The Path to Fred Fest: Practice, Practice, Practice… and Then Win the Battle of the Bands
By: JOHN MACKOWIAK
The 2008 Fred Fest Battle of the Bands—32 different bands wanted in. Thirty-two different local bands thought that they had enough talent to open for Fred Fest’s headlining act, Cartel. Thirty-two bands, double the number of acts who expressed interest in the battle last year.
Each artist sent a demo and application to SUNY Fredonia’s Sound Services—the student group that sponsors the battle.
The campus’ masters of sound listened to each demo and carefully considered each application. They narrowed the 32 down to eight.
Eight bands competed in the first round of the battle of the bands.
And from those eight, the campus voted three acts into the final battle.
Sound Services Equipment Manager Kenny Christensen set the stage during High Noon Friday, approximately 5 1/2 hours before the battle went down.
“Three bands going into final battle, which this time around are Gonculator, The Scarlet Ending and Ghost of a Stranger,” Christensen said. “Come down, check it out and vote for your favorite band, and we’ll see who gets to play for Fred Fest, opening for Cartel.”
Gonculator already won the Battle of the Bands in 2006. The Scarlet Ending has had its music featured on MTV’s The Hills. Ghost of a Stranger was the clear underdog.
Posters quickly appeared around campus.
Sound Services hung fliers that urged students to come to the battle and vote for their favorite band.
Other signs that read, “The Scarlet Ending for Fred Fest 2008,” or “Vote 4 Ghost of a Stranger,” were also quite visible on campus bulletin boards.
When the clock struck six on Friday, the battle began. It went down in the Williams Center on the SUNY Fredonia campus.
Gonculator was first to take the stage.
Vocalist Jacob Karl Kodweis practically ate the microphone as he sang with his mouth and eyes wide open.
He wore a suede vest and a matching green hat. Kodweis’s wide open eyes looked the crowd over, as he raised and fluttered his eyebrows.
Yellow lights shone from behind the stage, as the band made its way to the bridge of one of its songs. Gonculator stood on the stage in silhouette.
Guitarist Sean Greif slapped his hands together over his head. He urged the audience to sing and clap with his band, saying “We’re all in this together.”
Bassist Derek Stoll slowly bobbed his upper body up and down. Cam Griffith slammed his drums. Kodweis dominated the center of the stage. Settling into a crouch, he quickly shuffled forwards and back, intensely eying over the crowd with his eyebrows raised.
The audience swayed back and forth, many didn’t move their feet, just swayed. It was as if they were standing with the weight of their upcoming decision on their shoulders. Who would they choose to open for Cartel at Fred Fest?
Gonculator was attempting to be the first band to win the battle of the bands twice within four years. After its set, the band said what winning would mean to them.
“It would bring the satisfaction of being the only band to do it two times within four years, which would be nice,” Kodweis said. “I mean, you know, that’s a pretty honorable achievement. If not, we’ll play BJ’s Fest and we’ll have a good time with the cats and the dogs and the condoms.”
“With that, I think, at bottom, it’s just about playing as many shows as we can and just trying to make an impact,” Greif said.
“Yeah, it’s Fred Fest, you know, there’s a million people there, some from out of town, it’s a good place to play,” Stoll said.
“If we win, it will be the official last Gonculator show at Fredonia, and that’ll be it. It’ll be the last show we play on this campus,” Griffith said.
The Scarlet Ending was up next. Violinist/guitarist Kayleigh Goldsworthy took the stage alone.
It was the first time the band had ever started a set like this. Kayleigh stood on stage by her lonesome, without her twin sister Kaleena, who plays the keyboard, and without the rest of her band.
Kayleigh showed off her legs, wearing a little black dress and black heels. A string of pearls was around her neck.
The rest of the Scarlet Ending joined Kayleigh on stage mid-song. Kaleena, along with guitarist Jon Tedd, bassist Brian Cooney, drummer Kiel Feher and cellist Jess Hafner, quietly walked onto the stage and waited for Kayleigh to finish her song.
They got right into after that, playing their clean and crisp pop music, which has always been well-received on-campus.
All of the band members are classically-trained, giving the Scarlet Ending the ability to play simple pop songs or very complex arrangements.
Kayleigh and Kaleena marked the end of each song with a gracious smile, as the crowd shouted for more.
One of The Scarlet Ending’s songs – “The Way We Used to Be” – was featured on the hit MTV reality show, The Hills.
Kaleena let the audience know that right before they performed the song. She says it every show, and she said that she doesn’t care if some individuals in the audience hear her say it over and over.
As she sat behind her keyboard wearing a black vest over a red tank top, Kaleena, speaking for herself and for Kayleigh, said having their song on MTV was the proudest moment of their lives.
Kayleigh struck the first chord of the song on her guitar, while Kaleena sang the da-dum-da-dum melody.
The girls quickly end up buried in the emotions of the song. The audience responded with a sway and a toe tap.
Kayleigh’s exposed calf muscles flexed, as she danced in the center the stage flicking the strings on her acoustic guitar.
Filled with energy, Kaleena bounced behind the keyboard. Her face told the story behind the song.
After they finished their set, I asked The Scarlet Ending the same question I asked Gonculator. What would winning mean to them?
“For us, I think it’s more of like, ‘this our last chance to be able to be part of the battle,’” Kaleena said. “This is something that we’ve aspired to do all four years that we were here, to be the band that’s chosen by our peers in order to perform at Fred Fest.”
“I think that’s the biggest thing, … that by doing this show and just being in the second part of the battle was a lot for us because it meant that there were people out there who enjoyed our music and voted for us,” Kayleigh said. “So, to be able to play Fred Fest as the opener would mean a lot to us not only to get a really good spot at Fred Fest, but also it would show that there’s a lot of support from our peers.”
Ghost of a Stranger – the underdog – was the final band of the night.
It was tough to tell how the crowd felt about the band. One young woman dressed in red was busy sending text messages until she walked away from the stage, while another sat Indian-style 4 feet from the front of the stage. She slowly moved her arms around as if she were swimming through the air. She whipped her head around and bobbed her shoulders.
Clearly, it seemed that there were mixed feelings for Ghost of a Stranger.
The last song they played felt futuristic.
Guitarist Adam Korbesmeyer played a riff that conjured The Killers. It blared as vocalist Pete Torrey sang the lyrics. He kept his eyes shut tightly, spitting each word out of his mouth.
In the middle of the song, something went wrong with one of the stage lights. Sparks flew as the light blew out.
Drummer Josh Martin and bassist Greg Gebhard had looks of fear written across their faces, while Torrey and Korbesmeyer went on, oblivious to the small explosion.
They fought through the fear and slammed their way through the rest of the song. As the final band, they had used their final song to leave a mark in the memories of the concert goers.
Votes had been filing in throughout the night. After Ghost of a Stranger’s set, the last few people left to vote quickly cast their votes, and Sound Services started counting.
The number crunching didn’t take long. As Sound Services prepared to make the announcement, the three bands and their most loyal fans filed back into the Williams Center.
A female member of Sound Services stepped up to the microphone.
“I was told to make this really suspenseful and to put a lot of long pauses in it and to start with the third place,” she said. “In third place we had, really long pause, The Scarlet Ending.”
A tinge of surprise fell over the crowd. Still, the people in the room were drowning in anticipation. The young women on the mic went on.
“We had in second place—like I just want to say first, all of the votes were really close, like within 10 votes. It really came down to that,” she said. “All right, our second place band was Gonculator.”
The surprise turned to shock for some. Ghost of a Stranger’s fans erupted in cheers and applause.
“So that means,” someone in the crowd yelled. You could hear frustration in his voice.
“So that means, yes, process of elimination, Ghost of a Stranger was our first-place band,” she said.
Just to put things into perspective – its’ an upset bigger than the Giants defeating the Patriots in this past Super Bowl. Maybe even bigger than USA hockey team beating the Russians in 1980.
Perhaps, that’s little over dramatic, but I, along with most others who attended, were caught off guard by the results.
Ghost of a Stranger, itself, might have been just as shocked.
“I’m just really happy because last year we lost by 10 votes,” Korbesmeyer said. “I’m just really happy and excited to play Fred Fest.
“I’m just relieved,” Gebhard said. “I was freaking out pretty bad, so I’m relieved it’s over.”
“I was worried about tonight, definitely,” Korbesmeyer said. “Definitely, worried about tonight because The Scarlet Ending and Gonculator are two very popular bands with great followings, so we really promoted a lot to try to get people to vote for us.”
Ghost of a Stranger won the gig. They will open for The Secret Machines, who open for Cartel at Fred Fest.
Filed under Uncategorized
The Tire Burning Question
April 14, 2007
By: JOHN MACKOWIAK, ANNE LITHILUXA, PAM PANNONE,
RYAN GOODNOUGH, and RYAN DRONEY
School buses filled with screaming kids roll past the corner of East Lake Road and Downing Avenue seemingly nonstop. Several elementary school children navigate the sidewalk.
It’s Monday afternoon, and the final school bell just rang.
Many of these little, tightly bundled up eastside Erie street trekkers are headed in the same direction. As they walk, some of them weave past the snow piles. Others walk right through the snow, wearing their hand-me-down boots.
The kids are on their way to the Boys and Girls Club.
They approach Downing Avenue and wait for the traffic to stop. The pack of youngsters quickly crosses the street and is now only about a block away from the Club.
One of the boys among the group runs his hand along a tall gray fence, knocking off snow with each step he takes.
On the other side of the fence is the proposed site for a $235 million tires-to-energy plant. Erie Renewable Energy, LLC—a company formed solely to build the tire-burning plant—has made it clear that they want Erie’s eastside to be the location of the multi-million dollar energy investment.
Every day, the facility will convert 900 tons—possibly as much as 1,000 tons—of scrap tires to energy, according to the Erie Times-News. That many tires will produce more than 90 megawatts of electricity.
90 megawatts is enough to keep the lights burning in 75,000 to 80,000 homes.
Throw in the 60 good-paying jobs that the plant will bring into the area, and it sounds like Erie is getting a pretty good deal.
A $235 million investment in one of Lake Erie’s rusty cities. 60 jobs that will pay Erie citizens some good money. And it’s an innovative energy solution.
Looks like good things are happening in Erie.
But if you dig a little deeper, the plans don’t seem so appealing.
It’s an overly used cliché, but, in all seriousness, what about the children?
“I see kids waiting on that corner to get picked up by the bus,” said Valerie Mackowiak, referring to the intersection of East Lake Road and Downing.
Valerie is a native of Erie’s eastside. She grew up on Hess Avenue, about three blocks from the proposed site.
“It’s a residential community. It’s the last place you’d think to put a factory,” she said.
Not long ago, that empty, fenced-in lot was the location of the Hammermill Paper Factory.
However, Valerie quickly clarified that when the paper factory was being built, East Erie was not a well-populated residential area.
“When the factory opened up that was probably the city limits. The houses came after Hammermill,” Mackowiak said.
The plant that ERE plans to build will “gasify” tires to make electricity. Though the developers have assured Erie residents that the gasification process won’t smell, Hammermill left a legacy of rotten odors in the city.
The smell is what most people remember about Hammermill’s long existence. As soon as you drove into the city, the stench hit you like a brick wall.
Valerie’s husband, John, said that, to him, the plant smelled like “vomit,” or “really sour milk.”
The air over Erie has cleared, now that Hammermill is gone. The smell, on the other hand, still lingers in the consciousness of many of the city’s dwellers.
“They remember the smell, and judging by the hype, the tires might be a bigger polluter. I’m sure people are afraid that a new smell will take over the eastside,” Mackowiak said.
The area hasn’t changed much since Valerie was growing up. The population has grown and become more diverse, but the eastside, especially in the area surrounding the plant site, is still inhabited by young, blue-collar families, trying to make ends meet.
And with the families come a slew of children. All of them, of course, need an education.
Within one mile of the proposed site, there are eight schools and a Boys and Girls Club. Inside the Boys and Girls club, there is a preschool.
Thousands of kids, ages 4 to 18, trying to learn—focusing on their reading, writing and arithmetic—within one mile of a facility that, each year, will release 1,450 tons of pollutants into the eastside kids’ air.
Young mothers and fathers raise their families on the eastside. They pray that their children won’t get asthma from breathing in all of the smog. With each cough and every wheeze, they fear that their child will be diagnosed with the respiratory ailment.
They would leave, but they have no place to go. Housing is cheap on the eastside. They can’t afford the moving costs or the rent in other areas.
The same is not true for people living in the wealthier neighborhoods, a little farther away from the plant. There a bunch of big, beautiful homes within walking distance from the East Lake and Downing site.
“As soon as they get started, you’ll see a lot of ‘For Sale’ signs,” Mackowiak said.
And who could blame those people for choosing to leave? Who wants a $235 million eyesore in their backyard?
ERE FILES AIR QUALITY PERMIT
The incinerator is still in the planning phases, but Erie Renewable Energy has submitted its application for an air quality permit. This permit application will be looked over by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
The company must provide all necessary paperwork for the application review to begin. Once it has been determined that the paper work is in place, the DEP will begin a technical evaluation of the data contained in the application.
The evaluation process is long and tedious. Greg Tarbell of the DEP spoke to the Erie Times-News about how the agency handles the application.
“We take a look at the technology that is being proposed. Also emission control devices being proposed. It is a kind of a test of the information that is being presented to us.”
