John Arneth was in the fifth grade when his father drove him to Barrett's Batavia Marine to see Paul Butski. The year was 1980 and Butski was at Barrett's to give a demonstration on calling turkeys. Then a former world, state and Grand National champion caller, Butski took aside the youngster from Le Roy and taught him how to use a friction call. Not yet old enough to hunt at the time, John put to use what he learned from the renowned caller, practicing the art of imitating communication between turkeys.

In the decades since, John has learned a great deal in the turkey woods, having hunted turkey in several locations throughout Western New York including Genesee, Wyoming, Livingston and Chautauqua counties. His passion for turkey hunting has also taken him out of state, pursuing toms in Florida and Alabama. In 32 years of turkey hunting he has taken 52 longbeards. No doubt he has become prolific in the art of calling in wily toms, so much in fact, he is on the pro staff of several makers of outdoor gear, among them Duel Game Calls. Over the years he has conducted 250 turkey and deer seminars at places like Cabela's, Bass Pro, Gander Mountain, National Wild Turkey Federation events, outdoor shows, pro shops, churches and calling contests.

These days John is the town of Le Roy highway superintendant and still an avid turkey hunter. Friday evening I sat down with John and listened as he demonstrated one of Duel Game Calls' newest products, the Blodgett Signature Design turkey call, a totally new look in the game call industry.

The Blodgett series was named in honor of Harry Blodgett, legendary turkey call maker. To say that Arneth and the people at Duel Game Calls are optimistic woud be an understatement. At the National Wild Turkey Federation Grand National Convention the new calls raised eyebrows and turned heads, wowing some of the biggest names in the business.

"The calls absolutely blew people away, even turkey hunting legends like Jim Strelic," he said.

While the lamination gives the call a good look, the business end of the call, the striking surface and the sound it produces, was what got the attention of veteral turkey hunters. "Can it purr?" asked some, "Can it yelp and cutt?" asked others. John Arneth was happy to oblige and he answered their questions the only way he knew how, he demonstated by giving a quick clinic and customers went away satisfied, more often than not with a supply of new  Blodgett calls.   

The reason for the call's success in imitating the sound of a turkey lies in the overall makeup of what is known in the turkey hunting industry as pot style calls.

"We use laminated sugar maple, the same lamination process used by Gibson guitars. We pay a royalty to Gibson guitars for the lamination process because they own the patent," he said. "They are machined pots," he added, "from a very precise computer-controlled cutting machine."

The makeup of the striking surface of the call is a bit more interesting, as John explained, resulting in three different surface types, one being borosilicate crystal to be exact, and it creates a high pitched, very high-quality sound. A second was a slate surface, made from a very pure form of ocean slate. The third striking surface was aluminum, 6061 aircraft aluminum, oil free, bead blasted and it produces the highest frequency call in the industry. 

In addition to Duel Game Calls, John Arneth is on the pro staff of Mossy Oak, Ol' Tom, Gold Tip Arrows, Hawk Tree Stands and Wasp Broadheads. He currently lives in the village of Le Roy with his wife and three daughters    

New York Times: Smartphones and the 4th Amendment

Crews under the supervision of Derrick Monument put in place today a total of 21 tons of polished black granite from India to serve as the new Genesee County memorial to the men and women who gave their lives in service to their country.

The dedication ceremony will be at 11 a.m., May 17, corner of Washington and Bank, Batavia.

The construction of the monument today caps a years-long effort by local veterans to replace the memorial that was displaced when UMMC added on its surgical wing.

"I don't even know if I can put it into words," said local veteran leader Jim Neider when asked what it was like to watch the monument being put in place. "We've been working on it for four and half years. We've been collecting donations for four years. It's the culmination of all those donations and all that hard work. To me, it's like Christmas."

The actual monument costs $125,000. With lighting and landscaping and other expenses, there are more expenses, but a total of $150,000 was raised for the project.

The monument contains the names of local U.S. service members who died during World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

The name plates from the old memorial are buried in a spot in front of the monument, marked by tiles that donors were able to purchase and have engraved with their own message.

Local veterans designed the monument and Derrick Monument helped complete the design and plan the construction. While the granite came from India, all of the diamond-tipped engraving was done in Vermont.

