The exhibit of artifacts will be on display at the New York Capitol in Albany.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Gov. Andrew Cuomo Andrew Cuomo recently rooted through a warehouse in Schenectady County’s Rotterdam and picked out dozens of state artifacts for display in the Capitol in Albany.
The documents, antique automobiles and even an Adirondack guide boat are being readied for display in time for his State of the State address on Wednesday.
Cuomo tells The Associated Press he wants the historic items from the executive and legislative branches and the press corps to be available for tours by school children.
Cuomo says they’ll help bring state history alive to students and attract more tours.
The displays will be outside his office in the Hall of Governors and in front of the Assembly and Senate chambers and press row.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-01-03-12 1905GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The exhibit of artifacts will be on display at the New York Capitol in Albany.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
White rhinos in Namibia. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – A decision by South African wildlife parks to auction the right to hunt white rhinoceros has stirred up controversy, with lobby groups warning that the species is already under pressure from poachers.
A businessman in the Kwazulu-Natal region recently paid 960,150 rands (91,500 euros) for the license to shoot a male rhinoceros in a reserve, after successfully bidding for the right from the regional nature conservation authority, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.
The authority’s chief Bandile Mkhize defended the decision to auction shooting rights, arguing that the decision to reduce rhino numbers was “based on sound ecological, demographic and genetic wildlife management grounds.”
“We feel more than justified that we have followed defendable principles and protocols,” he said.
Mkhize said reducing certain rhino males could actually enhance the population’s growth rates and help to further genetic conservation.
In addition, auctioning the right to shoot “generates substantial revenues and helps provide much needed additional funding and support to effective conservation management program as well as providing incentives for rhino-specific conservation.”
But while the proceeds from the auctioned hunt are to be reinvested in environment protection, anti-poaching lobby groups are up in arms against the move as they warn that poachers are already depleting South African wildlife reserves.
Simon Bloch, who represents a group of South African citizens outraged by poaching, warned that the wildlife protection authority’s move “sends the wrong message to the world.”
The group Stop Rhino Poaching estimates that 446 rhinos were killed in South Africa in 2011, a sharp jump from the 13 lost in 2007, 83 in 2008, 122 in 2009 and 333 in 2010.
Demand in Asia for use in traditional Chinese medicine, has been blamed for the intensifying trend of rhino poaching.
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White rhinos in Namibia. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Mark Twain at age 15, when he was friends with Laura Hawkins. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
HANNIBAL, Mo. (AP) – At the corner of Fifth and Center streets in downtown Hannibal, local history is coming down section by section, brick by brick.
After years of sitting empty, the old YMCA has met its fate with construction workers and equipment.
Two houses away though, where the dust of the former recreation center settles and blows by in the wind, another historical structure is being brought back to life through passion, determination and care.
To some, 210 Fifth St. is just another house standing among the many older homes in the neighborhood. It’s been there for a century or more, has had a number of residents call it home, and eventually it suffered damage and fell into dire straits.
But Nora Creason wanted this house. She had purchased the Cerretti House next door and when this house became available she went after it. After all, this was the home of a famous Hannibalian, Laura Hawkins Frazer. It’s where she lived her remaining years with her son, it’s where she was living when the world found out who she really was, it’s where she died and went from popular citizen to Hannibal legend.
“That opportunity just dropped in my lap,” Creason, who divides her time between Seattle and Hannibal, said. “We knew it was the famous Laura Hawkins home, so we jumped on it, made an offer to F&M Bank and got it.”
If you’re not familiar with who Hawkins Frazer was, it’s probably because you know her under a different name. She’s better known as Becky Thatcher.
Hawkins was the childhood sweetheart of Samuel Clemens and when he grew up and began writing stories under the name Mark Twain, he used his old flame as the model of the girl who steals the heart of Tom Sawyer in the classic novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain modeled Sawyer after himself from his youthful days.
