Stories from

With the afternoon shaping up as a beautiful fall day and some time on my hands, I took a drive out toward Alabama with the intention to make some pictures. Here are six shots that I came across.

Above, cattle in pasture off Bliss Road, Oakfield.

Tree on Roberts Road.

White birch off Sour Springs Road.

Stand of Pine Trees, Sour Springs Road.

Hay field off Roberts Road.

Sunset off Route 77 near Indian Falls.

A 26-year-old Erie County resident is facing a felony weapons charge after his car was stopped in Le Roy this morning and a home made grenade was allegedly found in the trunk of his vehicle.

Paul R. Kaiser, of 12335 Bullis Road, East Aurora, reportedly consented to the search after a Le Roy PD officer informed Kaiser he believed he smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle.

Kaiser was initially stopped on Lake Street for allegedly speeding.

After the explosive device was discovered, Kaiser reportedly informed the officer he had made others previously.

Erie County law enforcement later conducted a search of Kaiser's residence, but the results of that search have not yet been released.

During this morning's incident, eight homes on Lake Street were evacuated and Route 19 was closed from about 6:45 a.m. to 9 a.m.

The State Police Bomb Squad was dispatched to the scene and determined the alleged explosive device was live and dangerous. It was removed to a safe location, according to Le Roy PD.

Kaiser was charged with one count of criminal possession of a weapon, 1st, a Class B felony, one count of unlawful possession of marijuana, speeding, driving with a suspended license and uninspected motor vehicle.

Assisting Le Roy PD at the scene and with the investigation were State Police, Erie County Sheriff's Office, Le Roy Fire Department, Le Roy Ambulance Service, the District Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

A freeze watch is in effect for Genesee County tonight.

Temperatures could dip into the low 30s.

Crops, tender vegetation and outdoor plants could be damaged or killed.

Michael J. Elmore, 21, of 130 Bank St., Batavia, and Clifford F. Schultz, 46, of 26 Pearl St., Batavia, are charged with disorderly conduct. At 12:29 a.m., Sunday, Batavia PD responded to a disturbance call at 130 Bank St. and observed two men allegedly fighting. Schultz was reportedly seen throwing a punch and striking another person. Elmore allegedly held a baseball bat.

Scott T. Laird, 30, of 5711 Horseshoe Lake Road, Stafford, is charged with DWI and driving with a BAC of .08 or greater. Laird was stopped at 11:43 a.m., Sunday, on Main Street by Officer Chris Camp.

Carrie A. Brown, 32, of First Street, Bolivar, and Dennis Eugene Hopkins, 41, of First Street, Bolivar, are charged with grand larceny, 4th. The couple is accused of stealing $2,000 in pennies from a church on Lewiston Road, Batavia. The money was being saved to buy a playground for children in a Third World country. Brown was jailed on $500 bail. Hopkins was held without bail.

Woodrow Clarence Horseman, 36, of East Main Street, Batavia, is charged with petit larceny. Horseman is accused of shoplifting $103.72 in merchandise from Walmart.

Danielle E. Cummings, 34, of Bank Street, Batavia, is charged with burglary, 2nd, unauthorized use of a vehicle, 3rd, aggravated unlicensed operation, 3rd, and unlicensed operation. Cummings is accused of entering a residence on Horsehoe Lake Road, Stafford, taking the keys to a vehicle and using the vehicle without permission.

Manuel Larry Valdez, 34, of Shane Drive, Syracuse, was taken into custody on a parole warrant.

The staff of Genesee Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine is recognizing Breast Cancer Awareness month by wearing City of Batavia Fire Department breast cancer awareness T-shirts.

About eight residents had to be evacuated from their homes on Lake Street this morning after a routine traffic stop by Le Roy PD led to a bomb scare.

Following the stop for alleged speeding around 7:30 a.m., a police officer conducted a search of a vehicle and found what appeared to be a homemade grenade in the trunk.

The State Police bomb disposal team was called in, Route 19 was closed, and nearby residents were evacuated.

Unspecified charges are pending against the susptect, who was taken into custody. ATF and the DA's office are being consulted.

The suspect was cooperative with police throughout the incident. 

After he was stopped for allegedly speeding, the officer asked to take a look in the vehicle's trunk and the driver consented.

He reportedly told authorities he had made grenades before.

Route 19 has reopened.

PHOTOS: Top, Police officer with gun found in the vehicle. Bottom, a state trooper at the scene. Photos by Alecia Kaus.

Batavia Bulldawgs varsity squad beat Akron 22-19 and finished the season 7-1.

The win ended Akron's 70+ game win streak and put the Bulldawgs in the playoffs.