Last Saturday, crews poured 56,000 pounds of concrete to create the monument's base.

Max Rapone and Alex Rood passed by the monument on their way home from school this afternoon and stopped to take a closer look. Asked what they thought, Max gave it a thumbs up and said "awesome."

Neider and Dave Carlsen, president of Derrick Monument, agreed it's a beautiful piece of work.

Carlsen praised the work of his design staff, Jackie Earhardt and Ryan McClurg.

"Hats off to the committee for such a nice selection," Carlsen said. "We're certainly proud to be a part of it."

Top photo: Wayne Devoid, Jim Neider, Dave Carlsen, Rick Devoid, and Cassie Carlsen.

Press release:

The Board of Directors of the Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) will consider a final resolution at its May 1 board meeting.

Liberty Pumps is planning a 100,000-square-foot expansion of its existing facility at Apple Tree Acres in Bergen, to create new spaces for production and warehouse, research and development and a new office, display, auditorium and training center. The company is investing $9.8 million for the expansion project, creating 27 new positions, and retaining 124 employees. 

Liberty Pumps has undertaken several projects in the last few years. In 2000, the company invested $3.7 million to construct and equip a 60,000-square-foot facility and in 2008 they undertook a 64,000-square-foot addition.

The GCEDC Board meeting will take place at 4 p.m. and is open to the public. Meetings are held at the Dr. Bruce A. Holm Upstate Med & Tech Park -- 99 MedTech Drive in the Town of Batavia, on the 2nd floor, across from Genesee Community College.

Not in the press release, but from another e-mail sent out by GCEDC today:

Liberty Pumps is planning a 100,000-square-foot expansion onto its existing 120,000-square-foot facility at Apple Tree Acres in Bergen. (Of that,) 81,400 square feet will be dedicated to production and warehouse, 7,600 square feet will house new research and development/ test facility space, and 11,000 square feet will hold new office, display, an auditorium and training center. ... The company has submitted an application to the GCEDC requesting assistance that includes tax savings of $377,600, a mortgage tax exemption savings of $93,750, and property tax abatement of $863,577 due to the incremental increase in assessed value.

A Batavia man has been charged with felony assault in Geneseo after a victim reportedly required 40 stiches following a fight on Bank Street in the Livingston County village.

Mitchell Freeman, 25, was arrested in Batavia.

The alleged victim was hospitalized as a result of the incident, according to Geneseo PD.

Freeman was jailed on $10,000 cash bail or $20,000 bond.

(Via the Genesee Sun)

Strong winds are expected to hit Genesee County tomorrow, so the National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory for 8 a.m. through 5 p.m.

Winds from the southeast of 25 to 35 mph are expected, with gusts up to 50 mph.

And he will continue to speak out as long as he is able because he says it's something that younger generations need to hear -- and firsthand accounts are rare. Silberstern is keenly aware that time is running out; that he is among the few still alive to tell the God's honest truth.

That's what brought the Rochester resident to Batavia High School on Friday, at the invitation of Special Education teacher Kathryn Herniman. Two specially selected groups of about 30 students got to hear him in the library.

The bare outline of his bio is that he was born in a little town called Teplice, west of Prague in Czechoslovakia. Fearing an advancing German army, his Jewish parents moved to Prague. But, like many others, they misjudged the situation and in 1939 the Germans came and occupied the country, bringing with them their new rules and regulations for Jews. No cameras, radios, bicycles, shop only certain times on certain days, no use of public transportation, et al.

"The only place kids could play was the graveyard. Sounds a little gruesome, but you can play a lot of hide and seek there," he said with a chuckle.

Eventually, he would have to wear the humiliating yellow star sewn on his shirt, which prevented him from doing other things, too. He was forbidden to attend school at age 12, something that affected him for the rest of his life. That same year, he was sent off to a prison camp.

Children around his age were put in youth dorms, those for girls and those for boys. At his dorm, there were 30 boys living in each of the 10 rooms of a converted schoolhouse. They slept on three-tiered bunks.

The Germans relocated him and his mother and older brother and they wound up in Auschwitz-Birkenau in Southern Poland in the so-called family section with about 10,000 others.

