Poison Love at plein air event

NORTH BRANCH, NY — On Saturday, September 26, Hestia’s Garden will host “The Pandemic ‘Plain Air’ Plein Air” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. This is a rain date of Sunday, September 27. 

All levels and ages are invited to participate in this event sponsored by Western Sullivan Public Library. Bring your mask, art supplies, items to set up your workstation and let the scenery of Hestia’s Garden inspire you to paint. Early birds can enjoy the music of Poison Love, a band that represents a unique mix of Americana, featuring lead fiddle, guitar, percussion, vocal harmonies and original songwriting. They will be filming parts of the day to create a YouTube memoir of the “Plain Air” celebration. 

Social distancing will be practiced and a bag lunch will be provided. This is a free event, but registration is required.  

The Pandemic “Plain Air” Plein Air! at Hestia’s Garden is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and New York State Legislature and administered by Delaware Valley Arts Alliance.

For more information and mandatory pre-registration, visit www.WSPLonline.org, or call 845/252-3360.

Big Eddy Film Festival begins

ONLINE, NARROWSBURG and BETHEL, NY — Starting this weekend, the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance will expand its Big Eddy Film Festival (BEFF) beyond the movie theater to include outdoor and virtual venues. The in-person events will take place from Friday, September 24 to Sunday, September 26. The online portion will be live through Sunday, October 4.

Central themes of the films being presented include untold female stories and the intersection of politics and music. Screenings will take place at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts Terrace Stage, the Big Eddy Film Festival’s online streaming platform and at a pop-up drive-in outside Narrowsburg.

For more information, visit www.BigEddyFilmFest.com or call DVAA at 845/252-7576. Read Jonathan Charles Fox’s interview with DVAA and Festival Director Tina Spangler at www.bit.ly/RRjfoxbigeddy. 

Drive-through chicken barbeque 

GRAHAMSVILLE, NY — On Saturday, September 26 from 4 to 6:30 p.m., the Time and the Valleys Museum will host a chicken barbeque, with each meal including a baked potato, coleslaw, baked beans, cornbread, brownie and ice cream. Neversink General Store is catering the barbeque with ice cream donated by Gillette Creamery. Trivia booklets with activities to do at home will be available. All proceeds benefit the museum, and there’s no reason to leave your car.

Tickets cost $12 per meal and are available at www.timeandthevalleysmuseum.org/product/chicken-takeout-bbq-ticket. 

For more information, call 845/985-7700, email info@timeandthevalleysmuseum.org or visit www.timeandthevalleysmuseum.org. 

Time and the Valleys Museum open Sundays through October 

GRAHAMSVILLE, NY — After being closed for COVID-19, the Time and the Valleys Museum will be open to the public starting on Sunday, September 27. The museum will be open Sundays only from 12 noon to 4 p.m. through the end of October.

The museum has everything in place to protect the health of both visitors and staff. Staff will be wearing masks at all times, using hand sanitizer frequently and thoroughly cleaning all touched surfaces several times a day. Visitors to the museum and 1930s Lost Catskill Farm must wear masks, practice social distancing and use hand sanitizer frequently throughout their visit. 

 Exhibitions include “Water and the Valleys,” an exhibit on the history of the Rondout and Neversink watershed area from early geological times to the 20th century; “Tunnels, Toil and Trouble: New York City’s Quest for Water and the Rondout-Neversink Story,” an engaging exhibition on the NYC water supply system and the towns that were removed to build the system; and the 1930s Catskill Family Farm, an outdoor, open air experience with several early farm buildings illustrating life on a Catskill family farm during the 1930s about to be removed for the building of a NYC reservoir.

For more information, call 845/985-7700, email info@timeandthevalleysmuseum.org or visit www.timeandthevalleysmuseum.org.

Sullivan Chamber Orchestra resumes live concerts

MONTICELLO, NY — The Sullivan County Chamber Orchestra (SCCO) will resume live concerts in its chamber series entitled “The More Music You Know” with two performances on Saturday, September 26. Seating will be limited to 30 people per concert. Audience members must wear a mask upon entry and for the duration of the event while following social distancing and sanitizing protocols. The audience will be appropriately distanced in their seats and the performances will not have an intermission.

A string quintet will feature SCCO Co-Founders Akiko Hosoi (violin) and Andrew Trombley (double bass). They will be joined by Alexander Margolis (violin), Chelsea Wimmer (viola) and Luke Krafka (cello) performing works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Domenico Dragonetti and George Onslow. This featured performance starts at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church, located at 15 St. John St. Tickets cost $25 for adults, $23 for seniors and free for all students.

Earlier in the evening, SCCO will perform a mini-concert of masterful works by NYC composers Missy Mazzoli and Jessie Montgomery. This concert will take place at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church with a limited in-person audience and will also be streamed on Facebook Live. Tickets are a suggested donation of $10.

