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THURSDAY-FRIDAY, JUNE 7-8, 2012
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Pop, Pop – The Sweet Sound Of Success Synenkis’ Gourmet-Popcorn Business Booming, Assuring Couple Of A Comfortable Retirement By JIM KEVLIN LITTLE FALLS
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ou may recognize Mike Synenki as that pleasant and helpful man behind the counter at Cooperstown’s Stewart’s. Behind that mild-manJim Kevlin/ OTSEGO.seniority nered exterior is an energized entrepreneur who, Elsie and Mike Synenki pack a display case with with his wife Elsie, is Mom & Pop’s Homestyle popcorn, a sideline to turning what was a hobby their regular jobs that has taken off.
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– “something we did to relax” – into a much-herald, multi-flavored gourmet popcorn business, brandnamed Mom & Pop’s Homestyle. Mike calls what happened “a perfect storm” – not the disastrous “Perfect Storm” of the George Clooney movie, but a perfect storm of positive happenstance, one good thing after another that has propelled the Synenkis’ enterprise forward.
Now, Mike and Elsie see Mom & Pop’s Homestyle as a perfect retirement business once his career at Stewart’s winds up. The first positive happenstance came about this time three years ago. One afternoon at their home on Southern Avenue, which lines the north side of the Mohawk River in this small city, Elsie was eating a batch of air-popped popcorn and Mike was making Please See POPCORN, B4
THE PYRAMID OF HOBOKEN “The 150year-old hops master” Jesse Beardslee (aka his great-greatgrandson Bill) stands in front of his family’s Hoboken hop house with its rare pyramidshaped roof. He holds up a 1950 photo, which includes two small children, Bill and his sister.
First Otsego County History Festival Celebrates Oddly Shaped Hop House four-room hop house, one of only 10 pyramidal-type structures left in New York State. HOBOKEN “It’s never a barn,” Susan Miller of the Cherry Valley Historical Society said of the rare shape. or 150-years-old, hop “It’s a house or a kiln.” master Jesse Beardslee The Beardslee Hop House is looking pretty good. – one of five “contributing Perhaps that’s structures” in the because at the Hop historic district House Festival on Sat– was built on the urday, June 2, he was 161-acre Pleasportrayed by his greatant River Farm in great-grandson, Bill 1868, when Otsego Beardslee. “Hops are County was in one a preservative, and I of the largest hopdo drink a lot of beer,” production regions joked the relatively in the world. The This souveyoung descendant, building, one of nir clock touts who grows his own the Preservation Bill Beardslee’s hops and home-brews. homebrew. League’s “Seven to A day-long celebraSave” in 2006, was tion of the Beardslee Hop House restored by master carpenters – part of a National Historic Bill Turnbull of Edmeston and Ian Austin/ OTSEGO.seniority District farm on this side of the Tom Van Brink of West EdMaster carpenter Bill Turnbull shows off his handiwork (and fellow Unadilla River from New Berlin meston. restorer Tom Van Brink) to wife Barb and daughter Patty Carpenter – was the kick-off event of what Restoration involved “a lot of as they peer into the interior drying room of the pyramid-shaped the Otsego County Historical detective work – all the slats of Beardslee Hops House in the hamlet of Hoboken. The Saturday, Society plans as an annual celthe drying-room floor had rotted June 2, tour was part of the first Otsego County History Day, ebration of county history. away,” said Van Brink. “The which the county Historical Society hopes to make an annual celNearly 400 people toured the Please See HOPS, B8 ebration. By LIBBY CUDMORE
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Khalil Jade and Sky Miritello make up the band SkyandI, with Charlotte Rozanski.
‘Open Mic’ Stars Open For Canary
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kyanI, winners of the Oneonta Theatre’s Open Mic Contest, open for Canary. 8 p.m. Thursday, June 7, Black Oak Tavern, 14 Water St., Oneonta. Info, www.facebook. com/skyaniskyani. FILM DEBUT: “A Cowboy’s Blood,” at the Oneonta Theatre. Q&A to follow screening. Free, 21+. 8 p.m., Thursday, June 7, Oneonta Theatre, 47 Chestnut St., Oneonta. Info, coolbullproductions@aol.com X-COUNTY RIVALS: The Cooperstown Hawkeyes kick off the cross-county rivalry with the Oneonta Outlaws in the first game of the Mayor’s Cup competition. $4 adults, $2 kids, seniors and military. Friday, June 8, 7 p.m, Damaschke Field, Oneonta. YOUNG MUSICIANS: Music by J.S. Bach, Gabriel Fauré, Gustav Holst, Darol Anger and Mikael Marin will be performed at the Little Delaware Youth Ensemble’s 12th season finale at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 10, at Hartwick College’s Anderson Theater. A reception, where the audience can greet the 28 young musicians, follows. BUTTER MAKING: “Udder to Butter” program starts with milking cows and ends with fresh churned butter. $35 NYSHA members, $40 non-members. 8 a.m.- noon. Saturday, June 9, The Farmers’ Museum, 5775 NY 80, Cooperstown. Info, registration, (607) 547-1461. WILDFLOWER HIKE: Hike along Andy’s Trail to identify wildflowers and vegetation.. 1 p.m. Saturday, June 9. Sunset Pavilion, Glimmerglass State Park, Cooperstown. Info, (607) 547-8662, friendsofglimmerglass@ gmail.com. Bicentennial: Cherry Valley celebrates 200 years with a carnival, parade and fireworks. 7 a.m.-6 p.m. in Alden Park, Cherry Valley.
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