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For a year-end project, I thought it would be cool to take some video and pictures of music- and arts-related activities -- respectively -- in the Genesee County schools.

The following video is 20 minutes long and divided into two parts (Youtube limits most users to about 10 minutes per video). It features concert footage from various schools in the county.

PART 1

PART 2

I have to make a quick apology for the poor video quality in a couple of instances. I had to be very careful to protect the identity of the kids (the ones photographed without parental approval), so I made sure none of the students' faces appeared too clearly on camera; plus, to be honest, the first camera I used turned out to be pretty awful when it came to taking video (even while taking decent pictures).

I also feel bad that I couldn't include every group I filmed in the video. My selections were based on a combination of different criteria, including:

•  making sure the best songs were included
•  making sure all of the schools I visited were included
•  arranging the selections in a way that flowed nicely

So there's the music part. Here are some pictures I was able to take of art work done by Elba and Leroy students:

ELBA ELEMENTARY ART

Kindergartener Cody Soules stands in front of his drawing of a tree branch (top right).

First-grader Taylor Augello stands with her rendition of Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" (right above her head).

ELBA HIGH SCHOOL ART

Both of the following pictures were submitted by Dan Carnevale. Sophomore Sydney Gallup (top photo) and two unidentified students stand with their drawings.

LEROY JUNIOR/SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL (art and artists)

Also, see the May 27 announcement on the winners of the Architectural Drawing contest for fourth-graders.

Congratulations all of the students for a job well done!

Railfanning is alive and well here in Batavia. Railfanning, I've since found out, is the verb (to railfan) that goes with the noun (a railfan) that describes the phenomenon of inching up to a set of railroad tracks and holding still as the train bullets past. Railfanning.org has this to say about railfans:

Along the rails of America, stretch from one coast to another, you will see people standing beside the tracks enjoying the splendor of trains. Whether it is a freight train, a passenger train or an excursion train, little parallels the adrenaline rush caused by a train barreling past at 60 mph.

Turns out, there's an especially avid railfan from Cleveland who documents his outings. He's 14 years old and he calls himself: ConrailForever, and it looks like he was in Batavia this past month getting footage of his railfanning escapades. Here's one of the videos we picked up off YouTube this morning:

Any railfans out there in Batavia?

We spotted a series of videos on YouTube courtesy of Kay MacMahon who armed herself with a camera and pretty much got in people's faces at the Ramble Music & Arts Fest last month. There are four videos in her "candid" series. They're a lot of fun at times. You can catch them all at the site. For now, here's a taste. This is the first video in the series.

The Batavian has polished up its YouTube channel a bit. You can check it out anytime to see all of our videos, past and present, leave comments, become a fan or recommend your own ideas for what we should get out and point our camera at. Once we have a few more videos in our vault, look for us to do a 'Best Of' video recap with some of our favorite moments from what we have done so far.

The driver of this 1964 Triumph Spitfire GP takes us around a go-cart track at the Batavia International Motorsports Park.