Live music, food, vendors, kid's activities, and a car cruise have drawn people to Oakfield for Labor Daze this weekend.
On Monday, Oakfield will host its annual Labor Day Parade at 10 a.m.
Photos by Kristin Smith. For more, click here.
The American Warrior Festival organization hosted a music night at Eli Fish Brewing Company to show appreciation for those currently serving in the military and for veterans of all eras.
Performers included Joel Russlett (top photo), Billy Lambert, Travis Mackie, Rich Hancy, Josh Ketchum, and Monica Hall (bottom photo).
Photos by Howard Owens
When people leave Dwyer Stadium laughing and smiling, Robbie and Nellie Nichols know they've done the right thing, whether it's after a concert, a Halloween costume party, or a baseball game.
Special events at the stadium aren't about making money, Robbie said. In fact, the two concerts the Nichols hosted this summer were costly and a lot of work, that's why there are only two of them. But they fulfill a mission and keep a promise, he said.
"For us, it's not about the money," Nichols said. "It's about us seeing people having a good time at the stadium and us keeping our word when we signed the lease for Dwyer, that you would see more than just baseball there."
On a golden summer evening on Saturday, Dwyer was filled with the happy vibe of Zac Brown fans there to see the Rochester-based Zac Brown Tribute Band. Frowns were impossible to find on the infield grass or in the stands or in the concession area where Robbie Nichols himself was serving up cocktails in palm-tree-top plastic containers and tall cans of beer.
The good times had by all might also help fill up the stands during Muckdogs games, Nichols acknowledged.
"Maybe 50 percent of the people there had never been to Dwyer before," Nichols said. "A lot of people came from Buffalo and Rochester. I just want people to get used to coming to the stadium. I had a couple of people say they didn't know the stadium was this nice and that they will definitely be back for a Muckdogs game."
Given the amount of work and expense that goes into putting on a concert, there won't be any more shows at Dwyer this year, but given the success of the two events this summer, Nichols plans on doing it again next summer once the baseball season is over.
"I think my wife and I like to see people happy and having a good time," Nichols said. "We like seeing smiles on their faces, and I think we accomplished that with these concerts."
The next events at Dwyer are a baseball camp hosted by GCC and Geneseo College playing a ball game against alumni, and then there is the Alzheimer's Walk on Oct. 1, followed by the Halloween bash, which was a big success last year, on Oct. 22.
Photos by Howard Owens
Robbie Nichols
A pair of run-down sheds on an old farm on Edgerton Road, Elba, yesterday evening.
Photo by Howard Owens.
The Pembroke Dragons were in total control in their eight-man match up Saturday against C.G. Finney/North Star, leading to a 55-22 victory at home to start their 2022 season.
The Dragons amassed 460 yards on offense with the line of Chase Guzdek, Jayden Mast, Ben Steinberg, and Jayden Bridge leading the way.
Cayden Pfazler carried the ball 10 times for 193 yards and was 3 for 3 passing for 33 yards. He scored four times.
Caleb Felski and Sean Pustkulla also scored touchdowns.
Tyson Totten rushed for 190 yards and two touchdowns on 9 carries.
On defense, Cayden Pfalzer led the way with 10 tackles while Totten had 8, Jacob Von Kramer, Jacob Dulski, Chase Guzdek, and Nate Duttweiler, had six each.
Dulski had four fumble recoveries and snagged the ball on three separate successful onside-kicks to open the game.
Photos by Elizabeth Gabby. Game information provided by Brandon Ricci.
Sunset yesterday on Ledge Road at Route 77.
Photo by Joanne Meiser.
The Oakfield-Alabama/Elba Aggies started off the 2022 season with a convincing win over Cardinal O'Hara, 76-6.
Noah Currie had six carries for 114 yards and four touchdowns. QB Bodie Hyde carried the ball three times for 78 yards and three TDs.
Aiden Warner scored on a 66-yard run and on defense had four tackles and an interception that he returned for a 25-yard TD.
Connor Scott returned a kickoff 75 yards for a score and had five tackles and an interception on defense.
