Bill Burk

Ellicottville, N.Y; An Abolitionist Story

In 1836, the formation of the Cattaraugus County Anti-Slavery Society in Ellicottville marked a bold stand against slavery, reflecting growing abolitionist sentiment in rural western New York.

Ellicottville circa 1879

In 1836 Ellicottville was as a bona fide town in the state of New York, and recognized as the county seat of Cattaraugus County. It has a population of approximately 635 people, pioneers who carved the small burgh out of the wilderness, buying up acreage from the infamous Holland Land Company starting in 1815. The citizens are industrious and self-sufficient. The town boasts a hotel, a school, a church and a tannery. By the 1870s, Ellicottville will have everything a thriving community needs including stores, banks, and professionals like doctors and lawyers.

The citizens are also socially broadminded with foresight and a progressive resolve that makes them distinctive for such a small community. In 1835 the community opened The Ellicottville Female Seminary, one of the first religious schools for women in the United States, a radical cause célèbres that marked Ellicottville as a pocket of liberal activism in southwestern New York.

The Ellicottville School

In the Spring of 1836, a small group of Ellicottville citizens met in the refectory of St. John’s Episcopal Church on the public square. St. John’s was the first Episcopal in Cattaraugus County, a sterling example of early Gothic Revival Church Architecture, uncommon in this region.

They arrived to hear a lecture from abolitionist speaker Huntington Lyman. He was there on behalf of northern abolitionists, specifically American Anti-Slavery Society, to speak about the evils of slavery. The meeting wasn’t without controversy. Lyman’s talks stirred strong emotions within the burgeoning community.

Lyman studied at Lane Seminary, where he joined the Lane Rebels, a group of students who left the seminary in protest after being banned from discussing slavery. He graduated from Oberlin Seminary in 1836, a hub for progressive thought and abolitionist activism. From there he began his lecture tour, stopping in Ellicottville in April of that year.

Huntington Lyman

Abolitionist sentiment was growing in the North. Organizations like the American Anti-Slavery Society, founded in 1833, were distributing pamphlets, organizing lectures, and flooding Congress with petitions demanding the end of slavery. This was met with fierce resistance from pro-slavery politicians and citizens, especially in the South. This was, after all, the precursor to the bloody Civil War. Slavery was obviously deeply entrenched in the southern United States, and even though it wasn’t a known practice in Ellicottville, it was still legal. At the 1836 meetings some Ellicottville residents supported Lyman, others viewed his presence with trepidation and skepticism, as a threat to public peace. Local debate was intense. The Ellicottville Republican called his lectures “exciting and dangerous,” but Lyman himself was described as a “disturber of the peace”.

More meetings, more lectures were scheduled, and Lyman persisted. After a few weeks of attracting only a handful of people, a larger gathering was held at the local schoolhouse on April 23, 1836. It was at this assembly, amid heated discussion and public tension, that the Cattaraugus County Anti-Slavery Society was officially formed.

The impetus and mission of Society was not only to broadcast a very public ethical stance on the practice of slavery, but to communicate and coordinate with the Underground Railroad that passed through the Buffalo-Niagara region.

It is a credible achievement that the people of Ellicottville had the moral capacity to embrace the anti-slavery movement even in small towns far from the political spotlight in big cities like Philadelphia and Chicago. The residents felt compelled to take a moral stand. Their actions reflected a growing awareness that slavery was not just a Southern issue, it was a national one, and silence was complicity.

This article and others can be found published in The Villager Magazine at https://thevillagerny.com/

THE POINT CHAUTATQUA GOLF SITE PROJECT

“I tell ya, country clubs and cemeteries are the biggest waste of prime real estate.”

Al Czervic

It was inevitable, like the waves that lap against the back of seventh green. The land is just too beautiful, just too perfect, just too valuable.

The Chautauqua Point Golf Course, at 5678 East Lake Road in Dewittville sold recently, the second time in just over two years. In February of 2022 The Chautauqua Lake Development LLC of Springville purchased the property for just over a million dollars. They re-listed the property and this past July 2023, The 1200 Group of Buffalo bought the three parcels that made up the golf course for $2.2 million (along with other East Lake Road real estate belonging to the James K. Webb Living Trust, and Webb’s Harbor Restaurant and Bowling Lanes, Inc.).

The 1200 Group is led by Bill Paladino, son of Carl Paladino the ubiquitous Buffalo developer and politician.

