Stories from

Rob Radley submitted these photos of today's Memorial Day events in Le Roy at Trigon Park and a parade on Main Street. The events were organized by the American Legion Botts-Fiorito Post #576 and the Auxiliary.

Photos from Memorial Day observances at Williams Park, the VA Center, Upton Monument, Elmwood Cemetery, the Batavia Memorial Day Parade, and the service at the War Memorial at St. Jerome's.

To purchase prints, click here.

       Mariah Mosher

A professional model from Medina has been charged with DWI after reportedly driving her car completely inside of the Two Eagles Smokeshop & Gas Mart on Bloomingdale Road, Basom, yesterday morning.

Mariah L. Mosher, 20, is who represents herself as a professional model.

Mosher also goes by "Mia Mischievious," and promotes herself as an internationally published model and hairstylist.

Troopers responded to the store on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation at 9:30 a.m. after receiving a report of a car driving into the building.

The initial dispatch said the female driver was trapped in the vehicle, but by the time emergency responders arrived, the woman had gotten out and was walking.

Troopers report that Mosher was the driver and that she failed to negotiate a curve. She caused extensive damage to the building and its contents and an employee suffered minor injuries.

Mosher allegedly failed a field sobriety test at the scene and was transported to UMMC for evaluation, where blood was drawn. After treatment, she was released back the custody of State Police and transported to the Batavia Barracks, where she was booked and released.

She was also cited for alleged failure to yield right of way, failure to stop at a stop sign, possession of an open container of alcohol and failure to use designated lane.

She is scheduled to appear in Alabama Town Court on June 20.

A disabled tractor-trailer has partially blocked Route 77 by the Flying J.

Emergency responders are on scene.

UPDATE 8:45 p.m.: Roadway is clear.  

Submitted photo.

Members of the local law enforcement community completed a competition at Batavia Cross Training on Swan Street called the Memorial Day Murph.

The competition is held at cross-training facilities across the nation in honor of Navy Lt. Michael Murphy, who died in Afghanistan on June 28, 2005.

The event is a competition and a fundraiser. This year, participants raised $1,625 for the family of Deputy Frank Bordonaro, who died in 2014.

Officers invited to participate by training for two months for the HERO workout. This year, nine teams of four athletes each competed, working together to help motivate each other and push through their limits in a grueling workout.

The workout consists of a one-mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 squats, and finishes with another one-mile run.

Batavia Cross Training is owned by Jessica Pratt.

A vehicle has reportedly crashed into a building at 858 Bloomingdale Road, Tonawanda Indian Reservation, the Two Eagles Smokeshop & Gas Mart.

A person is reportedly trapped in the vehicle.

Alabama fire and Mercy EMS requested to the scene. Pembroke and Indian Falls requested mutual aid. Heavy rescue equipment requested to the scene.

UPDATE 9:37 a.m.: The woman who was in the car is conscious and alert and out of the vehicle. The vehicle is completely inside the building.

UPDATE 9:38 a.m.: Pembroke and Indian Falls asked to stage in quarters.

UPDATE 10:21 a.m.: Patient being transported to UMMC for evaluation.

A lost dog has been found on Pike Road by an area resident.

The dog was pulling 50 feet of cable.

A deputy is responding.

The Swanson family was honored today by the Michael Napoleone Memorial Foundation at the foundation's annual Memorial Day Weekend tournament at MacArthur Park in Batavia.

In 2007, Anders Swanson -- in the blue shirt above with mother Amy, father Garth and brothers Beckett and Cooper -- was diagnosed with cancer deep in his brain when he was 18 months old.

"(The doctors were) brutally honest," Amy said. "This kind of cancer is rare, it’s aggressive and it doesn’t have a good outcome. Kids with this kind of cancer don’t survive."

He immediately underwent surgery, and then a long ordeal of treatment that included four rounds of chemo, 31 days of radiation, two high-dosage chemo treatments, two stem-cell transplants, and countless blood transfusions, spinal taps and CAT scans. He underwent a second major brain surgery in which 90 percent of the cancer was removed. Now considered cancer free, Amy said he still undergoes numerous regular tests and the fight isn't over, yet Anders remains positive and a team player.

"He has to work much harder, but he greets everything with a can-do attitude," Amy said.

The tournament, she said, was a great way to honor Micheal's memory, because his love of baseball is evident by every smile on the field.

"We know how important baseball is," Amy said. "It’s about accountability, character, courage, confidence, commitment, determination, ethics, honor, humility and humor, integrity, loyalty, leadership, obedience, self-discipline, sportsmanship and teamwork. These truly are the key components of baseball. Baseball is unique in that it can often mirror life itself. The great length of a baseball season, and the fact that failure is an innate part of the game, offers players, coaches and parents the opportunities to teach many more of life’s truths and skills."

The foundation regularly provides financial support to families with children battling cancer, and Laurie Napoleone presented the Swanson's with a $1,000 check, but the Swanson's asked that the money be donated to other charities.

Since Micheal's death, the foundation has provided more than $230,000 to 300 families in the region, donated more than $56,000 to pediatric cancer research, and assisted youth sports with $38,000 in donations, and provided another $50,000 to the Golisano Children's Hospital in Rochester.

The Spirit of Michael Napoleone Award went to Ryan Carroll and Jacob Smith.

Members of the Genesee Kickball League came together today to help raise funds to defray medical costs for Zachary Kaus.

Kaus was diagnosed with acute aplastic leukemia in September. Both of his sisters were perfect matches for a bone marrow donation, and on Dec. 22, he received a bone marrow transplant from his oldest sister.

"It took perfectly, everything is good and I’m leukemia free now," said Kaus, pictured above.

Kaus was a member of the kickball league, but he's still amazed that so many people turned out to Batavia Sports Park today.

"It’s crazy," he said. "I didn’t think there would be this many people, this big a turnout. But they love playing for a cause, obviously. It means a lot for sure. I want to thank everybody for coming out. It’s a little overwhelming, but it’s awesome to watch."

Most people, perhaps, in Kati Mancuso's position wouldn't choose the circumstances of her life as a time to open a new business, especially one as emotionally and physically demanding as a restaurant.

But this week, that's what Mancuso did, opening Kati's Place at 40 Oak St., Batavia.

Even though Mancuso now lives in Rochester, she came back to Batavia because this is where her friends and customers are. She started in the restaurant business at 16 at Scooter's in Batavia, moved on to Scooter's in Le Roy, and eventually opened Kati's Place in Le Roy.

She had to close that restaurant after a drunken driver slammed into her car and she suffered a broken back.

She wanted to get back in the business, but took time off for the birth of her son.

"I could have opened a restaurant in Rochester and started over, but I’m so close to so many people and so many customers and they’ve been like my family over all these years so I wanted a place they could come to, so that’s why I came out to Batavia to do it," she said.

After her son was born, she found a pencil-size lump on her arm. It turned out to be a rare form of melanoma. She had a 9.7-millimeter tumor removed. She's had all the lymph nodes on her right side removed. She went through six weeks of chemo, five days a week, and then five weeks of chemo for three days a week. She's had five major surgeries and two minor surgeries.

The original prognosis was a 16-percent chance of surviving past a year.

She's not giving up.

"I felt like I was either going to lay there and die or do something that I love," Mancuso said. "This keeps me busy and keeps me moving and I think I just have to keep a positive attitude and know that I’ll be all right. I know the diagnoses isn’t good, but it’s OK."

Mancuso said every day is hard, but she has her seven employees to help her out and her customers to keep her spirits up.

"These people have been like my family and it gives them someplace to go and enjoy good food that is homemade, that’s not fast food," Mancuso said.

Kati's Place is open seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Thursday, to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and to 3 p.m. on Sunday. It's a diner with about a dozen tables and take-outs are available. The phone number is (585) 250-4483.