Tickets should be purchased in advance online at www.nesinculturalarts.eventbrite.com or by calling  845/798-9006. The Sullivan County Chamber Orchestra is a Nesin Cultural Arts supported project. SCCO is funded in part by grants from New York State Council on the Arts. Follow SCCO on social media @sccoplayers.

A musical tribute to Ray Charles

ONLINE — On Thursday, October 1 at 6 p.m., the Ethelbert B. Crawford Public Library in Monticello will present a musical tribute to Ray Charles performed by the group Forever Ray, a group that has been performing to sell-out audiences throughout the New York Metropolitan area. Last summer, this group performed in-person at the library to a packed community room; the audience spilled out into the hallway. They are back by popular demand.

Members of ‘Forever Ray’ have performed or recorded with Ray Charles, Alicia Keyes, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Prince and Stevie Wonder, among others. This musical group performs the exciting and uplifting music of Ray Charles.

For more information and to tune in, visit www.ebcpl.org.

Centa Quinn and Junior Dabashi embody community service 

MILFORD, PA — Circumstances may have required Greater Pike Community Foundation to postpone its annual dinner until 2021, but certainly not the recognition due to its extraordinary honorees, Centa Quinn and Junior Dabashi.  

Centa Quinn was unanimously selected to receive the Barbara J. Buchanan Community Service Award, given to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of volunteerism and giving back to the community. Throughout the decades, Quinn volunteered and supported many organizations, including the Lions Club, and The American Cancer Society, and still serves on the boards of the Pike County Public Library and The Milford Community House and is president of the Milford High School Alumni Association.  In 2017 she donated the Little Free Library that is still very active in Ann St. Park. Junior Dabashi, Milford Key Foods owner, was unanimously selected to receive The Richard L. Snyder Business Leadership Award, which recognizes a local business that has demonstrated outstanding corporate philanthropic leadership in our community.  In a profile out earlier this year, Dabashi was given kudos for his unending willingness to help those in need (delivering food to the homebound during COVID-19 and supporting food pantries are only two examples), for his partnerships with other businesses to benefit various community projects and for the care he exhibits for his employees.

While Greater Pike plans to hold its dinner and officially honor these two outstanding community leaders in 2021, it is currently accepting donations in honor of Centa Quinn and Junior Dabashi and will notify them of all gifts made in their names. A donation to either one (or both) of these giving individuals can be made by check, payable to GPCF-FGP and mailed to Greater Pike Community Foundation at PO Box 992, Milford, PA 18337. 

For more information, contact Jenni Hamill at jennihamill@greaterpike.org or visit www.greaterpike.org.

Closing a class ring cold case

MONTICELLO, NY — In 1971, James Newman went waterskiing with friends at the Swinging Bridge Lake right before he enlisted in the Army. At the end of the day, Newman realized that he had lost his class of 1970 high school graduation ring. Forty-nine years later, he has been reunited with that ring thanks to the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office. 

In the 1980s, the reservoir was drained by its owners, Orange and Rockland Utilities. Swinging Bridge Marina owner Bill Croissant and his son, Mike, found the ring in the muck. When the Lake was drained again in the mid-2000s, Croissant remembered he still had the ring and was unable to locate the owner, so he turned it over to Sheriff Mike Schiff. 

“We got a printout of the class of 1970 from the Washingtonville High School in Orange County,” said sheriff Schiff. “But the inscription was hard to read and, among the potential owners on the list, all had moved out of the area leaving no contact information.” The ring sat in the evidence locker as a “cold case.” But this past spring, with COVID-19 in full swing and a little slowdown in crime, deputies started looking at some of the old cases on file. The Sheriff enlisted the help of sheriff’s detective sergeant Jason Gorr, who was assigned to the FBI Safe Streets Task Force. Using several new databases, Detective Gorr was able to identify the owner of the ring as James Newman of Atlanta, GA. “Mr. Newman was shocked when he got the call,” said sheriff Schiff. “He had totally forgotten about the ring and couldn’t believe that it was found.” The Sheriff’s Office was able to return the ring to Mr. Newman in time for his 50th high school reunion. “A graduation ring has great sentimental value. It was gratifying to be able to return it to the owner after all these years,” said sheriff Schiff.

Dux family adds butterfly garden to the library

HONESDALE, PA — The Wayne County Public Library (WCPL) lies between two neighbors who, through the years, worked with the library on projects, helped keep the property line looking nice and suggested compromises when things were concerning. Recently, WCPL’s neighbors at Rockwell Travel (aka the Dux Family) asked if they might help beautify the library’s grounds by adding a garden along the fence-line that would attract butterflies. The library happily accepted their generous offer.  

The Dux Family took on a long-overlooked area of the library’s yard. Some of the plants added to the garden include hydrangeas, azaleas, cypress, arbor vitae, salvia Echinacea and black-eyed Susans. They reincorporated existing lilies, hostas and any other plants that could be saved. Then, they added a layer of mulch and sprayed to keep the animals from feasting on the plants. The Dux family not only paid for and planted everything, but they also offered to keep up the garden as their family donation to the library.