This phase of the project can take up to 9 months, but, at the same time, it could be completed in as few as 30 to 60 days.
This evaluation stage provides those living around the proposed site with an opportunity to make their voices heard. Copies of ERE’s air quality permit are available for public viewing at the City of Erie Municipal Building, the Erie County Blasco Public Library, the Erie County Iroquois Branch Library and the DEP Northwest Regional Office Records Center in Meadville, Pa.
All of the data contained in the application is derived from sources that are under the control of the interests involved in constructing the facility.
DEP Regional Director Kelly Burch has assured Northwest Pennsylvanians that they will be heavily involved in the review process.
“As with any environmental permit application, we’ll work hard to ensure the community is involved in this review and is made aware of all of the facts,” Burch said to the Erie Times-News.
THE SCIENCE OF TIRE GASIFICATION
The process of tire burning is a very technical and complicated procedure that does not, by any means, lack environmental detriment.
Dr. Sherri Mason, an Associate Professor of chemistry at SUNY Fredonia explained that ERE’s facility aims to “gasify” tires by exposing them to high temperatures, which in turn, releases hydrocarbons—the basic composition of all fossil fuels.
Once these hydrocarbon vapors are released, the energy yielded would provide the fuel necessary to boil water. The boiling water produces steam. This steam provides the power to rotate electricity-producing turbines.
Mason said that electricity usage makes up 85 percent of world’s energy needs
This proposed tire burning facility in Erie would follow the procedure detailed above. However, the energy production comes with severe health and safety ramifications.
There is a laundry list of chemicals called hazardous air pollutants that would be emitted by the plant’s everyday operations.
Dioxins, mercury, arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—just to name a few.
As indicated by the Energy Justice Network, most PAHs are known to cause cancer in animals and are suspected to cause cancer, birth defects and a wide variety of other health problems in humans.
An 8-year-old quickly sucking in breath after breath—filling his lungs with PAHs—after hitting a home run in a kickball game on the field behind the Boys and Girls Club.
According to the International Association of Great Lakes Researchers, the Great Lakes contain more than one-fifth of the fresh surface water on our planet. A tire burning plant of this description would not only contaminate the air as maintained earlier, but also the fresh water supply.
“This plant is not a step toward the future as its proponents would have you think, it is a step back toward that industrial past, that past in which we were famous for having such polluted waterways,” Mason said in an email correspondence.
The facility will produce high quantities of carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals. Mason explained that these mutation-causing chemicals that will end up in Lake Erie bioaccumulate. That means that as you climb up the food chain, the concentrations of chemicals inside the bodies of each plant and animal increases exponentially.
Even if a only small amount of chemicals is released into the air and water, a sizable amount will be found in fish, turkey and other species at the tail end of the food chain—including humans.
As we all learned in elementary school, the fundamental laws of gravity say that what goes up must come down.
Everything that is emitted into the atmosphere will be deposited at one point or another onto the Earth’s surface, whether it is in the form of dirt or rain.
Sulfur Dioxide, a particulate matter, is formed when gasoline is extracted from the oils burned off by tires. This pollutant is the leading cause of acid rain, which affects all aspects of a region’s ecosystem.
Pollution of this kind will have several long term effects. The health of the ecosystem, and of the beings living in that ecosystem, will be affected by the planned facility.
Asthmatic kids. Old folks with quickly-failing tickers. It’s tough to find the beneficiaries in this equation.
“This facility is bound to have very significant and detrimental impacts upon both air and water resources on local, regional and global scales. Simply put, it is a really bad idea,” Mason said.
The tire burning plant would affect more than just the inhabitants of Erie, PA. Due to the air shifting away from Lake Erie, the communities along the lake—northeast of Erie—might see the effects of the facility’s pollution more so than Erie.
“This is not just a concern for the people of Erie; it is more likely to affect Fredonia, NY than Erie, PA, simply because the air moves away from Erie, but into other areas. The health impacts of this plant are not just local, but regional, and due to the long-lived nature of these emissions, even global,” Mason said in her email.
Another health hazard to consider is the storage and cleansing of the tires. If the plant plans to burn 900 tons of tires a day, it will have to maintain a stock pile of them. A heap of dirty tires simply breeds unhealthiness.
“The tires that have been sitting in landfills for god knows how long will have accumulated so much gunk and grime including oil from cars, molds, and we all know that tires are vectors for mosquitoes and vermin, such as rats. The cleansing will all end up back in the lake and will remain indefinitely,” said WNY Area K.E.E.P. Organizer, Suzanne Graham.
Soot and smog would be the most visible consequences of burning tires. Both cause lung irritation, aggravated asthma, chronic bronchitis and even heart problems. And for those with pre-existing heart or lung disease, premature death is a real possibility.
Just one more thing to cause heart disease in Western New York. We’ve already got Buffalo wings and the Buffalo Bills.
RECYCLE, REDUCE, REUSE.
There are other alternatives to burning tires. Some of the other methods are more energy efficient. They can actually be truthfully referred to as recycling.
“For the record [the plant is] not renewable, nor green, in any way, shape or form, despite what the proponents advertise,” Mason said.
A lot of alternatives have been proposed. Many of these suggestions are now being practiced.
A portion of the towering heaps of tires, that have been dumped into landfills, have been handled in ways that are more efficient than burning. Old tires have been turned into running tracks, roofing shakes, safety mats, tennis courts and even new tires.
It is possible to reuse a tire through a process called “tire re-treading.” It is an effective method because 60 percent of the rubber tire material is in the casing.
Tire bald? Take it off your car, get it re-treaded and throw it right back on.
A standard car tire can be re-treaded about three times, but larger vehicle tires can be done up to as many as 12 times.
One of the premier methods for recycling tires is converting the tires into Rubberized Asphalt Concrete. RAC is made by grinding tires into crumbs and mixing it with asphalt. The results are impressive—the roads are longer lasting (up to seven years without cracking), better riding, and they reduce road noise by 50 percent to 80 percent. Per lane mile of RAC laid, 2,000 tires are recycled.
One mile of new road, 2,000 fewer tires.
Currently, California, Arizona, Florida, and Canada are using the recycled substance. If every road and highway was derived from recycled tires, landfills would begin empty and tire incinerators would start to shut down.
The Canadian province of Nova Scotia has a strong tire recycling program. It has had a strict ban on land filling and incineration since 1996.
Nova Scotia gets rid of its old tires through a process, in which a tire’s fibers and metals are removed through cryogenic freezing. The recycled the rubber is then turned into various products.
Another solution is devulcanization, a process by which rubber is broken down and recycled. It cannot be compared to incinerating because in devulcanization, the tires are combined with other ingredients, melted and hardened.
The rubber becomes a certain texture that can be made into products like boots, raincoat and, in many cases, tires.
Importing rubber to the United States is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s clear that we have a high demand for rubber. Devulcanization might be the answer that would keep America’s supply of rubber high, while keeping the rubber industry’s jobs in the states.
OTHER TIRE BURNING EXPERIMENTS
We only know of one active dedicated-tire incinerator in the United States. It’s called Exeter Energy, located in Sterling, Connecticut. This facility burns 10 to 11 million tires a year. Just to put it into perspective—Erie plans to burn 30 million tires each year.
Exeter Energy has recieved a litany of complaints. Violations on their track record date back to 1991.
In 1991, black soot fell on homes. 1992, seven notices of violation including, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, failure to meet combustion efficiency limits and failure to submit emission exceedance reports. In 1995, two of Exeter’s incinerators exceeded their carbon monoxide limit. In 1995 alone, that happened 69 times. 2005 brought a tire fire in the rear tire pit of the facility.
Of the other three dedicated-tire incinerators that we know once existed in the United States, all have failed.
The Preston, Minn. incinerator was planned to be the world’s largest. However, due to the hard work and dedication of the Southeastern Minnesotans for Environmental Protection group, the plant was shut down in 2005.
Another tire burning plant was built in Ford Heights, Ill. The plan was to burn 3 million tires a year. It was in operation for a mere 10 days, before it went bankrupt. The facility was never reopened.
The third plant, which was erected in Modesto, Calif., was shut down after it endured an uncontrolled tire fire.
The plant proposed for Erie is three times the size of the next largest facility. Exeter in Connecticut is the largest, but if Erie Renewable Energy follows through with its plans, the factory on the corner of East Lake Road and Downing Avenue, next to the Boys and Girls Club of Erie, will dwarf the Exeter plant.
When it comes down to it, all we know for sure is that the future of Erie is uncertain.
The rest is just educated guess work and forecasting
Let’s say that Erie Renewable Energy is granted its air quality permit and they build the plant. We cannot know for sure what will happen.
Maybe it will be a huge success for Erie. The developers might see a huge profit. The company might sponsor local events. New businesses, accompanied by high-paying jobs, might migrate to the city.
It could be a good thing for Erie.
Or it might be a tragic thing for Erie and the surrounding communities. It will pollute our lake and air. Our beaches might be closed for eternity. The lakefront property on Erie’s eastside will be devalued. Children might develop severe cases of asthma. The high population of elderly people in Erie might have their lives cut short by premature death caused by the chemicals churning above the city. A tire fire might force the evacuation of the entire eastside.
It could be a very bad thing for Erie.
However, we will not know with certainty for some time to come. Not until they build the tires-to-energy plant—or until the DEP says that ERE cannot build at all.
Erie County Councilman Kyle Foust, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, adequately expressed this group’s feelings in a recent letter to the Erie Times-News.
“If nothing harmful will be emitted from the process of burning tires—as ERE indicates to the public—then the information stating such should be provided immediately. The public, especially the neighbors in the surrounding residential area and the children who attend school nearby, should not have to wait until after the application has been filed. The people who will have to live with the environmental consequences of the facility deserve that information now.”
We have a right to know the truth. The fact that ERE has not been open with us is troubling.
Even with its 60 jobs and the $235 million investment, it is likely that the tire-burning plant will do harm to the City of Erie and the surrounding commmunities.
ERE has proposed to build what will be a serious threat to the quality of life on Erie’s eastside and all along Lake Erie.
The potential costs to the community—the health and safety risks—outweigh the possible profits of a few businessmen and the uncertain benefits to a rusty city.
Filed under Uncategorized
Young Voters Stay Home for Local Elections
November 15, 2007
By: JOHN MACKOWIAK
“Vote Here Today.”
Three short words written in bold black letters on a white sign.
The sign marked the St. Hyacinth’s School Auditorium as the place to practice my civic duty.
It was a cold and rainy day, but nothing could damper my spirits. I was about to have my chance to make my opinions heard.
I threw the front door open. An American Flag greeted me at the door, as I turned and walked towards the registration table.
There were three people sitting at the table. A man who was well-passed retirement age and two women who looked older than that.
“I’m John Mackowiak, Junior.” I said, proudly announcing myself as a registered voter in the City of Dunkirk.
“Oh okay, Dad was just down here. Must have forced you to come out,” the man said, sarcastically questioning my motivations.
A nervous and awkward laughter escaped my lungs, but then, with a serious tone, I set the old man straight.
“No,” I said firmly. I didn’t have anything witty or wise to throw in his face.
Is it that hard to believe that a young person has a passion for civic engagement? That a member of the youth wants to have a say in choosing his political leaders?
Apparently, for this old man, it is.
After signing in, I made my way towards the big blue monstrosity of a voting booth. A renewed desire to prove myself as a Chautauqua County voter surged through my veins.
I pulled the red handle of the metal voting reset lever. The blue plaid curtains closed behind me.
Privacy. Quiet alone time. My chance to shout my opinions in the quietest way possible. My opportunity to choose the next batch of Dunkirk’s decision makers.
I strategically flipped down a number of the red tabs. I made my final decisions, double-checked to ensure I voted for my candidates and opened up the booth’s curtains.
As I left my polling place, I didn’t have the same “Proud to be an American” feeling that I usually feel after voting. It only took me a few moments to discover why that was.
Choice is the essence of American life. The ability to choose what I want, when I want. That’s what makes a person an American.
In November 2007, there wasn’t much of a choice. There were one or two candidates that I voted for because I wanted them to win. In most cases, though, I voted for a candidate just because I didn’t want the other candidate to win.
That’s no way to live. Imagine if McDonald’s and Burger King were the only two restaurants to eat at in the entire county. Do I eat a carelessly-made and excessively greasy burger? Or do I go for the sloppy, artery-clogging burger?
Well, McDonald’s seems to be the more evil corporation, so I’ll go to Burger King.
Voting felt similar to that. Richard Makuch or Rose Floramo for Dunkirk’s Third Ward Common Council seat?
Let’s just drive an hour, and go to the Outback Steakhouse.
A large portion of the candidates, who were running this November, were graying and retired from their full-time jobs. Many have held power in the region for a long time, perhaps too long of a time.
I can’t relate to those candidates. They’re from a different generation. The candidates I did want to win were younger people. A.J. Dolce, who ran for Dunkirk’s first ward common council seat, and Dahn Bull—a Fredonia State student who chased Steven Keefe for Chautauqua County’s District 25 legislative seat (Sadly, I couldn’t vote for Bull because I’m registered in Dunkirk).
There is a disconnection between the people running government and young people. Dunkirk Mayor Dick Frey didn’t campaign for me. He didn’t ask for my vote. Rose Floramo didn’t speak to the younger citizens of Dunkirk about the challenge of keeping the city’s youth.
