Pictured is the “Miracle in the sky” photo taken during Holy Week.

Editor’s Note: Today, the OBSERVER continues its look back at the top stories of 2020 and the way they will shape the coming year. Editor’s Note: Today, 20 for 2020 looks at stories about area residents that were among the most-read in the newspaper this year.

Chautauqua County is home to 134,000 or so people, depending on the time of year — and just about every one of them has an interesting story to tell.

Here are five of our favorites from the past 12 months.

FREDONIA MAN PAYS OFF SCHOOL LUNCH DEBT

Pravin Patel of Fredonia made some Fredonia parents very happy last February.

In honor of his granddaughter Alina Patel-Chhabria’s first birthday, Patel decided to pay all of the outstanding cafeteria lunch balances for the school district as of Dec. 31, 2019. The donation totaled just over $2,000. The donation benefitted over 140 students and families who had outstanding lunch balances.

“I thank you for the district. Some of these lunch balances are from families who are not able to afford them,” said board President Brian Aldrich. “I know that when students aren’t hungry, they learn better. And that’s a benefit to our whole school system.”

See FAVORITES, Page A5

MIRACLE IN THE SKY CAUGHT DURING HOLY WEEK

Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Readers were drawn to just such a photo in the OBSERVER in April as the region prepared to celebrate Easter.

“A beautiful and subtle reminder that this is Holy Week!” wrote Rosann Cole this week in submitting this photo. “We were blessed with this view in our back yard of our home on Chestnut Road in the town of Pomfret, at dinner time last evening, April 6, about 6:30 p.m. The rainbow surrounding the sun was much more colorful live in the sky than in our pictures. For information about the Miracle of the Sun, look up Our Lady of Fatima.”

LOCAL GRAD FINISHES MED SCHOOL, MOVES ON TO RESIDENCY

Kaitlyn Crossan was a three-sport athlete at Dunkirk High School and the class of 2011 valedictorian.

She earned the Younghans-Mirabell Scholarship to the State University of New York at Fredonia where she studied biology. She was a Chancellor’s award winner in their class of 2015 and graduated Suma Cum Laude with a BS in biology. On May 31, she graduated from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) as a physician.

“My years at Fredonia were really good,” Crossan told the OBSERVER. “I did a lot in the time I was there, including research and playing softball.”

One of the research projects she did was studying forested wetlands and the effects of the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive species. She also worked in pediatrics at Strong Memorial Hospital through the University of Rochester Medical School, did paid internships with Dr. Suchanick, Dr. Persaud and Dr. Fitzgerald as well as held two part-time jobs.

“It was a lot of work, but I wouldn’t trade any of my experiences for the world,” Crossan said.

Schooling there was another four years during which she did a two week mission trip to Peru to aid in vaccinations and illness.

“That was a real wake up,” Crossan stated. “I really discovered what true poverty was going there as opposed to what we have here in the U.S.”

WORKING PLUMBER TURNS 90

As a young man, Westfield resident Charlie Chapman probably never dreamed that in his 80s, he’d need to show his driver’s license to prove his age.

But according to his wife, Sheila, it’s not until Charlie shows his license that people actually believe he’s older than 70. In fact, Westfield’s most trusted and longest-working heating and plumbing specialist is turning 90 years old today.

“I don’t know if I’ll actually retire,” he told the OBSERVER. “But I’ll probably slow down a little.”

That’s right: Since Charlie’s return from the Korean War, he has worked steadily as a self-employed plumber in the Portland-Westfield area. In that time, Charlie has never advertised his services; rather, good word of mouth has kept him busy for over 60 years.

According to Shawn Hennessey, manager of Irr Supply Center in Fredonia, Charlie is the plumbing supply store’s oldest customer “by far.”

“One story that stands out to me is the day that I decided I was going to try to race him out of our front area,” Hennessey told the OBSERVER. “We started walking, picking up speed. Then we looked at each other and started gaining speed, and before we knew it, we were racing each other! He beat me to that gate.”