We had a database error this morning and had to restore the site from a backup.

The good news is, we had a very recent backup available, 3 a.m. The bad news is, we still lost a couple of posts.

One was from Steve Ognibene about Batavia's boys and girls track teams winning Section V titles. Steve isn't available until tonight to repost it. Our apologies.

The other post was an accident on the Thruway and we can't recreate that post.

I don't think any user comments were lost.

In a competitive sport, there can be only one winner, and in Brockport today, only one team would get to make history.

That team turned out to be Aquinas, which became only the third school (that we know of) in modern Section V history to win the boys' team-sport Triple Crown -- championships in football, basketball and baseball -- in a single school year.

It's the second time Aquinas has achieved the feat, first doing it in 2011-12.

Batavia has never done it, and with a 2-1 loss will have to wait for another opportunity somewhere down the road.

The records are incomplete, but John Moriello of the New York Sportswriters Association researched the question today, and as near as he can tell, the Triple Crown has only been achieved three times in Section V, though it's possible some smaller schools archived it.

"I suspect it's happened a few times over the years in the section, but there's not a database that would allow for pinning down specifics," Moriello said. "It's more likely in the smaller classifications with schools like Notre Dame, Clyde-Savannah, Hornell and Cal-Mum."

While Batavia notched Section V titles in football and basketball this year, Aquinas could go on to win the trifecta at the state level this year.

There were no Section V football championships before 1977.

Pittsford Mendon was the first Section V school to secure the Triple Crown with titles in 1982-83.

This year, 31 teams in the state had a chance at the Triple Crown when baseball season started, according to Moriello, and only Aquinas got that third critical win.

Batavia won its first baseball title in 1953, but hasn't taken a Section V crown since 1998 (it also had titles in 1980, 81 and 94).

The football program had great teams prior to 1977, but didn't get a Section V title until 1991 and then waited until the Brennan Briggs era to win again, getting titles in 2014 and this year.

Batavia became a powerhouse in basketball under Buddy Brasky, winning its first Section V title in 1998, and then in 2005, 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2016.

To purchase prints, click here (the slideshow includes BHS softball).

Batavia High School's softball team lost 14-4 today to Geneseo in a Class A2 title game played at Brockport HS.

These pictures are from the final inning and a half.

A pedestrian is conscious and alert after reportedly being struck by a car in the area of 317 E. Main St., Batavia.

The car has left the scene.

It's a maroon, newer sedan driving by a female, heading east on Main Street.

City fire and Mercy EMS dispatched.

UPDATE 10:27 p.m.: The vehicle has apparently been located.

UPDATE 10:28 p.m.: The vehicle stopped was not involved. A city patrol is checking the area.

It's looking like Memorial Day Weekend is going to be a great weekend to make use of the spray park in Austin Park, as Darien Rhodes did this afternoon with Faith Rhodes.

Temperatures will reach as high as 92 degrees over the weekend with ample humidity.

Mark Williams, with the Tompkins Bank of Castile, holds one of the baskets available in a charity raffle at the Batavia branch on East Main Street.

Funds from the raffle of the two baskets of wine and other gifts will benefit Relay for Life in Wyoming County.  

Raffle tickets are available through the drive-up or when you walk into the branch.

With a 7-6 win over Lyndonville in the Section V Class D2 championship softball game yesterday, the Fighting Irish became Notre Dame's 80th girls team across all sports to win a sectional title.

Notre Dame took a 6-1 lead into the sixth, but Lyndonville put together a rally to tie the game. The Irish won on a walk to Jessica Bukowski with the bases loaded, bringing Callie McCulley in to score.

Photo submitted by Kathy Antinore.

Debris from an accident in the Oak Street Roundabout is causing some havoc, with popped tires and slowed traffic.

Earlier, Batavia PD had responded to a fender-bender in the roundabout and after this current incident was reported, he confirmed there was very little debris from that accident and it was cleaned up, so this debris is apparently from a later, unreported accident.

