Archive: Around Town

Throughout Wednesday and Thursday this week students at Lansing Middle School held the 5th annual Career Fair.  Family & Consumer Science Teacher Audrey Hummel's students set up booths to display what they learned about a career they chose.  Parents and teachers were invited to view the booths, and other students were required to ask questions of the exhibitors.

"There was more interest in farming this year, and careers that have to do with farming," Hummel says.  "We have crop dusters and people interested in having both crop and dairy farms.  There was also a large interest in physical therapy. There are not as many physicians this year as in past years.  It seemed like this year there was more interest in hands-on careers that kids chose to research."

Hey there my name is Macaroni. I am a three-month-old gray tabby who has been at the SPCA since 10/1/2009. I am a great boy who needs a loving home with a kind family who will take good care of me. So please come and visit me at the SPCA soon to see if I'm the right guy for you!

Visit the SPCA Web Page

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Lansing youth Services provides a wealth of programs for Lansing middle schoolers, and the 'High School Helpers' youth employment program in the high school.  But with Tompkins County Administrator Joe Mareane recommending cutting the county's youth employment program to the tune of $45,000 in savings for 2010, Lansing's program stands to lose $4,500.  That loss threatens the existance of the program, or at best will significantly reduce the number of students it can employ.

When Lansing Community Council President Ed LaVigne heard about the budget cut he jumped in to try to replace some of the shortfall.  He has organized a chicken barbecue this Saturday (October 3rd) to raise money for the program.  Volunteers from Youth Services will be in front of Lansing Town Hall to sell the chicken.

Hi there my name is Zeus! I am a white pit bull terrier mix. I am six months old and forty to sixty pounds. I need a home that will love me for as long as I live. If a caring family in need of a great dog comes and brings me home I would be sooo happy! So why don't you be that wonderful family and come and check me out at the SPCA.

Visit the SPCA Web Page

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Women volunteers will raise the walls of a Habitat for Humanity house on Friday, October 9 and Saturday, October 10 from 8:30 AM-5:30 PM each day at 100 Breed Road in Lansing. The women are building the home with the Little family as part of Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build program, underwritten by Lowe’s, which aims to get children out of poverty one family at a time.

The Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee has announced the winners of its 2009 Campaign Grants and Endorsements. Founded in 2001 by former New York State Democratic Committee Chair Judith Hope, the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee was designed to endorse and assist progressive women candidates with a demonstrated commitment to promoting the values of the Democratic Party. This year, ERLC awarded 150 grants amounting to $100,000, including three grants to women in Tompkins County.

The Tompkins County Public Library Board of Trustees voted unanimously Thursday to appoint Susan A. Currie as the Library’s newest director.
 
A resolution read during a special meeting of the board cited Currie’s distinguished 28-year career as a librarian with ever-increasing professional responsibilities.
 

Due to a computer glitch we managed to get a week behind, so this week we’re playing catch up (not  ketchup) with a column covering two week ends. It is a good thing this is an on line news weekly or we’d have to spend most of the week planting trees to replace the paper our column would use.

The weekend of the 18th -20th we played host to Jim’s older brother, Jerwry and a young man, named Mike, from the Buffalo area, who was in town to chase after young athletic women and whistle at them; he’s a soccer referee and they actually paid him quite well to do that all day Sunday for a women’s tournament in Cortland. Jerry has spent much of his adult life training and certifying soccer officials in the western half of NY State and Mike was happy to be his driver in return for a place to stay and Mary’s home made pumpkin pie.

Technology changes through the years, but the basic things we do and care about today aren't much different from the things people did here a hundred years ago.  They worked, they played, their children went to school.  They worried about making a living, and about their crops.  Cayuga Lake flooded then as it does now, and there were fires and train derailments.  Sailboats, hunting, music, and just riding a bicycle were among the ways they played.

A group of 26 contributors led by Tompkins County Historian Carol Kammen have captured this life in photographs in a new book, 'Tompkins County Images of Work and Play', published by The History Press.  Most of the contributors are municipal historians and their deputies from all the towns in the county, who collected and captioned the pictures from their municipal archives and solicited others from private collections.

You would think that after 19 years of seeing the POW/MIA Recognition Day  watchfire it would lose some of its impact.  But the truth is that the ceremony is as emotionally powerful the 19th time as it was the first, a symbolic reminder of the thousands of American soldiers who are still lost and missing in the service of our country.  It isn't any one thing -- the faces of the young ROTC members who know they could soon be among the lost as they walk single file to put a log on the fire, the boom of the Civil War Canon, the flags, and the tributes -- and the enormous fire itself.  And the hundreds of people who come to pay their respect and be a part of remembering those who are lost.

"This symbolic gesture -- people are doing it across the country for National POW/MIA Day," says Harvey Baker, who had the idea for the watchfire 19 years ago and has been one of the main organizers ever since.  "This little effort by Vietnam veterans over the years, I think, has made a difference.  People look at the POW/MIA issue where before they didn't.  Russia recently agreed to help locate 88,000 World War Two veterans who were missing in action and were known to be in the Soviet Union's control."

If you have a senior in high school you are likely struggling with the panic of what to do when and the prospect of an empty nest coming soon to a home near you.  If you have a sophomore or junior you may be thinking about what to do to get ahead of that curve.  The Lansing Community Library is offering a workshop for parents to try to help them do just that.

 "College admissions is a very unforgiving process with rigid deadlines and lots of details to be completed," says Lucia Tyler, a Trumansburg-based college admissions consultant who will be co-presenting "How College Admissions have Changed" on October 1st at 7pm.  "At the end of the year, students who procrastinate can end up with few to no 'Congratulations, you're admitted' emails."

The Lansing Elementary School lawn was covered with pinwheels Monday morning as students filed out from their classrooms to place pinwheels they had made in the grass.  Some of Cathy Moseley's enrichment students at Lansing Middle School made and displayed pinwheels, and all 420 elementary school students made a pinwheel last week, to be placed in front of their school in celebration of part of a world-wide celebration of International Peace Day. 

"This isn't a political decision about war," says Principal Chris Pettograsso.  "It is just an overall visual statement to say that we agree with harmony and peace in our school and  world-wide."