The first sale brought to an end a century-long run for the local recreational treasure. With origins dating to 1907, or 1914, depending on which source you reference, the course was the oldest in the county, predating it’s younger, more famous and broader brother from across the lake, The Chautauqua Golf Club by at least ten years. The history of the golf course is a little muddy, but it’s generally agreed that the land was obtained by Henry Clay Fownes, designer of Oakmont Country Club in Pittsburgh, ostensibly to cater to Pittsburgh and Cleveland golfers looking to work on their game while summering on the lake. Oakmont, established in 1903, is regarded as the oldest top-ranked golf course in the United States, and has hosted 20 national golf championships; the U.S, Open is scheduled there in 2025; Chautauqua Point, overlooking the northern basin of the lake had some impressive pedigree. There is a rumor that the famed golf architect Donald Ross had a hand in designing the course, but there’s no indication from The Ross Society that this was the case (he did help design The Chautauqua Golf Club, so it’s possible he took a swing by the point to take a look). The course evolved over the years into a 9-hole gem, the only golf course that touches the lake, though condominium development over the years squeezed that lakefront border down to a few precious feet directly behind the seventh green.

The weather-dependence and uncertainty of making a golf course profitable, especially in this climate, finally gave way to the economics of developing prime real estate into a more profitable venture; East Lake Road on the lake side land is simply too valuable to leave unused under snow for five months a year. The course has been closed since the sale in 2022, the repurposing of the land unavoidable.

Tom Fox is the Director of Development for the Ellicott Development Company. He is heading up the group looking to turn the old Point Chautauqua Golf Course into a housing community. The project, tentatively called Sunset View at Point Chautauqua, has three distinct sections including single family homes, town houses, and condominium-style residential units.

Ellicott Development Company is out of Buffalo and stands as a prominent figure in Buffalo’s real estate sector. Founded in 1975 by William Paladino, this company has played a pivotal role in transforming Buffalo’s urban landscape through a strategic blend of development, redevelopment, and management. With a focus on enhancing both commercial and residential properties, Ellicott Development has significantly influenced the city’s economic and architectural evolution.

Ellicott Development Company’s origins are deeply intertwined with the historical development of Buffalo, New York. Established during a period when Buffalo was grappling with economic challenges and urban decay, the company emerged as a beacon of revitalization. The founder, William Paladino, envisioned a future where Buffalo’s historic structures could be repurposed to meet contemporary needs while preserving their architectural integrity. This vision has guided the company’s projects and strategy over the decades.

Mr. Fox recently hosted a meeting for the community. I followed up with Mr. Fox recently on his reaction to that meeting, and how the project will develop in the future.

Q: Your initial meeting with the community got mixed reviews. Some of the locals seemed against the development. Is that how you saw it?

Tom Fox (TF): We were happy to see a big turnout at the recent informational meeting we held on Sunset View. In our experience, active community interest and input results in a better project. There were many valid concerns that were raised, many of which will be reflected in revised and more developed plans as we further pursue the required approvals to move the project forward. Despite a general sense of negativity in the feedback at the meeting, we’ve heard a great deal of positive response as well since that time from those in support and with great interest in the success of our project. Our vision is to redevelop the property in a way that thoughtfully weaves into the existing community surrounding the former golf course property.

Q: That property served well as a golf course. How do you see it as a housing development?

TF: With its dynamic topography, the property has the benefit of incredible lake views including an orientation to the sunset, hence the development naming. Sunset View will offer a range of high-quality housing options in an amenity-rich resort-style environment that will be home to year-round residents and weekend vacationers alike.

Q: What are your next steps?

TF: Pending receipt of the necessary approvals, which we will continue to pursue following the mentioned plan revisions, we hope to start work on the initial phase of Sunset View next year. Completion of all project phases will be guided by market demand. We anticipate that the completion of all project phases could take several years.

Q: How do people find out more?

TF: Here is our project website, where we have project information posted along a video presentation and an opportunity for those interested to reach out with comments and questions…. Sunset View CLC – A Chautauqua Lake Community

To be sure, though there will continue to be a constituency that will miss the rolling fairways, pristine green space, and quaint clubhouse that was the legendary Chautauqua Point Golf Course.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Seventy-five is a whole lot of years.

So was fifty.

In the year 2000 I was the director of athletics at Jamestown Community College. I replaced Greg Fish who ran the department for like a hundred years before me.

Big shoes to fill (figuratively, trust me).

With the help of a lot of college personnel (including assistant AD Kathy Stedman), Jim Riggs of the Post Journal, and some long-timers in the JCC admin building, we created the first ever Hall of Fame for Jayhawk Athletics. We did it on the 50^th Anniuversary of the college, established in 1950. It’s one of the achievements at the college, as a Jayhawk, that I’m most proud of. The event we put together was comprehensive, a day that featured a barbeque, events for the fifty top athletes and their families, fans and guests, a picnic, a beer tent, and commemorative items. JCC maintenance set uip the event in the 100 Acre Lot just off main campus, they built a stage for the top 50 Jayhawks athletes of all time.

