Photo by Graham Corrigan
On a sunny fall day that felt more like summer, the Pine Plains Modified football team faced off against Rondout Valley last Wednesday, Sept. 30.
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Dutchess County Sheriff's Report — Thursday, October 8, 2026
Millerton News
Oct 06, 2026
Dutchess County Sheriff's Report — Thursday, October 8
Archive photo
Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office Harlem Valley area activity report Sept. 24 to Sept. 30
Sept. 27 — Deputies responded to 1475 Route 22 in the Town of Dover to investigate a shoplifting complaint. Investigation resulted in the arrest of Franklyn Burgos, age 51, for petit larceny. Burgos to appear in the Town of Dover Court at a later date.
Sept. 29 — Deputies arrested Kelly M. Durkin, age 51, who was the subject of a bench warrant issued for her arrest by the Town of Pawling Court. Durkin to appear in court at a later date.
Sept. 30 — Deputies arrested Jazmin Coleman, age 33, who was the subject of a bench warrant issued for her arrest by the Town of Dover Court. Subject released with an appearance ticket to appear in the Town of Dover Court.
PLEASE NOTE: All subjects arrested and charged are alleged to have committed the crime and are presumed innocent until proven guilty and are to appear in local courts later.
If you have any information relative to the aforementioned criminal cases, or any other suspected criminal activity please contact the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office tip line at 845-605-CLUE (2583) or email dcsotips@gmail.com. All information will be kept confidential.
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Clarification
Millerton News
Oct 06, 2026
An article in the Sept. 1 issue about a celebration of Sam Busselle’s life omitted the names of three founding members of what became the North East Community Center. Besides Sam Busselle and Wendy Curtis, others who were founding members were Bob Riemer, Mike Rindsberg and Bob Quinlan.
Cemetery tours in Pine Plains offer a trip through time
Graham Corrigan
Oct 06, 2026
PINE PLAINS — Tours of Evergreen Cemetery will return to Pine Plains Oct. 23 and 24. Jointly organized by the Little Nine Partners Historical Society and the Pine Plains Library, the tours feature individuals portraying deceased inhabitants of the cemetery.
As guests wind their way through the gravestones, they’ll be greeted by all sorts of characters from Pine Plains’ past. They’ll meet a woman who once ran the Barton Boarding House, one of the grand Victorian hotels that lined Millerton’s Main Street. The Barton was destroyed in the great fire of 1891.
There’s also a visit from the founder of the Harris Scythe Works, an early member of the Hammertown iron industry. In the late 1700s, Joseph Harris learned the trade of scythe-making from a man he enslaved. His nephew, John Harris, followed suit, and opened his own scythe works in 1783.
As ore and steel flowed through the region, the family business flourished. At its peak in 1850, Harris Scythe Works was producing 18,000 scythes a year, according to the Little Nine Partners Historical Society.
Revolutionary War soldiers, ministers and wayward youths will also appear in this year’s tours, telling their stories through conversation, soliloquy and song.
Evergreen Cemetery dates to the early 1800s and holds the graves of many of the area’s esteemed and intriguing residents. Historical Society President Dyan Wapnick said Pine Plains residents often suggest local ancestors as subjects for the tours. She also spends time scouring FindAGrave.com for biographical information about those buried there.
“People are adding to it all the time,” Wapnick said. “It’s one of my main sources for biographical information and photos.”
This will be the ninth consecutive year the historical society has organized the cemetery tours. Wapnick credits two of her Pine Plains neighbors, Robert Lyons and Lenora Champagne, with reviving the cemetery tours after the previous organizers disbanded. The task of finding subjects, writing scripts, and directing the tours is largely split between the three of them. Stissing Theatre Guild contributes costuming help. “It’s very much a community event,” Wapnick said. “Our goal is to bring the history of Pine Plains to the community in a fun way.”
Groups will depart every half hour, starting at 6 p.m. Adult tickets are $20, and just $10 for seniors and students. Kids under 5 are free. They’re available for purchase online. The tour begins at 19 Maple St., next door to The Pines.
