Plucked strings and stomping contradancers vibrated the humid air over the Altamont fairgrounds for the Old Songs Festival from June 28 to 30.

GUILDERLAND –– Curtis Snyder is the first Guilderland coach to win two sectional championships in one school year. He is the head coach for two different varsity teams –– girls’ soccer and boys’ tennis.

TROY — Gary Chatnik never went searching for a coaching career in girls’ lacrosse. Coaching found him. Describing himself as “a meddling parent,” Chatnik said that, 12 years ago, he asked if he could help Guilderland’s lacrosse program.

GUILDERLAND — Taylor Ward LaPietro, beloved son and brother, died peacefully in his sleep, on Monday, July 1, 2013. He was 19.

LaPietro was born on May 17, 1994, the son of Deb and Bob LaPietro.

He was a 2012 graduate of Guilderland High School, and attended Hudson Valley Community College.

GUILDERLAND — It was shortly after 2 p.m. last Friday when Guilderland fire departments and paramedics received a call about a three-car accident on Western Avenue; despite resuscitation attempts, one of the four victims of the crash died on the way to the hospital.

GUILDERLAND — The school board’s longest-serving member, Barbara Fraterrigo, is now at its helm.

GUILDERLAND — In the last six years, everyone in her family, save herself, has been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, yet wife and mother Lori Rodino has remained hopeful, thanks in large part to help from the community.

 In the Division II Championship game last month in Philadelphia, Aaron Cahill and Danny Santandrea were teammates for LeMoyne College, and they went up against Eugene Sellie, who will be a senior at Mercyhurst College next fall. All three played lacrosse for Guilderland.

Stephen A. Venear was born Athanasium Frank Venearski, on Feb. 2, 1887 in Chemerootza, Russia and arrived in America in 1908, at the Port of New York, on the ship Statendam out of Rotterdam, Holland. He was 21 years old and already a trained nurse.

GUILDERLAND — Schoolchildren lined Coons Road on Tuesday afternoon, quietly holding patriotic signs they had made; many placed their hands over their hearts. They were waiting for a hearse.