Oswego Daily News

Over the weekend, the Port City celebrated what the area is best known for – Winter. 2014 marked the ninth annual Warm Up Oswego festival. The YMCA adopted the festival in 2006 in order to raise money to renovate the Armory and to create more programs. Temperatures lingered in the teens Saturday and the windchill made it even colder. But hundreds of people braved the weather in and around the Oswego YMCA Armory. Throughout the afternoon, hundreds of people wandered around the Armory to check out the vendors’ wares and watch the various demonstrations and performances.

Audiences will have the opportunity to hear two of Canada’s foremost historians, author Dianne Graves and her husband, military historian Donald E. Graves, speak about civilian life during the War of 1812 and the British assault of Fort Erie at the Oswego War of 1812 Symposium April 5. The fourth annual symposium takes place April 4, 5 and 6 at the Lake Ontario Event and Conference Center, 26 E. First St., Oswego.

Lisa Glidden, a member of the political science faculty at SUNY Oswego and an expert in Cuban politics, will present “Market Reform, Poverty and the Effects on Cuban Civil Society” from 12:45 to 2 p.m. Feb. 20 in Room 114 of the Campus Center. Her respondent will be David Andrews of the economics faculty.

The symposium runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 5 and from 9 a.m. to noon on Sunday, April 6. The symposium opens with a student presentation competition, a meet-and-greet social with cash bar, and early registration from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, April 4. Twelve speakers will discuss a variety of War of 1812 topics.

SUNY Oswego’s Ke-Nekt Chamber Music Series will feature the work of Samuel Barber, one of the 20th century’s most celebrated American composers, in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19, in Sheldon Hall ballroom.

For more than 100 years it has been the Girl Scouts’ mission to build girls of courage, confidence, and character who will make the world a better place and local Cadette Troop 101 is rising to that ideal. Most of the girls in Troop 101 have been together in scouting since they were kindergarteners. Now in sixth, seventh and eighth grades, they are fast friends and a tight-knit team.

Event officials have been working non-stop to make sure the ninth annual Warm Up Oswego Festival is a success for the community. The festival will kick off Friday, at 4 p.m. at Alex’s on the Water on the Riverwalk East – Alex’s will open its doors with a ribbon cutting and a bonfire in the firepit.

Teresa Woolson’s son drowned in Lake Ontario on Aug. 9, 2012, while swimming with a group of friends. His friends told her and the police that he’d purchased a synthetic drug, “Avalanche,” from the Xtreme Underground and used it before he went into the water. She and her family are leading the charge to keep these “designer drugs,” mostly aimed at young people, off the streets.

January 2014’s temperature was down. But, even though the snowfall was above average, the total precipitation was below average overall. The average temperature last month was 2.8 degrees below normal. Total snowfall was 2.8 inches above average, but it was very dry. So the overall precipitation was 1.03 inches below average.