna took an aptitude test to discovered if she could “think in a certain way, because investments are what you call ‘intangible’.”  She can, and soon she found herself interviewing in Hutton’s Boston office.
She was at the top of the broadcast game, and her bosses in New York were skeptical.  They told her they’d hold her job for a year.  Fine, but she never went back.
As a reporter, “my whole career had been asking people questions.”  And, incidentally, she had “an abiding interest in people.”  In her new business, she was surprised to find that skill and that predisposition were just right.
Getting her clients to talk, listening to them, knowing “what’s happening in the world and how you can help people reach their goals” – it was just the thing.
As you can anticipate, this girl from Gilbertsville who arrived back in Oneonta after several spins around the world, was a big success by any standard.
For four years now, Barron’s magazine has named her one of its Top 100 Women Financial Advisers.  Research Magazine nominated her as Woman Financial Consultant of the Year.  Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has taken her into its highest councils.
“We have clients now who have been retired for 20 years,” she said, “and we’re getting to know the children and the grandchildren.”
While her clients have benefitted, Erna McReynolds’ quarter-century back home have benefited her native Otsego County in much broader ways.
No sooner had she settled in then Barbara Wilder, wife of Hartwick College’s then-president, took her under her wing.  “You’re going to be a big success,” Erna’s new mentor told her.
Soon, she was on the United Way board, and that led to appointments to the boards of the Otsego County Chamber, Orpheus Theater, the Indian Hills Girl Scout Advisory Council, the NYSHA development committee, Friends of Bassett and Hartwick College.
She was a founder of the Executive Service Corps’ local chapter. When the Catskill Symphony Orchestra ran into trouble, she and Tom were recruited to put it back on the firm financial footing it enjoys today. 
The couple had bought a stone house on Clinton Street, just below Hartwick, but a decade ago they built a country home outside of Franklin, where they planted 100,000 daffodils.
Soon, when the bulbs bloomed, Erna and Tom were hosting an annual Daffodil Jazz Brunch, to benefit Catskill Area Hospice & Palliative Care.  (This year’s is in memory of Cathy Hughes, a friend of Erna’s who died young of cancer.)
When interviewed the other day, she’d just returned from a conference in New York where John Paulson, the hedge-fund billionaire, had talked about the pace of change.
Where it took 35 years for 25 percent of Americans to get phones, it took only 13 for 25 percent to adopt mobile phones, only seven years for 25 percent to go on the Net.
“One of the things computers can’t do,” she continues, “is care about people.  People have to sleep at night.  If they don’t sleep at night, I don’t sleep at night.”
Her career as a financial adviser has been marked with change.  By the time she joined Tom fulltime, E.F. Hutton had become Shearson, Lehman, Hutton, then Shearson, then Smith Barney Shearson, then Citi Smith Barney, before its current incarnation.
The Morgan office moved from Clinton Plaza, to 41 South Main, then to outer Chestnut.
“When I was hired, there were hardly any women in the business,” she recalled.  She discovered – one of the reasons she likes her work – is that “it’s all about how well you build and manage your business.”

Howe Caverns Announces Its Transformation

By LIBBY CUDMORE : HOWE’S CAVE

For being 201 years old, Lester Howe is looking pretty good. 
Sitting in an armchair in his study at the entrance of Howe Caverns, Lester greets visitors to his famous cave with a cordial introduction and a brief animated film detailing how he stumbled across the opening where his cows stood in the summer to stay cool in the 52 degree breeze wafting up from underground.
Of course, Lester Howe has been dead for 123 years, but his legacy lives on in the form of an animatronic version of a man known as the “PT Barnum of Caves.” Designed by Garner Holt, which also does much of the animatronics work for Disney and other theme parks, the animatronic Lester has real human hair, eyebrow and smile functions. 
He looks left and right to make eye contact with his audience.  Not wanting to make Lester Howe more of a legend than a man, Garner Holt based Lester’s mannerisms on family histories, historical accounts, and the only two known photographs of the real Lester Howe.
The new Lester was introduced to the public Tuesday, April 12, at a reception in the attraction’s Tudor-like visitors center at 255 Discovery Drive.
While at the International Association of Amusement Parks & Attractions trade show in Las Vegas in 2009, Howe Caverns general manager Bob Holt saw an animatronic display and an idea struck.  “We needed Lester Howe to tell his story,” he decided.  Two years later, at the same trade show in Orlando, Lester Howe made his debut.
A face to face meeting with Howe Caverns’ discoverer isn’t the only thing Howe Caverns has in store for the nearly 200,000 visitors anticipated this summer. 
With a July 4th opening date, Howe High Adventures, which features a ropes course and four ziplines, will, as John Lemery, president of Howe Caves Development, put it, “get kids outdoors and away from their iPods.” 
There will also be a new banquet pavilion, featuring a full service kitchen and seating for up to 300 people, and an expansion of the gemstone mining shop, which will feature Patty Tobin’s exclusive Howe Collection of chunky gemstone jewelry. 
“It’s always nice to meet folks who like to spend a beautiful day underground in a cave,” Lester says.  And with all the new additions to Howe Caverns, the trip is a far cry from the ten-hour, lantern-lit excursions Lester Howe used to lead.  Now those same folks, when they return to the daylight, can spend a little more time on all of Howe’s land.





