Apple Converting Shows County Plant Up To Task

By JIM KEVLIN


ONEONTA

As Chobani flourishes and multiplies, it presents opportunities for local suppliers, but only quality local suppliers that can keep up.
“They will not outgrow us,” vowed Mike Manno, Cooperstown resident and Apple Converting owner. 
In January, the operation in Pony Farm Industrial Park began producing all of the lids for the individual Chobani yogurt containers – and plans to prove itself so it can win the label contract as well.
“Converting” is a forming of fabricating packaging that combines  two products – aluminum and plastic sheeting, for instance – to create a new product.
Next time you pick up a Chobani container, look at the lid, feel the texture, examine the sharply printed logo:  All of that is part of a process Manno and his team developed for the yogurt maker over a year.
“Other people who do this weren’t going to tell us how,” he said.  “We had to figure it out ourselves.”
And it doesn’t happen like magic.  Chobani owner Hamdi Ulukaya calls himself a “perfectionist,” and Manno has a quality-control inspector check the lids at close intervals as they come off the press.
In a separate quality-control department, lids are checked again for color sharpness, and measured with calipers to ensure the printing is centered.
Chobani’s lid maker is offshore, and the company was delighted to discover a key component of its manufacturing process could be obtained a few miles away.
Apple Converting also had a reputation for quality – it makes the labels for Lindt, the high-end chocolate maker, and packaging for the medical field, like Becton-Dickinson – and that helped. 

‘CLICK’S’ MESSAGE CELEBRATED

Jim Kevlin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA

Author Julia Dostal and artist Mark Drnek sign copies of “Click Saves The Day” Saturday, March 12, at the Green Toad Book Store.  The book is part of the anti-gambling curriculum developed for LEAF Inc., the local anti-drinking and anti-dependency agency.    Dozens of kids showed up for the accompanying puppet show created by Carol Mandigo, a LEAF educator formerly associated with the Catskill Puppet Theater.

Oneonta’s Ryan Winchester Gains Eagle Rank In Milford BSA Troop

Ryan Winchester, Oneonta, who attends Milford Central School and is active in Troop 31 there, has just received the Boy Scouts of America’s highest rank, Eagle.
Ryan has been in scouting since becoming a Tiger in first grade; he is now in ninth.
His Eagle service project was renovating the pavilion at Milford’s Wilber Park, painting, installing new railings and fencing (protecting pavilion users from stray fly balls), and building a handicapped accessible ramp.
The project required 300 hours of work between March and November 2010, and $1,800 in supplies, purchased through donations and bottle drives.  His fellow scouts assisted him.

Ryan Winchester at the renovated Milford pavilion.

Akiva Garfield, 10, Sets Another NY Swim Record

He’s only 10, but Akiva Garfield has broken another state swimming record, completing the 50-yard breaststroke event in 36.91 seconds Sunday, March 20, at the YMCA State Swimming Finals in Nassau Aquatic Center on Long Island.
Akiva, a Center Street School fifth grader who swims for the Oneonta Family Y Orcas, broke his first state record at age 8.
He is the son of Dr. Robert Garfield and Anne Green.

ONEONTA, BILLBOARD ENJOYED

Ian Austin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA

Eric Mazarak helps MSO Downtown Coordinator David Hayes lash an “Oneonta, Life Enjoyed” banner to the billboard on the north end of the South Main Street viaduct, welcoming visitors to town.  Mazarak’s father, John, the retired SUNY Oneonta professor and photographer, provided the image of the black-eyed Susan used in the city’s new logo.

Parisian Family Transformed Tragedy Into Accomplishment

Trooper Ricky Parisian

 Since death is part of life, all of us face – or will face – tragedy in various guises, and respond in varied ways.
When it arrives, let’s keep in mind the exceptional Parisian family that responded in such an exceptional way to the unfair and unexpected death of a loved one, State Trooper Ricky “Pit” Parisian, who was killed on May 20, 1994, trying to stop an armed robbery at a Southside supermarket.
Fate was cruel to the Parisians.  But the family was unwilling to accept their loved one’s death as the end of the story.
That very October, the family organized the first “Pit Run,” a 10K race – a 5K and a walkathon have since been added, plus a picnic, music and games – in remembrance.
“The day is designed to celebrate Rick’s life by bringing the community together for a fun, healthy afternoon of outdoor activities,” according to pitrun.org, the event’s Web site.