In June of '44, the Germans decided to break up the section and they selected able-bodied men and women for labor camps. Silberstern's mother and brother were among the able-bodied. But three-quarters of the inhabitants did not qualify and were supposed to have been gassed and cremated by the end of July.

At literally the last minute of the disbursement, an order came to choose about 100 boys between ages 11 and 15, for reasons unknown, to go to a youth labor camp. Dr. Josef Mengele made the split-second selections, pointing left or right, live or die. Henry got to live and so did 88 others (not the 100 originally called for).

He then stayed in the neighboring men's camp until the early Fall of 1944 when he and five other boys were picked again to go to another camp in a complex which supplied labor to a nearby coal mine. From there, the six were shipped to Nordhausen (a sub-camp for Dora-Mittelbau, in turn a sub-camp for Buchenwald) where they toiled to help a manufacturer make the devasting bombs that killed a lot of Londoners.

Then Silberstern says he was sent further inside Germany to Bergen-Belsen, by far the worst camp he ever suffered. A Canadian contingency of the British Army freed him from that place when he was 15 -- in fact on his 15th birthday, April 15, 1945.

At this point, the visiting speaker told the Batavia High students that the most important thing now was to take advantage of what is almost certainly their only opportunity to ask a Holocaust survivor something directly.

"Please ask me anything you want and we'll take it from there," said the diminutive, somewhat hoarse Silberstern, seated before the group, and wearing tan pants, long-sleeved navy-blue Oxford shirt, brown leather deck shoes. He had a slight cough, which prompted him to dab a handkerchief on his lips from time to time.

During the post-lunch session, the first question asked was if he has a number.

"Why do you think I have a number?" Henry asked the girl.

"Because you were in the camp."

Silberstern answered that most people think every person who was in a concentration or labor camp had a number tattooed on the forearm. But actually, it was only those who were in the gigantic Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, which he thinks had about 69 sub-camps, who were distinguished in that way. And yes, he has his number tattooed on his forearm.

Next, a boy asked "What were your initial thoughts upon arriving at the first camp you went to?"

"A bit of confusion. I didn't understand why. But then again, I didn't understand a lot of the other whys either -- Why couldn't I keep my bike? Why couldn't I...so many other issues. There were no answers to it. It was always ' 'cause that's the orders.' ... I guess this seemed like just another order in the progression of things. You go from one bad thing to another, after awhile you say 'well, I guess that's the way it is.'

"And in a way that's exactly the way it happened. I never sat down and really questioned it. ... there were so many other kids in exactly the same situation that I was and this was a common thread amongst us. Unfortunately, for those things there were no answers."

"How hard was it to re-adapt to normal society after you were liberated?"

After a long pause, he replied "I'm not sure how long it took me, but I do know that it was extremely important. Other kids my age had the same problem. We were a certain age chronologically -- I was 15 at that point -- but street smart (-wise) I was more like 21. I learned how to steal, I learned how to cheat, and lie, and all those things. It was necessary to get along, to survive. ... And I was really a third age. When I was forbidden to go to school, my education stopped there, so I was about 12. ... I knew I had to make a decision...most of us realized it makes more sense to be what your chronological age is. We didn't come to that conclusion overnight, but we realized that you have to pick one and stick with it."

Question by Ms. Herniman: "Talk about how food helped you get through it (as he had explained to the prior group of students).

"We were always hungry. Constantly hungry. And I've never yet come up with a way to explain it -- what it means to be really hungry. I'm sure there were occasions when you thought you were hungry -- maybe you didn't feel well and you didn't eat for two days -- but that's not being hungry. And I found out that being thirsty is worse than being hungry."

To help them grasp what he meant, Silberstern told them about a typical daily menu. In the morning, a prisoner was given a cup or bowl (whichever the prisoner had) of a lukewarm, cloudy, muddy-looking liquid. He was told it was made from grain, but for some reason he says he never believed that. He doesn't know what the gruel was made from. At noon, all the camps serve soup. It was usually made from potato peels (the guards got the actual potatoes) and often they threw in a vegetable, most times a turnip. At night, they each got a piece of bread, maybe with a pat of margarine or a spoonful of beet jam. That's all.

