APALACHIN • OWEGO • NICHOLS TIOGA CENTER • NEWARK VALLEY
CAMPVILLE • BARTON • CANDOR SMITHBORO • CATATONK
YOUR HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER • www.CommunityPress.us MAY 2025
Volume 40
Tioga Downs Kicked Off the 2025 Racing Season Live harness racing returned for the 20th season on May 3
Number 5
Lightning Strike
Rocks the Towns of Little Meadows and Warren Center By: Jill Darling
Nichols, NY – Tioga Downs Casino Resort opened for live racing this year on its customary date of Kentucky Derby Day, Saturday, May 3. This year’s season provides a total of 61 live race dates and plenty of promotions. Opening day featured live harness races, with first post at 5:00 pm. Racing starved patrons enjoyed the biggest day in Thoroughbred racing
Kentucky Derby Day coupled with the return of the live horse races for the first time since last fall. Tioga Downs also offers fireworks nights, a mascot day, “corntastic weekend,” giveaways, and great food specials throughout the season. For more information about the 2025 racing season and promotions, please visit: www.TiogaDowns.com
Lions Mobile Food Pantry
The Foodbank Of the Southern Tier and the Apalachin Lions will hold a mobile food pantry on Wednesday May 28th from 10 to 11 am. At St Margaret Mary’s Church at 1110 Pennsylvania Ave. Apalachin. Pre registration is required.
Registration is Tuesday May 27th at 8:30 am until full ( current limit of 125 registrations) If you register please attend. To register call 2-11 or on line at: www.foodbankst.org/cfd. This is a “Walk-Up Pantry” please bring a cart or bag to carry food!
Memorial Day - May 26
Tom and Kristie Hunsinger survey the damaged tree that splintered across the lawn. Their two vehicles were hidden under branches that came down. An upstairs window of their home broke when a piece of tree flew through it. “It sounded like a bomb went off!” said Pat Russell of Maple St, Little Meadows. She and her daughter Carrie were relaxing in recliners when the loud explosion shook their home and caused items on shelves to fly off. “The den lit up like a red ball of fire!" she said. They tried to calm their Golden Retriever, Brody, then looked around the house, but didn’t notice anything. Then they looked out the dining room window to see that one of their massive pine tree was a mangled mess on the ground. The tree was struck by a large bolt of lightning, causing the tree to crack from its top down to its roots and splintering it into multiple pieces strewn across the lawn. Next door neighbors, Tom and Kristie Hunsinger, experienced the same thing—house shaking and things falling off shelves. They looked outside to see that their pickup truck and mini van were encased in tree limbs. An upstairs front window was broken and an electrical wire had detached from the peak of the house. Penelec’s truck came an hour later blocking the road briefly to reattach the electrical wire. The next morning their neighbor, Dave King, stopped by to access the damage and pointing out his truck window, said that he had planted
those trees as a kid with his dad, Andy King, along with previous home owner, Bob Beeman. Dave King figured the row of trees had to be 70-years old. Whitetail’s Bar & Grill owner, Jeff Kuhr, stopped to look at the destruction. “Holy Hell!” he said. When asked if he heard the explosion, he quipped, “the whole town heard it! Everyone’s asking, ‘how far did you jump?’” Kuhr lives on Cemetery Road across a large field from the property. He said the strike lit up the entire field with whitish blue light. The National Weather Service says it was a rare positive lightning strike conducting positive charge from the clouds to the ground. Positive lightning strikes make up only about five percent of lightning strikes according the weather service. Not only did the townspeople of Little Meadows hear the explosive sound, but three miles away, Pete Darling, of Warren Center was jolted by it and said, “It was the loudest sonic boom-like sound I’ve heard in my life!” The noise rattled the Darling’s Siberian Husky, Kodak, and he ran around to the back of the house to be let into the basement, which is his refuge during loud storms, Darling said. MORE PHOTOS PAGE 6 & 7
Tractor Supply Store coming to Owego
The Village of Owego’s Memorial Day Parade will be held on Monday, May 26. The parade will form on Temple Street, and will start at 10:00 am. The parade route will in-
clude North Avenue, Main Street, and Front Street, and will end at Courthouse Square where the traditional Service of Remembrance will take place at the Veterans Memorial.
On May 2, 2024 the Town of Owego approved the construction of a new Tractor Supply Co. to be built on Route 434 between Storage Rentals of America and Aramark Uniform Services. Construction has just begun at the end of April this year.