“We learned quite a bit of history, although there’s very little written history about her. We know of that stuff about her that you can find if you scour history books,” Creason said. “The thing about Laura Hawkins, is after she got married and saved her husband (Dr. James Frazer)—her husband was supposed to have been shot during the Civil War—after that, there’s no written information about Laura Hawkins until way after (her husband died) and she became matron of the friends of the homeless. Since we bought the Laura Hawkins house, our interests have turned more toward restoring historical Hannibal and really educating ourselves on a lot of the history in Hannibal other than Mark Twain, and that’s how we came to restoring the Laura Hawkins house.”
Creason and her husband, Don Metcalf, bought the home in 2007 and have been working to restore it to the days of Hawkins Frazer’s residency. The house had previously been foreclosed on by F&M Bank and was gutted out by Ron Smith who was hired by Creason and Metcalf to renovate it. Previous owners didn’t leave the structure in the best shape.
“It was nasty,” Smith said. “There was junk everywhere, old wood, old clothes, it was a shamble. I took three 40-yard dumpsters out of this place and a 20-yard dumpster out of the garage. There was so much (stuff) in here it was like everybody left everything they owned in here.”
With the trash cleared and a plan in place, the former home of Laura Hawkins Frazer is being rehabbed back to life. Within the next year, Creason hopes to be 90 percent of the way done. Once again, the staircase in the front of the house will stand grand, the fireplaces will burn long trails of smoke out of the chimney tops and the custom windows will bring sunshine into home for the first time in years.
“Our restoration plan is to restore it as Laura had lived there. We would keep all the old radiators and we would do it in a way people would not notice that. We’ll be putting a new efficient furnace in there, but at the same time we will still be keeping the old heating registers,” Creason said. “We’re going to get something as similar, historical in reproduction as what was originally there. The only wallpaper we were able to match, almost exactly, is the wallpaper that’s going to be put along the hallways. We were able to find that with a little more embellishment.
“The plan is to make it a museum. We want this to be as period as possible, trying to replace everything as close as possible, of course that’s hard to do, and I have to rely on folks who used to live in the house, what their memories were of it. We’re basing the interior of the house on those sources.”
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Information from: Hannibal Courier-Post, http://www.hannibal.net
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-01-02-12 1723GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Mark Twain at age 15, when he was friends with Laura Hawkins. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
WASHINGTON, Mo. (AP) – An eastern Missouri man says he simply did the right thing when he found nearly $4,000 inside a chair at an auction—and gave it back.
The Washington Missourian reports that Ted Beede attended a living estate auction on Dec. 13 in search of items for his consignment shop in Dutzow, Mo., about 50 miles southwest of St. Louis.
He lifted a cushion and found, as he called it, “all the dead presidents.”
Beede scooped up the bills and pulled aside the auctioneer. The money was given to the Franklin County public administrator, who is taking care of the property owner’s estate.
Beede eventually paid $5 for the chair. When he went to get his receipt, he was given a $200 reward for his honesty.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or distributed.
Massachusetts artist May Spear Clinedinst (1887-1960) depicted a Florida sugar cane processing plant in this large oil painting on canvas. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Myers Fine Art. PASCO, Fla. (AP) – The cane grinding began when a mule named Molly, all 15 hands of her, commenced ambling in a circle to pull a belt that powered a machine that spat out brown juice. “Here is what you need to understand,” Steve Melton said, as Molly trudged along. “This is how we used to do it in Florida.”
Melton, 62, holds a cane grinding every December at his Pasco County ranch as a reminder of a time when Floridians couldn’t buy sugar in a bag at the grocery. From the Panhandle to the Keys, folks of every race and creed grew sugar cane, harvested the stalks in the fall, squeezed the stalks into juice and then boiled the juice into sweet syrup they poured into coffee or over pancakes or even meat. In the age before mass communication, a cane grinding was also a social gathering where Floridians might exchange news and gossip, tell jokes and share their dreams.