The candidates would argue that they don’t campaign for the votes of the youth because young people don’t vote. I say that the youth doesn’t vote because candidates don’t engage them.
It’s a sort of chicken and egg argument. What has to happen first, young people voting or candidates engaging young people to vote?
A mutual commencement of voting and campaigning towards the youth would work best, but that’s easier said than done.
In a lecture recently presented on the SUNY Fredonia campus, former MTV and CBS News correspondent Gideon Yago said that there are more people between the ages of 16 and 26 than there are in any other age group. It is the largest demographic group in American history. 78 million Americans—1 in 4—are part of that demographic.
Despite the size of the demographic, the number of active voters among the ranks is minuscule. A candidate who successfully engages this group of Americans will win elections in resounding fashion.
For the powers that be, however, it doesn’t make much sense to actively pursue the youth vote. They are winning elections without those votes.
It will take a young candidate, who needs support from people his age, to inspire young Americans to vote. That candidate will speak to the youth. He, or she, will target young people as his primary voting block.
According to the US Census Bureau’s website, 12 % of Chautauqua County’s population falls between the ages of 18 and 24. That means there are approximately 16,243 votes up for grabs among the youth of the county.
16,243 votes could drastically alter the course of Chautauqua County government. Lawmakers would be forced to be responsive to senior citizens and young citizens.
But county government will not be changed anytime soon.
I asked around. I asked my friends—students at SUNY Fredonia—if they voted. In total, I posed the question to about 30 people.
“Just a show of hands, how many of you voted in the November 2007 election?”
“Wait. There was an election in November?” said one of my friends.
Of those 30 or so people, not one raised his hand. As much as I’d like to say I was shocked, it was the response I was expecting.
Voter participation among the youth of America is a problem in national elections, but in local elections, it is an enormous problem. It’s a problem of epic proportions. A problem that might never be overcome.
People don’t concern themselves with local government until they have to start paying property taxes, and generally, people don’t buy property until they’ve aged past, or are at the tail end of, the 18 to 24 demographic.
A young person must come forward and convince his demographic that they have a stake in local government.
One young man did step forward. He wanted to become a leader in Chautauqua County. He wanted to be an intelligent voice of youth in the county legislature. Dahn Bull, a senior at SUNY Fredonia and the current Student Association President, challenged incumbent Steven Keefe for the District 25 seat in the county legislature.
He posted signs in the community. He knocked on some doors. He spoke at the 1891 Fredonia Opera House. He campaigned the same way Keefe did.
It wasn’t enough. A non-traditional candidate cannot campaign in a traditional fashion.
A voter registration drive on-campus. Signs in dorm room windows. Impromptu stump speeches outside of campus dining halls. Convince students who are registered at home to register as residents in the Village of Fredonia.
But no one tried that, and Bull lost… badly.
Someone needs to reach out the youth demographic. We possess a plethora of untapped votes. Votes that could swing an election in either direction.
Reach out to us, or we might stand idle forever.
Filed under Uncategorized
SUNY Fredonia Senior Loses Race for District 25
November 10, 2007
By: JOHN MACKOWIAK
Dahn Bull stood on Capitol Hill watching Senator Hillary Clinton give hugs, smile and shake hands. It was at that moment that he was inspired to pursue a future in politics.
“Wow. That seems pretty easy,” Bull said to himself, “I guess I could do that.”
The current Student Association President—one of the few, the proud, the campus’s young Republicans—thinks it’s slightly ironic that his encounter with Senator Clinton was the trigger that launched him into the political realm.
This young Republican challenged Incumbent Democrat Steven Keefe for the District 25 seat in the Chautauqua County legislature.
District 25 consists of the portion of Fredonia and Pomfret that is east of Central Ave.
Bull said that he is eager to start working for the citizens of Chautauqua County.
“You fall for these people, as in you realize that they are good, honest people, and you want to work hard for them,” Bull said.
Signs that read, “Dahn Bull” in big bold letters sprung up around the Village of Fredonia. District 25 residents found postcards in their mailboxes that said, “Veterans for Dahn Bull.” And some of those Eastside Fredonians had the opportunity to meet Bull when he visited their homes, knocking door to door.
Bull hit the campaign trail hard, but there was a series of distractions that derailed the inexperienced politician’s first major campaign.
Being a full-time student and SA President, Bull had to deal with some time constraints in his efforts to establish name and face recognition in district 25.
That wasn’t the only obstacle he faced on the campaign trail. According to a Nov. 3 report by the Dunkirk Observer, the Chautauqua County Fair Campaign Practices Committee (CCFCPC) ruled that the postcard that Bull sent out—the one that said, “Veterans for Dahn Bull”—was “deceptive practice.”
Apparently, Bull did not receive an endorsement from a Veterans group. The postcard offended his opponent, Keefe, who is a veteran. He filed a complaint with the CCFCPC, and the committee decided that Bull, who ardently supports veteran issues, deceived the voters of District 25 with the mailer.
The last hiccup of Bull’s campaign came right at the end of the campaign trail. An unidentified person or group of people stole Bull’s signs from their locations in District 25. The signs were pulled from the ground, and tossed away. They were not found prior to Election Day.
Bull had a roller coaster ride of first campaign. He did have some ups to accompany the previously detailed downs. County Executive Greg Edwards heavily supported Bull, and he was endorsed by the Committee to Elect a Better Chautauqua.
The young Republican has been repeatedly commended for fulfilling his sense of responsibility for civic engagement. Even his opponent, Keefe, was impressed with his capabilities as a candidate.
“I welcome young people to be involved in politics. I like to see the young man in politics. I wish he was a Democrat,” Keefe said. “Truth be known, I would like to invite more young people into our party,”
Many students, especially those who know Bull, were excited to hear that he running was for County Legislature. Some expressed pride not only in having a Fredonia student running for office, but also in the fact that a voice of youth was making his mark on the political scene.
“I think especially in today’s political climate it is very important for someone young to be involved in politics,” said Junior Molecular Genetics major Jonathan Sanford. “Civic engagement is a right that many have but do not exercise. I think its very refreshing to see interest in peers.”
Bull was relatively unknown to District 25 voters, so he had an uphill climb from the moment he announced his candidacy.
He ran on a few basic but appealing issues. Bull said that, if elected, he would work towards economic development that could sustain the area’s youth, while lowering property taxes and ending partisan politics in county government.
Bull argues that the talent concentrated on the SUNY Fredonia campus must be funneled into the community. He feels that Chautauqua County needs to keep its young people in order to better itself.
“We’re losing our youth. We need to find a way to keep our youth here, and by working with SUNY Fredonia and JCC and the younger generation, we have to create a habitat to cater to their needs,” Bull said.
Losing the young people reduces the tax base, which causes a decrease in the county’s revenue. A smaller tax base means higher taxes for those still living in the county. Incumbent Steven Keefe also expressed concern over Chautauqua County’s loss of its youth.
“I think it’s all economics. What kind of opportunities are here? I think we have a lot to offer in Chautauqua County, but we’re going through a change of Industry,” Keefe said. “I think a lot of the Northeast is going through the same thing… I think one of the things we’re blessed with is, in my district, is, we have both Fredonia State and the north-end of JCC.”
Many students say that they would consider staying in the area after graduation, but they know that there are very few jobs available to them.
“I would possibly stay, but most likely not, because of the availability of jobs in what I want to do. In this area, there really isn’t much of anything, especially in terms of jobs in the media,” said Kaitlynn O’Keefe, a senior TV/Digital Film Communication Major.
Discussion over taxes always yields a heated debate. Chautauqua County—a region, according to Bull, that relies on bi-partisanship in order to keep the county afloat—has seen some divisive issues perpetuate partisan politics.
“Since 2005, a Republican has been elected to the County executive position and the Democrats have retained control of the county legislature. They want more. The county Democrats want the county executive’s position, and they will do anything to get the Republican out of office,” Bull said. “And that’s where the partisan politics come in. We are blurred by the mudslinging at [County Executive] Edwards and the mudslinging between both sides.”
Keefe insists that on most pieces of legislation—perhaps on as much as 95 percent of all resolutions—the county legislature unanimously agrees.
“On the county level, it does become a little more political, but I think a lot of it is spin,” Keefe said. “On most of the issues, we’re going to agree on. It’s just the ones that deal with philosophical differences, and those seem to be the ones that catch the news… We all need to listen, we all need to hear both sides because everyone has an view.”
To ensure that the voters heard both sides on the pertinent issues, the League of Women Voters held a debate at the Fredonia Opera House on Oct. 25. Audience members complemented Bull on his grasp of the issues and his charisma while speaking. Keefe agreed that Bull was a worthy opponent who has a promising future in politics.
As the debate’s last question was being answered, Election Day quickly approached.
District 25 went to the polls.
After the votes were counted late Tuesday night, the Incumbent was named the winner. According to the County Board of Elections, Keefe won, 590-217.
Bull lost his first countywide campaign, but it wasn’t a wasted effort. He learned how to manage a campaign and how to win votes.
“I’ve learned a lot. Anywhere from Grassroots campaign to getting to know the people I met,” Bull said. “The greatest thing I’ve learned here is just the type of people that Chautauqua county has they’re very steadfast and honorable people, and the thing I learned from these people is to be that way myself.”
Bull’s term as SA President ends when this semester concludes, and the young Republican will be graduating in May. Like all students, he is unsure of what he will do after graduation. He did express interest in staying involved in Chautauqua County politics.
“I don’t see myself working for someone unless they are good-hearted people, and I see that a lot here. I would want to stay here and work in Chautauqua county government, but if I can’t, that’s the way the stone rolls,” Bull said.
Bull urged his fellow students to follow his lead, to overcome their apathy and become engaged in civics. He may have lost, but he said that he’s proud that at least he stood up and made his voice heard.
“I stood up, and I took action. Whether I win or lose, there’s still that factor that I stood up and I said that we need to change things, as a young individual,” Bull said. “Yes, I got bashed at every turn, but I stood up and took the initiative. And actions speak far louder than any words.”
Filed under Uncategorized
Colors in the Air Leaps Over Hurdles, Rocks Fredonia
April 4, 2008
By: JOHN MACKOWIAK
Floyd stands in front of Black Betty in the blacktop driveway behind a white duplex house on Central Ave. in Fredonia, NY.
It’s up to Floyd and Betty to get a bunch of band equipment to the Hairy Lemon—the underused bar that occupies the second floor of another bar, Muldoons.
Born in 1986, Floyd has seen better days. He’s 22 years old now, and age hasn’t served him well. He’s rusty and quickly decaying.
Floyd is an old Chevrolet Conversion Van. For a number of years now, he has been a vital member of Western New York band Colors in the Air (CITA), transporting them to shows around the country. Rust eats away at Floyd’s once impeccable paint job. Most of his body is a reddish brown, but he sports some impressive beige detailing.
The younger Black Betty always looks sharp. Packed with guitars, amps, drums, merchandise and everything in between, she is CITA’s trailer.
Usually, Betty’s black paneling, accentuated with silver studs, glimmers in the sunlight, but today, the sun’s not shining.
The sun disappeared behind an expanse of dark gray storm clouds, hours ago. Rain started falling about an hour earlier. The clouds haven’t exploded yet, but small raindrops are trickling down from the sky.
CITA are playing the Hairy Lemon tonight. Two additional Fredonia bands, Ghost of a Stranger and Andrew Halliday and Friends, will open for CITA. The show is slated to start two and a half hours from now—at 10 p.m.—but Floyd has been causing trouble.
Even though their shirts are getting wet, lead singer Brian Miller, drummer Pat Williams and bassist Ryan Cullinane are wandering around the driveway, mulling over their transportation options.
“We got Floyd to start, but I don’t know if he’ll be able to pull Black Betty down there,” Williams says.
“Nothing ever really goes smoothly for us, so I don’t know,” Miller responds and then coughs twice.
If Floyd cooperates, starts back up and lugs Black Betty over to the Hairy Lemon, it will be his last run. CITA is already shopping for a new van.
Just to be safe, though, the band wants to find another vehicle with a trailer hitch to serve as a last resort. They remember that their housemate’s red jeep has the capabilities to haul a trailer. The jeep is parked across the driveway from Floyd.
Williams, along with Miller and Cullinane, walk over to the jeep to assess the situation. The hitch has a cover on it. Cullinane, wearing a pair of tan crocs, bends down to pull the cover off.
After one quick tug, the cover doesn’t budge. Cullinane, who has a blossoming mustache on his upper lip, stands up and puts a hand on his hip.
“It’s stuck,” Cullinane says. “It’s rubber, so you need to, like, drill into it and then pry it out.”
“Hah. I got just the thing,” Williams says. A mischievous smile spreads across his face.
Williams struts over to his Chevy Malibu. While waiting for Williams, Miller crouches down to take a look at the immovable hitch cover.
He grips the cover, takes a breath and tugs as hard as he can. Miller is not a big guy. In fact, he’s medium-sized at best, but he looks big compared to the thin frames of Williams and Cullinane.
He grunts. He might have moved it a centimeter or so, but he quickly gives up.
“God, my fingers hurt,” Miller says, opening wide and then tightly closing his hands. “I feel like I have fucking arthritis.”