To help keep bias from the selection, the athletes were nominated by the public. A list was compiled and voted on by a committee. Jim Riggs from the Post Journal was critical to the process, helping with research, publicizing the nomination methodology, and compiling votes. It was a long and well-conceived series of decisions that led to the Hall of Fame, we did not take the responsibility lightly.

In the inaugural year, 2000, one by one I announced these highly accomplished JUCO athletes, reading off their achievements in a Let’s Get Ready to Rumble presentation. One by one those that attended the ceremony mounted the stage and took a seat. It was exciting, it was fun, it was my honor to acknowledge and celebrate them.

I’m sure we missed a few deserving ‘Hawks, and we mis-ranked others. But this movement was meant to be a start, leaving a future path to add athletes to the list. It was supposed to be the beginning of a tradition, a way to gather the athletes from the college and celebrate their achievements, the way most colleges do around the country.

The next year, we added Jim Riggs and George Bataitis to the Hall of Fame. We hosted a small ceremony, a fund-raising 5K footrace around campus, and a small gathering after. Another good day, another good celebration of Jayhawks. We showcased all 52 names on a board in the facility under the title, Best Jayhawks of all Time.

Then the concept of a Hall of Fame died. The momentum from the previous years vanished in indifference, by the college administration that was needed to support the effort, by the department of athletics that was discouraged with that lack of support. When I retired from the athletics department, and moved to full time Director of Facilities, the Hall of Fame was a memory.

It was a shame.

This year, with another quarter century gone, the JCC Athletics Department resurrected the idea of a Hall of Fame event, to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of athletics at the college.

I was not invited to the event. Neither was Greg Fish, or Kathy Stedman or anyone from that original event (Mr. Riggs and Mr. Bataitis have both passed). My national championship golf team in 2000 was not recognized (25^th anniversary). No Regional Champions were asked to attend. No coaches from the past, no teams that won championships and set records, no All-Americans, no academic All Americans.

How soon they forget, no? How soon the people who stand on the shoulders of giants believe they are giants themselves. It was a wasted opportunity, by a dismissive, slapdash operation.

It was shame.

SPORT IN JAMAICA

(First published March 2018)

If you ever doubt the global blanket of sports television, just know there’s something called ESPN Caribbean. There’s and ESPN Asia, Australia, Brazil, and ESPN-UK too. To my research there is no ESPN-Siberia yet. The ESPN Caribbean network airs in 32 countries, including one I visited recently. ESPN Caribbean SportsCenter in Jamaica features sports like America’s Cup yacht racing, grand slam tennis, a little golf, something called Netball (the “Jamaican Sunshine Girls” team is currently ranked third in the world), and a whole lot of soccer and cricket. There is most certainly MLB, NBA and NFL action, but not before you wade through scores and highlights of the Caribbean Premier League, the Caribbean Super 50, the Karbonn Smart League, the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A Soccer, and the uber-important International Cricket Council with its wickets, nurdles, and wicked googlies. If I could name a single famous cricketer, Jamaican or otherwise, I would do it here. I can’t, but I do know that Patrick Ewing was born in Kingston, Jamaica and excelled at that game along with soccer. Jamaican icon Bob Marley was supposed to be excellent on a football pitch.

Usain Bolt currently dominates the Jamaican sports scene, as much as a single athlete can; the fastest human in the history of the world will tend to capture the attention of the nation in which he has born.

He is relatively absent in the media, as Jamaicans seem to love their sports and sporting action more than they worship their sportsmen and women. Bolt adorns a few roadside billboards, shilling for cell services and energy drinks, but other than that he’s not as ubiquitous as you’d think. Opposite of the U.S. where we tend to define the performance by the performer, and an athlete like LeBron James can shake the rust off the belt of a once-proud city like Cleveland with one moving van full of sneakers, tank tops, and elbow pads (c’mon Buckeyes, he didn’t cure cancer, he plays basketball). On a short bus trip from Montego Bay (the inspiration of The Beach Boys, Bobby Bloom and Jimmy Buffet) to Falmouth in Trelawny Parish (where James Bond jumped a speed boat onto a cop car) our tour group passed Bolt’s high school, what are the odds? Ben Johnson, incidentally is infamously from Falmouth also, must be something FAST in the water there. The fact of that coincidence was startling until you realize that there are only 2.7 million-some people on the island spread out over 4,244 square miles, a good two-thirds of it coastal and accessed from the main highway; not exactly like landing in Los Angeles and randomly driving by the White House.

The Jamaican Bobsled team famously competed in the 1988 Calgary Olympics Winter Games. Disney made a movie about them called Cool Runnings, and that name is plastered on everything from convenience stores to jet-ski rentals shops.