Now it’s ancient history, a demonstration at the state fair, perhaps, or a picture in the history books. Melton and a few other stubborn folks scattered across the state hold out. They invite friends, neighbors and interested historians to watch. By making cane syrup they keep in touch with their past. They think about loved ones long dead, grandmothers who made from-scratch biscuits swimming in cane syrup.
“It’s our heritage,” Steve Melton was saying from beneath his cowboy hat.
At the cane grinding, boys swung on a rope under a moss-draped oak while a toddler lurched through the grass licking an ear of corn dripping butter. From a nearby porch a guitarist, a mandolin player and a fellow plucking a washtub bass performed a timeless bluegrass tune.
Little girls skipped rope. Old men in overalls studied an old tractor with critical eyes. Steve Melton collects old tractors. He also collects antique machines that in another era dug holes and planted seed and harvested corn. The ghosts of the men who sweated and bled over those machines were invisible except in Melton’s memory.
He grew up on the farm and graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in food production. He has a scientist’s sensibilities. At the same time he lives in the past. He has a working gristmill and likes to grind his own wheat. As he walked from the gristmill to where the cane juice was starting to boil, he carried the next generation of his family, his baby grandson, Josiah Flowers.
Cane grinding requires expertise, hard work and long hours for a small payoff. A 10th of an acre of cane produces about 60 gallons of juice. Sixty gallons of juice might boil down to six gallons of thick amber syrup.
Melvin Brenson and Daryl Hildreth watched the iron kettle closely, taking turns to skim off the bubbles of scum. Next to them, Paul Meeker added pine and oak to the fire already sputtering under the kettle.
“They know what they’re doing,” said Millard Sanders, 77. In Alabama he grew up watching his daddy cook cane juice. Sanders met his wife of 58 years, Lois, at a cane grinding. They still like cane syrup with their biscuits.
After about three hours, the cane juice stopped boiling and started bubbling like molten lava, which meant it was getting thick. Steve Melton dipped a thermometer that indicated 212 degrees. Almost ready. Another instrument, a hydrometer, helped him judge the density of the syrup.
“The old timers didn’t need an instrument,” Melton said through the sweet-smelling steam. “They’d stick in a spoon and watch how the syrup was dripping.”
Musicians put down their instruments. Old men abandoned the study of tractors and walked toward the kettle. It was almost time.
As a crowd gathered, Melton began taking the temperature every two minutes. Then every minute. Temperature was now 221 degrees. Almost perfect. Wait too long and syrup becomes too thick or even burns.
He tossed aside his thermometer.
“Pull the fire! Pull the fire!” he yelled.
His fireman, Paul Meeker, yanked a pallet, which supported the burning wood, from under the kettle. Ashes spilled onto the concrete floor.
“When the syrup is ready you have to get rid of the heat immediately,” Melton explained.
He and a helper began ladling syrup out of the kettle and into a 6-gallon vat.
Watching, Bob Waldron looked forward to obtaining a bottle of syrup. He’s 70, an Alabama native, who lives in Dade City now. He grew up poor, attended cane grindings as a boy, watched his mama bake biscuits and ate them with cane syrup.
His wife died in September after a long illness. “She baked the meanest biscuit you ever ate,” he said. This will be his first Christmas in 48 years without Sandra by his side.
He plans to eat a biscuit, with cane syrup, in her memory.
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Information from: St. Petersburg Times, http://tampabay.com
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or distributed.
AP-WF-12-20-11 1714GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Massachusetts artist May Spear Clinedinst (1887-1960) depicted a Florida sugar cane processing plant in this large oil painting on canvas. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Myers Fine Art.
A $10 gold coin was found in a Salvation Army kettle in Kentucky. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers,com Archive and Godwin’s Auction. CYNTHIANA, Ky. (AP) – The Salvation Army is hoping to turn a $10 gold piece dropped into one of its red collection kettles into a larger sum with an auction that starts the bidding at $800.