Ian Austin/Freeman’s Journal & HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Lester Howe again greets visitors.

Push On To ‘Save Anthony’

Pressure Intensifies At Trial Date Nears

The Freeman’s Journal
100 such signs have been distributed in the village.


By JIM KEVLIN : COOPERSTOWN

With the trial of Anthony Pacherille, 17, in the Good Friday 2010 shooting just six weeks away, his family and friends are seeking to express the view that the boy is mentally ill to as many people as possible.
In recent days, “Save Anthony” lawn signs have appeared through the village.  Anthony’s father, Tony, said he ordered 100 and they were snapped up so quickly he’s ordered another 200.
Village homes were also leafletted last weekend with fliers telling Anthony’s story in a sympathetic way.  His father said friends of the family had taken on that project, but he didn’t know how many of the 900 village homes had received the material.
The lawn signs and leaflets direct people to www.pacherille.com, which tells the story to date from the
view of family and friends, contains photos from throughout Anthony’s boyhood, and includes a video of his last piano concert before the shooting.
Also, the teen’s mother, Kathy, has been collecting signatures countywide on a petition asking District Attorney John Muehl to recognize Anthony is suffering from mental illness, and to show “compassion and mercy.”  The father said more than 600 people have signed the petition.
“The common thread is that these citizens in no way condone the events of April 2, 2010, but, nevertheless, are equally bothered by the unnecessary and destructive harshness of the proposed prison sentence,” the petition reads.
Asked if this final push was an effort to spread the word as far and wide as possible locally, so the trial will be moved out of Otsego County, Tony Pacherille, a lawyer himself, said he thinks the district attorney will probably interpret it that way.
Rather, he said, “we are just exercising our First Amendment right to try and educate the public.”  It is very difficult, he added, to obtain a change of venue in New York State.

COOPERSTOWN AND AROUND


 Ian Austin/ The Freeman’s Journal
Cooperstown’s Tier French, an OCCA board member, created a gown made up of a year’s worth of plastic bags for the “Go Green!” Fashion Show at the Earth Festival Saturday, April 9, at MCS.  (Other photo)


GET BALLOTS:  Absentee ballots for Cooperstown Central School District residents for the May 17, 2011 budget vote, proposition and school board election are available at the superintendent’s office or by calling 547-5364.

MAKE A CRANE:  To create an origami crane and free $2 apiece for earthquake victims in Japan, stop by the Cooperstown Art Association, call 547-9777 or visit www.cooperstownart.com.  The CCS PTO is co-sponsoring the effort.

SCHOOL TO GO:  St. Mary’s School in Oneonta, the last parochial school between Binghamton and the Capitol Region, will close at the end of the school year, it was announced.

CLEANING UP:  The Cooperstown Lions, who adopted Route 28 from Maple Street in Cooperstown to the transfer station, has extended its efforts this spring one mile to the blinking light at Day and Johnston roads.

GLIMMERGLASS U CONVENES



Glimmerglass University, featuring professors from Columbia, Colgate and Union, convened for the third year Saturday, March 26, with topics ranging from the Arab World today to the workings of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Organized by Dr. Frank Harte, the “tuition” benefits the Cooperstown Food Bank.  From left are Harte, Rita Charon, another organizer; Audrey Murray, Food Bank director; professors Bradley Hays, Union, and Noor Khan, and Jeffery Murray, another organizer.

