"What are you doing""

This is what clarinetist Michele Spinelli, a Berne-Knox-Westerlo graduate, was asked when auditioning to attend Ithaca College, a place she knew in her heart she belonged.

No swimming at Thacher
Plans scrapped for new pool



NEW SCOTLAND — The half-century-old bathhouse for Thacher Park’s Olympic-sized pool was demolished last week with no immediate plans for replacement.

RENSSELAERVILLE — Two who helped draft the town’s new land-use plan voiced concerns after a Saturday forum on the future of farming in the Hilltowns.

HILLTOWNS — Candidates made their pitches, and a farmer spoke from his heart Saturday at a forum on the future of agriculture in the Hilltowns.

The gospel from to Alice
Dayter divines words from above



BERNE — During President Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, Alice Dayter wrote him a poem.
"The truth is the truth," said Dayter, this week, summing up the poem.

Death of a Dutch Uncle

ALBANY COUNTY — As fewer volunteer to fight fires and run ambulances, the Albany County legislature approved a resolution last week giving active volunteers an exemption on their county property taxes.

KNOX — Nobody knows who owns an unpaved 360-foot section of Whipple Road — not the town’s lawyer, not the town’s highway superintendent, not the town’s assessor. Residents are petitioning the town to take ownership of the road "in whole."

Zimmer to be honored
Give her a rag and she’ll braid you a rug



BERNE — Hand-braided rugs, some the color of fall, others in shades of sherbet, and one dressed in a business suit, are layered three deep in Florence Zimmer’s home.

WESTERLO — Starting this week, residents in the hamlet’s new water district will pay three times as much for water.