The Bulldawgs' first playoff game is in Medina at 7 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 20.

Notre Dame won against Wellsville on Saturday, securing a 34-7 home victory.

The Fighting Irish are 5-1 on the season and play Attica next week in a game that will determine whether Attica wins the Genesee Region title outright or if there will be a three-way tie of ND, Attica and Elba/Byron-Bergen.

Andrew Mullen carried the ball 22 times for 109 yards and one TD. Tim McCulley was 5-12 passing for 132 yards and three touchdowns. He was intercepted once and scored on a 45-yard run.

Jared Thornton caught two of those McCulley TD passes and gained 90 yards. Josh Johnson also had a 21-yard TD reception.

Anthony Paladino and Charlie Hebert each had six tackles. Paladino had a sack as did Aaron Lyons.

In every hard-fought football game, there's usually a turning point -- it may not decide the game, but it seems to seal the fate of one team or the other.

Late in the fourth quarter Friday, with about four minutes to play, and Elba/Byron-Bergen down by nine points, and seemingly in the midst of an end zone to end zone drive, Attica's Dave Clark punched the ball from the arms of running back Andy Underhill.

Clark recovered the fumble and the Lancers never ran another offensive play the rest of the game. Final score, Attica 15, Elba/BB 6.

The loss eliminates the Lancers (5-1) form a chance to win outright the GR League title. Elba/BB could claim part of a three-way tie if  Notre Dame (4-1, and playing a non-league game this afternoon) beats Attica (5-1, but the one loss came in a non-league game) next week.

As for Friday's turning point, even if Clark doesn't dislodge the ball from Underhill's grasp, and the Lancers are able to go on to score, that still wouldn't have meant a victory for Elba/BB. At best, a TD and two-point conversion would have still left the Lancers a point short of a tie.

That potentially critical point was picked up by the Blue Devils in the first quarter when a muffed snap on a punt led to an end-zone safety, giving Attica an early 9-0 lead (Attica's Matt Perry scored earlier on a 81-yard run).

"Give them credit, they played hard," said Lancer's Head Coach Mike Cintorino. "Little things tend to add up and when you’re playing a good team and a rival team, you can’t have that addition, you can’t let those little things add up."

For the most part, Attica's success was driven by Perry, who finished with 182 yards and two TDs on 29 carries.

Elba/BB's star running back, Zach DuBois was held to 112 yards on 25 carries and no touchdowns. DuBois did have a 50-yard dash to the end zone called back on a holding penalty. That was just a few plays before the Underhill fumble.

"Attica’s a great team," Cintorino said. "We knew that coming in. They’re well coached. They have good athletes. They play hard. They’re physical. We knew that we had to come in and we could not shoot ourselves in the foot. We talked about it all week, limit the penalities and no turnovers."

For Attica, Jake Dollard carried the ball 13 times for 72 yards. Besides the fumble recover, Clark had 10 tackles and Evan Krawcyk added seven tackles.

For the Lancers, Zac Gillard was 7-19 passing for 130 yards and one TD. That 50-yard TD reception went to Kyle Morse, who had three catches for 71 yards. On defense, Underhill had 25 tackles (12 solo) and one forced fumble. Brandon Nayler had 10 tackles, Mike Shanley, nine and Nath Jonathan, eight with a fumble recovery.

In other Friday night action:

• Le Roy moved to 5-1 with a 55-22 victory over Bishop Kearney. Peter Privitera gained 208 yards and a TD on 15 carries. Ryan McQuillen had two TD receptions. Tom Kelso carried the ball 15 times for 144 yards. On the night, the Oatkan Knights gained 481 yards on the ground. Stevie Cappotelli had seven tackles.
• Oakfield-Alabama beat Alexander 6-0.
• Batavia lost to Way-Co 21-14.

In today's match-ups, Notre Dame hosts Wellsville and the Pembroke at Holley game is canceled.

If you're unable to view the slide show below, click here. To purchase prints of these photos, click here. (Note: Not as many publishable shots of this game -- lighting conditions on the Attica field are horrendous.)

They're items you might find around the home of any Genesee County resident any day of the week -- Drano, salt, kitty litter, batteries, soda bottles and cold medicine -- but mixed together the chemicals can become deadly, either to the people seeking a high from methamphetamine, or to those consumed by fires when the chemistry goes bad.

At the Batavia barracks today, officers with the State Police met with media from throughout the region in the hope of educating the public about meth labs that might be found in their own neighborhoods.

"We need the public to help us," said Major Christopher Cummings, commander of Troop A in Batavia.

