People

Bill “Otto” Otivich was honored by the Irvington Village Board of Trustees for his 23 years as director of the Irvington Recreation Youth Basketball Program.

Robert Lane was recently named the new Vice President of Development at Phelps Memorial Hospital Center. Lane has over 20 years of experience in fundraising, strategic planning, marketing and management, serving most recently as president of Saint Francis Health Care Foundation in Poughkeepsie. “We are particularly fortunate to have a person with the depth of experience in fundraising that Bob Lane has,” said Phelps President and CEO Keith Safian.

Look, quick. There she is on the platform, waiting for a rush hour Hudson Line train into the city. Did you miss her? Comfortably attired in jeans or sweatpants and tee shirts, Radio City Rockette Lauren Gaul is anonymous to Westchester commuters.

Except for that time someone recognized her after a day on stage “when I ran into Grand Central Station wearing makeup,” she said.

It’s not just any makeup, either. Gaul and her 35 dancing partners wear glam and color to accent the seven or eight costume changes during each show in the renowned Radio City Christmas Spectacular.  more »

A survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor and invasion of Okinawa, Armando V. Galella, who later became Sleepy Hollow’s fire commissioner, is among those to be named to Westchester County’s 2011 Senior Hall of Fame, December 2, in Tarrytown.

Galella, 90, is one of five of the 43 honorees who will receive “special recognition” at a luncheon ceremony at the Westchester Marriott. He has lived most of his life in Sleepy Hollow.  more »

Zachary Rosman, a fourth grade student at Main Street School in Irvington, was honored as one of the brightest young students in the nation as a statewide awards ceremony for gifted children sponsored by The John Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY).
Rosman was recognized for his exceptional performance on a rigorous, above grade-level test given to academically talented second through eighth grade students. He was one of more than 50,000 students worldwide who participated in this year’s talent search.
Because of the difficulty of the tests, only 25 to 30 percent of students who participated earned an invitation to CTY’s awards ceremony, where they were individually honored for their academic performance and potential.

Tom Willmott walks softly and carries a big knife, one he made himself. Willmott is a Sleepy Hollow native, well-known in the area for his big personality, warm smile and knife-making artistry.
“I do this because I love it,” said Willmott. “When things are going bad, I go into the workshop and it’s another world.”
After a 20-year career as a tree surgeon, Willmott taught himself how to make knives. “Once a tree surgeon, always a tree surgeon, but I’m too old to climb now,” he said.  more »

It was after his first kidney transplant in 1981 that Len Andrew first joined the YMCA of Tarrytown.

“I needed to exercise, and thought swimming would be good,” said Andrew, who underwent a second kidney transplant last December. “My children had learned to swim there, but I had never been a member. But when I needed a nearby place, the Y was there for me.”  more »

For someone to write 125 books is an almost unheard of feat, but for a Tarrytown woman, it is a factual accomplishment. “I love to get up in the morning and write,” said Corrine Naden. She has been prolific following that passion.  more »

When workers run up against those stretches where 12-hour days are the norm, the end of the day is a welcome feeling. Tarrytown’s Dr. Michael Koch can count on a two- week period like that every year but leaving those long days behind is actually the hardest part.

“If you could stay longer, you would,” he said of his annual trip to a developing country with an organization called Smile Train.

A cleft lip is a congenital deformity that leaves millions of children around the world disfigured with no access to augmentative surgery. “You can’t smile,” explained Dr. Koch. “That’s why they call it Smile Train.” And bringing life-long changes to as many children as possible is the organization’s mission.  more »

It seems there is a new scholastic trend for the second grade science curriculum: the introduction of crayfish into the second grade classroom.