And while the tour isn’t designed to be scary, the event organizers note that “being in an old cemetery at night could be scary for some people. Also, Evergreen Cemetery has resident buzzards who fly home here to roost every evening, which could be either unsettling or cool depending on your point of view.”
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Amenia Town Board to name a planning consultant
Leila Hawken
Oct 06, 2026
AMENIA — Town Board members are seeking a planning consultant to assist in drafting regulations for accessory dwelling units.
Acting on a request by the Housing Board, the Town Board voted to begin the process of collecting proposals from professional town planners with an interest in taking on the assignment.
The action was approved by unanimous vote of the town board at its regular meeting on Thursday, Oct. 1.
An accessory dwelling unit, commonly known as an ADU, is a separate residence in addition to an existing home. Neighboring towns such as the Town of North East have adopted local laws that allow homeowners to build ADUs to promote housing development.
The planning consultant will assist Town Attorney Ian Lindars in creating a new local law that will define the requirements under which homeowners may create an ADU on their property. The consultant will also review existing zoning codes to provide clarification, and in particular, differentiate between an accessory apartment and an ADU. To further clarify the current zoning code, the consultant will be asked to coordinate current workforce housing provisions with the new ADU provisions as well as to assist Lindars with creating a local law to grant a tax exemption for properly established ADUs.
Proposals will be accepted until Thursday, Oct. 29.
2027 Town Budget process
With the 2027 local budget proposal process beginning soon, the Town Board has drafted a local law to allow for the possibility that the annual tax cap may need to be exceeded to increase tax revenues to meet expenses for the coming year.
The Town Board scheduled a required public hearing on the tax cap, scheduling it for Thursday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m.
Property tax income may be less than is needed to meet expenses of providing for town services in view of expected increasing annual costs for necessities including insurance, supplies and fuel. The tax cap would limit the town to a 2% increase or an increase no more than the rate of inflation, noted Town Supervisor Rosanna Hamm.
“We can pass the local law, but it doesn’t mean we will exceed the tax cap,” Hamm explained, as the budget process is in the early stages.
Fountain Square Renovations—site survey
As recommended by Lindars, an effort is proceeding to gather input from those “stakeholders” who would have an interest in the project to renovate Fountain Square.
“It doesn’t hurt to reach out earlier rather than later,” said councilwoman Vicki Doyle, suggesting contacting the Enhancement Committee, the Veterans of Foreign Wars officials, the Bank of Millbrook, and any other organizations who have an interest in the central public area and its uses.
Doyle said input from those entities could bring valuable ideas.
Town Service Opportunities
Reminding residents of the rewards of stepping up and volunteering for community service, councilman Walter Dietrich urged residents to consider serving. Information on available board and committee vacancies can be found on the town website.
“A thriving town requires active participation from its citizens,” Dietrich said.
A related concern voiced by Dietrich was attendance at regularly scheduled meetings of the various town boards and committees. Both attendance and training requirements are codified within town regulations, Dietrich said. He asked that all chairpersons of local boards and committees review the attendance records of their members and comply with regulations by reporting to the Town Board before Dec. 1 any excessive absence or failure to complete training.
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Ritchie's Deli to celebrate 20 years in Amenia
Graham Corrigan
Oct 06, 2026
AMENIA — For 20 years, the unique sandwiches at Ritchie’s Deli have kept Amenia fed. That’s cause for celebration — and on Oct. 25, they’ll do just that.
The deli will offer breakfast and lunch specials, a cannoli bar, and host vendors with a photo booth and mocktails in the plaza from 10 a.m. to 4 pm. Opal Revival, the neighboring women’s apparel store, will also offer sales for the occasion, and a cozy fire for warmth and ambience.
Ritchie’s owner Lucy Abad has run the deli, located at 8 Old North Road off of Route 44, since taking over for her parents in 2018. The family started Ritchie’s in 2006. “We realized immediately that the area had a great community,” Abad said. “Even if you don’t know someone, people will just sit with each other and start talking to get to know one another. Some people call it ‘Cheers’ in here,” referring to the iconic TV show set in a neighborhood Boston bar.