Busy, indeed! Sheila told the OBSERVER that her husband still gets calls daily for various plumbing and heating jobs, along with other repair jobs. In fact, his work is how the two met and began their whirlwind romance that culminated in marriage after just three weeks of dating.

In 2017, Sheila, a retired math teacher from Fredonia High School, needed a repair on her hot water tank, and Charlie was recommended by her pastor. Then a year later, she called Charlie again for a furnace igniter problem and didn’t expect him to remember her. “He did!” Sheila recalled. “It was Easter Sunday evening, and I felt just terrible about calling him that night. He said he’d be over in the morning to fix it.”

When Charlie and his helper arrived, Sheila was impressed by his cheerfulness and sense of humor. “He just looked at me and said, ‘Dang, you’re a good lookin’ woman!’ I couldn’t believe he just came right out and said that,” she laughed. “I asked him if he was single and he said, ‘I sure am!'”

In addition to Charlie’s heating and plumbing work, he is in the process of remodeling the couple’s home in Westfield. He recently remodeled the downstairs bathroom where he installed a five-feet walk-in shower, added an upstairs bathroom, remodeled the family room into a bedroom, recarpeted the living room and stairs, and installed new flooring in the kitchen.

Charlie is often asked what his secret is to living and working with such gusto.

“I love what I do and it helps people out,” he told the OBSERVER. “I think I’d die if I wasn’t busy working and helping people.”

‘PILLAR IN THE COMMUNITY’

DAVID PRINCE REMEMBERED AS DEDICATED PUBLIC SERVANT

David A. Prince dedicated his life to serving the public.

“David was a pillar in the community, a one-of-a-kind man,” said Joe Granata, a friend of Prince’s and a fellow veteran. “He spent his life serving, whether it be for the military or the village.”

Prince passed away on July 2 at the age of 77 following a five-year battle with cancer.

Before Prince started his own venture in life, he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1964, at a young age of 22. He served as a military policeman, stationed at Fort Hood in Texas before his first assignment, which was a bodyguard to Martin Luther King and marchers during the 1965 march for civil rights. Soon after that assignment, he was deployed to Vietnam for a year to escort and protect Gen. William Westmoreland and Vice President Hubert Humphrey during their visits.

Dan Pacos, Pomfret town supervisor, reminisced on the many roles he saw Prince take on.

“I’ve known him for over 30 years, and during that time, I knew him as a police officer, a judge, a wedding officiant, but most of all, I knew him as a fellow resident,” Pacos said. “He was always a great guy — I can’t think of anybody who didn’t like him.”

In 1967, just a year after returning from the service, Prince became a member of the Sheridan Police Department, serving as police chief on nights and weekends for 23 years. In 1970, Prince was appointed as a special deputy sheriff for Chautauqua County by Sheriff John Bentley.

Prince was a volunteer firefighter with the D.R. Barker Hose Co. since 1962 and the Sheridan Fire Department when he lived there. Through all of this, Prince had a long-time career with the Dunkirk and Fredonia Telephone Company where he worked for 35 years.

Dedicating 30 years of his life serving as a judge, Prince was elected in 1990 to serve the town of Pomfret, where he held the position until 2015. In 1997, Prince was elected to serve as the village of Fredonia’s justice, a position he held up until three days before his death.

“One time I asked him why he continued to be the judge, even when he was going through chemotherapy and all his other treatments,” Granata said. “He told me that he loved the community so much and he wanted to give back and do things for the people that depended on him.”

Prince’s wife, Susan, said “David would’ve died in office if I didn’t make him resign. He was so committed to the community and changing lives.

If he could turn a life around for the better, he did. We had people come up to us, telling us how David had touched their lives in some way.”

“I’m blessed to have had these last years with David,” she continued. “The first four years of his diagnosis were OK, but during the past year things started to go downhill. It was a wonderful last five years with him, reconnecting with him.”