A chemical smell might alert a concerned citizen to a possible meth lab nearby, or if a person finds discarded materials along the side of a roadway or in a field, Cummings said they should call local law enforcement to check it out.

Such a lead could help uncover a clandestine meth lab.

While across Central and Western New York, the number of meth labs raided by State Police has increased considerably -- rising from 45 in 2011 to more than 100 so far in 2012 -- there have been no labs detected in Genesee County since April 2011.

That lab, found in South Byron, came at the end of a spate of methamphetamine arrests that began with the bust of Kenneth Mosholder and accomplices in November 2009.

Last week at a press conference about prescription drug drop-offs, U.S. Attorney for Western New York William Hochul and Sheriff Gary Maha said there was no known meth activity in Genesee County.

Today, Cummings confirmed that activity locally seems to be way down.

"That's not to say they're not out there," Cummings said. "You don't know what you don't know."

Public education, Cummings said, is essential to uncovering meth labs.  Members of the public need to know what goes into making meth so that if they find the disposed waste of meth production they can report it, or if they smell a chemical smell that's unusual, they can call it in to police.

Doug Wildermuth (inset photo), head of the Contaminated Crime Scene Emergency Response Team, said there is no one description for the odor of meth. The best he could say was "it's a chemical smell." Because there's so many different recipes, it just isn't possible to say it smells one way or the other.

Part of today's press conference was aimed at educating the public on the inherent dangers of meth production.

There is no way to make it that doesn't involve some fire risk -- even with the so-called "one-pot method" that is commonly used these days.

"These are not labs as you might think of them," Cummings said. "These are not neat and clean. They're haphazard arrangements in sheds and garages."

A typical recipe includes ether (engine starter), sulfuric acid (drain cleaner), salt, lithium (batteries), anhydrous ammonia (fertilizer) and any number of different types of over-the-counter cold medications.

"All of these items are easy to get and easy to mix," Wildermuth said. "It's just that scary because it's just that quick."

While recipes for meth are easy to obtain online, the typical meth cook learned the process from another meth cook.

Local law enforcement, for example, maintained that many of the meth labs raided after Mosholder's arrest could be traced to Mosholder teaching others how to cook. Mosholder, originally from Genesee County, reportedly learned while in Texas.

While there are big meth lab operations in Mexico, where big drug cartels use more sophisticated methods than "one-pot," not much of that drug seems to be making its way to New York, authorities said.

The typical one-pot meth maker is mixing the chemicals for his or her own consumption and maybe only sells off a small amount of excess drug.

Once a lab is found, the clean up is expensive requires every environmental precaution. For the South Byron raid in 2009, The Batavian was invited by the Sheriff's Office to observe the operation. Pictures from that raid -- evidence collection handled by the State Police -- can be found by clicking here.

There was not a lot of faith expressed in Buffalo's Ryan Fitzpatrick in our contest last week. Only four people picked him to lead the NFL in points scored, but the fact of the matter is, among the 10 possible choices in our contest, Fitzpatrick came out on top. In a random drawing of those four people who picked Fitzpatrick, Jason Reese won the contest.

Here's the link to this week's contest.

Brian W. Pike, 49, of 37 Lake St., Le Roy; Brant G. Matthews, 17, of 10 Maple Ave., Le Roy; Roxanne M. Redden, 47, of 37 Lake St., Le Roy, and an unnamed 16-year-old female are all charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Pike was also charged with unlawful imprisonment, 2nd. The four individuals were charged following a Le Roy PD investigation into a domestic incident at 6:45 a.m., Thursday, at 37 Lake St., Le Roy. When arriving on scene, officers observed Pike allegedly holding Matthews in a headlock on the floor while Matthews was holding his 3-week-old daughter. Redden and the 16-year-old are accused of being involved in the altercation prior to police arriving. Pike is accused of physically preventing Matthews from leaving the residence. All four subjects were arraigned and released on their own recognizance. DSS assisted in the investigation.

Danielle M. Stevens, 26, of Ford Road, Elba, is charged with petit larceny. Stevens is accused of shoplifting from Tops Market.

In the Byron-Bergen School District, students aren't just learning how to read, write and solve math problems. They're also being taught the basic skills of leadership.

"We want them to be confident individuals," said Brian Meister, the elementary school principal. "We want them to be self-sufficient individuals. We want them to be able to make good choices consistently."

The leadership course is based on Stephen R. Covey's acclaimed "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." Covey's company has developed "The Leader in Me," a program to teach students the seven habits in a format they can grasp.

In Byron-Bergen, the curriculum is part of a strategy to educate children in a well-rounded fashion. Yes, they learn academics, but they're also exposed to the arts and good citizenship.