“Maybe that was the wall,” Williams says as he walks back over to the jeep. A black-cased tool kit is under his arm.
Miller didn’t want to elaborate anymore than saying that last night, for some reason, he thought it would be a good idea to try to put a hole in a wall.
“All right, check this out,” Williams says.
He opens the black box and pulls out a power drill. He attaches a drill bit and leans into the trailer hitch. Their housemate—the owner of the Jeep—was in the house, unaware that his hitch cover was about to be destroyed.
Floyd just sat there, across the way, lonely and underappreciated. The band bought him for only $400. He carried CITA and their equipment throughout the United States during last summer’s tour. They visited 40 different states with him, racking up thousands of miles along the way.
Williams starts grinding away at each one of the four corners of the hitch cover. After he finishes drilling all four holes, he sticks a screwdriver in the hole on the top right.
“I hope you guys don’t do this to my stuff when I’m in the house,” Cullinane says.
He goes back and forth on the two top holes, sticking in the screwdriver and prying. Williams gradually gets the cover to budge a few centimeters.
“Let me try,” Cullinane says.
Williams moves aside. Cullinane grabs the yellow handle of the screwdriver and continues prying.
After a few minutes, he puts the tool down and begins pulling on the cover.
“I think I’m making headway,” Cullinane says between breaths. “Who’s the man?”
Nobody responds, but he did make progress. The thing probably only needed a couple more jerks.
“Hey, it’s another couple centimeters,” Cullinane says.
Williams wraps his fingers around the hitch for one last try. His long, dark blond hair falls in his face as he pulls back on the cover with all of the strength in his thin yet muscularly defined arms.
After a couple of seconds, the cover slowly embarks on its exit from the hitch. With one last heave, Williams pulls the cover right off of the jeep. He smiles and hoists it above his head.
“Let’s get out of the rain for a bit,” Williams says, hitch cover in-hand.
These three Fredonia students, along with guitarist and Buffalo resident Justin Walker, make up Colors in the Air. They’re been a force in this village’s small but vibrant music scene. CITA has been one of Fredonia’s top bands since their birth—only three years ago.
It took these guys only six months to get signed. Early on, they impressed a rep from Leakmob Records—formerly known as the Workshop Recording Group—at a showcase show. Leakmob signed CITA to a five record deal.
Since then, the band has burgeoned and gained attention not only in Western New York, but also in other major markets, such as Dallas.
While touring the country—in Floyd—last summer, they played a show in the big D. Williams recalls the audience immediately responding to their sound by crowding to the front of the stage. Since that show last summer, CITA has received regular radio airplay in Dallas.
Devising Attack Plans
Miller and Williams hustle up the stairs, skipping steps as they climb the dusty flight of carpeted stairs that leads to their apartment. A thin steel pipe, which has been painted white, lines the stairway. It serves as a railing.
Their place looks like almost any other college apartment. Beer cans have taken over the coffee table. A Guitar Hero controller leans against the wall. Music posters are plastered on the walls. A Bob Marley poster can looks the room at a poster for Green Day’s Dookie album. A large portrait of John Lennon’s profile points towards a wall that has stop sign posted on it. The sign has the word, “Bush,” spray painted underneath “STOP.”
A few young men—some who live there, some who don’t—fill the couches that are aimed towards a flat-screen TV. The guys are sitting around watching an episode from the new season of A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila.
Miller, wearing a solid-colored, dark gray t-shirt over a white undershirt, heads for one of the couches, while Williams and Cullinane remain standing in order to devise a plan of attack.
Williams and Miller will head to Wal-Mart. Miller needs a power amplifier for his keyboard, and Williams needs to get change for the door—there’s a $2 cover for over, $3 for under. Cullinane will stay at the house to wait for Walker who is on his way into town from Buffalo.
Miller and Williams ramble down the stairs and hop into Williams’s tan Malibu. A sticker that reads, “CITA” is stuck to the bumper. A stack of concert posters rests in the back seat. Williams fingers through the cash that he plans on getting changed into smaller bills.
“We should get something for the people that get there first,” Williams says.
“Yeah? What do you want to get?” Miller asks.
“You want to do glow sticks again?”
“It’d be great if we could do glow sticks for everyone—and wet t-shirts,” Miller says, jokingly but optimisticly.
They didn’t have enough money to get that many glow sticks, but Williams was still into the idea.
“Glow sticks, it is,” Williams quickly responds.
It didn’t take long to get to Wal-Mart. There’s never traffic in Fredonia. The place is crowded but not packed—same as it usually is.
Miller and Williams split up. They had to hurry; show time was less than two hours away. Miller heads to electronics. Williams heads towards the hunting section.
Williams approaches the fishing poles and hunting rifles, but before he gets there, he spots a blue vest—the clear marking of a Wal-Mart employee—and throws a question in the vest’s direction.
“Do you guys have glow sticks?” Williams asks.
“Well, we have some over here, but there are some cheaper ones in the toys,” says the blue-vested employee. A thick caterpillar-like mustache occupies his upper lip.
“Oh, with the cheap stuff?”
“Yes. They’re in the inexpensive section,” the mustache says. He sounded offended at Williams calling his employer’s products cheap.
88 cents for one glow stick. Williams takes a box of ten and heads to electronics to look for Miller.
Miller, with his cell phone on his ear, wanders aimlessly down an aisle of CDs.
“I don’t know where they are. I can’t find anyone. Oh wait,” Miller says, as he runs into another blue-vest.
He snuffles his runny nose and asks for directions to a cheap power amplifier. The blue vest leads him to their location. Miller stands in front of a rack of electrical cords and electronic accessories, while he debates with Williams over what he should get.
There’s one that’s $12 and in blue packaging and another in red that costs $10.
Miller goes with the two dollar cost savings and grabs the power amp in red. Power crisis averted.
They got the cover off of the jeep’s hitch, and Miller got what he needed to play his keyboard. However, those were just the beginnings of the challenges that Colors in the Air have faced and will face in the build up to their show.
It’s dead week—the week prior to finals. Student groups aren’t allowed to meet, and the kids in the dorms have to be quiet all day and night. It’s a week of silence, designated to ensure that students have time to study. It also means that fliers for off-campus events cannot be posted on campus bulletin boards.
The guys asked the Campus Life office to approve the poster for their show, but the authorities said no. They tried to stealthily stick their signs on the boards, but every flier they posted was quickly ripped down by the powers that be.
They had no avenue for advertisement. Some of their fans would be stuck inside studying. The rain continues to steadily fall. Miller was coming down with something—a cold, maybe. And to make things even worse, CITA was being forced to compete against the popular Wednesday night drink specials at two of the other bars in the village—BJ’s and the Ellicottville Brewing Company.
BJ’s had dollar pints. At EBC, it was quad night—any four shots in any drink for four dollars.
The odds were stacked against CITA, but they were confident that they would see a good turnout.
On the ride back to the apartment, luck started coming their way. Williams gets a call from Ashling—the owner of the Hairy Lemon and Muldoons.
She tells him to forget lugging all of their equipment up the stairs to the second floor, where the Hairy Lemon is located. Instead, for tonight, they can play downstairs in her more popular bar, Muldoons.
In reality, it’s only a change in the number of stairs you would have to walk up to see the band, but in a college town, where people frequent only certain bars, the guys thought it would make a pretty big difference. They would probably attract a bunch of first time listeners, who just happen to walk into the bar, attracted by either their familiarity with the place or by the noise of the bands.
Floyd’s Swan Song
Williams pulls his Malibu into his Central Ave. driveway. Cullinane is waiting in the house. Walker had just arrived from Buffalo and was sitting in his black SUV.
Walker braves the rain and gets out of his car when he sees the Malibu. His girlfriend, Jena, waits in the vehicle to avoid getting wet. A black winter cap covers Walker’s long blond hair. Cullinane joins them outside.
With show only an hour and a half away, the guys decide to give Floyd a try. If he refuses to move for his swan song journey downtown, they’ll use their housemate’s jeep.
Trusting the other three young men of CITA to get Floyd moving, Williams gets back into his Malibu. He’s going to meet the rest of the band, Floyd and Black Betty at Muldoons.
As he rolls down Central Ave. towards Temple St., Williams looks into his rear view mirror.
“He’s doing it. Floyd’s on his way. He’s right behind us,” Williams says.
It might be Floyd’s last ride. He’ll get the equipment to Muldoon’s tonight, but how much longer can this foursome depend on their aging friend? They’re shopping for a new van, but everything that they have seen so far has been over-priced and beaten down—cigarette burns and dents have been a common theme.
They’re looking for a cheap and dependable replacement for Floyd. If you have a van that you want to get rid of, let the guys know—seriously.
Williams’s Malibu, along with Floyd and Black Betty, snatch up the parking spots in front of Muldoons. The bar is dark. Williams checks the door, but it’s locked. He calls Ashling to figure out where everyone is.
“Hey… Yeah, we’re here, but the door’s locked… all right… see ya,” Williams says into his phone. “I got to run to the liquor store to grab the keys.”
Williams runs around the corner and through the parking lot that connects Water St. to Eagle St.
Miller stands outside the locked, dark bar. Rain falls onto his short blond hair. He furrows his eyebrows and smirks.
“Who would give Pat keys?” he asks, sarcastically.
Williams must be pretty quick because he was back from the liquor store in no time. Still jogging and out of breath, he heads for the door, keys jingling in his hand.
As Williams opens the door, a flood of awful stench rushes out from the bar. It smells like old liquor, stale popcorn and sweat. Cullinane is the first to brave the smell.
“Aw, it smells like dick in here,” he says.
Muldoons is lifeless. When night falls, it’s one of the wilder bars in Fredonia. Absent is the bright neon light of the beer signs. Missing is the loud, bassy pop music. Gone are the girls in low-cut shirts and mini-skirts and the guys in their Hollister button downs.
The bright purple walls and the black and white checkered floor feel different. Metaphorically and literally, the floor isn’t sticky—must have just received a fresh mopping.
The Set Up
CITA—and the few groupies that accompany them—get right to work. They open up Black Betty and start lugging in all of the equipment, while dodging raindrops.
Guitars. A drum kit. Microphones and mic stands. A keyboard. Bass Guitars. XLR cables. Merchandise. It’s all inside Betty. There’s a lot of stuff, but it won’t take long to unload with everybody helping.
As soon as all of the equipment is inside, the band starts setting up. There’s no stage, so they put their equipment down towards the back of the bar, right in front of the pool table.
They each go about their work separately.
Miller sets up the microphones. One of the mics has been seriously knocked around. It’s been badly dented in multiple spots. Miller digs through a box of XLR cables to find the cords that are still functional and of the right lengths.
He still has to set up his keyboard and his guitars. He’ll use three different guitars throughout the course of their set.
Cullinane puts his bass guitar’s strap over his shoulder. He hooks up his amp and effects pedal.
Williams strategically places his bass drum, snare, cymbals and the rest of his kit right in front of the pool table. Most of the kit shares a finished dark orange-brown wood look. Cullinane says that he thinks the drums look similar to hard candy root beer barrels.
While Walker starts working on his complex guitar set up, Ghost of a Stranger’s lead singer, Pete Torrey, comes into the bar with a bunch of his equipment in his arms.
Even more so than in CITA, in Ghost of a Stranger, it’s every man for himself. Torrey brings his own equipment, while each of the other men in the band is responsible for getting their own gear to the gigs.
“I don’t give a shit about them,” Torrey says, sarcastically. “They can get their own stuff here.”
Torrey immediately walks up to Walker, and in awe, he gawks at the guitarist’s gear. Walker has taken his three VOX amps and one of the amp’s cases to build what will become a wall of sound. On the left side, he stacked two amps on top of each other. On the right, the third amp sits on top of a black case that, in white paint, has “CITA” emblazoned on it.
“I love that set up,” Torrey says, clearly impressed.
Moments after Torrey came in, Andrew Halliday—the leader of the threesome, Andrew Halliday and Friends—struts through the wide open front door. He strolls with a sense of confidence and conviction. Not as easily impressed as Torrey, Halliday takes a gander at Walker’s amp configuration.
The only problem is that Walker’s wall of sound is blocking the path to the women’s bathroom. There’s another bathroom upstairs in The Hairy Lemon, so Walker and Cullinane are quick to say that it’s probably okay to make the ladies walk up to the second floor to use the bathroom. Williams is hesitant.
“Yeah, but we should probably call Ashling on this one,” he says.
Williams pulls out his cell phone and looks for Ashling’s number in his contacts.
The phone conversation confirms Williams’s doubts.
“We’re gonna have to make a path,” he says.
Walker drops his head and shuffles over to his amp set up. He’ll have to move it over three feet.
Meanwhile, a big, burly guy with short dark hair and glasses walks in the front door like he runs the place. He’s wearing a black shirt. The back of the shirt—in purple lettering—reads, “STAFF.”
“All right guys, I gotta see some I.D.s,” he says, arrogantly.
Collectively, everyone in the bar rolls their eyes. Halliday and Torrey, along with the groupies that are sitting around, walk over to Staff and show him their driver’s licenses.
After verifying that everyone was of legal drinking age, Staff stamped the sufficiently aged drinkers’ hands with a red bingo dabber.
Then, he notices a young lady sitting at the end of the bar. It’s Walker’s girlfriend, Jena. She has medium-length brown hair, a cute tanned face and a friendly smile. Staff approaches her. He asks for her I.D. A nervous smile stretches across her face.