The unending sense of hunger, Henry explained, could drive people to do things that under normal circumstances they wouldn't even dream of doing. A father would steal food from his son. A mother from daughter.

Getting more food was practically impossible.

"I remember one occasion, I was working at the railroad siding, when a new transport of prisoners was arriving. And many of the people, particularly in 1944 when they brought in the Hungarian prisoners, they brought in suitcases full of salamis and stuff that you couldn't bring into camp. But we sure did gorge ourselves at the railroad siding. ...food was a bargaining chip, food and cigarettes.

"I think as many people died from the effects of starvation as they did from whatever other causes there were -- brutality, and so on. So being hungry was a constant part of your life. Even when you worked outside the camp, in a field for example, if you stole a potato, when you got back to camp, they found it, they took it away from you, you got punished.

"I've eaten my share of raw potatoes. That's not exactly something you look forward to, they taste pretty bad. But you do what you have to do. ... People ate grass if they could ... nothing was off limits, so to speak."

"Did you travel in cattle cars?"

"Yes, I've traveled in cattle cars. Most of these rides were very unpleasant. One was the winter of 1944-45 -- one of the most severe winters in Europe. I traveled from Nordhausen to Bergen-Belsen. We were put in open cattle cars and the cold was really brutal. Of the 100 people shoved into (each one), maybe only 30 percent arrived alive. Even in closed cattle cars, you might not be as open to the elements, but there were other reasons they were unpleasant. Not just the crowding. Prisoners were in pretty bad shape and were driven to do some pretty nasty things to each other."

"What is your worst, most horrific memory?"

"I'm not sure if it's the worst I've seen, but it's the most vivid. It left an impression on me that I find very hard to forget. That occurred when prisoners were beaten. They constructed a bench and when a prisoner was slated to be beaten, he had to put his feet in this box at the bottom of the bench so that he couldn't back out. Then two other prisoners -- each of them held one of his arms and stretched him out -- and the prisoners beat him. If they didn't beat him to the liking of the guard, the guard would beat the prisoners who did the beating and then beat the one on the bench. This was done with a rubber hose. Some were beaten so hard that sometimes they suffered rectal prolapse. (This is when the rectum, the lower end of the colon, falls down and comes through the anus.)

"It's hard to talk about it. Even today, I felt it was very gruesome."

Did the boy prisoners become friends?

"Not only were we treated badly by the guards, the trustees -- called capos, other adult prisoners -- treated us very shabby. They stole from us and we learned you couldn't really trust anybody. This made us boys close and lifelong friends."

"Was there ever a guard who showed kindness or mercy?"

"General comment: No there weren't any. But that's not true. What does kindness mean? Does that mean they would serve us a meal or give us a good pair of shoes? Kindness can be described as something a guard has ignored but it was in his power to punish. The problem was that the same guy that seemed kind one minute was brutal the next, so they wouldn't get a reputation of being a pushover.

"The boys had conversations and it concerned them that guards displayed this Jekyll-and-Hyde personality constantly. (We thought) What was it that made us different? When they were home they played with their kids."

"What was Dr. Mengele like, was he the 'Angel of Death' like they say?"

"He was a strange guy. ... He wore these highly polished boots, white gloves, immaculate person. He went to the Gypsy camp, for example, and pat these little children on the head and give them candy and then send them to the gas chamber. I don't know how to describe him. ... Physicians take the Hippocratic Oath. He took the same oath, yet he was the Angel of Death. ... When you were in front of him, you were unnerved. When you heard Mengele was here, you knew something bad was about to happen. He was really different."

Silberstern is certain Mengele would've had to stand trial at the war crimes court in Nuremburg, where he was likely to be convicted and shot or hung. But he escaped to South American, going from country to country, never getting a peaceful moment, before he was found drowned.

"To use poetic justice, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," said Henry, showing again a spark of his dark humor.

"Did you ever see any twins in the camps?"

"Twins were one of the particularly interesting specimens," Henry said. "There was a standing order that twins were to be set aside for Mengele to dispose of or experiment on. Same for people with physical deformities."