Side note, renting jet-skis is against the law in Jamaica because tourists kept smashing into each other on them. As you’d imagine on a Caribbean island (where the ocean water temperature in August is a squishy 97 degrees by the way), water sports are plenty, the moratorium on wave-runners notwithstanding; scuba diving, windsurfing, sailing, waterskiing, snorkeling, parasailing, and deep sea fishing.

The poverty in a Caribbean country like Jamaica registers when you internalize the fact that it can’t snow there. No population could survive a frigid climate in homes with so few amenities, like running water, a workable furnace and, often, walls and floors. I found myself and my family being escorted up the North Coastal Highway in a local taxi, from Negril to Mon-Bay. We were escorted by friends of a friend, real Rasta’s, dreads and all. The view was postcard tropical, blue-green ocean waves crashing on beach-heads and cliff sides. We stopped at a roadside shack, one of many, for something cold to cut into into the tropical heat. Our guides knew the place. They talk with the proprietor. Jamaicans speak English, until they don’t want you to understand them, then they speak something that isn’t English. Soon were sipping water from a raw coconut, and a mango concoction from a plastic cup.

I wander out of the broken-down bar, all particle board and corrugated tin. There along the roadway two kids are kicking a half flat soccer ball in a dirt driveway. Yeah, they like their sports in Jamaica. I lace up my shoes and join in.

YOU GOT THE STONES?

STONES AT SOUTHERN TIER BREWERY

“In the world of Stones, every landscape is a canvas for adventure. From the soft, shell-strewn sands of beaches to forests blanketed in pine needles and twigs, to the manicured charm of mowed meadows and diverse soil terrains – diversity is our playground. We embrace the unconventional, where slopes, hills, and rugged cliffs become the backdrop for an exhilarating Stones experience.”

Stones Throwing Association Website

The game of Stones is easy to describe and hard to picture. The nearest recognizable relative is probably bocce; a small ball is set on a fixed piece of earth, and alternating competitors toss heavy baked-clay balls at the target, trying to get closest. But it’s like bocce in the same way shuffleboard is like golf.

So, Stones is more like golf? Not exactly. It has elements of golf, in that there is a fixed course, with fairways and hazards, out of bounds, and management strategies. But it’s more like putt-putt blended with bowling than the golf you know.

Kade Sivak is the COO of the Stones Throwing Association and manages the course located at the Southern Tier Brewery in Lakewood. It’s a unique recreation operation in Chautauqua County. He says about the game, “What I love most about the game is that it’s accessible, it can be played by people of all ages and still have a great time. We’ve had a tournament where we have an eight-year-old partner with an eighty-year-old and they ended up winning a few games and had a great time.”

A Stones course is five stretches (holes) that take you through mowed fairways, sand traps, and rough patches, around and through trees and stone fixtures, up and down hills. There are clear boundaries on each stretch (sometimes it’s a pool of water!). You play the five stretches, tossing four stones per round -some stretches remind you of golf par threes, some are longer and remind you of a par five. All stretches score the same, you throw your stones, score the stretch and move onto the next, unique challenge. There are sixteen basic rules of play and etiquette, but like golf (which has only a few rules), it’s the interpretations that are abundant…especially when you take balls of any sort into the wild and toss or hit them around.

There. Simple.

And, in Lakewood, it’s played in a beer garden. What could be better than that?

Kade manages the Southern Tier course called Brewers Hollow. “I manage all events like leagues and tournaments there,” Sivak says. Brewer’s Hollow is the first public stones course ever built, constructed by Sivak Stonemasonry. “They work as a course designer and builder for any new courses at other breweries or businesses that want to enjoy the game of Stones. We encourage people if they ever see a place that could fit a Stones course to check out our website and reach out to us so we can attempt to make that dream come true!”

Brewer’s Hollow is the premier Stones venue in, well, the world. “We’ve hosted hundreds of tournaments as well as leagues every summer and fall that fill up quick, but we are always looking to expand and host more players each night,” Kade says. “We have a world championship every year, with last year’s having a cash prize of $1,000. This year we are attempting to take it to the next level and really give people the best experience at each tournament that is planned out this year.

“STA tournaments and leagues are on the website that vary in competitiveness. As well as a team league called the National Stones League, that includes teams like the Buffalo Mafia, the Jamestown Ironmongers, Chautauqua Armada, and the Pittsburgh Chaos. This team league is peak competition as it is a different approach to the game but takes all the best players and faces them off in 8v8 competition.”