A Sheriff's patrol came through and reported a good deal of debris in the roundabout and "people are popping their tires."

There's a disabled semi-truck and two passenger vehicles have pulled into a nearby parking lot, coincidentally, perhaps, a tire shop.

Frank Grillo submitted these photos and story about the dog run being installed at the PTSD clinic at the Batavia VA.

I know how important the small things are.

I know when your scraping and clawing and fighting to regain your life that every advantage can mean the difference between life and death. 

When I came home I never slept. I watched out the windows, I patrolled my home. I gained over 100 pounds and began to fail at school and life. What brought me back? My dog.

Reba watched out the windows. Reba listened for sounds so I didn't have to. Her hearing was better; she constantly stared out the window and when I said "Reba, Whats That?" she would barrel from window to window on high alert. 

When I arrived at the PTSD clinic I was immediately greeted like a criminal. Breathalyzers and urinalysis as well as a search of my belongings. The windows would only open four inches because someone from Texas jumped out of his window and because it was early spring the heaters were still on bringing my room to a not so comfy 90+ degrees.

The program was being run by a woman who did not know how to balance what was best for the vet against the regulations.

This was a colossal mess but I did three tours in Iraq and I could handle all the above.

I lasted less than one day.

Why?

I didn't have my dog.

Fast forward three years. I've given up on almost all of my volunteering. Too many fake programs cashing in on veterans. 

I did keep on, however, keep up with the VA Veterans Advisors Council for two reasons:

• because my friend Patrick brought me in;
• and because I believe in the Director Brian Stiller, who is himself a Navy veteran. 

For almost a year we brought the fight to allow service dogs into the PTSD program and thanks to a language loophole and Brian's willingness to do the right thing, to act on principal FOR the veteran in spite of the ridiculous bureaucracy, and we prevailed. 

A veteran who found it too tough to stay in the program without his service dog eventually returned to Batavia to complete the program, and to his credit he pioneered the possibility of service dogs at the residential treatment program. 

Next we asked, "What can we do to make this permanent?" and Director Stiller responded, "We need a place to let the run off vest."

Immediately I reached out to my brothers at the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association Chapter 19-6 in Batavia.

We raised the funding and created the fenced-in pen you see in this picture. Yesterday, we returned to build a shelter where the combat veteran can sit in case he or she cannot stand. A place the veteran can relax out of the elements while his or her most loyal companion can run and play and unwind.

These dogs are easing the burden and saving the lives of veterans every day just as my Reba did for me. It is my privlidge and our chapter's honor to make that kind of advantage a possibility for our fellow combat veterans.

God bless America.

An Oakfield woman, whose husband was a leader in the Hells Angels motorcycle club, and who was convicted for her part in a meth distribution operation, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to three years probation and 12 months of home detention.

Donna Boon McAuley, 50, was among seven defendants in the case, which was also tied into a racketeering investigation stemming from a baseball attack on a patron of a bar in Rochester. 

The investigation revealed Boon, in conjunction with her husband, James Henry McAuley Jr., helped distribute methamphetamine obtained from a Hells Angel member in California from 2002 through July 9, 2010. Boon admitted to obtaining and distributing at least 30 grams of meth. Some of it was sold to a dealer in Genesee County who sold it to Genesee County residents.

James McAuley was convicted for his part in the ring and is scheduled to be sentenced July 12.

This case is part of a larger investigation that resulted in the indictment and arrest of members and associates of the Rochester and Monterey, Ca., Hell's Angels for drug trafficking and racketeering-related offenses in February 2012. Seven defendants were charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. In addition to Boon and McAuley, Richard W. Mar, Jeffrey A. Tyler, Richard E. Riedman, Gordon Montgomery and Paul Griffin, have been convicted for their roles in the methamphetamine conspiracy.

Taking part in the investigation and prosecution of the case were the FBI, Sheriff's Office, DEA, State Police, Batavia PD and Le Roy PD.