Final Piece Of Springbrook Puzzle Put In Place

COOPERSTOWN

The $2.5 million had been raised, and a cheer went up at Springbrook’s annual gala Saturday, April 9, in The Otesaga’s packed ballroom, when the news was announced.
“We’re going to be finished early,” added Patricia Kennedy, Springbrook executive director, “and way under budget.”
More cheers.
The locally raised $2.5 million freed up Paychex owner Tom Golisano’s $2.5 million matching grant, which was added to a state “bare-bones” allocation to allow Springbrook’s expansion to serve 24 more children with developmental disabilities to move forward.
Construction had begun in July 2010, and anyone driving through Milford Center on Route 28 can look up on the hillside to the west and see the progress that’s been made. 
When completed in April 2012, the project will add 112 new permanent jobs to the Otsego County workforce.
This year’s turnout to the sixth annual gala, “Together Hand In Hand,” drew the largest crowd to date.
The theme “represents the partnerships Springbrook has shared with its donors, families, students and staff during the year. Together we will make Springbrook the greatest school for children with autism in the country,” Kennedy said in a pre-gala release.
This year’s lead sponsors were Citizens Bank and LeChase Construction Services. Other sponsors include Relph Benefit Advisors, ZMK Construction, Louis N. Picciano and Son, Inc., Bryans & Gramuglia, Christa Construction, Maggs & Associates, Tom & Patricia O’Brien, Wells Fargo Advisors, Schuler-Haas Electric Company and RTech.

The Freeman’s Journal
Springbrook students put the final piece of the “Coming Home To Springbrook” puzzle in place during the school’s sixth annual gala Saturday, April 10, at The Otesaga.  It signified all of the $2.5 million needed to be raised locally has been collected.  In the background is attendee Jeff Haggerty, Cooperstown.

NEW USE FOR NEWSPAPERS

Milford High School students Gabby Sickler, left, who is in a dress made completely out of carpet padding, stands with Madi Martin, designer of  both these dresses, who is wearing a dress constructed completely out of newspapers. The two participated in the “Go Green!” Fashion Show, an addition to this year’s OCCA Earth Festival, held Saturday, April 9.

Historically, Otsego Chamber Honorees Are Leaders Who Bring All Together



In the past few months, a divergence on whether to oppose the questionable horizontal hydrofracking method of extracting natural gas from beneath Otsego County split our two chambers.
The Cooperstown Chamber, representing tourism interests and two breweries, has taken a lead in objecting to the heavy traffic, scenic degradation and watershed contamination that might result from such natural-gas drilling.  The county chamber, more heavily represented in Oneonta, which depends more on manufacturing and higher education, has held back.
The issue starkly suggests that perhaps there is an insufficient consensus within the county business community to be served by a single chamber, despite the benefits that might be gained by sharing back-office functions, promotion and the like.
Then, once again, along comes the Otsego County Chamber’s Annual Dinner & Celebration of Business, and we find ourselves united again in appreciation of outstanding honorees. 
Distinguished Citizen honoree Erna Morgan McReynolds, and Tom Armao and Scott Davis, proprietors of this year’s Distinguished Business, Country Club Automotive Group, continue to demonstrate the combination of long-term business success and community service that characterizes so many of those on the list to the right of this editorial.
Referring to Bill Davis, who sold Country Club to the two partners in 2009, Armao said, “Bill impressed on all of us the importance of the community to those of us in business.   We take care of them, and they take care of us.”
McReynolds and the Country Club group have been involved in community organizations as varied at the hospitals, the colleges, the Girl Scouts, the Little League and the Catskill Symphony Orchestra.
But perhaps the greatest service they perform for the community is doing their jobs and running their businesses exceptionally.
Erna McReynolds, a former eminent broadcast journalist and producer, found that listening skills, curiosity and general affection for people served her well as she rose to managing director, wealth management at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s local office.
Armao learned that doing the right thing systematically pays dividends.  And Scott Davis, while running Rent-A-Wreck, making sure car radios were set on the frequency he knew repeat customers listened to – that’s just amazing attention to detail.
But, looking at that list, there are many exceptional business people among us with as good and better stories to tell.
Gordon Roberts, who passed away just a few months ago.  Jane Forbes Clark and Ed Stack, her right-hand person for years.  Judge Harlem, whose intervention saved Goodyear Lake when NYSEG wanted to breach the dam.  Bill Streck, architect of Bassett’s miraculous reach.  Dave Brenner, politician and university leader par excellence.
Impressive indeed.