Having a set of twins, both in second grade, I heard about all the excitement over the new arrivals. Naming the crayfish, feeding the crayfish, marking the crayfish to identify them etc…. Then the jumbo bonus of all – getting mom or dad to sign the permission slip, letting you take part in a lottery to win and yes, take home one of the crayfish …. Stage direction: (emit with little enthusiasm) “yaaay.”  more »

For Alyssa Irizarry, her love affair with the ocean and marine life started at a young age when she would go on vacation with her mom to beaches in South Carolina, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

“I’ve always been interested in marine biology,” said Irizarry, whose mom, Lori, lives in Tarrytown and is a teacher at Mamaroneck High School. “Even now every time I go to a place the first thing I want to visit is the aquarium.”  more »

In October 2010, Clare Coughlin, 26, a graduate student and lifelong resident of Tarrytown, trooped to New York City for a taping of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” After a long, nerve-racking day, her appearance was completed and was set to air May 2. However, it was blacked out in the area due to a special report on the killing of Osama bin Laden.

“It was a real disappointment to wait seven months and then not see it air,” Coughlin said. “I, however, did have a family member tape it for me who lived in Michigan. I got so many calls from friends and relatives throughout the country that saw it.”  more »

Sarah Feigelson, a 2010 graduate of Sleepy Hollow High School and now an Oberlin freshman majoring in politics with a focus on international studies, hosted a fund-raiser at Coffee Labs on May 27. Her aim was to raise money for the non-profit organization she will be working for in Nairobi, Kenya this summer called Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO). Shining Hope’s mission is to raise the status of girls and women in Kiberia, which is the largest slum in Africa, by connecting resources such as community centers, health clinics and libraries with a free school for high-need, high potential girls.  more »

For nearly two years, the Reverend Nora Smith, rector of the Episcopal Church of St. Barnabas in Irvington, has been actively involved in efforts to bring moral pressure to bear on the government of Iran to free the American hikers imprisoned in Tehran since they were arrested near the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009. Now she has joined in a Rolling Hunger Strike, along with the mothers of all three hikers, as well as dozens of others involved in the effort to win the prisoners’ release.  more »

It’s been slightly over one year since Lucas Goldbaum lost his valiant battle against an aggressive brain tumor. While just 14 when he passed, the Sleepy Hollow teen’s spirit lives on in the countless people who he inspired, 200 of whom united at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery May 14 during a celebratory memorial service.  more »

The annual collaborative event bringing together the Rotary Club of the Tarrytowns’ Duck Derby and the YMCA’s Healthy Kids day was once again successful in bolstering both organizations’ charitable undertakings and providing a fun-filled day for the community.  more »

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There’s an art to making science interesting to seventh graders in their first year of serious scientific study. David Benedict Sr., a seventh grade teacher at Sleepy Hollow Middle School, has been refining that art for 49 years.

At 75, Mr. Benedict is the longest tenured teacher in the school district, and legendary for his passion for teaching science and organizational skills to 12-year-olds. His principal, Elizabeth Lopez, calls him “the guiding light of the middle school – the legend of Sleepy Hollow.”  more »

When he was just a tot of seven years, Anniello Ricchiuti started playing soccer. Now, almost 40 years later his passion for the game is as strong as ever. For Ricchiuti, or “Niel,” as many of his friends call him, that passion has served him well through both difficult periods and exhilarating times.

Whether he is playing soccer, running his auto repair business or tending to his heath, Ricchiuti has never lacked the perseverance to finish a task, whatever the odds. His participation in a 34 hour straight soccer game to break a 30 hour Guinness World Record in 2008 was proof of his resolve. It was an event he had doggedly pursued and completed despite a health concern.  more »

Ninety-seven years old, “still going strong, and already famous,” Marjorie Wooden has tales to tell, and a vibrant community of friends and supporters to share them with. Long-retired – but not in spirit – Wooden was wardrobe mistress to The Supremes in their heyday, and knows more about show-biz glamour than most.  more »

The definition of a philanthropist is “one whose efforts or inclinations increase the well-being of humankind,” but few have taken those words as literally as Lisina Hoch, whose life-long efforts have embraced many countries, many cultures, and many fields of endeavor.

In November, the astonishing range of her activities was recognized at a ceremony at Tappan Hill, where she received the Association of Development Officers (ADO*) award as Philanthropist of the Year.  more »

Lifelong Tarrytown residents John Kelly and Anthony Ruggiero were a lot alike, according to those who knew them well.

