PHOTO: Wes St. Onge, Town of Maryland, warms up on the steps of the old schoolhouse before the start of the Middlefield Fiddlers School.

180 JOBS? Renewable Energy Development Inc. (REDI), a new company, has won a $750,000 federal Small Cities Grant to manufacture “ultracapacitors” in a new plant in Oneonta. The $3.3 million undertaking will employ 124 people at the outset, increasing to 180 over five years.

WORLD CAPITAL: Cooperstown Dreams Park owner Lou Presutti III has agreed in concept to leasing 120 acres in Louisville’s McNeely Park for a $20 million, 25-field sports complex. He plans to expand that to 75 fields and make Nation Dreams Park “the world’s capital of youth baseball,” according to the Courier-Journal.

ON STATE PANEL: Penney Gentile of Cooperstown has been named to the state panel, chaired by the DMV and education commissioners, to develop a 21st Century driver’s-ed curriculum for New York State. The legislation grew out of the death of her son, Chris, a CCS senior, in an accident in 2007.

PLAY CLOSED: Due to an illness of its technical director, The Leatherstocking Theatre Company has cancelled “Paris Was Yesterday,” its second offering of the summer season, which had been scheduled to open Thursday, Aug. 7.

HOUSE TOUR: Spook Hill, Chartwell House and the Beekman Mansion are among seven homes on the 10th Sharon Springs Historic House Tour, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9. Tickets are $10 and available the day of at the Sharon Museum, Main Street.

BE A STAR: The Foothills Performing Arts Center is holding auditions for a stage adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” to be performed in early October. For appointments, call Sam Goodyear between 9 a.m. and noon at 431-2080, extension 202.

Labels: Beekman Manion, Chartwell House, Cooperstown and Around, Cooperstown Dreams Park, Foothills PAC, Front Page, Leatherstocking Theatre, Lou Presutti, Penney Gentile, REDI, Wes St. Onge