Otsego County Chamber Bettiol Distinguished Citizens NBT Bank Distinguished Businesses

2010
erna morgan mcreynolds
Morgan Stanley VP
COUNTRY CLUB AUTOMOTIVE

2009
Sam Nader
Former Oneonta Mayor
NORTHERN EAGLE BEVERAGE

2008
Judge Richard Harlem Sr.
The Otesaga

2007
Dr. David Brenner
Former Oneonta Mayor
Catskill Area Hospice
& Palliative Care

2006
Dr. William Streck
Bassett President/CEO
Oneonta Block/
Otsego Ready Mix

2005
Carl Delberta, Sr.
Founder, Oneonta
Boys & Girls Club
Mang Insurance

2004
Jane Forbes Clark
BK Assocs./Neptune Diner

2003
Geoffrey A. Smith
Medical Coach President
The Daily Star

2002
None, But Award Renamed
For Eugene Bettiol, Jr.
Bassett Healthcare

2001
Marian Mullett
Pathfinder Village Founder
Brooks’ House of Bar-B-Q

2000
Edward W. Stack
Clark Foundation VP
SUNY Oneonta

1999
William Davis
Otsego Automotive Founder
Fox Hospital

1998
VanNess D. Robinson
CEO, New York Central Mutual
Oneonta Athletic Corp.

1997
Hiram Skinner
Skinner & Damulis Founder
Hartwick College

1996
D.K. Lifgren
Founder, Astrocom
New York Central Mutual

1995
Robert W. Moyer
Wilber Bank President

1994
Walter G. Rich
Delaware Otsego Founder

1993
Gordon B. Roberts
Gordon B. Roberts
Agency Founder

1992
Dr. Phillip Wilder
Hartwick College President
Medical Coach

1991
Sidney Levine
Oneonta Tigers Partner
Wilber National Bank

1990
Wilmer & Phillip Bresee
Bresee’s Partners
The Clark Foundation

1989
Leroy “Sonny” House
Oneonta Businessman

1988
Joan Lutz
Oneonta Chamber Executive

Details Available On This Summer’s Headwaters Soccer Camps

The 2011 Headwaters Soccer Club Summer Camp brochure is now available at headwaterssoccer.com or by calling the New York Power Authority at 1-800-724-0309.
Seven camps will be held for boys and girls ages 7-17 with the continued addition of TEAM CAMPS. The fee $60 per week, with each participant receiving a tee shirt and water bottle.
The camps will run 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday in Otego, Schenevus, Edmeston and at SUNY Oneonta, between June 27 and Aug. 12.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Lady of FINLAND & They Do Adore Photographer At Tampere’s Vapriikki Museum