Jon Flores remembered Ruggiero as “the definitive give you the shirt off his back kind of guy.”

Kelly was recalled fondly by Annette Stiloski as a man who would give “anything you need.”

As the shock of the September 6 Labor Day deaths of Kelly and Ruggiero, who both died in a Tarrytown manhole, were not far from the minds of those who knew them well, the two volunteer firefighters were remembered for their friendship and community service.  more »

Irvington Police Officer Luigi Osso was recently released from the hospital where he has stayed since sustaining serious injuries from a high speed car chase in April.

Meanwhile, Brian Sabia, the 16-year-old teen from Connecticut who struck Osso’s patrol car nearly killing him, was offered a plea deal from Westchester County Judge James Hubert. Should Sabia accept the deal instead of going to trial, he will serve seven years in state prison.

Osso, 31, sustained head trauma and a shattered pelvis among other injures. As a result, he has received countless surgeries to date.  more »

Creating a better understanding and tolerance of Islam among the Christian and Jewish faiths is an undertaking that has become a mission for Dr. Mahjabeen Hassan, a reconstructive plastic surgeon at Phelps Memorial Hospital.

That task led her to help found the Center for Jewish Christian Muslim Understanding, Inc., a year following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

“When 9/11 happened, it devastated me completely ,” she said. “I could not handle it, the feeling that the country I had come to love so much had been injured so badly.”  more »

Andrew Tait Connors and Erica Kristen Quiroz of Sleepy Hollow, New York, were married Friday afternoon, September 17, at the St. Teresa of Avila Roman Catholic Church, Sleepy Hollow. The Rev. Gilberto Angel celebrated the matrimonial mass. An evening reception was held at Lyndhurst Castle, Tarrytown.  more »

The Irvington Board of Trustees voted unanimously July 19 to name the village’s trailways system after former longtime Irvington High School track and cross country coach Peter Oley.

Oley, a 1952 North Tarrytown High School graduate who died April 11, 2009 at the age of 75, walked the area near the village reservoir for decades laying out trails and often met with Park and Recreation Department employees about ways to maintain and improve the trails.  more »

The Irvington High School graduating Class of 1977 was a particularly close-knit group, and now, 33 years later, one classmate’s illness has confirmed how secure that kinship has remained. That classmate is Alec Brough, who struggles each day with the dreadful degenerative effects of Huntington’s Disease. As Derek Kolleeny reflected, “Because Irvington is such an amazing place, it fostered an incredibly supportive and loving team spirit among all of us who have attended its wonderful schools. Years later, this Class of ’77 is still so tightly knit that we can come together to support a deeply loved member of our class in need.”  more »

The awards were presented to two Sleepy Hollow High school sophomores, Emily Eagan and Amelia Bonvento at a late May ceremony at the Warner Library. The Library, the Historical Society of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown and the School District collaborate in sponsoring the annual contest whose entries are judged by the Library, Historical Society and the Hudson Valley Writers' Center.

Emily wrote about Cornelia Beekman, while Amelia's paper was about Minna Irving. The winners were introduced by Mary Ann Marshall of the Library and Sara Mascia of the Historical Society and given their $250 awards by Mayor Drew Fixell of Tarrytown and Ken Wray of Sleepy Hollow. Click image to see video.

While Irvington Police Officer Luigi Osso remains hospitalized in critical condition from serious injuries sustained from a high speed car chase in April, community members have banded together to raise funds and provide moral support for his family.

Over the course of the last month, various initiatives were undertaken, including the Irvington Fire Department holding a “boot” drive and the Irvington PBA selling 250 bracelets and over 150 magnets.  more »

For most of his stellar 16-year career with the New York Yankees, Bernie Williams held the coveted center field position on the hallowed grounds in the Bronx, winning four consecutive Gold Glove awards and four World Series championships.

The five-time All-Star and .297 career switch hitter, who won an American League batting title in 1998, was an integral part of the Yankees consistent winning ways and a clutch post season performer. In fact, up until 2007, Williams held the major league record for most post season home runs with 22.  more »