Jake Walczak also returned a kickoff 75 yards for a TD.
T.J. Andrews had six tackles and a sack and Brayden Smith had six tackles.
Head Coach Tyler Winter said: "It's always good to start the season off with a win. It's even better when you can do it with this type of performance. We had a high level of execution on all three sides of the ball, we came out healthy, and a lot of our guys got to eat today. We'll take what we can from the film and look to get ready for the next opponent."
Photos by Kristin Smith. For more photos, click here.
In its season opener, Attica hosted Notre Dame and won the game Friday evening 28-14.
The Batavian has not received stats for the game.
In other games:
Notre Dame game photos by Pete Welker.
The Batavia Boys Varsity Soccer team beat Holley in their first game of the season.
Goals were scored by Dima Havens, with an assist from Owen Halpin, and Matthew Wittmeyer, assisted by Dima Havens.
"A fantastic performance by the defense led by Ryan Dillon while with Jack Pickard earned a shutout," said Head Coach Graham Halpin.
When Corey Brown and Dean Brewer started working together in the kitchen at Sport of Kings they immediately struck up a friendship.
They both liked to cook and had aspirations to stretch their culinary skills.
Brown was born in New Orleans, where he came up through the ranks of some top Bourbon Street-area restaurants and Brewer started 25 years ago as a dishwasher at Sportos and kept looking for ways to learn new things and improve his skills.
Brown moved to Genesee County after meeting a girl from the area who convinced him there was a need for real Cajun dishes in Upstate New York.
Recently, they took over management of a restaurant located in Oakfield -- the former Oak Grill and Cafe -- running it for Kim Turner, Brewer's sister, who leased the location with the specific intention of letting Brown and Brewer put their culinary skills to work.
"Before we started, I had to do a lot of cooking in my house so she can taste it and she can say, 'Okay, I'm not gonna put my money behind it," Brown said.
Much of the menu of the old Oak Grill remains in place while Brown and Brewer introduce Cajun specialties, but some of the items diners might experience at the new Straight Out The Boot include jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, boudin balls, dirty rice, fried chicken, blackened catfish topped with crab meat, and trinity and crawfish.
"Like I say, what we got now, a majority of the stuff still will be on there," Brown said. "But a couple of the things we'll be taking off and we'll be doing more Louisiana-style cooking."
Staying are hamburgers, which Brown said Brewer can grill better than anybody else he knows.
"Dean does his burgers like, man, he makes some mean burger," Brown said. "I don't know. I'll put a burger on the grill they may not come out as juicy and tender as the way he does it."
Cooking came naturally to Brewer, he said. It was the way he was raised.
"I'm a hillbilly from New York," Brewer said. "I was raised on the Southern Tier and the entire family can cook. They just can. I was always in the kitchen. It was just a natural thing. My grandfather told me once, 'The key is to be in the kitchen because that's where the coffee is and where the women usually work.'"
Brown didn't set out to become a cook but once he started working in restaurants and seeing how the people who made the food got the praise for making customers happy, that appealed to him.
His biggest information came from a chef named Greg Craig.
"What he was doing was making big portions like he was a production cook," Brown said. "He did 50 gallons of gumbo, 50 gallons of crawfish one burst. I hear people talk about how good it is, even the workers, the other chefs, the owners, and I'm like, you know, I like that, you know, I like to hear the compliments. So I went over to him one day, I'm like, 'Man, I want to help out, you know, I want to cook like you.' He said he needed an extra chef. 'I need the help.'"
Brown went on to work at Arnauds, off of Bourbon Street, and another restaurant on Bourbon Street and other restaurants, picking up tricks of the trade all along the way, including learning to cook Italian, and learning Greek cuisine when he moved to Batavia.
The name of the restaurant -- Straight Out the Boot -- is a play on the way Louisiana looks on a map. The state is shaped like a boot, and Brown and Brewer want the restaurant to become known for providing really good Louisiana-style meals.
"Straight up, the boot is slang for everything we cooking," Brown said.
So far, Brown said, the Louisiana fare is going over well with diners.