At the Thursday evening board meeting (unusually packed with parents), a group of third-graders sang songs, recited their leadership pledge and showed off their leadership pictures.

"It's so important not to just teach them academics, but to teach them to be good citizens," Superintendent Casey Kosiorek said. "We can all agree that if one of these find young individuals moves next door to us, we want them to be good people and we also want them to be intelligent."

The seven habits:

• Habit 1: Be Proactive • You’re in Charge
• Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind • Have a Plan
• Habit 3: Put First Things First • Work First, Then Play
• Habit 4: Think Win-Win • Everyone Can Win
• Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood • Listen Before You Talk
• Habit 6: Synergize • Together Is Better
• Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw • Balance Feels Best

Meister said faculty and staff are really proud at how well students are responding to the course. He said it's rewarding to hear students talk about solving conflicts with a "win-win" attitude.

It's not easy, he said, for a child in elementary school to "seek first to understand," and put themselves in the shoes of the other person before trying to meet their own needs. But he said in fact, they're seeing child trying to learn to take exactly that approach.

During the school board meeting, Kosiorek noted a recent study that showed the vast majority of new patents are filed in the United States, not China. The iPad, he noted, was invented in this country, not overseas. He said the next generation of entrepreneurs will come out of today's schools, and it's Byron-Bergen's job to prepare the next generation of business leaders.

Meister agreed and said that as students move on from elementary school, into high school and then into college or careers they will be the self-confident individuals who are followed by their peers.

"We really believe here at Byron-Bergen that it’s not only our job to teach kids the academics, but also to make sure sure we provide the leaders of tomorrow," Meister said.

A beautiful fall afternoon, I thought I would stop by Godfrey's Pond and see what picture-making opportunities I might find. Mother Nature still has some work to do with her fall palette, but things are coming along nicely.

Pembroke has been forced to cancel its Genesee Region match-up with Holley in Holley on Saturday.

For Holley, that apparently means no homecoming game.

Athletic Director Ron Funke said the team came out of its last game with only 16 healthy players -- the bare minimum required by the New York State Public High School Athletic Association. Then on Tuesday, a player was scratched after reporting he had mono.

"The rules say we need 16 players," Funke said. "We apologize (to Holley) for that, but there is nothing we can do. It is what it is."

Funke said the school looked at all of its options, but without a JV team there was just no chance to get enough players on the roster for Saturday's game.

It's been a tough year for the Dragons, who are 0-5, being shut out twice, scoring more than seven points in only one game and giving up 30 or more points every time out.

A parent who contacted The Batavian said he traced the problem to the addition of boys soccer to Pembroke's varsity schedule.

Two years ago, coaches, parents and students lobbied the board of education to bring soccer back to the school.

Funke said there is no correlation between the addition of soccer and the shortage of football players.

Last year the team had 24 players and 20 of them were seniors. This year, the team has only three seniors.

"I'd like to see what kids on that team who want to play football that aren't (playing football) anyway," Funke said. "They're very different sports."

Dan Courtney, athletic director for Holley, hasn't responded to our request for information on what Holley's plans are for Saturday and homecoming without an opponent.

Press release:

The Le Roy Police Department collected a total of 88 pounds of excess medications and 15 pounds of sharps in the last Drug Take Back operation which is part of the nationwide campaign run by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

The Le Roy Police Department wishes to remind all residents that the Le Roy Police Department will take in excess medications any time of the day or night but sharps are only taken in on specific Drug Drop Off days. Please contact the Le Roy Police Department at 345-6350 to request a drop off.   

Press release:

Today, Representative Kathy Hochul (NY-26) announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated the seven counties of New York State’s 26^th Congressional District as natural disaster areas due to the significant production loss caused by damage from armyworms.

"The infestation of armyworms combined with the spring's wild temperature swings, the summer's drought, and high feed prices have resulted in a particularly difficult year for Western New York farmers. The USDA's disaster designation will provide much needed relief to our farmers dealing with the devastating effects of the armyworms. Farms seeking assistance will now be eligible for emergency loans to help them recover and keep their businesses viable," Rep. Hochul said.

For more information, affected farmers are encouraged to contact their local Farm Service Agency office or Cornell Cooperative Extension Office.

Since the initial reports of the armyworm outbreak, Rep. Hochul has worked with local farmers to mitigate the damage, including seeing the effects firsthand at a Wyoming County farm.

Rep. Hochul has continually advocated for agriculture, a mainstay of Western New York’s economy with nearly 3,500 farms and an annual output of over $739 million in the 26th District alone. Support for agriculture is a key component of Hochul’s REBUILD Plan.