A forum for parents and community members at Cooperstown Central School’s Sterling Auditorium drew 175 intently interested audience members this evening. Here, they listened Beth Coombe, chief prosecutor of the Justin Holley case for the U.S. Attorney’s Albany office. (Jim Kevlin/www.AllOTSEGO.com)
Wendy Fical, program director, National Center of Missing & Exploited, paints a scary picture of child predation. She may be brought back for further consultation.
COOPERSTOWN – Cyberspace is a scary place.
“I’m very concerned about what I heard tonight,” grandmother Diane Koffer said during the Q&A that ended two hours of presentations and, at the end, intent public participation this evening in Cooperstown Central School’s Sterling Auditorium.
The reason the 175 people were there was to try and learn whether anything untoward had occurred at the school revolving around Justin Hobbie, the 13-year phys-ed teacher and coach arrested last Friday. He was charged with receiving and distributing child pornography, some of it allegedly showing sexual acts between men and girls ranging from age 12 to as young as 3.
The question was not answered. When Beth Coombe, the Albany-based U.S. Attorney’s prosecutor, was asked directly, she said: She can neither say Cooperstown children were involved, or that they were not involved.
UNADILLA – Peter Francis “Pete” Approbato, 62, a mechanic and bookkeeper at R.C. Sales & Service, his family business, died unexpectedly on Sunday, Dec. 9, 2019.
He was born on Feb. 16, 1956 in Brooklyn,. He lived in New Jersey and graduated from Lenape Regional High School.
ONEONTA – An Oneonta teen was arrested and charged with a hate crime after allegedly posting as many as 16 pro-Nazi posters around the SUNY Purchase campus, where he’s a student.
Gunnar Hassard, 18, Oneonta, a freshman at SUNY Purchase, was arrested by University Police after he allegedly hung posters with Nazi imagery, including swastikas and images of Adolph Hitler.
COOPERSTOWN – Today’s detention hearing for Justin Hobbie, 41, the CCS phys-ed teacher facing child pornography charges, has been rescheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 19, in U.S. District Court in Syracuse.
Though he was scheduled for this afternoon, his lawyer, Kimberly Zimmer, Syracuse, requested the adjournment, and Magistrate Judge Therese Wiley Dancks agreed to move it one week.
Artist’s rendering delineated the concept for Doubleday Field’s third-base, although the particular are expected to evolve before construction begins. (Courtesy Village of Cooperstown)
COOPERTOWN – The Village of Cooperstown today received a $1 million grant from Assemblyman Bill Magee, D-Nelson, part of $5 million it has received so far to renovate Doubleday Field.
The $1 million from the retiring assemblyman can be added to another $1 million from state Sen. Jim Seward’s office last spring, then $3 million from Governor Cuomo’s Empire State Development Corp. as Induction Weekend 2018 began.
Another $800,000 is being sought from other sources, according to Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch.
RICHFIELD SPRINGS – Elwyn K. “Skip” Sheldon, 77, of Division Street, a union contractor and well-driller, passed away peacefully on Monday Dec. 10, 2018 in his home.
Elwyn was born Feb. 11, 1941 in Herkimer, a son to the late Elwyn A. and Thelma Griffiths Sheldon. He was raised and educated in Richfield Springs.
Skip was a heavy equipment mechanic and a union contractor with Local 1249 IBEW. He also was in the well-drilling business for many years, retiring in 1995.
ONEONTA – Ellen B. Brown, 95, who trained in the former Oneonta Normal School, then spent 21 years in SUNY Oneonta’s Educational Psychology Department, passed away Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018, at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Utica. Lately, she had been residing in Ilion.
Ellen was born March 27, 1923, in Oneonta, to the late Dan Clark and Adda (Mattice) Barlow Sr.
SUNY Oneonta President Dr. Barbara Jean Morris, left, readies a tray of Double Double Chocolate Chip cookies for the oven as part of a staff-wide cookie bake-off held at SUNY this afternoon. But My Kitchen chef Donna Bond and Angie Eichler, Student Life, have their own entry coming out of the oven – Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies. The cookies will be blind taste-tested this afternoon and a winner announced. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO.com)