"We've been getting a lot of good feedback off the jambalaya," Brown said. "We get a lot of feedback off the crawfish etouffee. Dean came out with a spicy chicken sandwich with the boom sauce, which is chicken topped with his creative barbecue spices, barbecue sauce. We've been getting good feedback from people."
Straight Out The Boot is located at 7062 Lewiston Road, Oakfield. Hours: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. This weekend during Labor Daze, the restaurant is featuring fried chicken.
Photo by Howard Owens. Corey Brown, left, and Dean Brewer
Three days of fun, food, music, and activities to celebrate Labor Day start tomorrow in Oakfield.
It's the 38th Annual Oakfield Labor Daze, which includes Oakfield's annual parade at 10 a.m. on Monday.
The family-friendly event is alcohol-free and centers around Triangle Park in the Village of Oakfield.
Along with live music, food, children's events, and the parade, there is a car cruise, 5K race, fireworks, craft vendors, and a community worship service on Sunday.
For more information, visit the Oakfield Betterment Committee's website.
Photo: Members of the Oakfield Betterment Committee and helpers at Triangle Park during event preperations today, Joel D'Alba, Maria Thompson, Maxxum Waterson, Chris Marcott, Lincoln Waterson, Christopher Dickens, Jamie Lindsley, Scott D'Alba, Darla Allen, and Jeff Allen. Photo by Howard Owens.
Anthony Louis Liberi, 50, of Burrow Street, Rochester, is charged with unlawful fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle 3rd, reckless endangerment 2nd, obstructing governmental administration 2nd, reckless driving, and failure right of way to an emergency vehicle. Liberi is accused of fleeing from deputies attempting to make a traffic stop at 12:33 a.m., Aug. 27, on Buffalo Road in Bergen. The pursuit ended when Liberi's vehicle struck a median and his vehicle become disabled in the Town of Gates. Gates PD assisted in the pursuit. He was arrested by Deputy David Moore and Deputy Nicholas Chamoun.
Thea Mauritia Irons, 29, of Oak Street, Batavia, is charged with petit larceny. Irons is accused of shoplifting at Walmart on Aug. 29 at 5:02 p.m. and was arrested by Deputy Zachary Hoy. She was released on an appearance ticket.
Donald S. Lewandowski, 44, of Pembroke, is charged with DWI. Lewandowski was stopped by State Police on Main Road, Newstead, on Aug. 23. According to State Police, Lewandowski failed a field sobriety test. He was processed at SP Clarence following his arrest where he allegedly refused a chemical test. He was released on an appearance ticket.
Stanley F. Piasecki, 61, of Alexander, is charged with DWI. Piasecki was stopped at DWI checkpoint on Broadway in the Village of Alden. State Police say he failed a field sobriety test. He was arrested and transported to SP Clarence for processing where he allegedly recorded a .11 BAC. He was released on an appearance ticket.
Alfred A Wasielewski, 63, of Pembroke, is charged with DWI and refusal to submit to a breath test. Wasielewski was stopped at a DWI checkpoint on Aug. 25 on Route 33 in the Town of Alden. He allegedly failed a field sobriety test. He was issued an appearance ticket and released.
The clear evening sky at sunset in Pembroke.
Photo by Joanne Meiser.
It's coming down to the wire at Wolcott Street School, as several items in the district's $12.1 million capital improvement project are not yet completed and students are set to return in less than a week.
Superintendent Merritt Holly isn't too worried about all of the important things to be done before students return on Wednesday. Although he can pick up the phone for a contractor, he's not ready to pick up a hammer himself, he said.
"It would be worse for everybody," he told the Board of Education during Monday's meeting.
The contractor has had to deal with a shortage of workers, Holly said. For example, there's been one guy to lay all the tile in the remodeled bathrooms next to the gym.
"When you have one laborer doing tile, what more can you do?" Holly said. "Probably they'll tell you how lucky, you got one laborer. He was darn good at laying tile but he's one person."