Play at Brewer’s Hollow, like most outdoor sports in the area, follows the weather. Kade continiues, “For casual play we will be opening up May 18th on Southern Tier Public Day where we will be offering each new players first game free as well as have the option to have a skilled player help them learn the game. Then we’re open Wednesday through Sunday until the end of September.

“We’re promoting this year as ‘The Year of Stones’, so if you’ve never played, this would be a good time to come try out the game. It’s easy, fun, and doesn’t take long to play a match. The Stones community is filled with great people that are always willing to help teach new players and it’ll be the best outdoor activity in the area.

You can check out everything Stones at stonesthrowing.com.

NOT THAT KIND OF CASINO; BEMUS POINT, NY

Crank up your search engines.

Now Google Count Basie, Lena Horne, Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Buddy Rich, Old Blue Eyes (Frank Sinatra), Sammy Kaye, Ozzy Nelson (of Ozzie and Harriet fame), Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman.

You’ve just surveyed the most famous entertainers from the 1930’ and 40’s, world renown performers of music and theater, classical big bands, jazz musicians, stand-up comedians, multi-talented entertainers. People who could book and fill any arena in the country from coast to coast, Carnegie and Radio City Music Halls, The Cotton Club, The Biltmore.

One of the prize bookings of these famous artists was The Village Casino, right here in Bemus Point, New York. Every person from the above list, among others, performed in that building.

It’s a behemoth, “The Casino”, sitting lakeside like a fortress, guarding the middle of Chautauqua Lake on the Bemus side, the natural half-way point for vehicle and boat travel between Mayville and Jamestown, New York, on a prime spit of land. As you enter the narrows from the water, its unmistakable profile welcomes you to the recreation focal point of the lake. It was built in 1930, purportedly on old local Indian tribal meeting grounds, next to the Bemus Village Park. Pittsburgh industrialist James Selden had the recreation center constructed for the Village of Bemus Point, riding the momentum and popularity of the Celoron Park movement, huge hotels rimming the lake and steamboats transporting people up and down Chautauqua. Like the Celoron pavilion, he equipped it with a dining presence, a dance hall, and bowling alleys on the second floor. During the 1930’s and 40’s that building was one of the most “if these walls could talk” venues in all of New York State.

Through the years, The Village Casino has gone through several iterations, but always comes back to defining itself as a place for food, drinks and entertainment. In the fifties and sixties, it had a carnival park atmosphere as a beach house and bowling alley. In the 80’s, back to a bar and restaurant, accessible by lake traffic. Entertainment picked up again and the facility hosted popular bands like Rusted Root and The 10,000 Maniacs.

And then came the chicken wings.

In 1982, as the wing became popular in Western New York as a meal, rather than waste, the Casino jumped on that phenomenon. At least 14,819 chickens sacrificed the gift of flight so that 29,638 of their wings could be eaten in a twenty-four-hour period. It was a Guinness World record at the time and restored Bemus Point on the map of popular culture, if only that particular slice that enjoys a spicy chicken wing and eccentric world records.

In 1999 the Carlson family took charge of the restaurant, bar and entertainment. They did a comprehensive remodel, added a game room, ice cream parlor, a deck for lake-side dining of about 120 guests, inside and bar seating for another 200. There are forty dock slips and wait-staff restaurant service right out to your boat. The banquet hall where the legends from the past performed is available for events and seats another 300.

Bemus Point has been the summer entertainment mecca on Chautauqua Lake for decades. It’s the product of its central location, especially with the Veterans Memorial Bridge as an east-west access conduit. The Village Casino has served as the anchor for Bemus, sitting hard on the shores with a rich history of service to patrons that stretches back as far as can be remembered.

It’s owned and operated by local entrepreneur Andrew Carlson, and still hosts live entertainment by local and regional acts every Friday and Saturday evening through Labor Day. As their web site states: We continue our commitment to be the area’s best and most affordable in casual waterfront dining, with an environment that allows you to relax, enjoy, make new friends, and reacquaint with old friends!

The Village Casino is located at 1 Lakeside Drive in Bemus Point. For more information call 386-2333 or visit www.bemuspointcasino.com.

Postscript: In 2018, when the sober esteem of 1982 Guinness record had worn off, the Carlson family served up another 42,210 chicken wings breaking their own record. It was not a good day for poultry in Chautauqua County.

IT’S THE TEETH!!

It’s the teeth. And that jutting jaw, the epitome of arrogance and brutish malice. Long muscular torso, thick in the middle, piercing, uncaring eyes. Bigger, stronger, faster than everyone else.

But the teeth. You notice immediately, five hundred at least, more in some of the larger beasts. The fangs are tightly positioned, small and needle-like, angled inward to keep prey from escape, razor sharp to shred live food that struggles.

