Not long ago I heard a very interesting little bit of trivia about Spry Middle School: back in 1981, a low-budget horror movie was filmed there.
The movie is called Fear No Evil, and was produced by Frank LaLoggia. The story tells of an 18-year old high school student who appears to be human, but is actually the incarnation of Satan. Two archangels are sent from heaven to stop him before his evil takes over the world.
Several scenes were filmed in the school’s hallways, classrooms and gymnasium, in addition to exterior shots. The screenshots below are from the movie trailers.
The R-rated movie gets mixed reviews (not surprising for a low-budget thriller), like this one posted on IMDb:
It is definitely ambitious for a low budget feature and falls into the M.S.U. (Makin’ Stuff Up) genre perfectly. It is almost like director Frank LaLoggia had two half finished scripts and threw them together. … The high school scenes are really funny, like LaLoggia had no sense at all how people behaved in school.
Another review says the film has a “good premise” and is “well plotted,” but with “over-the-top acting, laughable special effects and a disappointing finale.” Both reviews agree, however, that it has a good soundtrack.
It must not be too awful, though; in 1982 it won a Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, for Best Low-Budget Film. This was the same year that Harrison Ford and Karen Allen won awards for best actor and actress, for Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Director Frank LaLoggia is a Webster native. Fear No Evil is the first of three movies he directed, the best-known of which is probably Lady in White (1988), inspired by the ghost story of the Lady in White at Durand Eastman Park. He’s also acted in several movies and sitcoms.
And here’s something else fun: click here to see when Spry was very briefly featured on Saturday Night Live.
One of the spacious courtyards at Webster Thomas High School has come alive with flowers, plants, bees and birds, thanks to hard work by the Webster Thomas Earth Club, and the Thomas community.
Back in January, Maia Sutherland, a member of Earth Club, suggested creating a garden somewhere at the school. The Earth Club could sponsor, build and maintain it, and it would be a nice outdoor area for students to enjoy. Two of the school’s three large courtyards were already being frequented by students; one has an outdoor stage, the other a gazebo. So the club decided to put the gardens in the remaining courtyard, which is the smallest of the three, and rarely used.
Earth Club president Ben Verplank remembers that at the time, the club was beginning to plan a school-wide Earth Week celebration, so the garden project was put on the back burner. The week-long event, held in April, was a huge undertaking, including fund-raising events, dress-up theme days, a houseplant workshop and a thrift fair. At the end of the busy week, club advisor Melanie Drury suggested the students take a bit of a break. Maybe a week or two of not actually planning something would help the club recharge.
Verplank had other ideas. “On Monday Ben came in and said, ‘I’ve designed the whole garden,'” Drury said. About a month later, after a lot of hard work and not a little sweat and grime, the sketched-out plans became a reality.
The completed garden is actually two separate beds, together encompassing perhaps 500 or 600 square feet. They hold more than two dozen different kinds of plants — tall grasses, hardy perennials, bushes, young trees, milkweed, roses, lilacs, chrysanthemums, lamb’s ear and many more. There are two benches, both built by the district’s GeoTech class, a bee house and some birdhouses. Many of the plants and building materials were purchased with money raised at fundraising events, but many others were donated.
While the gardens were originally proposed and planned by the Earth Club, their completion has really been a Webster Thomas team effort. Earth Club members, of course, took the lead, but they were assisted by other students, some of whom pitched in as part of a post-AP exam community service project required by science AP Environmental teacher Jaret Schug.
“That really helped motivate people,” Ben said. Everyone volunteered at least three times to fulfill the terms of the project, “but by the end of it people just wanted to be outside and enjoy making the garden.”
“There were days when they were working out there in the pouring rain, and when it was super hot,” Drury added.
Staff members donated more than half of the plantings, and have volunteered to make sure the gardens are watered over the summer. Art students have painted two fanciful planters, which have been placed next to one of the benches. So basically, from the very beginning, the gardens have been, and still are, a true Webster Thomas community effort.
Students have already begun using the space, finding it a more reflective environment than the other two busier courtyards. Teachers in the classrooms surrounding the space have been very supportive, one even asking if it could be expanded next year down closer to her room.
Several Earth Club members are heading off to college next year, but they’re still thinking ahead to how the gardens can be improved and expanded.
“Next fall Mrs. Drury and Earth Club are going to plant tulip bulbs,” Verplank said, and they’d like to ask GeoTech to make a few more benches. The hope is that eventually the grassy area between the two garden beds can be used as an outdoor classroom.
In the meantime, though, Thomas students and staff members have had a quiet place to relax during these last few stressful weeks of the school year.
How many of us (especially those of us who grew up far from Webster) have longed to walk the halls of our old elementary schools and remember what it was like “back then”?
This year’s senior class got a chance to do that Tuesday when the graduate parades returned to the elementary schools. It’s a day when our Webster Thomas and Schroeder seniors hop on buses and go revisit the elementary schools where they began their Webster School careers.
It was June of 2016 when most of these seniors last walked the halls of their elementary schools. But this week, as the class of 2023, they walked proudly through them again, and judging from the reaction of the young students who lined the halls in welcome, you’d think they were conquering heroes.
Nodding to the fact that it’s sometimes difficult to recognize these tall, mature adults for the freckle-faced young people they once were, each senior wore a sign with his or her name and post-graduation plans. As they paraded down one hall, then another, they passed hundreds of cheering and applauding kindergarten through fifth grade students. Every so often the parade was slowed when a graduate stopped to take a photo or get a long hug from a favorite teacher.
I think this is a wonderful way to celebrate our seniors, congratulate them on their success, and remind them how much they have accomplished.
Holy cow, have I gotten a huge response from the blog I recently wrote about the Hegedorn’s ceiling tiles.
If you’re not familiar with this story (which is hard to believe), the gist of it is this: 32 years ago, students at Klem North Elementary School painted ceiling tiles which have been hanging above the registers at Hegedorn’s Market since around 1991. But rather than toss them in a dumpster when the store closes at the end of this month, the folks at Hegedorn’s are making an effort to return them to the students who painted them.
The blog has received dozens of comments and hundreds of “likes” and has been shared almost 70 times. I’ve heard from former students all over the state and the country who remember painting tiles, and are interested in getting them back — or at least seeing photos of them.
Hegedorn’s Produce Manager Fred Palmer has been taking the lead in removing the panels, and had originally planned to put them all on display above the produce case so customers would notice them and maybe recognize one.
Well, since the blog has received so much attention, putting them on display has not been necessary. Instead, people are being asked to call Hegedorn’s (585-671-4450), and the service desk is keeping a list of everyone who’s interested in retrieving their tile. Fred is planning to start making phone calls sometime this coming week.
In the meantime, all of the panels have been removed and are being kept in the back room of the store’s produce department. Fred was kind enough to let me spread them all out and take photos of them. It might help even more former students recognize their work, and it might be fun just to remember what all their classmates did.
Click here to see the entire gallery of panels, plus a few miscellaneous photos. I think I was able to photograph them all, but I see that I cut the name off of one of them. If you recognize the one with the Pepsi bottle, corn and carrots, please let me know!
P.S. If you happen to get your panel back, please snap a photo of you with it, so I can feature them in a future follow-up blog. And wouldn’t it be fun to also have your 4th or 5th grade photo along with it …????
P.P.S. Channel 10 and Channel 13 are both planning do stories about the ceiling tiles, so I’ll let you know when I hear more about that.
At the end of this month, when Hegedorn’s Market closes for good, Webster will be losing one of its oldest and most valued businesses. Fortunately, however, plans are in the works to preserve some of the most colorful pieces of Hegedorn’s long history.
For more than three decades, 32 hand-painted ceiling panels have decorated the length of the checkout area, entertaining any shopper (who happened to look up) with pictures of flying food items, snacks and beverages.
The panels, each measuring 2 x 4 feet, were created during the 1990/91 school year by teams of fourth and fifth grade students from Klem North Elementary School. Carrie Frank was a fourth grader that year, and her father Matt was Hegedorn’s Maintenance Manager. It was Matt who first approached art teacher Jack Morse about the unusual, grocery-themed art project.
Carrie remembers the assignment well: to take a product with a label and create it “flying in the sky” above the registers. Matt installed the completed tiles in the ceiling, and the art classes took field trips to the store to see them in place.
Carrie remembers, “It was a great experience as children growing up, every week going shopping and seeing our tiles at check out.”
Now, even though Hegedorn’s is closing, Carrie and her classmates are getting a chance to rekindle those memories and take their panels home.
Fred Palmer, Hegedorn’s current produce manager, has taken on the time-consuming task of removing the panels, and the more difficult challenge of tracking down the original artists. Even though the job means climbing up and down a very tall stepladder and dodging paying customers, Fred knows how important it is.
Pointing at one of the three panels he’d already removed, he said, “This is a piece of history. I’d hate to have it thrown into a dumpster and just be lost. It’s a connection to these kids.”
“It’s the sentimental value more than anything,” he added. “It’s priceless.”
The students signed the back of the panels, so Fred is going to make a list, then display all of the panels along the top of the produce case with name cards. That way, any former student who comes into the store can claim their artwork.
Hegedorn’s last day of operation is Sunday June 25, but Fred hopes to have all of the panels removed well before then.
Carrie Frank’s panel was one of the first to be retrieved. She lives out of town now, but will be back in town soon to reclaim her panel, complete with its flying Campbell’s Soup can. And she’s already got plans for it; she’s going to put it in her kids’ tree fort.
Which means that at least one of the Hegedorn’s tiles will fly again, for the next generation of young artists.
I’m kicking off today’s mailbag with this follow-up from the Webster Central School District about the Northeast Monroe County Special Olympics Track & Field Day, which Webster Schroeder High School hosted on May 23.
Athletes from Webster Schroeder, Webster Thomas, East Irondequoit, West Irondequoit, Penfield, Creekside, Mary Cariola, and Greece schools participated in this year’s event. They competed in track, field, and adaptive events including dashes, relays and distance runs, softball throw, long jump, shot put, 25m manual wheelchair, 25m electric wheelchair, and wheelchair softball throw.
Additional special events were offered for younger athletes to introduce them to sports movements and skills, including activities like an obstacle course, parachute games and target practice.
Special Olympics NY programs are designed to offer age-appropriate experiences to younger athletes that will prepare them for authentic Special Olympics competition.
This huge sale will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and Friday June 8 and 9, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday June 10. Along with what you might consider “regular” garage sale items, there will be lots of picture frames, furniture, household goods, sporting goods and toys.
Proceeds from the sale benefit the church’s outreach projects, including their Little Free Pantry which stands at the edge of their parking lot.
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Great food is in store on Saturday June 17 when the Rochester Academy of Irish Dance Parents Association host a Chicken BBQ drive-through fundraiser. They’ll be set up at 780 Ridge Rd. in Webster (between Five Mile Line and Hatch roads).
Dinners will be served beginning at 4 p.m., until they’re sold out. They cost $15, which includes a half chicken, potatoes, cole slaw, rolls and butter.
This is a great family event featuring food trucks, music, a KidZone, raffles, and lots of vendors and community agency displays.
The Penfield Recreation Center is located at 1985 Baird Rd.
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There’s always lots of great stuff happening at the Webster Recreation Center, but here are a few highlights:
The always entertaining Senior Singers will present a free performance on Tuesday June 6 at 11 a.m. in the lunch room. No registration is required and everyone is welcome.
Need a ride to the Rec Center? Good news! Anyone 55 or older can request a ride from your door to the Rec Center and back home again any Tuesday or Thursday. On Thursday, the ride home also includes a stop at the grocery store.
To schedule your ride, call the Rec Center at 585-872-7103 ext. 7385 no later than 8 a.m. the day of the ride. You’ll be asked to provide your name, address, phone number and requested date(s). Pickup will be between 9 and 10 a.m., and will return after Lunch Club 60, between 12:30 and 1 p.m. Rides cost $4 round trip per person/per day, payable at the front office upon arrival.
The Webster Recreation Center is located at 1350 Chiyoda Dr.
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There’s always great stuff happening at the Webster Public Library also, but here are a few highlights:
Outdoor story times have returned to Harmony Park. Every Wednesday June through August, beginning at 9:30 a.m., bring the kids and a blanket and enjoy story time at the band shell. All ages are welcome and no registration is required. The park is located on Phillips Rd. south of Ridge.
June 12 is this month’s Make-it-Monday craft night. From 6 to 7 p.m. participants can make rainbow cloud hangings. Registration is required. Click here to register.
Kindness rocks! Stop by the library on Saturday June 24 from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and decorate a rock or two with words or images of kindness. Then you can take your rocks and hide them around Webster.
The 2023 summer reading theme is “All Together Now,” so the library is celebrating friendship and kindness with a three-week Friendship Camp. It begins Wednesday June 28 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. with Friendship Bracelets and Button Making. Grades 4-12 are welcome. Registration is required.
An in-school food distribution effort at Spry and Willink middle schools is helping make sure that no student there goes hungry.
The food pantries were first established last year at Willink Middle School when math teacher Julie Russi and school counselor Mary Hurley realized there were a significant number of students at the school who were asking for food almost daily because they were hungry. After looking further into the issue, they also discovered that many of those students were experiencing financial and food insecurity at home. Even though they had access to extra food at school, that wasn’t helping them when they got home.
In the elementary schools, students facing these issues can take advantage of the district’s free-food backpack program, and the high schools have established food pantries. But there was no such program at the middle schools. Clearly there was a gap that needed filling.
To do that, Hurley and Russi established the Willink Food Pantry. It began small, just a single shelf in Hurley’s office, stocked with food from Immanuel Lutheran Church, which supports the elementary schools’ backpack program. Over the summer, they brainstormed ways to expand the program and involve the entire school community. They came up with a schedule where each of the building’s nine core teams would alternate months donating food and hygiene items for the pantry.
With their plan in place and the entire school’s help, Hurley and Russi have been able to keep the pantry stocked all year, supporting several students and their families, and a few staff members.
A peek inside the pantry at Spry Middle School
The decision to begin a food pantry at Spry Middle School was sparked much the same way as the Willink pantry. Staff members were discussing how one of their students was concerned they might soon be evicted from their home. That would mean the entire family could become food insecure. Literacy teacher Meghann Piwko recognized the need and, using Willink’s established pantry as a model, started to organize one at Spry as well.
Similar to the program at Willink, Piwko rotates the donation schedule among the different houses’ homerooms, asking students, parents and teachers to donate during a particular month. The donations are then sorted and placed in two cabinets for students to access. Students are welcome to visit the cabinets and take whatever they need, as long as an adult is present.
Both programs are running smoothly. But every once in a while something reminds you how important these kinds of programs are for our young people. Like when Piwko asked a student why they never took any of the pastas and sauce. Turned out that they had no way to cook pasta because they live in a hotel and only have access to a microwave.
Even though the school year is nearing the end, it’s not too late to help stock the Willink and Spry middle school food pantries. Even over the summer, food will continue to be available to students. Willink will continue to distribute food to families over the summer, and any items left over at Spry will be boxed up and sent home with kids and/or donated to Webster HOPE.
Thousands of Webster high school students, their families and friends enjoyed spectacular weather Sunday night at the Senior Luminary Walk, held at the Webster Recreation Center.
This annual event, sponsored by the Webster Thomas PTSA, Webster Schroeder PTSA and Webster Teachers’ Association (WTA), celebrates our graduating seniors with hundreds of luminary candle bags, placed along the entire length of the Chiyoda Trail, which almost completely encircles the Recreation Center property on Chiyoda Drive. Earlier in the day, 30 volunteers worked for an hour and a half to distribute about 900 of the twinkling bags, each one labeled with the name of a graduating Webster Thomas, Webster Schroeder or GOAL student.
At the beginning of the trail, students and their family members were greeted by the Webster Schroeder and Thomas mascots (available for photo ops) before they strolled along the almost mile-long trail. Enthusiastic teachers were stationed all along the path, cheering and congratulating the students as they passed. One family after another would pause periodically for photos, and sometimes the parents’ proud smiles were even bigger than the students’.
As the students returned to the Rec Center at the end of the walk, each was handed a lawn sign to display at their home — prompting even more proud-parent photos.
Anyone who attended after dusk got an extra special treat, as the entire trail was lined with white twinkly lights leading the way.
This is the third year the PTSAs and WTA have held the Senior Luminary Walk. It began back in 2021, when we were still hip-deep in the pandemic, and special events were being cancelled one after the other. The organizations wanted to do SOMETHING to make sure our seniors felt special and celebrated for their achievements. The Luminary Walk was perfect; a creative, socially-distanced way to honor them.
Back then, organizers expected it to be a one-time event. But it proved to be so successful, it came back by popular demand in 2022, then again this year. And judging from the crowds I saw Sunday night. it’s here to stay.
Many thanks to the teachers, students and parent volunteers who worked for hours Sunday afternoon and evening to place the bags along the path, string the twinkly lights and staff the sign tables, or who were just there to cheer on the students.
And congratulations to all the graduating seniors!
Every school year, hundreds of lost and found items are left behind by students, and despite the schools’ best efforts, most are never claimed. So what can be done with the mounds of abandoned coats, gloves, hats, shirts, water bottles and lunch boxes?
Cori Horn’s 12:1:4 functional life skills class at Willink Middle School has come up with a perfect, win/win solution. Two times a year, Cori and her students launder, sort, fold and pack countless items collected from nine schools, then deliver them all to Webster HOPE on East Ridge Rd.
Cori came up with the project a few years ago, after noticing the large number of lost and found items collecting at her school.
“When we saw how much stuff Willink had,” she said, “I thought, I’m sure all the other schools probably have a lot, too. It would be great for all of it to go back to the Webster community.” She researched clothing closets in Webster, learned about Webster HOPE, and then proposed her idea to every other school in the district. Eight other buildings responded and offered their lost and found items to the cause.
The project is a perfect way for the students to practice the basic life skills they need as they work towards independent living, while also teaching them patience and perseverance.
Each box was clearly labeled
As the items are collected, the students first sort them based on clothing type and whether they’re for boys or girls. Then they wash and fold the items, pair up the gloves, zip up the jackets and match the tops to the water bottles. Finally, they place the items in the correct boxes. Even prepping a new box required life skills, like looking closely at the picture on the label, peeling the tape and attaching it to the box. The repetitive nature of all the tasks is especially beneficial.
Each student works on every aspect of the project, giving them a great sense of accomplishment for contributing to something important.
This is the second time this school year that the students have completed the ambitious lost and found project. Last December they packed and delivered 38 boxes to Webster HOPE. This spring they almost doubled that haul, collecting 64 boxes filled with hats, gloves, snow pants, sweatshirts, jackets, water bottles, lunch boxes, and even Halloween costumes. Earlier this week, they packed them all into two SUVs and then Cori delivered them all to Webster HOPE. There, a small army of very grateful volunteers helped unload them to be stored until they can be distributed to the agency’s clients.
Webster HOPE director Margery Morgan couldn’t say enough good things about the students’ work.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “They wash it, they label it, it’s packed up unbelievably well, already presorted. Sixty-four boxes of name-brand, top-of-the-line clothing. We’re delighted.”
Margery was especially grateful for the snow pants, which she called “a huge item for us.”
“A lot of kids in Webster can’t go outside at playtime if they don’t have snow pants, so they have to stay in the library. A lot of our families can’t afford snow pants, so those are gold to us.” She felt the same way about the lunch boxes. Most of the children they serve get free lunch at school, so they don’t have lunch boxes for summer camp. The dozens of clean, colorful lunch boxes will be greatly appreciated by the families HOPE serves.