The main thing with the bathrooms is having the partitions in place, and nobody expects a problem with completing that task on time. But even so, with one bathroom ready to go, that's all that is needed for the first day of school, he said.
The gym floor has been stripped and refinished but needs to be sealed before the first modified volleyball practice next week.
There are ceiling tiles to be put in place and general clean-up to finish yet, as well.
"Now we're down to four cleaning days left before kids are in the building, inside of classrooms," Holly said. "It's the responsibility the contractor to clean, and then we come in, check it to make sure it's up to standards, and then we finish it off."
As for the parking lot, it was supposed to be resurfaced on Monday.
"They were here today and were ready to go," Holly said. "Then the rain came and they were gone."
Before the parking lot is ready, it needs to be resurfaced and striped. The backup plan is to have staff park on the grass off Stanley Place.
As for how the contractors feel about the looming deadline, "they're saying they're not stressed at all," Holly said.
Top photo: Superintendent Merritt Holly and some members of the Board of Education in the hallway outside the Wolcott Street School gym explaining that eventually a mural will be painted along the wall that will tell the story of schools in Le Roy, starting with a one-room school house.
Photos by Howard Owens.
One of the bathrooms next to the gym has partitions in place.
The other one doesn't. Yet.
One of the gym equipment storage rooms on the second floor of the gym wing of the building.
The refinished gym floor still needs to be sealed.
The tile is down in one of the locker rooms on the second floor of the gym wing.
In the hallway outside the Memorial Auditorium, a new TV monitor will share school information and student accomplishments.
For Fallon Walenski, her new house on Clifton Avenue in Batavia isn't just home; it's a dream come true -- a place she can eventually pay off and leave to her children, a place where her children can play in a yard and have rooms of their own.
Walenski helped volunteers with Habitat for Humanity build the house from the ground up, and on Monday she cut the ribbon to celebrate her venture into home ownership.
It seemed like a good day for fishing to Ron Beback, of Depew.
Beback was in town because he runs some horses at Batavia Downs.
He went to Horseshoe Lake first but the white caps on the water looked rough so he decided to switch plans and go to the DeWitt Recreation Area.
As he was unloading his gear at the shoreline, he saw a woman in a kayak. On his next trip back, he noticed that the kayak had flipped over.
"The gentleman that was with her was yelling over to me, 'she's flipped over; can you go out to get her? Can you go out to get her,' and I was like, sure, let me get my life preserver on, so I ran up to my truck and got my life preserver."
By the time Beback reached her, she was tired, he said. She was swimming against the wind, making no progress, and her life vest was slipping up over her head.
"I told her to hold onto the kayak and I'll paddle you over to the shoreline," he said.
He guided her to the island in the middle of DeWitt Pond.
Soon, City Fire and members of the Water Rescue Team arrived on scene and helped her back to the west side of the pond, where she was evaluated by medics. She had no injuries, according to Batavia PD Assistant Chief Christopher Camp.
Camp said the wind had caused her kayak to overturn.
Photos by Howard Owens
Previously: City rescue crews investigating report of kayaker in water at DeWitt
Two cars are in a ditch, unknown injuries, following an accident reported on Main Road and Batavia Stafford Townline Road, Batavia.
Town of Batavia Fire and Mercy EMS responding.
UPDATE 4:50 p.m.: A red SUV was stopped at the stop sign at Batavia Stafford Townline Road, according to Trooper Mark Catanzaro, and attempted to make a left-hand turn onto Main Road and was struck in the driver's side by a Chevrolet Suburban towing a trailer. Both vehicles traveled off the roadway, down an embankment, into a ditch, coming to rest in a ditch. "Well off the road," Catanzaro said. An elderly female driver of the red SUV had a complaint of chest pain and was transported to UMMC for evaluation. The driver of the Suburban had a complaint of minor back pain and minor chest pain. He was evaluated at the scene. The other two occupants of the Suburban were uninjured.
Justice Coniglio expressed a little surprise after Judge Melissa Lightcap Cianfrini sentenced him to seven years in prison on an assault conviction.