Then there’s the behavior, predatory, vicious, lurking, springing from the weeds, leaping to attack and eat the first thing that moves, carnivorous, cannibalistic, devouring its own kind if opportunity presents, even the metal of something man-made, it simply doesn’t care in its frenzy to feed. There’s no discretion, no apologies. It’s hungry, it eats, a notoriously fierce fish (anglers say it will attack the propeller of a trolling motor, while every other life form in the lake will swim from it.

Todd Young has been chartering muskie expeditions on Chautauqua Lake for eighteen years, hosting bucket-list enthusiasts from all over the country looking to battle the largest member of the pike family; catching a muskellunge is that much of an adventure on Chautauqua Lake. It’s a daunting, wildly rewarding industry (the nickname of the muskie is “The Fish of 10,000 Casts”). Todd knows every square quad of Chautauqua Lake. He knows the water; he knows the fish.

“We go where the fish are, lower lake, upper basin. I’ve taken hundreds of people onto the lake to catch muskie.”

Dude knows his fish, especially the prize catch on Chautauqua Lake, the muskellunge.

Muskie are intentionally established on Chautauqua Lake (one subspecies is named The Chautauqua Muskellunge). Muskie management became a thing in the late 1800s, when the first hatcheries in the country were built along the shores near Bemus Point. The local hatchery effort, overseen by the state DEC, is now located at Prendergast Point. It’s a calculated process stocking the lake with an apex predator. In 2022, 13,000 fingerlings from six to nine inches long were released into the lake, understanding that about a third of those will survive a season; too many muskie eating the fish supply could seriously disrupt the lake ecosystem. That management, and the general stewardship from fishing charters like Todd’s Muddy Creek Fishing Guides has made the 13,000 acres of Chautauqua Lake a premier muskie fishing destination.

“We are completely catch and release,” Todd says. “There are fish we catch that I recognize that I’ve caught before. We’re very careful about bringing them onto the boat. We only fight them for a few minutes, it can be a great battle they’re so big and strong, but if you exhaust them you might kill them.”

And muskie get big, it’s not uncommon to pull in one thirty-five pounds or more. The largest on record was sixty-nine pounds, fifteen ounces, average usually less than forty inches long and might weigh from seven to fifteen pounds. Muskie can live up to thirty years.

“We use heavy equipment, put six lines in the water, and hope to average two catches a day. There’s a small window for catching them when they are in a feeding cycle. Once they’ve eaten, sometimes up to twenty percent of their body weight, they sit still for up to five days digesting. But when they eat, they are very aggressive.

During their feeding cycle, they’ll eat other fish up to a third of their own size. More than once I’ve seen one floating on the lake that tried to eat another fish that was just too big. They’re not particularly smart fish, when it’s time to eat they don’t much care what they go after.”

Todd thinks the lake has seen a bit of a resurgence, more fish are living longer, getting bigger. “We were seeing red spots on the fish the past few years, an unhealthy sign. We don’t see that on catches now. A four-footer can be twenty years old. That takes a lot of care from fishing to get one to be that old. But that’s the future of our lake, fishing for sport and letting them go.”

You could spend a worse day on Chautauqua Lake than in the care of Muddy Creek Fishing Guides. Check them out at https://mcfishnguides.com), or give Todd a call at 724 674-3839.

FROM PAIN COMES HOPE

“Initially it was only pain for me, and there’s still a hole that won’t go away. It took several years to accept that the hole wouldn’t go away. Eventually that loss also became a source of perspective and peace that I have drawn on as strengths in other challenging situations, both personally and professionally. She taught us to always stay positive….so…that’s what I try to do.”

Todd Weatherby

Measuring time in a white blood cell count is as excruciating as it sounds, a lethal diagnostic benchmark. Those are heavy days, heavy hours, barely bearable waiting for the stock ticker to report in the day’s highs or lows. Registering your mortality like the temperature of your body, of your life.

Todd Weatherby is a local product, graduating from Southwestern High School. Two months ago, he joined Siemens AG, an $80 billion global technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, transport, and healthcare. He is CEO of their professional services division, Siemens Advanta. On his way to this position Todd held leadership roles in several technology companies you might recognize: Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon. He was responsible for the launch of Amazon Web Services ProServe, that ubiquitous AWS brand you see everywhere on TV.

Sharon Kunkel (Weatherby) was his mother. She was an intensive care nurse at WCA Hospital in Jamestown and attended nursing school at Jamestown Community College. In 1984 Sharon died of acute leukemia.

“Acute seems like an understatement,” Todd says. “From the time she complained of symptoms that she described as feeling like mono, or the flu, she was gone in just twelve days. Most of that time was spent at the hospital in Erie where they were guessing at the cause and the treatment. Easily the most traumatic experience of my life. Impacted me in ways that I’ll never fully understand.”