Of the original 89 boys who were, like Silberstern, chosen to work and housed in the youth dorms, the few remaining met in Prague in 1995. A twin attended, but even 50 years later could not bear to utter a word of what happened to them, says Silberstern.

"When you arrived at Auschwitz, did you think it was a factory of death?"

"We were pretty naive when we arrived there. When we got out of the cattle cars, there was this peculiar odor that permeated the whole area. We asked some prisoners what the smell was and they looked at us like we were crazy and said 'Don't you know? That's what burning flesh smells like.' Most of us didn't believe it. It took several days to register and for us to admit to ourselves that 'I guess that's what it really is.' "

Silberstern, as it turned out, would become one of the very rare cases of someone who got inside the gas chambers and crematoria -- at Birkenau where they had five such facilities he says -- and actually lived through it.

"The reason I did was because while I was in Birkenau, I was assigned to a job where we pulled or pushed a little wagon throughout the camps delivering goods -- lumber to a building site, sand, or we also delivered sick people, dead people, whatever one has to do," he explains blandly.

Well, there were these young prisoners, most in their early 20s, who were selected by the Germans to run the gas chambers and crematoria -- they were known as "under-commanders." ("Every three months they were replaced and a new under-commander came in and his first job was to cremate the people he replaced.")

"When we delivered things to the crematoria and gas chambers, they allowed us to actually go into the gas chamber and crematoria -- believe it or not -- to keep warm. That sounds a little gruesome. But that's what we did. That's why we were there, not to be killed but to warm up."

"What was your clothing situation like?"

"In the first camp, we wore the clothes we arrived in. But that was the only place. From that point on, I always wore a prison uniform. Gray and kind of blue stripes. No underwear. No socks. I think we were given coats in the winter. Some people were given caps. I'm not sure how they decided who gets a cap or, for that matter, what the purpose was. Routinely, they took our clothing away. Every three months, they disinfected our clothing. Lice was such a huge, huge problem. The gave us (freshly deloused) clothing. They shaved our bodies. They dipped us in carbolic acid to kill the larvae."

"What did they do with the babies?"

"I'm sure it varied from place to place, but childbirth was forbidden and that meant that somebody, including the mother, would kill the baby. But I'm not sure there were many pregnancies or births in the camps (because of the living conditions and the poor physical health of the inhabitants).

"When they said you were going to be liberated, did you believe it?"

Liberation happened over a period of time. It's not like one day you're a prisoner and the next day you're free. You heard the cannon fire around the camps. Then the regular SS guards disappeared, then the other guards. Little by little liberation took place. But unfortunately that did not stop the dying. People who were in the process of dying still died.

"Freedom meant different things to different people. To an adult it meant getting back home, to their families, their work, their education. ... For us kids, we had no history -- our history was so shallow if you will, that we really had nothing to fall back on. When we were liberated the one overwhelming thought we had was food, get food, more food. It sounds childish but being hungry was such a drain on us. When we thought about food, we didn't think about a slice of pizza or a Big Mac, but a potato, slice of bread. ... So our needs were simple."

Silberstern returned to the town of his birth, and finding nothing familiar, he went to his adopted hometown of Prague. His brother didn't make it. His parents and other relatives also died. A Czechoslovakian government agency put him in an orphanage and when he was able to leave, he took advantage of an opportunity to go to Canada.

"Once in Canada, I found new challenges. I quickly found out that if you don't speak the language, that's three strikes against you. Secondly, if you don't have any skills to offer, employers aren't going to exactly beat down a path to your door to offer you jobs. I didn't have either -- I didn't speak the language and I had no skills. School wasn't an option. I had to go out somehow and provide for myself. So I had some serious problems. Except for the fact that I was a young person, I might have been defeated."

In the intervening years, of course, he found a way, married, fathered two daughters, and made good.

But for the longest time, he says, people did not want to talk about that time in history. It was too painful. There was a lot of guilt. Shame. Other survivors had their own problems and families to contend with. But those people, for the most part are now "either gone or they are not effective," so eventually it's become popular to talk about.

Ms. Herniman asked him what he would say to a Holocaust denier, should he ever be within earshot of such a person.