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Proceeds – more than a quarter-million has been distributed in the past 17 years – help underwrite college scholarships for young people who are courteous, honest, caring, responsible – all the qualities of the namesake.
The money has been used to send young people on Rotary Exchange Programs to Costa Rica, Italy and Slovakia, to study Irish history in Dublin, to participate in an opera in France.
The scholarships helped send Marcel Sanchez to MIT, Thomas Vogler to Bucknell, Caroline Kang to the Eastman School of Music, Kristin France to Williams.
Alec Macaulay graduated magna cum laude from Cornell, Genevieve Bernier from Geneseo (she went on to a Ph.D. at Virginia Commonwealth), Jonathan Hojn from SUNY Albany.

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Ricky Parisian’s legacy could have been bitterness, but it’s been quite the opposite due to true devotion of a family that was stricken but not struck down by tragedy.
Last Saturday evening, March 19, the St. Mary’s School community honored the Parisian family, from Al, the father of the family, to his children and children-in-law, including Ricky’s widow Deb, to his grandchildren, with the St. Mary’s School 2011 Distinguished Education Partner Award.
It was a delightful evening at The Gables, as you can imagine.  (We can’t write about it with mentioning chef Bob Eklund’s beef tenderloin, rolled in pepper and garlic.  Exceptional!)
State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, presented the family with a resolution passed a few days before on the Senate floor in Albany, and Mayor Miller declared March 19 “Parisian Family Day in Oneonta.”
St. Mary’s Principal Patricia Bliss presented Al Parisian – he and his wife, Margaret, ran a weekly Bingo game for years, to benefit the school – with a clock.  “Time is the most precious thing anyone can give,” she said.
Some may think community life is humdrum; quite the opposite.  The Parisian family’s story has it all.  Tragedy, grief, then renewal and accomplishment, accomplishment that through the scholarship winners will be carried forward into innumerable generations in ways we can’t know.
Friends, tragedy has stricken all of us and will come again.  It’s the human condition.  But let’s reflect on Parisians’ story, gain inspiration from it, and declare to a family who we can all be proud of:  Well done.

Jim Kevlin/HOMETOWN ONEONTA
The Parisian family was honored with the St. Mary’s School 2011 Distinguished Education Partner Award with a dinner at The Gables.  Standing, from left, are Lisa Parisian,  Jennifer McGrath, Edythe Parisian, Scott Georgia, Janice Currie, David Currie, Mark Parisian, Deb Parisian, Steve Parisian.  In front are Al Parisian and, at left, his granddaughter Cheryl Parisian.

PATRICIA BLISS IN APPRECIATION: Al, Margaret Parisian Embraced ‘Call To Serve’

Editor’s Note:  These are excerpts from Principal Patricia Bliss’ remarks Saturday, March 19, on presenting the 2011 St. Mary’s School Distinguished Partners in Education to the Parisian family.

St. Mary’s School has been blessed with many wonderful benefactors over the years. 
The Distinguished Partner in Education Award was developed as a means to publicly show our appreciation to those who have supported our mission, our philosophy and our ideals, with gifts of their time, talent and treasure. 
We all know how valuable time is and we know that to share your time with someone is one of the greatest of gifts that one can give.
Those of us who have St. Mary’s at the core of our lives believe that our success is reflected in our children. We encourage all to be visible witnesses of Christ by instilling a sense of responsibility and service to his or her community and sensitivity to the call for a just society. 
The Parisian family has embraced those same ideals.  The call to serve was modeled by Al and Margaret Parisian, as they helped out at St. Mary’s Church through bake sales, the parish festivals, and as an usher; at St. Mary’s School in the PTO, Bingo, and to help out at lunch time; or the Oneonta community, with Meals on Wheels and Election Day bake sales. 
Those are a few of the ways  Mr. and Mrs. Parisian were an integral part of the Oneonta community.  It is a partnership between family, church, school, and the community.  We support one another through good times and bad.  And this sense of community service is ingrained in the whole Parisian family.  It is part of who they are. 
And when tragedy struck the Parisian family when son Ricky, a state trooper, was killed serving the community he loved, the family turned their grief into faith and increased sense of service to church and community by starting a foundation to support the many needs of the people of the greater Oneonta community. 
And St. Mary’s School is one of the many groups that are supported by this foundation.  Over the years, The Parisian Foundation has provided funding for the art, music and technology programs at St. Mary’s, as well as funding for equipment for our phys-ed classes, our playground and ball field.  
And so this evening, we, the community of St. Mary’s School, along with your family and friends, want to thank you for your gift of time, talent and treasure. 

“To share your time with someone is one of the greatest of gifts that one can give,” said Principal Bliss in presenting an engraved clock to Al Parisian.