It was tragedy on a titanic scale for the people who knew and adored Sharon, and it’s impossible to say for certain if her death informed Todd’s success (though you don’t have to be a psychologist to suggest such a thing). But from her death, as from so many others whose memories deserve cherishing, came a glimpse of hope.

The Chautauqua Region Community Foundation (CRCF) is a major depository of philanthropic giving and scholarships in the county. It administers over seven-hundred endowments in support of emerging community needs, charitable organizations, and local students pursuing higher education. The organization has a community-wide, big-net mission to do more than process donations; they are also “deeply committed to creating a vibrant region where every resident feels connected and has the opportunity to thrive” (per their website).

In 1978, a group of Chautauqua County citizen commissioned a national expert on community foundations to explore the possibility of setting up an endowed fund to support the area. That originating group included some important names in the cadre of Chautauqua benefactors; Carl Cappa, Barbara Carlson, Betty Erickson, Francis Grow, Miles Lasser, Elizabeth Lenna, Marion Panzarella, Richard Parker, Samuel Price, Sr., John Sellstrom, and Kenneth Strickler. The expert inferred that the area was too small to support a significant endowment but was impressed enough with the level of charitable giving here that he endorsed the creation of a foundation in Chautauqua. The history of the CRCF reads, “The Chautauqua region was very fortunate to have a forward-thinking group of individuals who saw the need for a community foundation. These individuals gave their gifts of time, dedication and leadership, in seemingly endless amounts and are the very reason CRCF exists today.”

Nearly 40 years after her passing, the memory of Sharon Kunkel lives on in the spirit of her two sons Todd and Tim, their families, and in the Sharon Kunkel Nursing Scholarship. In those four decades, there have been 48 students awarded, twelve of which were awarded multiple times (62 total awards) totaling $32,379.

Lisa Lynde, the Donor Services Officer at CRCF gives a recent history of the scholarship: “In 2022 we had eleven qualifiers, in 2023 we had nineteen. Last year our Healthcare Scholarship Selection committee, made up of a group of volunteers with healthcare backgrounds really liked the applicants, one stood out, and two others were great candidates, so they decided to give the biggest portion to the first choice, and then divide the balance between the remaining two.

Todd and his wife Lynda have two kids Kyle and Dana. Tim Weatherby and his wife Mary have two kids Lynn and Maxwell. They continue to support nursing students in WNY via this CRCF scholarship in their mother’s memory.

Donations to grow the Sharon Kunkel Nursing Scholarship Fund can be made online at crcfonline.org/give or by mailing a check to Chautauqua Region Community Foundation, 418 Spring St., Jamestown, NY 14701.

For more information visit www.crcfonline.org or contact Lisa Lynde, Donor Services Officer at 716-661-3390 or llynde@crcfonline.org .

CIVIC THEATER

I’d like to suggest that, if you have some time and you’re bored, weather-weary, or interested in beng entertained for free, you go to a local civil business meeting; a session of court, or a meeting of government legislatures (town, city, village, school board, etc.). It’s a fascinating live-action choreographed play of official customs put on periodically to run the business of a court, school district, town, or village. It’s ceremony and improvisation. It’s ritual and interpretative.

And it’s all free and open to the public. You already bought a ticket with your tax dollars; you are one of the producers. These meetings and proceedings are all, on some level, vastly entertaining with the side attraction of being informative.

You just have to leave your firearms at the door.

If it helps, don’t look at it as an act of civic duty, though that’s not a bad excuse and after-the-fact benefit, but rather as a venue of entertainment, like a movie theater or improv stage, watching a documentary before it’s made, or a live sporting event. There’s a composition that reminds you of a ballgame -pick the sport- a schematic to focus the action. There are rules and decorum and process, players you root for, villains you hope strike out, officials and umpires who move the game along, call fouls, mediate the action, time-outs, coaching (mostly by attorneys), rosters of players to follow. Rookies navigate the proceedings with caution and reverence, or false bravado and arrogance. The seasoned veterans perform with nonchalance and forbearance. These events, which you can find scheduled in your local newspaper, really can be compelling spectator sport.

Your local government, performing in real time, is the heart of Americana at work, law, and decorum and ritual and Robert’s Rules in action. It’s so much more relevant and immediate than national politics, the decisions made have a much more direct effect on your life (your tax bill, for instance). You can follow along a posted itinerary, like a theatrical production, or a religious service, but you won’t know what’s going to happen until it does. There will be some drama, maybe passion, maybe anger, maybe rebellion. Feelings will be hurt, egos salved, there will be compromise and judgement, agreement, and most importantly, discourse.