She quickly digs through her over-sized hand bag, looking for her billfold. After finding it, she pulls out a card and hands it to Staff.
He scans it with a meticulous eye. He looks back up at Jena and walks over to the other end of the bar, her I.D. between his fingers.
He reaches behind the bar and grabs a royal blue duffel bag. He pulls out a book that contains images of all states’ legal I.D. cards. Holding Jena’s I.D. in one hand, he thumbs through the book in an attempt to assure that the young lady could, in fact, drink.
Staff closes the book, raises his eyebrows and grins smugly.
“You gotta go,” he says to Jena.
She lets loose a guilty smile, before a confused expression takes over. She opens up her bag and digs through it.
“No, you have to leave,” Staff says.
“Can’t I just show you my other I.D.?” She asks.
“Sorry, but you need to go.”
Walker puts down his guitar and leaves his effects pedal on its lonesome.
“If she goes, we’re not playing,” Walker interjects sternly.
Staff shrugs his shoulders with a “sorry, it’s not up to me” demeanor.
“If you would have just showed me your honest to goodness I.D.,” Staff says, shaking his head, to Jena.
“She’s my girlfriend, so let’s not go there,” Walker says. “Just show him your I.D.”
Staff relents. He examines the license and walks away. Another crisis averted. Jena bashfully connects eyes with her boyfriend and remains seated at the bar, bingo dab-less.
Leakmob Records signed CITA to a five record deal. They released their first album—On The Inside—last summer.
They’ve been approached by other independent labels, but CITA is committed to Leakmob. Obviously, they want major label distribution, but they’re prepared to wait for it.
“Maroon 5 was a band for like 10 years before they had a hit song on the radio,” Cullinane said. “So, we’re ready to put the work in.”
Cullinane said that four albums from now, they hope to ink a contract with a large independent or a major record label.
Final Preparations
Miller is still trying to get his keyboard to work. He struggles with the power amp. He’s holding the keyboard on his knee, while leaning on the electronic dart board. He has tried almost every one of the adapters that were included with the device.
“Work! You got plenty of power running through you,” Miller shouts at the keyboard. “I hate my fucking life.”
As CITA puts their finishing touches on the makeshift stage, two female bartenders walk behind the bar to start stocking up for the night. One of the women is a tall blond. The other, a short brunette, wearing a navy blue headband in her hair.
Staff brings four cases of Bud Light. The bartenders put them in the cooler. The blond grabs a white maker and heads over to the dry erase board at the end of the bar.
She uncaps the marker and starts writing.
“Drink Specials,” she writes. “$1.50 Bottles & Wells.”
Miller keeps trying the adapters. Eventually, he finds the one that fits. After a brief moment of celebration—perhaps “relief of frustration” would be better a better phrasing—Miller carefully places the piano on top of two wooden stools.
With Miller finally done getting his stuff together, the band heads back to their instruments.
Sitting behind his drums, Williams counts off CITA’s sound check. Muldoon’s, which was near complete silence aside from chatter and shuffling feet, erupts with guitar riffs, drum hits and steady bass.
They play for a few minutes, asking each other what levels need to be boosted and which ones need to be brought down. Torrey and Halliday give their sound levels a thumbs up. After Miller decides that the levels are as good as they’re going to get them, the sound check ends.
“What do we have for a set?” Miller asks, rubbing his throat. “We can’t too long. I’m sick.”
“I got this beauty of a set,” Cullinane says, reaching into his bass guitar’s case.
It’s a set that they ran at a show last week. Cullinane rambles of the names of a bunch of their songs. Their most popular songs were there. “Raindrops.” “Phetamine.” “Will You Stay With Me.” “Maybe Tonight.”
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Williams says.
Then, it became a waiting game. It’s already 9:40 p.m. The show is supposed to start in twenty minutes, but the only people in the bar are the three bands, a couple of girlfriends and a few groupies.
Ghost of a Stranger heads over to the bar’s beer pong table. It’s Torrey and Bassist Greg Gebhard against Guitarist Adam Korbesmeyer and Drummer Josh Martin.
Andrew Halliday and Friends sits at the bar sipping on draft beer and rum-and-coke.
Colors in the Air stands outside the bar on the front stoop under the overhang, avoiding the rain. Williams and Cullinane light up cigarettes.
A stream of water flows down the curbs of Water St. A waterfall forms along the back side of Floyd.
One of their groupies asks if they’re worried that people won’t come. He points out the obstacles keeping people from downtown—a lack of awareness of the event, the rain and the drink specials elsewhere.
“People will come,” Williams says, releasing a chest-full of smoke. “I’m not worried.”
“The rain sucks, but we usually fill this place up,” Cullinane says.
“It’ll happen,” Williams adds. “It’s the last rock show of the semester.”
“Yeah, but it’s tough to turn down quad night,” Miller says. “I mean, I want one, too.”
The clock keeps ticking, but the bar stays empty. Torrey joins the guys outside the bar. He asks that inquisitive groupie for a cigarette. Miller asks to bum one off the guy, too. The groupie tosses Torrey his white Bic lighter.
“You shouldn’t be smoking that Pete,” Miller says to Torrey. “You just quit.”
“Yeah? Neither should you. You’re a singer,” Torrey says.
“So are you,” Miller snaps back.
The singers shrug their shoulders, as they take long drags off of the groupie’s Camel Lights.
This summer, CITA is headed on tour again. They’re going to travel up and down the East coast as part of “There Will Be Tour,” which is being financed by the same people who produced Academy Award-nominated film There Will Be Blood.
The Working Title, out of Charleston, S.C., and Long Island’s Edison Glass will join CITA on “There Will Be Tour.”
The Bands Are Ready, But The Crowd’s Not
It’s already after 10 p.m., and Muldoon’s is practically vacant. The few there are sitting around drinking. Maybe there are just too many variables keeping people from Muldoons. Some are stuck studying. Some are afraid of the rain. Some are sucking down drinks at the cheaper bars.
Andrew Halliday’s drummer, Kenny Christensen, holding an icy well drink, throws his thoughts into the fray. Williams, Torrey and Staff stand by, listening.
“I’ve come to learn that people in this town don’t respect show times,” Christensen says like a true street philosopher. “Tell them to come at ten, and they’ll come an hour later.”
“Well, then, let’s hold off an hour,” Williams says. “Halliday can go on at eleven.”
Muldoon’s remains largely uninhabited for the next hour. The clock moves slowly. Halliday stands on the sidelines, waiting to shred his guitar.
Throughout the second half of the ten o’clock hour, people start filing in. The bar is nowhere near full, but people start slowly trickling into Muldoons.
“It’s gettin’ bumpin’ in here,” Torrey says, sarcastically. Only three or four people were at the bar.
Williams mans the door with Staff. Staff checks I.D.s. Williams takes the cover. Buffalo’s Top 40 radio station Kiss 98.5-FM plays in the background.
“You guys gotta get started soon,” Staff says. “It’s getting late.”
“Yeah, I know it, but we have to wait for people,” Williams says.
“Once the bands start playing, they’ll be drawn in by the noise,” Staff argues.
“And we got those lights,” Williams says. “Noise and lights are the biggest attractions.”
Williams and Staff stop talking just long enough to realize what’s being played on the bar’s stereo system. It’s Taylor Swift’s latest country pop single, “Our Song.”
“What the hell is this?” Torrey says, expressing everyone’s feelings.
But Taylor Swift sings on in the background, as Halliday takes the stage.
The Show Must Go On—With or Without an Audience
The talented guitarist strums his first note at 10:58 p.m.—almost an hour after the show was scheduled to start. He seductively runs his fingers up and down his guitar. He squeezes impeccable sound out of it.
A student of classical guitar at SUNY Fredonia, Halliday puts on an exhibition. He has a drummer and bassist playing behind him, but it’s easy to ignore them. The audience’s attention is focused solely on Halliday’s guitar.
Guitar solos dominate the bluesy-rock set. During one of his solos, he walks his guitar over to a couple of young ladies, who are sitting off to the side of the stage.
Wearing a tight, gray ringer t-shirt, Halliday presents himself to the girls. They look impressed, as he rips his guitar to shreds. He makes orgasm faces throughout the entire solo.
It goes on for a bit too long, though, and it gets awkward for rest of the crowd. Sensing that, Halliday pulls out and rejoins the rest of his audience.
After Halliday raps up his set, Ghost of a Stranger—the 2008 Fred Fest Battle of the Bands winner—takes the stage. They walk up to the stage from all different parts of the bar and come together around the dormant drum kit.
All three bands agreed to use the same drum kit, so the time in between sets is minimal.
Torrey, a member of one of Fredonia’s fraternities, attracted a bunch of his frat brothers to the bar. Most of them are drunk and rowdy, but that only makes for a better show.
Ghost is quite the change from Halliday. While Halliday plays long, drawn out blues rock epics, Ghost rocks a fast and quick Killers-esque sound.
After their first song, one of Torrey’s “brothers” confessed the fiery passion that he holds within him.
“I love Ghost!” he shouts.
“We love you, too,” Torrey says, calmly.
However, Torrey notices that there aren’t many people showing their love. There are only a few people in the back of the bar by the band. Everybody else is either at the bar drinking or in the front of the bar, avoiding the noise.
“Come up to the front,” Torrey pleads. “Because it makes us wet.”
The sexual reference works. The small crowd that has taken root in Muldoons slowly mills its way to the back of the bar.
Ghost doesn’t wait for the audience. They jump right into their next song. The tune inspires the crowd, as they finally start responding to the music. Head nodding and swaying is prevalent.
Muldoon’s has finally come alive. The purple walls have regained the vibrant liveliness that exudes from them on most nights.
“It might be dead week on-campus,” Torrey says. “But it’s not dead in here.”
The crowd responds with shouts and applause.
“If you got a drink, raise your glass high and say cheers to the fuckin’ people next to you,” Torrey commands his audience. The bar obeys.
By the end of the set, most of the people in the bar flood to the front of the makeshift stage.
For Ghost’s closing song, Torrey puts down his guitar and sets up a Korg Synthesizer. He puts on a pair of shades that looked like they were straight from the 80s. In reality, though, they were a give-away at this year’s Fred Fest.
Perhaps it’s Torrey’s way of bragging after his band won the battle, or maybe it’s that he looks sweet in them. Regardless of his motivation, the crowd is wet with anticipation for Ghost’s last song and for CITA, who’s waiting on deck.
The audience is bigger, louder and drunker. The band takes advantage of it. Torrey gets the synth blaring and grabs the mic. He looks over the crowd with his deep set eyes and excitedly sings the lyrics.
Torrey and guitarist Korbesmeyer violently dance in the center of the stage, convincing the crowd to join them. While some individuals in the crowd wildly jump around, most of the audience dances conservatively.
Colors on the Stage
Whether it was done intentionally or not, CITA is built like the pop bands of the 1960’s. It might be stereotypical for a rock band, but it’s a model that has worked time and time again.
You’ve got your heart throb, the shy one, a goofball and the dude (the guy who, in the words of Buffalo Bills Running Back Marshawn Lynch, “is just straight chillin’”).
Miller is the heart throb. Walker’s the shy one. The goofball is Cullinane, and Williams is the dude.
They fit those archetypes when they’re on stage and when you talk to them one-on-one.
Their sound is more complex than The Monkees, but CITA’s member structure follows the pop band formula.
The crowd is still not what CITA usually sees. On a better night—no rain, better advertisement, no finals, no competing drink specials—the bar would be packed. It has happened before, and they guys were expecting it to happen again.
Unfortunately, they were disappointed.
CITA takes the stage, only to be faced with another challenge. Inexplicably, the cable that connects Miller’s keyboard to the audio board has disappeared. Miller scrambles to the other side of the pool table and digs through the band’s spare equipment.
“We’re having some technical difficulties,” Cullinane explains. “But then, we’re gonna rock your faces off. How ‘bout that?”
The drunken members of the crowd scream. Some of the more sober individuals sigh or roll their eyes. They’re visibly and understandably antsy after waiting all night to see CITA.
Cullinane—wearing a khaki-colored messenger cap with his curly dark blond hair protruding from underneath—awkwardly tried to keep the crowd engaged and excited.
“So I’d say tonight’s been a night of rock and roll,” Cullinane says. “Andrew Halliday and Friends, Ghost of a—battle of the bands winner—Ghost of a Stranger and we’re gonna do our thing in just a fuckin’ second.”
The crowd spits out a few cheers before, some guy, who looks to be extremely wasted, starts shouting inappropriate comments about Miller’s reproductive organs.
“Miller’s got a big one,” the drunk shouts.
Still hustling to figure out what to do with the piano, Miller only responds with a nod.
Cullinane continues to babble on, but he comes up with something relatively meaningful in the middle of all of the nonsense.
“This is my last show as a Fredonia student. It’s kinda depressing,” Cullinane says. “But it’s not that depressing because everyone wants to get out of Fredonia.”
He shouldn’t speak for everyone, but things aren’t promising for the upstate economy.
To avoid continuing the debacle that the piano has caused throughout the day, Miller scraps the keyboard. He doesn’t want anyone to leave the bar before they get a chance to hear his band.
As soon as Miller put the keyboard away, Williams slaps his drumsticks together to count off the first song of the set.