His understanding from his previous court appearance was that if he followed the judge's orders between the time of his guilty plea and his sentencing, he would get a reduced sentence.
That didn't happen and he wanted to know why.
Cianfrini indicated that wasn't how she remembered the previous appearance but called a recess so the transcript of the prior hearing could be reviewed.
It appears Coniglio misunderstood the judge's instructions.
Coniglio's plea deal was for his sentences on assault and grand theft to run concurrently if he made his court appearances and stayed out of trouble. If he didn't, then the sentences could run consecutively.
In June, Coniglio entered a guilty plea to assault stemming from a July 23 incident on Bloomingdale Road in Basom where law enforcement came to his residence to arrest his brother Jarrett Coniglio for allegedly hitting a neighbor over the head with a bottle. A scuffle ensued and a police officer was bitten by a K-9.
Defense Attorney Jeremy Schwartz said his client has a drinking problem and that he had been drinking that day. The police officer who was there to arrest Jarrett, he said, wasn't dressed in a police officer's uniform. In Coniglio's drunken state, he said, he didn't understand the man was there lawfully to arrest his brother.
"I don't think he intended at all to stop an arrest," Schwartz said. "In his intoxicated state, he probably thought he was doing the right thing."
He said his client now recognizes that he was wrong.
That explanation didn't persuade Cianfrini to give Coniglio a lighter sentence. She told him he was going to prison for seven years on the assault charge.
On the grand theft charge, regarding a vehicle that was reported stolen after it was involved in a fatal collision on Dec. 1 in Erie County, Cianfrini sentenced Coniglio to three to seven years in prison, to run concurrently with the assault term.
In the fatal accident in Erie County, Coniglio has admitted to vehicular manslaughter and will be sentenced in Erie County on Sept. 9. That is a possible prison term of six to 12 years. Coniglio is accused of having a BAC of .18 percent or greater at the time of the accident.
A man who admitted to child sex abuse in 2019 only to face new sex abuse charges two years later, came into Genesee County Court today expecting to be told he would spend at least another 10 years in prison, not, potentially, the rest of his life.
But a life sentence is now a real possibility after Judge Melissa Lightcap Cianfrini rejected the guilty plea of Wesley N. Thigpen from last May, which came with a 13-year sentence cap as part of the plea deal.
Cianfrini decided to reject the previous plea agreement after receiving numerous letters from family members of a victim, and law enforcement expressing dismay at what seemed to them an inappropriate sentence.
The judge said she also reviewed the pre-sentence report by the Probation Department and found it "woefully inadequate."
So she asked Assistant District Attorney Joseph Robinson if he had a new plea offer, and Robinson did.
Thigpen is being given time to consider an offer of a guilty plea to predatory sexual assault against a child, a Class A-II felony, with a sentence of 10 years to life.
If he rejects the offer, his case will go to trial on Feb. 4. He has until 11 a.m., Oct. 3 to decide.
In January, Thigpen was indicted by a Genesee County Grand Jury on four counts of predatory sexual assault against a child.
The indictment accused him of engaging in oral sexual conduct with a person less than 13 years old while he was at least 18 years old or older between the dates of June 1, 2014, and Aug. 31, 2014. He is accused of engaging in two or more acts of sexual conduct with a child less than 13 years old over a period of time not less than three months. He is accused of engaging in sexual intercourse with a person less than 13 years old.
In September 2019, Thigpen entered a guilty plea to a child sex abuse charge with a four-year prison term agreement. He entered the plea on an "Alford basis," meaning that he believed a jury would convict him based on the evidence that would be presented at the trial but not admitting that he actually committed the crime. He accused the child witness of lying.
Cianfrini was first assistant district attorney at the time and prosecuted the case.
The following people were arrested by the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office during the Jason Aldean concert at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Aug. Both were issued appearance tickets.
Chelsea E. Kirsch, 28, of Weimars Street, Buffalo, is charged with harassment 2nd after allegedly kicking another person in the head.
Tina M. Simmons, 40, of Schuster Road, Schenectady, is charged with harassment 2nd after allegedly striking a Live Nation security guard in the head.
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