As an impartial spectator your presence won’t be entirely anonymous; you will be noticed. The looks on the faces of the presiding establishment (a board or a court) will be worth the trip. These “officials” don’t typically perform in front of a live studio audience, they tend to like their vacuums, and when they do have an audience, it’s usually filled with familiar faces. I’m not saying they have anything to hide (necessarily), the press usually covers their meetings thoroughly, and the minutes are FOIL-able public knowledge. I am saying that with you there, they’ll sit up a little straighter, keep their eyes open longer, pay more attention. I don’t blame them; nobody running a meeting where they are held accountable for the daily lives of its constituents likes to be surprised or blindsided by an issue, a train they didn’t see coming. They prefer things to go along their predicated schedule, to control the narrative.

Board member: Why are you here?

You: I’m here for the show.

Board member (pauses, scratches head): But why?

Something unexpected and off-script will happen, that is almost certain. Sometimes you have to wait, like a baseball game where batter after batter goes to the plate, and suddenly one smashes a ball into your lap. But somebody will say or do something that will surprise you. A decision will be made that you applaud or boo.

You will be entertained!

To review, going to a meeting of your local governing boards or court;

Upside: free, entertaining, and informative.

Downside: no concession stand.

A Really Good (not Great) Lake

In the northern part of Chautauqua County, between the lake there and the Great Lake Erie, there’s a place where the earth curves. Actually, there’s many such hills, but this one’s special.

The Chautauqua Ridge is a demarcation of confluence. It plays a small part in splitting the continent in half, between north and south. It’s a rare geological marvel, and it’s right here, where we live. The old saw goes that if there was a building built in the middle of the ridge, that rain falling on the north side would end up in the Atlantic Ocean (Lake Erie to the Saint Lawrence Seaway), and a rain falling on the south side would eventually be deposited in the Gulf of Mexico (Chadakoin to Conewango Creek, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, past New Orleans into the gulf).

Along that southern route is Lake Chautauqua.

Chautauqua is fed by a dozen or so arterial creeks (Ball, Bemus, Big Inlet, Dewittville, Dutch Hollow, Goose, Lighthouse, Little Inlet, Maple Springs, Mud and Prendergast). At its widest Chautauqua is about two miles. It has a northern and southern basin that squeeze together roughly in the middle. The narrows at Stow and Bemus Point is where the lake is most bridgeable, crossed now New York Interstate 86, and by the Bemus Point ferry on the water. The lake is 17-miles long, a straight-line run from Mayville to Celoron. About forty-one miles is lakefront property, all but about three miles of that privately owned.

Most people who live on the lake have an attitude of stewardship toward this valuable local resource. It is a prized geological, glacial-built wonder. It is a beacon, and a challenge. The beacon part is obvious, a recreation designation for boaters, fishermen and fisherwomen, and all the entertainment that goes with an easily navigable, accessible body of water.

The challenge? Well, that’s a little more complicated.

The reliance on a lake for the overall financial health of a population can be tenuous. Currently Chautauqua Lake provides the money, the resources, the sustenance of life for much of the south-county population (intermixed with agriculture and manufacturing to be sure). According to the Chautauqua County Office for Media Information, sixty-six percent of visitors to the county use the lake, raising just over $282 million a year. Lakeside municipalities reinvest about $3.2 million back into the lake. The rest of the revenue helps keep businesses open and food on tables via hospitality commerce, and taxes (about 47% of county sales tax is generated annually by lake-border municipalities).

The natural evolution of lakes, what becomes of them in geological timeframes, is that they become forests. Just as water seeks its level, so does the earth. It’s a function of gravity pulling everything down to the lowest points available. Lakes fill in, that’s their natural lifecycle. Runoff from watersheds brings silt and seeds and debris. It settles into the deeper parts of any body of water. Human beings have always been hard on lakes. They invariable get used by populations as depositories for waste. Developing land around lakes, usually the most attractive property, strips a lake of its watershed vegetation and replaces it with construction and chemical residuals. Man-made chemicals cultivate lake weeds that are usually harmful to lake-life.

But as much as man can contribute to the decline of a lake, so can we delay that process, and Chautauqua has champions, people who care for it. Randy Holcomb has been professionally involved with the area around the lake for 47 years (38 in the town assessor’s office and the past nine on the Lakewood Village board). Safe to say he has a feel for the health of the lake, and he is confident in the future of the lower basin as an entertainment and recreation resource. “We welcome the challenge of maintaining lake as a great place to live and visit, Lakewood and Celoron in particular.” His enthusiasm for the future of the lower basin is infectious. “Last year was one of the best we’ve had on the lake in a few years. We’re looking forward to another great summer.”

Chautauqua Lake isn’t in jeopardy of filling in any time soon.