Andrew Halliday and Friends and Ghost of a Stranger fulfilled their duties as opening acts. CITA didn’t have to worry about working the crowd into frenzy. The audience was already raucous before Williams hit his sticks together.
Two guitars, a bass, drums, Miller’s voice and uncontainable energy blend together to create a sound and a performance that’s appealing to everyone ears and eyes.
Most of the people at the show had seen CITA before, but there were a few people who were seeing them for the first time. At the onset, the two groups of concert goers were easily differentiated. However, by the time the band hit the bridge of the first song, almost everyone had blended together.
CITA engages the audience. It’s something that many young bands are incapable of doing.
After the band crosses the bridge of their first song, they dive into a vicious break down.
Walker, wearing a black t-shirt, almost knocks over his microphone stand, as he repeatedly snaps his upper body down and then back up.
While Williams pounds his drums with fury, Miller sprints back towards the bass drum, plants a foot on it and then jumps off. The small but energetic crowd erupts in screaming and clapping.
Out of breath, Miller leans into his mic.
“Could someone go to the bar and get me a Red Bull and vodka?” he asks.
A loyal male fan hurries to Miller’s side.
“Here, take some of this,” he says.
Miller moves the straw to side and puts his mouth to the glass. He chugs the fan’s drink. The poor guy can only look on in dismay.
“Oh, that’s bull shit,” he says, dejected.
At every rock show—it never seems to fail, especially when alcohol is involved—someone starts asking the band to take off their shirts.
This show was no different. Many bands ignore the pleas and simply move on to the next tune, but CITA is different than those bands. They have a special relationship with their audience. They quickly make fans out of the masses, and their fans usually become their friends even quicker.
Once the first person yells it, swarms of people follow. A chorus of, “Take your shirts off,” echoes throughout the crowd.
Miller listens to his audience and rips off his shirt. It doesn’t take long for Cullinane and Williams to follow suit. Walker holds out.
Judging by the response of people that are gathered in Muldoon’s, there’s nothing that drunken college students love more than a shirtless band. The concert-goers roar.
“It’s not like I have a ton of muscle or anything,” Miller says. “But it’s cool. Thanks.”
“It’s convenient that we took our shirts off because this next song is about sex,” Cullinane says.
“Raindrops!” someone yells. Their fans know CITA’s material well. “Raindrops” is a track off of On The Inside.
As Williams composes himself to guide his band into the next song, Cullinane looks over at Walker and realizes that their guitarist still hasn’t exposed himself.
“Wait. We can’t start till Justin takes off his shirt,” Cullinane says.
With a sheepish smirk, Walker refuses. But with the crowd’s support behind him, Cullinane stands his ground. For his parents’ sake, let’s hope Walker doesn’t always give into peer pressure so easily.
After Walker gets shirtless, Miller asks the audience for some help on the next song’s vocals. He breaks down the “fourth wall” that actors always talk about—the thing that separates them from the audience—and invites a select few to get behind one of the microphones.
Four CITA fans take Miller up on the offer. They put their arms around each other and wait for their opportunity to scream the lyrics.
The song, Raindrops, does, indeed, have a sexual subtext.
“Laying next to you,” Miller sings. “Oh, it feels—being inside you—oh, it feels good.”
The foursome of back-up singers was hesitant to sing that first line, but they shout along with Miller during the next stanza and the chorus.
“You’re comin’ again,” they shout with Miller. “And leaving again and comin’ again, but do you even care? If I wasn’t there? Where do you go?”
Miller and Cullinane, playing next to each other, violently bob up and down in unison at the entrance to the chorus. Looking excessively content with himself and his band, Cullinane tosses his curly hair around.
As CITA rolls through the second verse and into another chorus, almost the entire audience starts singing along with Miller and his back-up vocalists.
College Band Overcomes Obstacles
They did it. They pulled it off. Despite everything that was stacked against them, Western New York’s indie rock phenoms played yet another remarkable show.
Mother Nature. SUNY Fredonia’s dead week. Final exams and research papers. Unbeatable drink specials from competing bars. Miller’s illness. An aging van.
Nothing could stop CITA from rocking Fredonia.
It was the last rock show of the semester, and CITA saved their catchiest song for the end. It’s not a bad idea; maybe they’ll end up sticking a song in someone’s head for the entire summer.
The song, “Maybe Tonight,” is more infectiously catchy than Miller’s cold. It’s the opening cut on their debut release.
“We’ll play one more song, but then, we’re partying,” Miller says to the eager gaggle of Fredonians.
Before they break into the song, though, a person sitting at the bar catches the band off guard.
“Obama!” he yells.
At first perplexed at hearing the Illinois senator’s name shouted at their show, Cullinane doesn’t shy away from the political commentary.
“Yeah, Obama, baby. Bros before hoes,” he says.
“Whatever, as long as it’s not McCain,” Miller chimes in. “It’s like Bush all over again.”
It’s an odd way to open up a song, but it fits with the theme of “Maybe Tonight.”
Again, the foursome of back-up singers breaks through the fourth wall. This time, however, they invite themselves onto the stage.
Still shirtless, Miller steps up to the microphone. His band begins playing behind him, as he sings the opening words of the song.
“Maybe tonight,” he sings. And then, he releases a “wa-ooooo.”
The audience jumps up and down. The Muldoon’s black and white checkered floor shakes under the boisterous crowd.
Then, with the first verse, Miller comments on the political atmosphere of the 21st century.
“What’s wrong with the world today?” Miller asks rhetorically. “The government’s taking over it all. And, there’s missiles headed our way.”
Miller takes it a step further. He gets more specific, calling on his listeners to think about global warming, the environment and globalization.
“They say we’re safe but… The ocean’s getting higher,” he sings. “The air is getting darker. And the world keeps getting smaller every day.”
It’s mature language for the first track on the band’s first album and the last track on this night, but the deep observations don’t take away from the fun. Regardless, there are very few people still sober enough to comprehend what’s being said.
There isn’t much space for the band to break the song down. The back-up singers had thoroughly clogged up the stage. Regardless, the shirtless foursome that is CITA finishes what they came to do.
They use every last trace of energy that they find inside themselves. They jockey for position on stage, thrash and sway and claw their way to the song’s conclusion.
Andrew Halliday, nodding to the music, captures footage of the event on his cell phone. Torrey holds his hands above his head and claps with the band. His expression, though, is one of hopeful envy.
The small and loyal crowd insanely screeches and hollers, as CITA pounds out the last notes.
Cullinane drops his bass and dives into the crowd. Exhilarated yet exhausted, he crawls out from the abyss of party-happy college students. He sprints to the bar.
Miller catches his breath on stage, looking like he’s ready for bed.
“Make sure you go home and study now,” he says
Learn more about Colors in the Air, by visiting…
www.myspace.com/colorsintheair or…
http://www.leakmob.com/ or hear a cut from their performance on WBFO’s Live in Allen Hall…
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wbfo/local-wbfo-646218.mp3
Filed under Colors in the Air, Fredonia, John Mackowiak, Muldoons
Don Reinhoudt, Strong Man and Youth Worker, Retires
By: JOHN MACKOWIAK
The kids chant his name, as Donald Reinhoudt—the freshly retired director of the Chautauqua County Youth Bureau—positions a long nail in the palm of his hand.
The chanting gets louder when Don places a rectangular piece of pine wood on his lap. He pulls his hand back, and in one swift motion, drives the nail through the board.
The strongman sits on a faded green bench on the barn red stage of Camp Gross’s amphitheater and wipes the sweat from his bald head. After thanking the boys and girls for their enthusiasm, Don asks them if they have any questions.
“Could you lift a car?”
“Could you break a tree?”
“Do you know my dad?”
Even though he receives the same questions everywhere he goes, Don maintains his upbeat tone. He politely answers all of the questions before moving on with his program of strength and positive messages.
He doesn’t visit with young people to showcase his strength. His strongman feats are merely used as devices to keep the kids’ attention, he insists. Don says that he goes to schools, camps and juvenile detention centers to deliver a message of hard work, perseverance and hope.
“The message is that, never sell out on your dreams, that it doesn’t matter if anybody else believes in what you believe in. It’s nice if along the way your family or your friends could believe in what you do, but what’s important is that you believe in yourself, that you can achieve anything in this world that you want to. We don’t need to take drugs to get high. Get high on life. You don’t need any of that crap, just believe in yourself,” Don said.
Anybody who has grown up in Chautauqua County over the past 20 years has probably heard Don’s message. Many, including myself, have been inspired by Don’s life lessons.
I’ve been a counselor at the City of Dunkirk’s day camp at Camp Gross for the past five summers. Don has sat on that stage and talked to the kids close to 20 times over the course of those summers. The message is the same every time, but the words never seem to lose value.
When Don retired from the county youth bureau, he left behind a huge void that might never be completely filled. And it’s not just big shoes that need to be occupied.
It’s big shirts and big pants, too.
Don speaks from his heart. When his heart tells him that he has effectively transferred his message to his Camp Gross audience, he picks up a rusty metal bar and wraps a piece of cloth around the center of it.
Fearlessly, Don bites down on the cloth-covered section of the bar. With the bar clamped in his jaw, he uses all of the strength in his massive arms to bend the bar into a U-shape.
“Don! Don! Don!” the children incessantly scream.
I encourage the kids to yell louder, to motivate the strongman.
Sweat drips down his bald head. Pain is written across his face, but Don refuses to give up. He’s bent bars before, and this time will be no different.
His massive, flexed biceps pour out from the gray tank top that covers his prominent chest. His legs—jammed inside a pair of black jogging pants—are like tree trunks firmly planted upon the wooden planks of the stage.
It’s a hot and humid Tuesday in July. The sun’s rays shine down on the big man and the campers. Despite the heat and humidity, neither the kids nor Don will quit.
The kids sit on wooden boards—painted the same color as the stage—that are propped up on cinder blocks. It’s set up as stadium seating, with multiple rows lining the side of a grassy, Cassadaga, N.Y., hill. Behind the stage, which has captured the complete attention of the entire audience, a murky green swamp simmers in the summer sun.
It’s a diverse group of kids—most from the inner city of Dunkirk. They range from recent kindergarten graduates to junior high veterans.
Sitting behind the campers, my fellow camp counselors—high school upperclassmen and college students—and I quickly find ourselves shouting louder than the kids we’re watching over.
Don steadies his back—similar in stature and strength to the Washington Monument—for one last heave.
He cranks his arms together in a slow and steady motion, and he accomplishes his goal. He takes the bar from his mouth and holds it up for us all to see.
The once straight metal bar has been transformed into a horseshoe shape.
Don drives the bent bar into the moist soil in front of the stage. He cracks a joke about his post-retirement options. He could start a company that makes croquet sets, he says with a smile.
Well, retirement has come for Big Don, but no croquet set company is in the works.
He’s no longer employed by the county, but he’s staying active. And not retirement active—shuffleboard, bingo, card parties and other things of that sort—but prime of your life active.
He’s cut down on the instances and distances he travels to perform his program, but Don continues to deliver his message in the Dunkirk, Fredonia and Brocton schools. He regularly visits the juvenile detention center in Falconer. And he still lifts weights that are heavier than most could even budge.
The Image Fitness Center, situated right on the lake in Dunkirk, is Don’s home away from home on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Four days a week, the strongman grips onto the weights at the gym and works his mountainous muscles.
Some Chautauqua county residents thought Don would put down the weights when he retired. After so many years of straining his back, legs and arms, the average retiree might give up the taxing labor. But not Don.
As a regular at Image, Don didn’t figuratively walk from the gym and into retirement, but, literally, he could have.
His retirement party was held at the Clarion Hotel—about one city block east of Image.
It was a setting that seemed a bit out of the ordinary for him.
The carpeted, Clarion conference room was filled with community members—dressed in their Sunday best—who contributed to, or were touched by, Don’s success. There were only a handful kids—only the children of Don’s friends and family.
Missing was Don’s usual attire of jogging pants and a T-shirt. Instead, he donned a suit and tie. The sight would have been unfamiliar to school children across the county.
What was familiar was the way he spoke to the party guests. He took the time to sincerely thank each of them for coming. He told many of them that they were very special to him. He hugged everyone.
As the salads were being served to each of the round tables dispersed throughout the room, former County Executive Jack Glenzer roasted Don.
He didn’t embarrass the big man, but he did warmly complement him.
In a humorous tone, Glenzer said that many of his constituents claim that the best move he made during his tenure as county executive was appointing Don to the position of Chautauqua County Youth Bureau Director.
With his slender and tall wife Pam sitting next to him, Don unleashed his friendly smile. The party guests chuckled.
County Executive Greg Edwards spoke after Glenzer. He acknowledged the fact that letting Don leave on his watch might be one of the worst things that could happen to his administration.
Edwards agreed with Glenzer’s assessment of Don, saying that the best decision he made as county executive was keeping Don on board.
Before the Muscles
Glenzer was a long-time friend of his father, Don said.
Having known him since he was a young man, the former county executive knew Don before he was the world’s strongest man, when his muscles weren’t yet capable of lifting 1,000 pounds worth of Playboy bunnies—a record he set during the World’s Strongest Man competition.
Donald Reinhoudt Sr., Glenzer’s friend and Don’s father, passed away a number of years ago. He was only 60 years old when he died after a heart attack. At age 88, Don’s mother, Marie, still lives independently.