By JIM KEVLIN

You may know the story of Lady Ostapeck’s narrow escape while still in the cradle.
It was 1919.  The baby’s mother had died in childbirth in Brooklyn, N.Y., and she had been sent to live with an aunt in a Finnish community in rural Brooklyn, Conn.
One day, a farmer name Koski emerged from his house with a hatchet in his hand, turned left and butchered everyone in the next five houses, hanging himself in the barn at the end.
If he had turned right, Baby Ostapeck would been one of his first victims.
The baby was returned to Brooklyn, where she was taken in by Mama Jansson, who lived in Edgewater, N.J.
Mama’s three young children and her husband had died, Lady related in an interview the other day, wearing a black sombrero and sipping coffee from a paper cup.
“I got all the love she would have given her babies – all of it,” she said matter-of-factly.
Mama Jansson’s love and sincerity was such that girls contemplating suicide would cross the Hudson River for her counseling.  Not a one went through with it, Lady said.
As it happens, she had just returned from Finland, where more
LADY/From B1
than 400 people crowded into the Vapriikki Museum in Tampere, the country’s third-largest city, for the opening of “A Lady of Style: Lady Ostapeck’s American Costumes & Portraits.”
In her speech opening night, on the podium with the Finnish minister of culture and tourism, Lady Ostapeck gave credit to Mama Jansson for everything that has happened to her in the 90+ years since.
Did you know Lady Ostapeck was originally a seamstress, trained at the Fashion Institute of Technology?
By the time she arrived at her Greek revival cottage in Fly Creek a half century ago – she lived there until moving to Oneonta’s Nader Towers two years ago – and began her career as a portraitist with an unusual muse, she had already collected dozens of vintage costumes.
She continued to do so, at thrift shops and auctions, and as she produced hundreds of photo portraits of subjects in vintage clothing, her costume collection – it includes two pith helmets – grew into the hundreds of examples as well.
Periodically, Lady has been invited to display her photos in Finland, and 10 years ago she met Marketa Frank, now a curator at the Vapriikki, who was interested in antique clothing.
One thing led to another, and last summer a team from the museum visited the Fly Creek Valley cottage, where it identified more than 100 gowns and other articles from Lady’s collection.
When packed, Lady said, the clothes filled 19 of those movers’ wardrobes.  “Next year,” said Lady, “they’ll be getting another set.”
Lady’s promoter and friend Nick Argyros, director of the Photo Center of the Capital District in Troy, had collaborated with Marketa Frank in organizing the exhibit and intended to accompany the photographer.
But, just before they were to depart in mid-March, he suffered a heart attack and underwent a triple bypass.  Lady’s Fly Creek neighbor, Barbara Lyon, was recruited for the task and the two departed from JFK Sunday, March 13, aboard a Finnair flight, courtesy of the Vapriikki.
“Non-stop to Helsinki,” said Barbara.  “We flew
LADY/From B2
over the Arctic Circle, looking down on glaciers and ice-blue rivers.  It was incredible.  It reminded me of ‘Dr. Zhivago’.”
Met at the airport, the two were driven the two hours to Tampere – a metropolitan area of 300,000 known as “The Manchester of Finland” –  and immediately went to the museum.
It was “a wonderful factory building on the river,” the Tammerkoski channel that connects the city’s two lakes, Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi.
The exhibit included most of the clothing, examples of Lady’s photos, blown up to 16- by 20-inch sizes, and detailed texts of her life and work.
“We spent every day at the museum,” said Lyon.  “She had interviews every day.  There were ones that weren’t planned, and those that were planned.”
One morning at breakfast, the waitress approached with a copy of Aamulehti, the daily paper.  “This is you, isn’t it?” she asked, holding up the front page of the feature section, dedicated completely to Lady’s exhibit.
Then came the big night.  The museum’s reception area was filled.  Champagne all around.  Finland’s minister of culture and tourism was there.  Also a cousin of Lady’s who was a member of the Finnish parliament, and a nephew who was Finnair’s director of marketing.
Lady had had a rough winter.  She had been hospitalized twice over Christmas, then had spent time in rehabilitation at Otsego Manor.
“All I want is to go to Finland, and then I can die,” she told Barbara.
“After the reception,” her friend recalled, “she said, ‘This is the highpoint of my whole life.  I can die now’.”
If you die in Finland, would you want to be buried here? asked Barbara.  In addition to wanting to know Lady’s wishes, she was pondering the logistics of transporting her back to the States.
“No, no,” she said in that abruptly frank way those who know her would recognize. “I have a plot in Fly Creek. You have to bring me back.”

to see pictures, visit our facebook album -- Lady of Finland, Lady Ostapeck, 2011

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Eric Coleman Joins Hawkeyes As Head Coach

COOPERSTOWN

Eric Coleman, 36, head coach for collegiate and independent teams for 14 years, will join the Cooperstown Hawkeyes this summer as head coach.
For the past three seasons, Coleman has been field manager and director of player development for the Oakland County Cruisers of the Frontier League in Michigan. He managed in the Coastal Plains, Texas Collegiate, Northwoods and New England Summer Collegiate Leagues. 
Eric was pitching coach at Niagara University and San Diego Mesa Junior College.  He coached 10 junior college All-Americans and 86 players that went on to sign professional contracts with MLB teams.
The Hawkeyes enter their second season at 5 p.m. Friday, June 9, at Doubleday Field.  Individual game and season tickets are on sale; call 376-6220 or visit www.cooperstownhawkeyes.net.