East Aurora Advertiser

With his wife Edith and son Shawn looking on, Harry L. Barnes, barely a month shy of his 86th birthday, received his high school diploma from Superintendent James Bodziak at the Oct. 28 East Aurora School Board meeting. Full Story »

Though the results will not be official for some time – the absentees, write-ins, emercency ballots and others still need to be counted – preliminary numbers are now in for all six voting districts in the Town of Marilla. Leading the six-way race for two town board seats are Elizabeth Ackerman with 605 votes and Donald Darrow with 597 votes. Full Story »

Where’s the largest sycamore tree in New York State? Well, the current record is held by a tree in Monroe County, but measurements indicate that a sycamore near Olean Road in South Wales is actually bigger. The mighty tree was nominated for New York’s Big Tree Register by Jon and Kay Adams, and stands on land that is part of the Adams Pioneer Farm. Jon’s family first settled in the spot in 1804 ... Full Story »

Several events to honor veterans will take place on or around Veterans Day in area towns. Full Story »

Iroquois High School students recently received a special thank you from the founder of the Memory Project for their participation in a worldwide program to provide orphan children with special portraits of themselves. Portraits by Pam Russell’s art students were completed at the end of the last school year and delivered to the Ukrainian orphanages in October. The student artists then got back ... Full Story »

Aurora Players stages HMS Pinafore for the first time in its 75-year history through Nov. 15. Gilbert and Sullivan’s breakthrough hit tells the story of the romantic misadventures of the captain and crew of the British warship HMS Pinafore through tongue-twisting song and prose. Full Story »

Moog's profits fall, Astronics' rise. Girls soccer team beats Akron. Click here to listen. Or, click here to subscribe to the free East Aurora Advertiser podcast at the iTunes store. Full Story »

Marilla's tentative budget became the town’s preliminary budget after gaining approval from a majority of Town Board members during a special meeting on Oct. 29. Among other things, this proposed budget would give town employees a three percent raise, something some of the board members did not want. The board still needs to vote to officially adopt the budget, but that vote can't come until ... Full Story »

The Wales Town Board held its customary state-mandated public hearing on its proposed 2010 preliminary budget at a special meeting on Oct. 27 and received no input from the public, nor offered any changes to the budget blueprint. Full Story »

Though residents won’t vote until March, East Aurora Mayor Clark Crook has begun preparations for a re-election campaign. If he’s voted in, Crook is ready to eliminate his own post, along with many others in village government. Full Story »

To understand the difficulty in searching for old fossils, South Wales resident Kris Parsons gives the example of a deer carcass on the side of the road. Not a pleasant picture, but it shows something important: after a short amount of time, even without human intervention, the body and bones will disappear. Full Story »

Jolene Jeffe, a new face in Aurora politics, will be the town’s next supervisor. Jeffe won the Republican committee’s endorsement but narrowly lost the Republican primary to incumbent Dwight Krieger in September. Initial reports gave Jeffe 1,811 votes Tues., Nov. 3 on the Independence and Conservative lines, more than making up for the earlier loss. Full Story »

The Village of East Aurora announced this week that it will be accepting payments for utility bills and other items over the Internet effective Nov. 3. The village is offering online payments as an alternative to cash or checks, though residents can still pay by those means. Full Story »

Last week, the East Aurora Advertiser and Elma Review noted that New York State Supreme Court Justice Diane Y. Devlin had ruled that Democrat Diane Terranova’s name would replace the name of Kathy Konst on ballots in the race for the 5th District seat in the Erie County Legislature. Part of that decision has since been overturned. Full Story »

The Wales Town Board held a public hearing Oct. 27 on an open development area permit application to subdivide a lot at 11878 Big Tree Road (Route 20A). The split in land parcels would allow Glenn Donnelly to build a second single-family home on the lot owned by Gerald Donnelly, using a shared driveway. The home would sit approximately 2,500 linear feet off the main road, according to Glenn ... Full Story »

The Elma Town Board heard from the town’s assistant emergency coordinator on Oct. 21 about coordinating an effort between the county and Iroquois Central School District to give out vaccines for the H1N1 virus. Full Story »

Residents in Erie County's 5th Legislative District will have a choice of two candidates for legislator on Election Day, Republican Dino Fudoli and Democrat Diane Terranova. Until late last week, though, it was Democrat Kathy Konst's name on the ballot, not Terranova's, despite the fact that Konst didn’t want the post. [See final paragraphs of this article for updates that did not appear in the ... Full Story »

In a rare move, the Holland School Board president denied the Holland Teachers Association president a chance to speak during privilege of the floor at the Oct. 26 meeting. Full Story »

The Aurora Town Board's last regular meeting before Election Day was a relatively quick and quiet affair. At the Oct. 26 session, the board approved a bid for the installation of new doors at the Aurora Town Library and chose Waste Management as the low bidder for the town's garbage contract. A bid opening for roof replacements on several town buildings was delayed until Nov. 5, as the town ... Full Story »

PBS viewers in many parts of the nation will have a chance to see the film "Elbert Hubbard: An American Original," when it appears on their local public television stations the night of Mon., Nov. 23. East Aurora – the village that Hubbard made his home – will host an advance screening of the documentary at 7:30 p.m. on Wed., Nov. 4, at the Aurora Theatre. Full Story »

Marilla Town Supervisor George Gertz released his $2.42 million tentative budget for the year 2010 earlier this month. The budget plan shows a decrease of nearly $86,000 from 2009 levels, but continues a trend of granting three-percent pay raises to all employees not covered under a collective bargaining agreement. In previous years that would not have included anyone on the town payroll, but ... Full Story »

There are names to those that serve in the military, and faces to go with a name, personalities behind the face. Daily news of the wars in the Middle East may be grim, but there are people serving there, for whatever reason, trying to do something. Full Story »

Part one of our discussion with the East Aurora author best known for his writings and tours about Western New York folklore and ghost stories. Click here to listen. Or, click here to subscribe to the free East Aurora Advertiser podcast at the iTunes store. Full Story »

The Iroquois School Board, after a year of many discussions and deliberations, has officially approved another capital improvement project for public referendum. Officials have noted that the project is significantly smaller in scope and, given economic times, will have a zero increase in property taxes. Full Story »

Spine-tingling true stories of wolves in Wales and murder in Elma. Click here to listen. Or, click here to subscribe to the free East Aurora Advertiser podcast at the iTunes store. Full Story »