"I don't know how I would react. I find it difficult to understand why they are saying what they do. What are they trying to prove? I don't know what their agenda is. It's ... sinister. There is no answer."

Afterward, this particular group of students applauded, and filed to the front to take turns shaking Henry Silberstern's hand. Most of them seemed genuinely appreciative of the chance to meet him and hear what he had to say. Mason Battaglia, 17, even seemed a little awestruck, saying it was an honor to meet him.

"I mean to go through something like that -- I've read about it in books," Mason told a reporter as he left the library. "But it was interesting to hear about it from a person who was there. He's spending a day educating kids! It's good to know about it."

Plenty for them to think about, too. Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Photo by: Scott Wilson

The grave marker is of a young girl on her knees hands clasped in prayer.

Elmwood Cemetery caretaker Steve Davis has been on the job for 20 years and the little headstone always reminded him of his daughter.

"My daughter, when she was little, always made a pose like that when she wanted something," Davis said. "Every time I go past that statue, if I'm trimming or working in the area, I always think of my daughter. When I came in and saw (it knocked down), it broke my heart."

The girl's praying headstone along with 28 others were knocked over by vandals sometime over the weekend.

It's the second time this month -- the first being around April 7 -- that vandals have rampaged through the cemetery knocking down headstones.

Det. Rich Schauf said the vandalism certainly has the attention of Batavia PD and patrols will be stepped up in the area.

"This is an intolerable crime," Schauf said. "Any criminal mischief isn't tolerable, but this is intolerable because of the lack of respect for the deceased. This isn't just about the police being upset. It should offend anybody with any common sense."

There's quite a bit the public can do to assist the police, Schauf said.

First, if young people are involved, they'll talk. They may even post pictures to social media.

"There's an old saying," Schauf said. "If three people know a secret, the only way it stays a secret is if two of them die."

The police would welcome any tips about pictures posted on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or if anybody hears anything related to the crime; tipsters should call Batavia PD.

Second, if you're out and about at 10 or 11 at night, or 2 or 3 in the morning, take a drive down Harvester or Buell.  Normally, Schauf said he wouldn't recommend calling the police just because a group of youths are out, but in this case, if they're in that area, call the police.

"Normally, just because three people are out walking doesn't mean they're going to do damage to a cemetery, but if there's anybody in the area, we're going to want to know about it," Schuaf said. "Nobody is going to say, 'I'm not going to that.' We're hypersensitive about it right now and we're going to respond."

Whatever you do, Schauf said, don't go into the cemetery. It's closed after dark, so not only would you be trespassing, you would make yourself a suspect, and if the real suspects were ever arrested, part of their defense could then be that this other person was in the cemetery as well.

Batavia PD is budgeted for a new mobile surveillance camera in 2014 specifically to deal with troubled crime areas, but Det. Kevin Czora said it will be months before the department makes the purchase.

Davis said he might bring up with the board of directors at its next meeting the idea of the cemetery investing in its own camera system. There isn't much money for such a purchase, however.

He said he has spoken with kids who come around the cemetery about helping protect the cemetery.

"When I come by after supper, there's a ton of kids here riding their bikes or whatever and I try to befriend them only because this is their cemetery along with everybody else's and I ask them to keep an eye on it," Davis said. "I don't know what the answer is -- not let people in here anymore? You can't do that. How do you keep the bad ones out? I try to tell them keep an eye out. Let me know if something is going on."

Officer Jason Davis, who took the report on this weekend's vandalism, said patrols are certainly aware of the need to increase their presence in the area, especially at night and on weekends, but it's difficult to catch the vandals in the act.

"Obviously, it's dark inside the cemetery so it's very difficult for us see in there without driving in there and when a patrol car drives in there, usually people can duck in between the shadows and it's difficult for us to see them," Officer Davis said.

The cemetery can apply to the state for compensation for grave-marker repair, but it's a long process to get the funds. The total damage at this point exceeds $1,000.

Volunteers can't be used to help repair the damage, Davis said, because of possible liability. If somebody hurt their back lifting a stone, he wouldn't want to see the cemetery sued.

This weekend's damage forms almost a straight line from the front entrance on Harvester to a hole in the fence near Buell Street.

