| Watershed Post

The music man: Terry Doyle, 1966 - 2013

Above: A photo of Doyle at WIOX 91.3FM's studio in 2011. Photo by Simona David, via the WIOX Facebook page.

Terry Doyle, a Catskills reporter and radio show host who was a widely-known fixture of the local music community, died last week.

Doyle died unexpectedly of complications from a heart attack on Wednesday, February 6 at his parents' house in Middleburgh. He was 46 years old.

Doyle, who seemed destined for broadcasting with a smooth, low-pitched voice and an encyclopedic memory for local music and people, began his radio career in the early 1990s. Doyle started out in local radio at a time when commercial stations in the Catskills could support local news reporters and larger staffs. A decade later, he moved to volunteer community radio, as the industry consolidated and local stations were bought by ever-more-distant corporate owners who pared down staffing and local content.

Topics:

Tags:

Delaware County Broadcasting Corporation

WDLA

Could New York's Cardinal Dolan be Pope?

Photo of New York Cardinal-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, circa 2009. Via Wikimedia Commons.

On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by announcing that he would resign on February 28. As the New York Times noted in a front-page story, he will be the first Pope to step down since 1415, when Gregory XII resigned to put an end to a schism in the Church.

Catholics everywhere are wondering: Who's next?

There's no clear front-runner at the moment, writes the New York Times:

Topics:

Place:

Tags:

Sleet on the roads -- and school closings -- across the Catskills

Weather advisories are in effect across the Catskills this morning, as snow and freezing rain make for a slick commute on local roads. The slippery stuff is expected to shift over to rain by noon.

The National Weather Service in Binghamton has issued a freezing rain advisory this morning for an area that includes Delaware and Sullivan Counties. A winter weather advisory is also in effect across eastern New York, including Greene, Schoharie and Ulster County.

Many local school districts are closed or operating on delays this morning.

Closed:

Onteora Central School District

New Paltz Central School District

Sullivan West Central School District

Tags:

Place:

What's a little snow?

Above: A Buddha looking serene this morning in Olivebridge under a new 6-inch cap of snow. Thanks to Dona Marie for the photo.

This morning, people around the Catskills were asking: Where's Nemo? The wrath of Friday's snowstorm spared us, for the most part. While drivers abandoned their cars on the snowbound Long Island Expressway, a statewide ban on driving kept Massachusetts residents off the roads, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a downstate weather emergency, the Catskills region got off lightly, with just a few inches of snow in some areas, and no major road accidents.

Topics:

Place:

Tags:

Judge orders house arrest for Woodstock's drug-dispensing doctor

Above: A short video clip by Daily Freeman reporter Paul Kirby about the sentencing of Wayne Longmore, former proprietor of the Walk-In Doctor's Office on Mill Hill Road in Woodstock.

Wayne Longmore, a 63-year-old Woodstock doctor who pled guilty last October to dispensing hydrocodone without a legitimate medical purpose, was sentenced in federal court in a plea agreement that stripped Longmore of his medical license and sentenced him to six months of house arrest.

The sentence was handed down in an Albany courthouse on Thursday, February 7 by U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Kahn.

In addition, Longmore must pay a $200,000 fine, must perform 200 hours of community service, and will be subject to three years of probation. He must also attend substance abuse and mental health counseling. Longmore has already surrendered his car, which was seized upon his arrest in March of 2012.

Tags:

Place:

Topics:

Accord convenience store targeted in food stamp fraud probe

Three people have been arrested on fraud-related charges after a probe of alleged misuse of food stamp cards at Star Grocery, a convenience store on Mettacahonts Road in Accord.

Star Grocery has been under ongoing investigation into the use of electronic food stamp cards to buy non-food items for nearly two years, since March of 2011. The Ulster County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant at the business on Wednesday, February 6, and seized property and business records.

Arrested were 35-year-old Qadeer H. Shah, 39-year-old Lori A. Shah, and 34-year-old Alsa P. Quent, all Accord residents. All three were charged with the felonies of misuse of food stamps in excess of $3000.00, falsifying business records in the first degree and grand larceny in the third degree. The three were arraigned in Rochester Town Court and released to reappear at a later time.

The Times Herald-Record reports that the three were all managers at the store.

Tags:

Place:

Topics:

Harvesting the year's coldest crop

This winter's cold temperatures made a Catskills tradition possible last Saturday at the Hanford Mills Museum in East Meredith: the annual ice harvest. Eight solid inches of ice on Hanford's mill pond was plenty sturdy enough for volunteers and visitors to cut and lift onto wooden sledges with medieval-looking ice tongs.

Before the advent of refrigeration, the ice harvested in the winter and stored in an ice house was the only source of coolness and ice cream in the summer. Hanford Mills will be making ice cream with this year's harvest on the Fourth of July.

Hamden videographer Jessica Vecchione made a short video of this year's February 2 harvest -- check it out above.

Tags:

Place:

Topics:

Tracking Nemo: Friday's storm could dump a foot or more on the Catskills

Above: A snowstorm forecast from the Weather Channel broadcast on Thursday morning. From the Weather Channel's YouTube channel.

A nor'easter in the forecast for Friday and Saturday -- dubbed "Nemo" by the Weather Channel -- promises to bury upstate New York under a blanket of snow, and drop two feet or more across much of New England.

(Our sister website in Boston -- Universal Hub, a local news site run by Watershed Post web architect Adam Gaffin -- has issued a Severe French Toast Alert for the region. For the uninitiated, Universal Hub's French Toast Alert System was "developed in consultation with local and federal emergency officials to help you determine when to panic and rush to the store to buy milk, eggs and bread.")

Tags:

Place:

Sean Eldridge to run for Chris Gibson's seat in Congress

Photo of Sean Eldridge taken December 14, 2012. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Sean Eldridge may be best known to the national press as "Chris Hughes's husband" -- the guy whose high-profile marriage to the wealthy Facebook co-founder and New Republic publisher made the New York Times's "Weddings" section last summer. But by the time the 2014 election season gets underway, odds are the 26-year-old investor will be a household name in his own right.

Topics:

Place:

Tags:

U.S. Post Office to stop Saturday mail

Photo of NYC mail carrier by Flickr user Wayne Surber. Published under Creative Commons license.

By August, news outlets around the country are reporting, the U.S. Postal Service will put a halt to Saturday mail delivery in an effort to cut costs at the struggling agency.

The USPS hasn't made an official announcement yet -- a press conference will be held later today -- but the Associated Press has gotten a sneak peek at the agency's news release. From an AP story published this morning:

Material prepared for the Wednesday press conference by Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general and CEO, says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.

Topics:

Place: