Alumni Football Game Announced

The Gator Alumni Football Team will be playing the Smethport Hubbers Alumni Team in Smethport on Saturday, July 11th at 7:00pm. More details will follow as they are released.

Charles L. Payne, USAF Veteran

 

 

Charles L. Payne, 68, of Peachtree City, GA, passed away on December 16, 2014. 

He was born on August 9, 1946 in Turtlepoint, PA to Cecile and Wayne Payne. He graduated from Port Allegany High School in Port Allegany, PA and then from Williamsport Community College in Williamsport, PA.

He married his wife, Jan Y. Healy Payne on December 5, 1970. 

He retired from the US Air Force in 1989 and the FAA in 2013. 

Charles is preceded in death by his parents; two brothers, Kenneth Payne and John Payne; and one sister, Connie McAfee.

He is survived by his wife of 44 years, Jan Y. Payne, of Peachtree City, GA; two sons, Nathan Stewart-Payne (James) and Aaron Payne; grandchildren, Kalob, August, and Tyler Payne all of Glenville, N.C. and grandson, Mason Payne-Faillo of Peachtree City, GA; his sister, Vesta Rossette of Port Allegany, PA; and brother, Milton Payne of Eldred, PA.

A Celebration of Life Memorial was held on Saturday, December 20, 2014 at 11 a.m. in the chapel at Carmichael-Hemperley Funeral Home, Peachtree City, GA with Military Honors. 

A visitation with a small reception was held following the service.

Police Report 12/15 - 12/21

There was an unattended death. A boyfriend’s mother was reported as an unwanted person. A child tried the ultimate way to chill: barefoot in December. A mother had a meltdown at the high school.

These were among matters the Port Allegany Police were asked to deal with in the week that began Monday, December 15.

Last Monday at 3:45 p.m. Chief Dave Distrola was dispatched to 16 Ransome Street, Apartment 9 for a report of a criminal trespass. It is the second such charge against Geromia Schoonover for being on McKean County Housing property without authorization.

At 6:30 p.m. Distrola met with the mother and children in connection with allegations of abuse that were made concerning the father last week. Investigation is continuing, but no charges have been lodged.

At 8 p.m. Distrola was contacted by Pennsylvania State Police concerning a 12-year-old girl who had been seen walking on the sidewalk without shoes or socks. The child was found, identified and returned home. Apparently she had been arguing with her uncle and had left the residence to cool off.

At 10:35 p.m. Distrola was dispatched to a Mill Street residence for a reported disturbance. The complainant said her son had become angry when he was confronted about entering the house at a late hour to retrieve his laundry. The angry son had left before Distrola arrived.

Last Tuesday at 10 a.m. Distrola was contacted by a New York State Police officer regarding a piece of jewelry that had been recovered, said to belong to an area resident. The owner was found to be living in Roulette, and  that information was passed along.

At 2:10 p.m. Distrola was contacted about an unwanted person at a Chestnut Street residence. The person had been looking for her son, said to be the boyfriend of a member of the Chestnut Street residence household. The unwanted person had left, but was contacted by Distrola. She said she would never go back to the residence in question.

Last Wednesday at 1:47 a.m. Officer Tony Tanner received a call from Sgt. Snyder of the Wilkinsberg Police Department regarding a 1996 Jeep allegedly involved in a theft/pursuit incident, and said to be registered to a resident of Arnold Avenue. Tanner tried to contact the occupants of that address, to no avail.

At 1:20 p.m. Distrola responded to a Harrison Street address for a report of an unattended death. A neighbor had found the deceased person. The death had resulted from natural causes, and there were no suspicious circumstances found.

Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Distrola was requested to come to the Port Allegany Junior-Senior High School where an adult had become irate, cursing and slamming doors, in a meeting with staff concerning an incident involving a student. When Distrola arrived she had left the school. Investigation continues; charges are pending.

At 9 p.m. Tanner received a report of a deer having been hit on South Main Street. He was unable to find the deer.

Friday at 7 p.m. Officer Adam Dickerson was contacted by a resident who wanted to get a key back from her ex-boyfriend. Dickerson advised the caller that retrieving the key was a civil matter.

Saturday at 11:30 p.m. Dickerson was contacted and asked to be on the lookout for a vehicle involved in a hit-and-run in Smethport. Dickerson discovered the vehicle on Woodland Avenue in Liberty Township. PSP took over the investigation.

Sunday at 1:30 a.m. Dickerson responded to Maple Street for a report of a vehicle fire. The Port Allegany Fire Department extinguished the fire. The vehicle was said to be owned by Billie Jo Rifle.

At 12:19 p.m. officer Jason Crants received a call concerning property of a deceased person who had not left a will. The caller was advised to contact an attorney.

At 5:53 p.m. Dickerson received a call about a motor vehicle crash in the Dollar General parking lot. A truck driven by Chad Postlewait of Turtlepoint was backing out of a parking slot when it backed into the driver’s side of a vehicle driven by Merrie Main of Scio, N.Y. The drivers exchanged information and left. There was no damage to Postlewait’s truck, and the Main vehicle had a minor dent. Later a juvenile passenger in Main’s car complained of pain in her shoulder, elbow, neck and head. She was transported by ambulance to Bradford Regional Medical Center for evaluation.

Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

Remember when the command-line interface was standard? Back in the days of DOS, before Windows? Back when we typed in cryptic instructions, and grouped those instructions in primitive programs?

My first computer with a graphical user interface (a GUI) was an Atari ST 1040, with a nifty little monochrome monitor and two 3.5-inch disc drives and a cartridge slot and an external 10-meg hard drive.

A custom EEPROM in the cartridge slot convinced the Atari it was a Macintosh. As a Mac or as an Atari, the machine needed a pointing device. Atari did supply mice, but I preferred a trackball.

That trackball was a celluloid billiard ball resting in a trough that it fit precisely. It was more comfortable to use than any mouse I have had, and much more efficient than the small trackball devices I attach to notebook computers.

Pointing devices helped free us from the command line. From having trained people to use DOS, and from training people to use more modern operating systems, I am convinced DOS was much harder to learn and far more cumbersome to use. We love our graphical interfaces.

A German developed a clumsy tracking device shortly before Douglas Engelbart came up with the mouse. The Engelbart mouse was a wooden box with two metal wheels and a single button. Its cable, connecting it a serial port on a computer, looked like a tail. That was in 1964.

Engelbart never received royalties for the mouse, although it was patented. He was working for Stanford Research Institute at the time, and SRI claimed ownership of that “work product.”

Then there’s the touchpad (not very efficient, in my opinion), another way to help us interact with computers while using the keyboard mainly for entering text. But there are a couple approaches to interface that bypass the mouse or touchpad a good deal.  One is voice command (such as Nuance’s “Dragon”).Another is “quick keys.”

A client recently asked me to share one of them here, “Because it saves me so much time, and I notice a lot of people in the office don’t know about Control Magic.”

This busy office employee uses Microsoft Office much of the day. Mostly she uses Word, so the Control Magic she employs saves her time and motion during word processing tasks.

Control Magic involves holding down the Ctrl key while tapping another key, usually a letter. This is done, instead of using the mouse or touchpad to issue certain commands by choosing them from menus or “ribbon.”

Some are intuitive combinations; others you need to use a few times so you will remember them.

Ctrl + n opens creates a new document, using the default template. To use a different template, though, you will need to use the Office button menu and choose New, then double-click on the desired template.

Ctrl + o opens an existing file in Word. It does this by displaying the Documents list; chances are you’ll need to use the mouse to select the document you want.

After you have created a new document, you’ll want to name it. Ctrl + s will present a dialog for you to chose the file format such as .doc or .docx or .rtf, and give you a slot for the name. Thereafter Ctrl + s will do a quick-save of the document from time to time while you are working.  When you have finished the document, do another Ctrl + s before closing it. You can use Ctrl + F4 (in the row of Function keys at the top of the keyboard) to close it.

Need hardcopy? Use Ctrl + p to print. Depending on how your Word is configured, this will either print a single copy using the default printer at its default settings, or it will open a print dialog allowing you to choose the printer and settings.

While working on a document in Word, you may want to change the font point size.. Ctrl + Shift + p summons a dialog that lets you do that, or make other choices relating to the type. Nowadays Ctrl + Shift + f does the same thing. Those dialogs used to be separate in older versions of Word.

Ctrl + u underlines. Ctrl + b bolds. Ctrl + i italicizes. If you have not selected any text before using the command, the change will affect what you are about to type. But to apply the command to a part of the document already typed, mouse-select that part before using the Ctrl code.

That’s true of alignment shortcut keys too. To left-align (straight left margin, ragged right) use Ctrl + l. To right-align (straight right margin, ragged left), use Ctrl + r, just as you would have guessed. For both margins to be straight, or justified, use Ctrl + j.

What about centering what you are typing, for titles or invitations and such? Ctrl + e. Not Ctrl + c, because that would copy something to the Clipboard. That copy command is as handy as a pocket in a shirt, especially when paired with Ctrl + v, which inserts whatever is on the Clipboard wherever the cursor is planted. A mnemonic for the insert command is that the v looks like an inverted caret.

What if you just want to cut, or excise, some selected material? Ctrl + x. If you want to undo an action or editing command without mousing up to the bent-over-backwards arrow on the ribbon or toolbar, use Ctrl + z. I use that combo with two fingers of my left hand.

Another I like is selecting the whole document with Ctrl + a (for all).

To send this column to our favorite weekly newspaper, I’ll Ctrl + s to save it, then Ctrl + a to copy the text to the Clipboard, Alt + f to open the File menu, Alt + d to send, and Enter to choose e-mail, which is highlighted on that list. The email blank will come up with the document attached. But I’ll also plant the text in the message body by using Ctrl + v to insert it (copy it from the clipboard).

For me this is quicker than the pointing and clicking that would be necessary to accomplish the same tasks using my mouse.

If you like Control Magic, you’ll probably enjoy the Alternate Universe. We can explore that in another column.

If You Ask Me / By Martha Knight

Peace on earth, good will toward humans. A holiday that brings caring impulses to the fore is something to be welcomed and celebrated, by the religious and by those who aren’t.

I remember a Christmas years ago, when my place was the “safe house” where people in flight from domestic conflict could take shelter. Usually this was a temporary situation, while we arranged for protection orders, needed services and longer-term housing, or sometimes just long enough to get the people in flight further into the “system” and into a location out of the danger area.

There were situations in which it was reasonably safe to keep the kids in the local school system, disrupting their lives as little as possible. It was tricky to keep the location of the safe house secret. Inevitably the cover was blown, and the safe house wasn’t safe anymore. But while it was operating, sometimes people came into shelter in the holiday season.

This was before there was state or county funding for programs that provided help for victims of domestic violence. The only organization even advocating for those services in this area was the Four County Rural Task Force for Women

One December there was a sheltered family consisting of a mother, two girls in high school, one boy in junior high and one girl in elementary school.

They did get some emergency assistance through a county agency. A man who met the family in church took the mom shopping, and helped with some garden produce. We ate out of our pantry and freezer. We celebrated the birthday of one of the girls. All in all we were getting by, and it looked as if the family would have housing sometime in January.

We put up some decorations, found the four-foot put-together tree in the attic, played Christmas music, made cookies. But there didn’t seem to be much point in hanging up stockings.

Then two area families, friends of each other and acquainted with me, put their heads together, and decided on the “cause” they wanted to help, privately, that Christmas. They sent me a check in the mail, with a note saying they wanted to help us celebrate Christmas at the safe house.

Everyone in the sheltered family received something to enjoy. Another family had an extra turkey “from the plant.” The family was not in their own home, but they were cheerful about their situation. The boy, who had autism, said he liked Christmas more “because nobody is yelling or hitting.”

Other families who have experienced some disruption, sometimes violence or loss of a home, used to be helped by what was the Children and Youth Services Advisory Council. This was a group appointed by the county commissioners as a lay board to interact with CYS in the development of its annual plan, and overview responsibilities.

One year the advisory board rolled up its sleeves and investigated the foster family program from top to bottom, which then underwent an overdue reorganization. The board also helped get CYS back on track when it had lost its accreditation and reimbursement.

But the advisory group also had its annual “benevolence” project. Members from here were the pastors of the Free Methodist Church, their across-Smith Ave. neighbor Carolyn Carlson (a trained social worker, after all!), and your scribe. I had a computer and a printer, so I sent out begging letters, signed by chairman Chris Hill, to individuals and organizations and businesses all over the county.

We solicited funds to provide some new clothing items and some toys or fun stuff for every child whose family was being assisted “in the home,” or without children being in placement.

We were provided with lists of genders and ages and sizes and preferred styles and colors, and sometimes specific needs.

We shopped like mad, long days in Port and in Olean and Bradford, then had several long wrapping bees, somehow keeping all the presents grouped by each “number” assigned to an individual.

By December 20, carloads of presents were delivered to CYS offices on the top level of the Court House. Staff members delivered each household’s presents, preserving “confidentiality.” It would have been great to get a photo of some children opening their presents, and to have such photos to help with fundraising, right? But it would not have been appropriate.

When PACS had a clothing bank, and we had more stores downtown, some people sponsored gift certificates at Christmas time.

We hear it said, “Christmas is for children.” I don’t agree. It’s a time to ease the struggles and even the loneliness of others, as well as celebrate the good times. Good times can be few and far between for some members of our community who face health challenges, no longer drive, have lost a mate.

A friend I think of as “a good guy,” one who reaches out to help others, called the other day to enquire about an individual he knows receives Meals on Wheels. He wondered how much she might “owe” for the “contribution” consumers pay ($2 per meal must be paid by the local program, with the state covering the rest of the actual cost).

Bless his heart. He said he would leave some cash at the Senior Center in an envelope stating it was for that lady’s Meals on Wheels.

Anyone wanting to help a friend on Meals on Wheels can do so that easily! Don’t know anyone using the program right now? There are people who need and receive the meals, but struggle to make the consumer contribution. If we have many who can’t, the program will not be able to keep operating. A contribution to the program can be left with Angie at the Center, or mailed to Meals on Wheels care of the Center.

There are needs all around us. It is heartwarming to see that there are community members who care, both groups and individuals. Best of all, some kindness is continued all through the year.

Keep those cards and letters coming! Have a wonderful Christmas!

Peace.