The 1880 coin was placed into a kettle at the Cynthiana Wal-Mart this month and went unnoticed until a bank teller spotted it, John Hodge, chairman of the service unit of the Harrison County chapter of the Salvation Army, told the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Hodge says he thinks the coin wasn’t given by mistake but deliberately donated by someone who doesn’t want to be identified.
Similar stories have been reported in Kansas, Maryland and Tennessee.
The Salvation Army will accept sealed bids for the coin until 4 p.m. Jan. 9 at P.O. Box 295, Cynthiana, Ky. 41031.
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Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
A page from Roald Amundsen’s account of reaching the South Pole in December 1911. The two-volume American edition was published in 1913. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and PBA Galleries.
OSLO, Norway (AP) – Polar adventurers, scientists and the prime minister of Norway gathered at the bottom of the world Wednesday to mark the 100th anniversary of explorer Roald Amundsen becoming the first to reach the South Pole.
Under a crystal blue sky and temperatures of minus 40 F, the group remembered the Norwegian explorer’s achievement on the spot where he placed his flag on Dec. 14, 1911.
“We are here to celebrate one of the greatest feats in human history,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said as he unveiled an ice sculpture of Amundsen.
Several expeditions skied across Antarctica to attend the ceremony, which was broadcast on Norway’s NRK television. Many were delayed and had to be flown the last stretch.
“Our respect for Amundsen’s feat 100 years ago grew as we traveled in his ski tracks, and felt the physical challenges he experienced,” said Jan-Gunnar Winther, director of the Norwegian Polar Institute.
Winther dropped out of an expedition trying to follow Amundsen’s entire route, skiing 800 miles to the South Pole, and was airlifted the last part. Two other members of his group were racing against the clock to reach the South Pole on Wednesday.
Stoltenberg also honored British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who lost the race against Amundsen and arrived at the South Pole more than month later, only to find Amundsen’s tent, a Norwegian flag and a letter from Amundsen. Scott and four companions died on the way out.
“Scott and his men will forever be remembered for their valor and their determination to reach the most inhospitable place on earth,” Stoltenberg said.
Amundsen and his team spent almost two months skiing across the frozen Ross Sea, climbing steep hills to the Antarctic plateau at about 9,800 feet (3,000 meters) and crossing vast ice fields to reach the pole.
During the preparations they placed several depots of food and supplies along parts of the route before the final assault toward the pole. Once there, they spent three days doing scientific measurements before starting the return trip.
Experts agree that Amundsen succeeded because he was better-prepared than Scott. Amundsen used skis and dog sleds, while Scott used motorized sleds that broke down and ponies that couldn’t take the cold. The men ended up pulling their sleds themselves.
Amundsen’s well-marked depots contained over three tons of supplies, while Scott had fewer and badly marked depots the expedition often couldn’t find in the blizzards and cold.
In contrast to the bitter competition between Amundsen and Scott, Stoltenberg pointed out that the South Pole today is marked by international cooperation, regulated by the Antarctic treaty, where peace and stability, environmental activity and scientific research are in focus.
Among the most important fields of research are global warming and its effects on Antarctica.
“The loss of ice in the Antarctic can have grave global consequences. Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott and their men went to extraordinary lengths to accomplish their goals. We must be prepared to do the same,” Stoltenberg said, alluding to the struggle against climate change.
Scientists and support personnel from the U.S. Antarctic Program at the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole took part in the ceremony, and stressed the occasion was a special day not only for Norway.
“It’s also a special day in human history since the real discovery of the last of the great continents started,” said Simon Stephenson, who represented USAP.
The USAP had not wanted a new permanent monument by the scientific base, but the ice sculpture is bound to stay put for a long time since temperatures at the South Pole rarely rise above freezing.
Amundsen disappeared aboard a French Latham 47 flying boat in the Barents Sea on June 18, 1928. The plane had been searching for the gas-filled airship Italia, which crashed when returning from the North Pole during an expedition led by Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile.
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Associated Press writer Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-12-14-11 1125GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A page from Roald Amundsen’s account of reaching the South Pole in December 1911. The two-volume American edition was published in 1913. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and PBA Galleries.