A project like this benefits every person and every place it touches, from the students who are learning valuable skills, to our Webster neighbors who benefit from the donations, to the organizer herself.
“I’m so happy that I’m allowed to do this,” Cori said. “It’s a refresh at the end of the school year, a project that’s giving back to the community. … I love doing volunteer work. When we can volunteer and get life skills and curriculum work out if it, it makes me so happy.”
She added that the best part, however, “is when the parents say they notice that the kids are improving, doing the stuff at home.”
Blessed is assisted by her teacher Mrs. MoormanSebastian loading up a carSophia getting boxes ready for shippingThe volunteers at Webster HOPE were overjoyed with all the items. Pictured are: Kathy Lombardo, Jeannine Fulkerson and Debbie Steinorth
Dozens of fairies took over the State Rd. Elementary School library on Monday, in celebration of the school’s annual Fairy Day, organized by kindergarten teacher Jacqueline Smith.
More accurately, I should say that it appeared that dozens of fairies had taken over the library, because no one actually saw any of the secretive sprites. But their fairy homes and twinkling fairy jars were much in evidence, lining a pathway that wove among the library’s bookshelves.
This is actually the ninth year that State Rd. kindergarten teacher Jacqueline Smith has created a fairy garden, but the first one that has taken place in the library, and the first time the whole school has been involved.
Smith has been holding “Fairy Day” for her kindergarten classes every year since 2015. It’s part of an entire fairy tale unit, into which she also incorporates lessons in science, literacy, mathematics, art, even music. On one special day, she’d transform her kindergarten classroom into a magical wonderland, complete with twinkly lights, fairy jars, fairy dust, fairy music, fairy wands and fairy stories.
This year, Smith invited the entire school to take part in the magical festivities. The response was heartwarming. Individual grade levels embraced the challenge to make different parts of the fairy trail; fourth graders made flowers to hang from the ceiling. First graders made stepping stones, UPK students made ladybugs and butterflies, OT students made beaded raindrops and umbrellas, and the kindergartners made fairy gardens and fairy jars.
But Smith was particularly touched by the support she received from State Rd. staff members, who showed up in force to help decorate the library on Friday afternoon. They helped drape green tablecloths over the bookshelves, hang backdrops, spread twinkling green lights along the pathway, hang butterflies and flowers, set up all the houses and fairy jars, and so much more.
“How magical it was to see the team effort,” Smith said. “It was pretty spectacular. Everyone was so excited to see the fairy magic come alive.”
Staff enthusiasm didn’t end there, either. Teachers and support staff alike took Fairy Day to heart, coming to school on Monday with their fairy wands, fairy wings, butterfly wings, sparkly masks and tutus.
Every class took their turn strolling through the fairy lane, which twinkled brightly with the library lights turned low. The youngest students in particular delighted in trying to catch a glimpse of even one fairy peeking out of a fairy house window or sleeping in one of the twinkling fairy jars.
The magical fairy garden was dismantled immediately after school on Monday, but the school’s fascination with fairies did not end there. There’s actually a permanent fairy trail behind the school, which directs walkers past 26 uniquely decorated and lovingly built fairy houses, one for each letter of the alphabet.
The path was created in 2019, thanks to the efforts of then-State Rd. parent Brian Roode. Several of the houses have become damaged and weathered in the years since they were installed, so this year, Roode replaced 12 of them. Since the weather is supposed to be so beautiful this week, I imagine there will be a lot of students out there on the path, wondering if all of the fairies recently uprooted from the library had found new homes.
Click here to read the blog I wrote last year about Jacqueline Smith’s Fairy Day and the fairy trail. You can also click here to see some more photos from Fairy Day and some of the new fairy houses installed behind the school. Thank you to Jacquie Smith for most of these photos!
Mrs. Smith’s kindergarten students enjoying the trail.
I feature the people and places and events that make Webster the wonderful community it is — and throw in some totally-not-Webster-related personal ramblings every once in a while as well.
I love it when readers send me news about the great things happening in their schools or the community, so please email me anytime at missyblog@gmail.com
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