"They use bolt cutters or something to cut the hole," Davis said. "We fixed it the first time a long time ago, but as many times as I can fix it, they break it."

Because the aggregate damage of each of the two recent incidents exceeds more than $250 each, the vandals are facing possible felony charges for tampering with a cemetery, Officer Davis said. And each headstone knocked over constitutes its own misdemeanor criminal tampering charge.

Cemetery vandalism is a decades-old problem, Davis acknowledged. Elmwood records in the 1920s and '30s record acts of vandalism, but this latest round certainly has Davis feeling weary.

"It's going to be a long summer," Davis said. "It never starts this early. Usually it's in the summertime when the kids are out of school and this year it started early, and I've never had it so close together, so I'm just afraid of what's going to happen this summer."

Davis has had a rough month. Last week his shop on Buell Street was hit by burglars. They stole more than $3,000 in tools.

A small grass fire is reported at 3500 Harloff Road in the area of Polar Wave. East Pembroke and Town of Batavia fire are responding.

UPDATE 1:16 p.m.: The caller was a passerby on the Thruway, who also stated that she saw a man standing on a hill next to the blaze. Now dispatch has called law enforcement to investigate a possible arson. East Pembroke firefighters at the scene are running out of water. Town Engine 24 just arrived. They want to squelch the fire before "it gets down into the buidlings."

UPDATE 1:20 p.m.: A tanker from East Pembroke is also going to the scene.

UPDATE 1:22 p.m.: Firefighters want to keep the fire from going over the hill into the brush. A firefighter says wind is a factor and also reports that "the landowner is giving us a hard time." After confirming that law enforcement is on scene, he says "have them come over and have a chat (with the perturbed landowner).

UPDATE 1:35 p.m.: Command reports the fire is under control.

UPDATE 1:59 p.m.: Fire is out. Assignment is back in service. Law enforcement is making a report about the possible arson.

David J. Swartz, 53, of Washington Avenue, Batavia, is charged with third-degree assault following a disturbance on April 24 outside a bar on Harvester Avenue. It is alleged that Swartz intentionally struck a subject in the face during an altercation, recklessly causing physical injury. He was issued an appearance ticket and is to return to City Court on May 6. The incident was investigated by officer Devon Pahuta, assisted by officer Marc Lawrence.

A 16-year-old from Caledonia is charged with harassment and criminal obstruction of breathing following an incident on March 25 on East Avenue, Batavia. The charges were incurred due to an alleged altercation with her mother. The teen was jailed with bail set at $1,000. She was to appear in court April 25. The incident was investigated by officer Stephen Cronmiller, assisted by officer Christopher Camp.

Kim M. Mobley, 51, of Watson Street, Batavia, is charged with petit larceny following an investigation of a shoplifting incident at occurred on April 19 at a grocery store on Ellicott Street. Mobley allegedly entered the store, took several items and then left without paying for them. Mobley was issued an appearance ticket and is to appear in City Court on May 6. The incident was investigated by officer Chad Richards, assisted by officer Jamie Givens.

Adam R. Clark, 23, of South Main Street, Batavia, is charged with unnecessary noise-excessive noise, following an incident with occurred on April 20 on South Main Street. Clark was arrested following an investigation of a complaint of loud music. He was issued an appearance ticket and is to return to City Court on Tuesday. The incident was investigated by officer Stephen Cronmiller.

A driver says he may have fallen asleep while on Route 63 in Stafford at 2:13 a.m., leading to a rollover accident.

The truck driven by Cody A. Paxton, 21, of New Providence, Pa., is owned by Norfolk Southern Railway, and it came to rest on all four wheels.

Paxton suffered minor injuries and was transported by Mercy EMS to Strong Memorial Hospital.

The accident was investigated by Deputy Joseph Graff.

Photos submitted by a reader.

Wall Street Journal: Cheerleading Gets Serious in New York

City fire is on scene at 116 Harvester Ave. for the smell of smoke in the residence.

A commander reports smoke in the residence and firefighters are investigating.

UPDATE 7:34 a.m.: The smoke has been traced to a burned-out motor in the refrigerator.

UPDATE 7:48 a.m.: City fire back in service.

Kilian Lewis, 14, of Corfu, bagged his first turkey yesterday morning in Alexander as part of a Youth Turkey Hunt, the first day of the Spring youth hunt season (the adult season begins May 1). The turkey had a 10-inch beard. Killian's older brother, Collin, 18, helped call it in. (Photo and info submitted by M. Lewis).

John Zambito, 14, of Elba, got his first turkey this morning while hunting with his uncle Kelly Creegan. (Submitted by Chantal Zambito)

At Genesee Community College today, students put together its 33rd Annual Fashion Show, which showcases the design and merchandising talents of students graduating from the Fashion Design and Marketing program.

The show is also produced with the help of other programs at the college, such as Hospitality, Criminal Justice, Multimedia and Graphic Design.

A record number of designers showcased their work this year.

There were shows at 3 and 7 p.m. These photos are from the first show, including a look behind the scenes and shots from the after-party.

To purchase prints, click here.

Deputies are searching the area of Telephone Road and Perry Road for a man with a possible self-inflicted knife wound who fled an area residence on foot.

A deputy said, "We're not sure how bad it is. He's definitely injured. We're going to have to find him somehow."

The man is described as 5' 2" tall and thin. He is a white male from Rochester with no friends or family in the area. He fled in a southeasterly direction.

There may be another knife-cut victim at the residence.

Pavilion fire and Mercy EMS are staging at the nearby salt barn. Mercy Flight is on ground standby.

UPDATE 10:42 p.m.: It appears there is nobody injured back at the residence. The subject who fled is described as more of a threat to himself than police. It's not believed he has any weapons on him at this time.

UPDATE 11:05 p.m.: The subject is wearing blue jeans.

UPDATE 11:49 p.m.: Mercy Flight, which has remained on ground standby, is told to stand down.

UPDATE 11:57 p.m.: Pavilion fire is told to go back in service. No other update on the situation.

UPDATE 12:12 a.m.: It sounds like a resident spotted him lying down in some brush and he's been located. Pending confirmation ...

UPDATE 12:13 a.m.: Deputies are with the subject.

UPDATE 12:15 a.m.: Pavilion fire and Mercy EMS requested back to the scene. The subject has minor cuts.

Maddie Keen and Courtney Jones took part in a Rustic Riders 4-H program today at the Genesee County Fairgrounds aimed at helping them learn the muscle and skeletal structure of a horse. Their project today was to paint the placement of bones on their horse.

Officer Jamie Givens collects a drop-off from a local resident during drug drop-off day at Batavia PD.

Officers filled 13 boxes (about 4-feet tall, 18x18 inches square) and nine buckets of sharps.

The drugs are turned to the DEA for safe destruction.

There were also drug drop-off events today in Pembroke and Corfu.

Heavy smoke is reportedly spewing from a third-floor apartment inside Washington 400 Towers on East Main Street. City firefighters are on scene after dispatch received information that multiple alarms were sounding in the building. Firefighters are "packing up and heading in."

UPDATE 3:48 p.m.: This was a stove fire. Commands reports it is out and they are ventilating.

UPDATE 4:07 p.m.: Now ventilating the fourth and fifth floors and will be remaining on scene for "quite awhile."

UPDATE 4:38 p.m.: Ventilation was completed about 15 minutes ago. Command says one unit is picking up to leave and the other will be remaining to do some investigation.

Robert Given, of Elba, is the first winner of the first raffle put together by the brand new Elba Betterment Committee.

A group of Elba residents have come together to help improve and promote Elba and they kicked off things with a raffle for a basket filled with more than $1,000 worth of gifts.

Given's name was picked during a drawing Friday at Chap's Elba Diner.

All items in the basket were donated by Elba merchants small businesses and farmers, according to Pauli Miano (who submitted the photos). Prizes included an iPad mini, bags of potatoes, Lottery tickets, a weed eater, over $300 worth of gift cards, craft items, pet supplies, books autographed by local authors, shirts and sweatshirts.

In a second raffle, anyone who came to Chap’s today was able to buy a chance on a hundred dollar bill. Sandi Chappius of Elba was the winner.