Coral Way, one of many scenic roads in upscale Coral Gables, Florida. Photo by Marc Averette, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – A South Florida man willed his historic house worth $1 million to the U.S. government to help eliminate the country’s growing debt.
The Miami Herald reports that Uncle Sam put the Coral Gables house up for auction Saturday. The winning bid was $1.175 million.
The house belonged to James H. Davidson Jr. who lived there from his teenage years until he died last December at 87. He also left $1 million to the government.
The Herald reports Davidson had nieces and nephews who live in the area.
Barbara Perez was high bidder on the 1929 Spanish style home. Officials say 700 people toured the home last week and 15 registered to participate in the auction.
The government will auction off the contents on the home in January.
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Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Coral Way, one of many scenic roads in Coral Gables, Florida. Photo by Marc Averette, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Pearl S. Buck won the the Pulitzer Prize in 1922 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
PERKASIE, Pa. (AP) – The Pearl S. Buck Foundation has raised $200,000 for renovations to the author’s home by selling off a painting owned by the writer, but a second painting up for auction failed to reach its reserve price.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the Edward Willis Redfield painting Spring was sold Sunday to an unidentified buyer.
The foundation says it had hoped to raise at least $350,000 through the sale of two paintings by the American impressionist but the other work failed to generate as much interest as hoped.
The Inquirer report says the foundation planned the sale to help pay for a $2.9 million restoration project at the Perkasie home once owned by The Good Earth author. The home is now a museum.
The author and Redfield were friends.
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Information from: The Philadelphia Inquirer, http://www.philly.com
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-12-05-11 1430GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Pearl S. Buck won the the Pulitzer Prize in 1922 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Grand Foyer of The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Billionaire Russian investor Vladimir Potanin announced a $5 million gift Thursday to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to mark its 40th anniversary and support its programs.
The gift, a first from Russia to the Washington center, includes additional funding from Potanin’s foundation to renovate an Opera House lounge at the center. It will be renamed the Russian Lounge and redecorated to feature Russian culture when it reopens in late 2012.
Potanin, 50, is a founder of Interros Company and the biggest shareholder in the world’s largest nickel producer, Norilsk Nickel. For years, he has been locked in a dispute with rival Oleg Deripaska over control of the mining giant.
Engaging with the Kennedy Center is a “natural expansion” of his foundation’s philanthropic activities in Russia, Potanin said in a written statement ahead of the gift announcement.
“I believe the Kennedy Center has been playing a very important role in building strong cultural relations between our countries by presenting the greatest Russian artists to the American people,” he said.
Over the years, Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet, Opera and Orchestra have performed in Washington, as well as the Bolshoi Ballet.
Cultural ties date back to the Soviet Union era. For 17 years, Mstislav “Slava” Rostropovich served as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra at the center while in exile from the Soviet Union. He was celebrated in 1990 upon returning to Russia for the first time to conduct. He died in 2007.
Artistic programs from Potanin’s foundation will guide the design of the new lounge to showcase Russian arts and culture. The center said it may include museum collections from the foundation’s archives and a multimedia zone to highlight Russian culture.
A Waterford crystal chandelier that was a gift from Ireland when the center opened in 1971 will remain in the lounge. New Russian artwork and furnishings also will fill the room. It will be designed by Russian designer Yuri Avvakumov with architectural support from Baltimore-based Richter Cornbrooks Gribble, Inc.
The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. The planned national cultural center was named in his honor, following his death.
The Russian Lounge will be the fourth space at the center dedicated to a country or region, along with those devoted to Africa, Israel and China. Gifts from other countries also are part of the center’s design, including 3,700 tons of marble from Italy that lines the building’s interior and exterior.
Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein thanked Potanin for the gift, which will support the center’s programming and operating expenses.
“Russia’s cultural heritage has enriched the Kennedy Center’s programming on countless occasions,” he said, adding that the gift would enable the center to continue to present the best national and international artistry.
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Grand Foyer of The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.