When Abad became the proprietor in 2018, she kept the menu intact. The deli is best known for its Cowboy sandwich — roast beef and mozzarella with bacon and barbecue sauce. It was even mentioned in a New York Times article on Amenia in 2025.
What she did instead was expand the deli’s catering business. Over the past eight years, Ritchie’s has become a go-to for private parties, weddings, and any other area event that needs bellies filled. “I don’t really do a lot of advertising,” said Abad, “so a lot of it is really word of mouth.”
After 20 years, Ritchie’s impact in the community can be measured in more than dollars and cents. “It’s amazing now to see these kids that I saw grow up,” she continued. “They’re getting married, starting careers, and now they’re coming back in with their own babies. It’s an honor, to be honest.”
Ritchie’s deli is located on 8 Old North Road in Amenia. The sandwich shop is open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday, and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. Sunday’s hours are 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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Oresta O. Szeparowycz
Millerton News
Oct 06, 2026
PINE PLAINS — Oresta O. Szeparowycz was born Nov. 17, 1938, in Lviv, Ukraine, and died on Aug. 26, 2026, in Dover Plains, New York, after a long, remarkable life. A talented artist, she passed away in her sleep, from cancer, just days before the opening of her inaugural sculpture exhibit in Millerton. She was 87.
The daughter of the late Daria and Omelian Szeparowycz, her birth name was Orysia but she changed it to Oresta in the early 1950s, soon after arriving in New York City from a displaced persons camp in Germany. Both names stem from the ancient Greek for “of the mountains.”
She graduated from Washington Irving High School in Manhattan and was awarded a full scholarship to the Pratt Institute. Although initially studying architecture, she fell in love with painting and ultimately earned a degree in fine arts. She was also invited to attend the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, in Maine.
In 1963, during the height of the Cold War, the USIA (United States Information Agency) hired her as a guide and interpreter for the first American graphic arts exhibition and tour of the Soviet Union. Highlights were the standing-room-only lectures given in Moscow by Norman Rockwell, which Oresta, fluent in Russian, translated. By the early 1970s, married to an aspiring actor and living in Brooklyn, she was teaching art at the Chapin School and employed part-time by the city’s department of cultural affairs.
Involved in the community activism of the day, Oresta helped establish an early, pioneering arts center in Park Slope. However, neither marriage nor regular employment agreed with her, and she escaped to the Greek islands, settling in a rustic shepherd’s hut on Crete, where she spent two years creating stone sculptures inspired by its mountains and extraordinary light.
In 1986, her first solo painting exhibition was held at the Ukrainian Institute of America on East 79th Street, and filled with vibrant works that reflected the lush, Rousseau-like beauty of her subsequent travels to the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and Southeast Asia.
Her successful freelance career encompassed window displays for Bergdorf Goodman and numerous paintings for private celebrity clients, including actor Yvette Mimieux and television reporter Gabe Pressman. She was represented by two major galleries in Beverly Hills at that point, leading to design commissions from the House of Saud and portraits for the Thai royal family. Returning to New York in the 1990s, she and a partner purchased property on the Ten Mile River where, working outdoors, Oresta contracted a rare combination of tick-borne illnesses that inspired a 60-page art-book collage aptly titled “Ticked Off.”
By then living in Dover Plains, Oresta continued creating the kind of mystical stone sculptures, or petras, she’d first been inspired to make in Crete, only now with shale gathered from Dutchess County hilltops.
“I used my art as a healing force and source of empowerment,” she once wrote in an artist’s statement. “Art was and is my lifeboat. It takes me to unimaginable destinations where I can search for the light within myself and in my work.”
She is survived by her nephew, Mark Sheparovich of Redwood City, California, and by many beloved friends. Her memorial service will take place at 11 a.m. this Saturday, Oct. 10, at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 40 Leedsville Road, Amenia Union, N.Y.
Instead of flowers, donations are welcome at both the Food of Life food pantry https://www.stthomasamenia.com/ways-to-give
and Episcopal Relief and Development - Ukraine Crisis https://www.episcopalrelief.org/press-releases/supporting-humanitarian-response-to-the-crisis-in-ukraine/
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