Marie and Don Sr. ran a successful accounting business in Fredonia for a number of years.
You wouldn’t guess it from his career path, but in college, Don followed his father’s footsteps. He pursued a degree in accounting.
He worked for his father for 10 years before Don Sr. died.
Though he says that he and his father were as different as day and night, Don draws inspiration from his father. While running his business, Don Sr. constantly demonstrated a strong work ethic. That’s what inspires Don.
“Sometimes when you’re younger you think you have all the answers, but when I worked for Dad after I got out of school and I spent a lot of time in his office, I realized what a man he really was,” Don said.
He does have his degree in accounting, but that’s pretty much where the similarities between Don his father end. Don Sr. lived as a businessman, and he was into politics. Though Don worked for the government, he constantly avoided the politics.
His passion isn’t business or politics—it’s athletics, especially lifting weights.
Don’s parents were his toughest critics—his high school teachers were a close second. But he never let criticism get in his way.
“I never gave up on my dreams, and it would have been easy to do so. ‘If I hadn’t lifted weights, maybe I would do better at school,’ that type of thing from Mom and Dad because they were some of my worst critics,” Don said.
The naysayers were harsh. It affected his self esteem. He said that some of his teachers, after calling him dumb, would tell him that he was wasting his time with athletics.
But he ignored the negativity and relied on sports to boost his self-image.
“[Lifting Weights,] that’s where I got my self esteem from because I didn’t have a lot of self esteem. I had teachers at Fredonia, especially this one teacher, that always called me stupid. ‘If you didn’t play football, maybe you wouldn’t be so stupid.’ What an awful thing to say to a kid.”
Sports gave Don what he couldn’t get in school. He didn’t excel as a student, but it wasn’t because he spent his time focusing on athletics. It’s because he had a learning disability.
“Back years ago in the early 60′s, a lot of that went on. They’d come up to me and say, ‘Too many hits to the head, Mr. Reinhoudt, is that why we can’t learn?’ Well, I have a learning disability. I didn’t know about that. Reading is really hard for me. That’s why I didn’t do well in school, but I overcame that with sports,” Don said.
He learned about the value of hard work from his father and applied it to sports. He might not have had A’s on his report card, but he starred on the football field, on the basketball court and during the field events at track meets.
Sports took Don to college. With a track and field scholarship in hand, he attended Parsons College in Iowa. According to the American Strength Legends website, it was there that coaches introduced Don to what became his life’s passion—weightlifting.
The Muscles Grow Quickly
Don quickly climbed the ranks of the world’s best weightlifters. By the late 1960′s and early 1970′s, his name was already known throughout the weightlifting world.
Coming up during the early days of powerlifting, Don set high standards in the first chapters of the sport’s history.
“I’m really one—and I’m really glad that I am—I’m one of the founding strong guys,” Don said.
It didn’t take Don long to realize that he was destined to be a strong man. In 1972, he placed third in the powerlifting world championship.
“I knew [that I would be a strongman] then because that was the first worlds that I went to, and I did very well. That meant an awful lot to me because the competition was so tough, and I was able to get a third at a worlds. That’s not too shabby, and I just kind of knew that I was on my way.”
From there, his career took off. He won championships for seven years after 1972. Don won the world powerlifting championship every year from 1973 to 1976 He is widely considered to be the strongest man in world from 1973 to 1980.
In 1978, Don competed in his first World’s Strongest Man competition. He finished in second place his first time around, but he won the competition one year later, officially making himself the World’s Strongest Man in 1979.
His trophy room is awe-inspiring. The room connected to his living room is filled with shiny statues, plates, rings and keys—former Buffalo Mayor Jimmy Griffin gave Don the key to Erie County’s largest city in 1980. In 2000, Don was given the right to open the city of Jamestown, when the mayor gave him the city’s key.
One wall is filled with framed certificates. Each one marks a world record that he set while competing in strength competitions. Having set 51 world records, the wall isn’t nearly big enough to fit all of his certificates.
“I framed some of the cooler ones and hung them up on the wall,” Don said.
A brass statue of a man with large muscles hoisting a barbell over his head sits in a prominent position, on the top shelf in the center of the back wall. The trophy commemorates his success in the World’s Strongest Man Competition.
Joining the brass man on the top shelf are other World’s Strongest Man trophies along with large silver plates that Don was awarded while he was dominating the sport of powerlifting.
It’s a lot of stuff. Don likes to show it off, but he doesn’t want his life narrowed down to a stack of brass muscles and big silver plates.
“I’ll sit in here sometimes and think where did all those years go. You just digest part of your life that you had,” he said.
Don retired from strongman competitions in 1980 and focused on his future. He wanted fulfillment that went deeper than a few shiny objects commemorating his success as a strongman. That’s what he got from his career as a youth worker in Chautauqua County.
Big Don in Little Brocton
When he retired from competition in 1980, Don was forced to decide what to do with the rest of his life. He could go out west, where powerlifting is popular and some strongmen make healthy wages, or he could stay in Chautauqua County, where he is recognized and adored.
The reality of the decision was money or recognition. He might be able to make more money by going west, but he wouldn’t be able to maintain his “celebrity” and friends if he moved to California.
“I probably could have maybe, who knows, made more money if I had left and gone out to California—where strength is really huge—but I’ve never been a dreamer where I wanted to sacrifice everything to take a chance,” he said. “God gave me a special a gift, and I’ve tried to use it in the best way that I could. And that was by staying put right here in Chautauqua County.”
Big Don has a little bit of an ego going, too. The license plates on his navy blue Nissan sedan read, “BIG DONR.” He likes that people know him. He knows his muscles and face are well-known throughout the county, and he enjoys the occasional pat on the back, friendly embrace or free lunch.
“Even like little Brocton, when I would come back, they had parades and, of course, there are signs here. People are so nice to you, thinking that a local boy could make it to the top. You get into the bigger areas, people could care less. I like to be noticed. I like to be remembered.”
Having lived in Brocton for many years now, he realizes that the town isn’t growing. It’s not a place that will attract new people. He says that he doesn’t care what the county looks like or what attractions it has to offer.
The people are what keeps him in Chautauqua County.
When the region was hammered with snow at the beginning of March, one of Don’s neighbors—without the promise of compensation—plowed the Reinhoudts’ driveway. Don didn’t ask; his neighbor just did it because it’s a nice thing to do. Don insists that things like that don’t generally happen in bigger cities.
“It’s an area where people really care about you. I know that I share that with a lot of kids up in Brocton. Of course, a lot of them think this a dumpy town, but when you look at the big picture of people—what people are about—It’s a great place to live,” he said.
The feeling is mutual. The community loves Don, and Don loves Chautauqua County. He’s a county-wide father figure, supporting Chautauqua’s youth and encouraging them to pursue their passions.
Sitting in his yellow-carpeted living room, Don and I talked for a long time about his experience as a resident and youth worker in Chautauqua County. Don was casual and comfortable—he was sprawled out on a leather sofa—while we spoke, but he interrupted the interview about 15 minutes in.
With an “enough about me” tone, he displayed his caring and compassionate side—the side with which many of the young people in the county are familiar.
“I don’t mean to embarrass you at all, but you’re just the neatest young man,” Don said to me.
“When I met you up at Camp Gross a while back, you’ve just always been a really together young person. I’ve told Pam (his wife) a lot about you. I said, ‘that’s a guy that’s going to go places.’ You’ve got nice personality, a great disposition, you’re so good with the kids and you’re just so polite.”
“Well, I really appreciate that,” I replied bashfully.
Don wore standard athletic attire—navy blue jogging pants and a black t-shirt that had a bulldog and the words, “Brocton Bulldogs” on the right breast. The sleeves of the shirt were folded up twice over.
“I appreciate you being that way, too, because that’s so important to me—to see that happening with young people, have goals and dreams and all these things that you have going on for yourself,” Don said. “And gosh darn it, you’ve got those work ethics, and those are the things I try to push with the kids. As you’ve heard me say many times, whatever you choose to do in life, give it the best shot you’ve got and never quit,”
As I began to turn red, I thought about the strongman’s big heart.
Then, my mind wandered back to the beginning of this century, when Don and his well-known heart underwent an extensive surgical process. Doctors performed six bypasses.
Don’s Strongest Muscle—His Heart
Don’s been called the nicest guy to ever participate in the sport of powerlifting. He often tells kids that he loves them. He’s quick to give a hug. He genuinely cares about other human beings.
So when his friends—which basically means the entire population of Chautauqua County (myself included)—heard that his heart was failing him, the general reactions were shock followed by sadness.
Residents of Jamestown, Dunkirk and everywhere in between were afraid that the county might lose one of its greatest assets—the compassionate director of its county youth bureau.
Knowing that he has a history of heart disease in his family and having heard doctor’s assessments, Don didn’t have much time to ponder his options. The surgery was urgent.
“A very scary time. I just turned over to the Lord and said, ‘God, it’s in your hands, if I’m supposed to pull through this.’ I had a very short time left because I was plugged up pretty bad,” Don said.
The strongman, who had pulled a 20,000 pound truck, who had used his teeth to lift 550 pounds, who had bench pressed 626 pounds, was fearful for the future but faithful to his religion. As strong as he is physically, Don might be stronger in his faith.
The big man prayed for strength from the even Bigger Man.
“That’s one of the most humbling things,” Don said. “Here, one time of your life, you’re on top of the world and being very powerful and then another time of your life, you’re at the mercy of God’s hand.”
As Don prepared to go under the knife at the Cleveland Clinic, there was a public outpouring of support. The man had supported and motivated the county’s youth for years. The grief-stricken population of Chautauqua County knew that they had to help their friend in his time of need.
Teachers had their classes write him letters. People who had been personally inspired by Don called him on the telephone. The Fredonia State men’s hockey team pulled behind Don, who had been serving as the team’s strength coach, and sent him their constant support.
Radio station WDOE-AM in Dunkirk sent Don an audio tape of a production that they made with the community’s help. Listeners called into the station and voiced their support for Don on the air.
It all helped to boost Don’s spirits.
“I was really flattered with the schools and so many people—when I was out of the area down in Cleveland—the letters and the phone calls and all the things that I got to keep my morale built up,” Don recalled. “I was away for about a month, and kids to teachers to just everybody, I just got so much support. That helped me an awful lot.”
The doctors at the Cleveland Clinic successfully fixed Don’s heart, but the recovery process wasn’t easy.
After the surgery, which left a large scar on his chest, Don went through a bout of depression.
Don Reinhoudt—a man who always seems to be upbeat, who works as a motivator, who is remembered in powerlifting circles for being a friendly competitor—was seriously depressed and forced to work through a series of challenging frustrations.
While rehabilitating in Cleveland, he stayed with his sister, who lives near the Cleveland Clinic.
When showering one day at his sister’s house, he dropped the bar of soap that he was using. He tried to bend down to pick it up, but he just couldn’t do it.
“It was so depressing. Here, I picked up all these thousands of pounds, and now I can’t even bend over to pick up soap,” he said.
Today, Don has no trouble bending over to pick up a bar of soap, or a barbell.
But at the time, Don was really struggling with all of the obstacles in front of him on the road to recovery. Days and weeks passed, but he eventually pulled himself from the dumps.
Taking time off wasn’t making him feel better, so he went back to work.
It was job, working with young people, that picked him up. He couldn’t preach an upbeat message of hope and hard work without believing in it himself.
“You just have to keep going on because you can’t feel sorry for yourself all the time. Sometimes you do, because that’s just the way life is, but you can’t dwell on that forever. My job helped me out with that, telling myself, I just got to get this going because I really love working with young people,” he said.
The relationship between Don Reinhoudt and the youth of Chautauqua County has been a two-way street.
The encouragement, motivation and love has traveled in both directions. The county’s youth has needed Don, as much as Don has needed the kids.
Big Don’s Legacy
Don always tells his audience that he loves them. Not like a rock star tells an arena full of fans, but like a father says to his kids.
He says that it’s something that all people, not just children, need to hear.
Whether he’s speaking to kindergärtners at Dunkirk’s School 7, campers at Camp Gross or juvenile delinquents at the Falconer Detention Center, he always ends his program by saying, “I love you.”
About a year ago, after finishing his program at the detention center, a young woman approached Don.
With tears streaming down her face, she asked Don if she could speak to him for a minute.
“Nobody’s ever told me that they loved me before. Nobody’s ever told me that I was important or that I was special,” Don recalls her telling him.
Don knew that she was a tough kid. The place is filled with young people that are headed to tougher facilities.
He threw his arms around her and pulled her in for a tight embrace.
“’Well, I love you,’ I said. “I’ll probably never see you the rest of my life,’ but I said, ‘I hope I gave you something today that you always remember that you are special and that you are important,’” Don said.
Don decided at that point that he would never stop telling people that he loves them.
“There may be just one out there that needs to hear it. I need to hear it, and I’m sure you do, too. We need that, and some kids don’t get that at home,” he said.
Don has conquered many obstacles and has accomplished many goals, throughout his 63 years. But his greatest accomplishment wasn’t his 51 world records. It wasn’t his powerlifting championships. It wasn’t his World’s Strongest Man title.
He says that his greatest accomplishment was what he did for the youth of Chautauqua County.
He wants to remembered as someone who cared, someone who tried to do something for his fellow human beings.
When he was inducted into the Association of Old Time Barbell and Strongmen Hall of Fame in 2006, Don was given a painting that depicted him during the prime of his career. It’s mounted on the wall adjacent to the wall filled with world record certificates.
In the detailed piece of artwork, Don, with a full head of hair and wearing a tight, brightly-colored weight suit, grips a barbell. He struggles, while his etched arm muscles flex and the veins in his neck bulge.
I was lost in the painting, when I heard Don put down the trophy that he was looking at. It was the unimpressive wooden trophy he was given for placing third at the 1972 World Powerlifting Championship.
After putting the trophy in its place, he walks towards one of the two chairs in the room. After having both his right and left knees surgically repaired, his walk has become more of a waddle.
His legs were once his strongest asset, but now he is forced to take soft steps.
He slowly settles down in a chair and looks from trophy to trophy. Don’s dark curly hair is gone, and his muscles have lost their definition.
I can’t read minds, but his thoughts were visible. He did something with his life, something more than win trophies and lift weights.
Obviously, sitting in that room with me wasn’t a near-death experience for Don, but his life was flashing before his eyes.
His daughter Molly, a doctoral graduate student at Ohio State.
His son Ben, who runs a landscaping company. Even though he inherited size and strength from his father, Ben never seriously pursued sports like his dad.
His first wife Cindy, who was world-class strength athlete herself. She and Don rotated the roles of competitor and coach throughout their marriage.
His parents, who instilled the values of hard work and optimism in their son.
The youth of Chautauqua County, to whom he has been a surrogate father for more than 20 years.
The men he triumphed over in competition. The people he’s worked with as a youth worker.
And the love of his life, his current wife Pam, who might be as caring and compassionate as Don. He only met her three years ago, but Don says that he feels like he has known her his entire life. They married on Valentine’s Day 2007.
Don and I were silent.
We were both buried in our memories.
It was at that point that I realized that it’s not the trophies and the tales that make the man. It’s the people that he encounters along the way.
FREDONIA COLLEGE COUNCIL HOLDS QUARTERLY MEETING; WEBCASTING LIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER
(Published in SUNY Fredonia’s campus newspaper, The Leader)
On the Wednesday before Fall Break, campus administrators, distinguished alumni, former professors and community members found their way into the President’s Conference Room.
A group of ten great minds make up the College Council. Individually, they are intelligent folks with unique ties to Fredonia. Together, they are the link between the campus and the Northern Chautauqua County community—the community eyes of the college.
Each council member serves a governor-appointed seven-year term. 1978 Alum JoAnn Niebel of Sheridan is the chair of the Council. She has served since 1997. The lone student representative is Student Association President Dahn Bull. The student rep usually sits with the Council for a one-year term, just as his or her term as SA President runs.
The Council meets four times each year. Oct. 10 was the first meeting of the new academic year.
All of the campus Vice Presidents prepared reports designed to keep the Council informed of campus activities and progress. Council members heard reports on topics ranging from the new recruitment strategies to campus safety.
Updating the Council is not the sole purpose of the meetings. Council meetings are open to the public. Campus stakeholders are encouraged to attend.
“The College Council is a public forum for the community to hear about the progress and the future of the college,” said Interim Director of Public Relations Lisa Eikenburg.
Vice President of Student Affairs David Herman was the first to address the Council. After showing the newly produced campus recruitment video (and thoroughly impressing the entire Council), Herman said that Fredonia enrolled the 2nd largest freshman class in campus history. 1,044 new freshman arrived on-campus for the first time this August.
“Fredonia’s enrollment continues to remain strong with the Fall 2007 headcount at 5,424, which equates to a 1% increase in overall enrollment compared to last year,” Herman said in his written report.
The new freshman and transfer students enhanced diversity on-campus. 175 students representing minority groups enrolled.
Later, Herman and University Police Chief Ann Burns provided the Council with a safety update. They reported that the campus surveillance systems utilize 38 cameras that cover about 80% of the campus. Burns and Herman also noted that there are 17 emergency “blue lights” and 87 emergency telephones located around campus.
The recent bomb threat presented University Police with a clear test for their campus safety precautions. Word of the threat was disseminated by email and by the emergency text caster system. Students got the message, but there was some delay in getting the message to all students. Building monitors informed students in classes about the threat, but many students had never seen the monitor prior to that moment.
It’s not a perfect system, but UP and Student Affairs are working on it.
“I think it was handled well. I think we learned a lot in terms of evacuation procedures and how to get the word out more quickly. We are going to do more exercises to improve even more,” Herman said.
Though common student perception holds that the community frowns upon the young person downtown, Council member and Village Mayor Mike Sullivan says that he has not had a major complaint about students up to this point in his term. The only problem Sullivan has witnessed is students’ excessive use of digital and cell phone cameras. Often, he says, students use their cameras to try to capture embarrassing or harmful images of fellow students.
“That’s the one area that I have a comment about. Students need to respect the person who has found himself in the condition that he’s in and not try to catch him with their cameras. The cameras could become potentially embarrassing for some of their friends,” Sullivan said.
Vice President of Academic Affairs Virginia Horvath spoke to the council about new academic programs and academic department adjustmets. According to the SUNY Fredonia Academic Master Plan, a new B.S. degree in Journalism from the Department of Communication will be available in 2008.
Academic Affairs is also working on the development of a Masters in Music Therapy, which they plan to debut in 2009. The School of Business is attempting to gain AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) accreditation as part of their long term goal of developing a Masters of Business Adminstration.
Other proposed new degree titles are an M.S. in Computer and Information Science, a B.S. in Applied Mathematics, M.A.T.’s in Math and Science Education, and a B.S. in Music Business.
Horvath also introduced the new members of the Academic Affairs team to the Council. Kevin Kearns is the new Associate Vice President for Graduate Studies and Resarch. John Kijinksi is the freshly named Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities.
President Dennis Hefner had to leave the Council meeting a bit early because he was scheduled to testify in front of the State Commission on Higher Education at the University of Buffalo. He told the Council that there were six central issues that he wanted to address during the commission hearing.
First, the state has mandated increases in salaries, but they failed to provide the campus with financial support to provide those increases.
Hefner also hoped to address the issue of flexibility. He’d like to see SUNY campuses treated more like the state DMV. When improvements or adjustments are necessary in a timely manner, Hefner believes it’s necessary that the individual campus be able to make the decisions without state delays.
He also planned to speak about the inflation that campuses face.
The Five-Year plan was another point Hefner hoped to discuss. He wants to see the plan continued into the future.
Hefner wants to see an increase in the number of Full-Time faculty. Fredonia employs less Full-Time professors than the national average. SUNY, Hefner thinks, should work to meet the national average.
The final point Hefner focused on was graduate programs, research and assistantships. He would like to see more SUNY funding for grad programs. An increase in the grad assistantship stipend should also be considered, Hefner argued.
The College Council meeting was webcast live for the first time in history. The internet broadcast provides another avenue through which the campus and community can interact with the Council.
“It’s an accessibility issue. Make things as open as possible. New technology makes it possible for us to do that. It allows many more people to see the College Council meetings,” Eikenburg said.
Hefner and Council Chair Niebel joked about the webcast at the onset of the meeting.
“We now are being recorded. We are live,” Niebel said.
“I guess that means I have to be on my good behavior now,” Hefner joked.
“Yes, because God knows you haven’t been,” Niebel quipped.
After the punchline, the webcast went off without a hitch. A video of the entire meeting can be found on the Fredonia College Council’s website.
Filed under Uncategorized
FIERY PRIMARY BATTLE BETWEEN HEENAN AND SZOT GOES LARGELY UNNOTICED
(Column written about the Democratic Primary for Chautauqua County Legislative District 2)
During the 2004 Election cycle, Hip Hop Mogul Sean “P. Diddy” Combs spoke bluntly to America. From New York to Los Angeles, he spread the message of civic engagement with just three words.
“Vote or DIE!”
Diddy’s posse might be on its way to Dunkirk.
According to the Observer—Dunkirk’s daily newspaper, only 25% of the total number of registered Democrats in Dunkirk participated in the primary elections.
But maybe the other 75% had too much going on at work and then had to deal with the kids after school.
Maybe the other 75% was busy researching a presidential primary candidate—watching Law & Order re-runs.
Or maybe the other 75% just doesn’t care.
Six votes—1.34% of the total vote—separated the winner from the loser in the Democratic primary for the District 2 seat in the Chautauqua County Legislature. 431 District 2 voters closed the curtains and pulled a tab for one of the candidates. 17 others sent their votes through the mail.
After election officials finished counting the absentee ballots, incumbent Ron Szot narrowly defeated challenger Shaun Heenan. Prior to the absentee ballot count, Heenan had a five-vote lead over Szot, 218 to 213.
Heenan vs. Szot was no ordinary small county legislative primary. The heated battle for the nomination was inundated with controversy and tension. Mud was slung. Felony fraud accusations were filed. Blackmail may have been conducted.
It was the type of juicy politics that can really consume a voter.
The Observer asked the obvious question: if all of this stormy hullabaloo can’t bring out the vote, “what does it take to get people out to vote?”
According to his voter registration card, Heenan is a Democrat. The Republican Party ignored his listed affiliation and gave him their endorsement. The Conservative and Independence Parties endorsed the Heenan candidacy, as well. The Democratic Party (and the Citizens First Party) endorsed the incumbent, but Heenan had his eyes set on that Democratic nomination.
Heenan went forth and acquired the necessary signatures for his primary petition. He submitted his petition, and his name was put on the primary ballot.
It’s safe to say that Szot and the Democratic Committee members who chose to endorse Szot were not happy to see Heenan’s name on the ballot.
Can you blame them? Heenan already had three lines locked up for the general election. Why should he try to hijack the Democratic nomination from Szot?
Shortly after challenger Heenan turned in his primary petition, Dennis Gawronski—brother of Dunkirk Democratic Committee member Frank Gawronski—accused Heenan of committing election fraud. Reports said that Gawronski claimed that Heenan did not witness his signature.
Felony fraud charges can be brought against a candidate who knowingly submits a primary petition that has signatures that he did not witness.
County District Attorney David Foley conducted the investigation into Heenan’s primary petition practices.
After his investigation, Foley concluded that the evidence did not support the accusation. Heenan did not participate in any sort of criminal behavior.
While at Dunkirk’s Moniuszko Club, one of Heenan’s friends was introducing the candidate to other club-goers. Though in some instances, the friend handed the petition and pen to potential signers, Heenan witnessed all of the signatures obtained at the club, including Gawronski’s, Foley ruled.
A few days after the case was closed, Heenan submitted a letter to the editor of the Observer. Heenan used the letter to fire back at his opponent Ron Szot and other Democratic Party officials.
“The public may be under the impression that the charges against me were made solely by one gentleman, Dennis Gawronski,” Heenan wrote, “They were not. In fact, I hold no ill will for Dennis, who I believe was misled and used.
“I have credible information that these false charges were orchestrated by my opponent, Ron Szot, and a small group of Democratic Party insiders who were trying to force me from the race and damage me in the eyes of the voting public.”
If those words were spit in an MC battle, people would be jumping around, shouting, “Ooooohhhh,” while waving towels over their heads.
Apparently, Democratic Election Commissioner Norman Green spoke to Heenan’s Attorney, John Gullo, prior to the fraud charges being filed. Heenan alleges that Green informed Gullo that if Heenan were to drop out of the primary, the charges would not be filed.
Blackmail in Chautauqua County politics? You better believe it.
Green’s response: “As far as John Gullo, he’s a long-time personal friend. I called John to tip him off… It was nothing more than a conversation about what Shaun Heenan’s options were…. it’s my job as the loyal opposition to release information that may not always be flattering.”
So you’ve got the fraud accusations, verbally violent letters to the editor, the Moniuszko Club and alleged blackmail? What more could a voter ask for?
How about a campaign promise to give an entire term’s salary to the community?
You got it.
Heenan said that if voted into office, he would donate his salary to a slew of local charities. The following groups’ pockets will get a little fatter: the Dunkirk Little League, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton CYO, the Dunkirk Humane Society, the Chautauqua County Rural Ministry and the Dunkirk Fireworks Show.
Dunkirk voters had all of this enticing political beef to attract them to visit their polling places, but most of them said, “No, thank you.”
Lost in the midst of all of the succulent tenderloin was debate over the issues.
To the Observer’s credit, they did publish one article about the candidates’ views on certain issues. It came just as the polls were opening. Thus, the article might have been too little, too late. Most people planning on voting had their minds made up while the fraud and blackmail charges were swirling.
In the issues article, however, both candidates said basically the same things. Szot—the former City of Dunkirk attorney—was more long-winded, but the arguments were essentially the same. Two registered Democrats residing in an economically depressed area will have similar feelings about the consolidation of services, property and sales taxes and the size of the county legislature.
So what would you rather read about? Taxes… or Blackmail.
The primary vote ended the way I hoped it would. Szot wins and gains the Democratic nomination.
Am I a Szot backer?
No, and I’m not really a Heenan supporter, either.
I’m just excited to have another month of Szot and Heenan bashing heads.
The general election is November 6. Until then, I’m sure the two campaigns will continue their shady and aggressive political tactics.
Maybe more scandal will bring out that other 75%.
Filed under Uncategorized
