The first thing you see coming into Andover from Wellsville, Greenwood, or Alfred directions are Andover signs with local wildlife medallions. The signage was installed in 1996 sponsored by the Andover Chamber of Commerce. The original signs were designed and painted by Virginia Haynes.
Over the years these signs have been repainted several times as the Western NY winters aren't particularly kind to the paint job. As they had again begun to start to look a little weather beaten the village of Andover with the support of local volunteers is giving them a much needed facelift. The village provided some limited funds for paint and the volunteers are doing the painting. The volunteers requested to remain nameless, but they're exactly who you'd expect.
The paint was coming along nicely on the sign positioned on the west side of town across from the future home of the Shoemaker Solar Farm and present home of Terry and Anne McCormick. Terry was on hand to give a statement on the volunteer efforts and to again correct me on the spelling of he and Ann's names and I think I got it right this time. Terry felt the volunteers were "doing great."
The volunteers had faced many challenges in this morning's efforts. First there was a large animal stalking around in the brush snorting at them. Terry McCormick speculated that it was a "huge buck," but as he'd not put eyes on it he couldn't say for sure. Perhaps it was the sasquatch from over near Alma Pond or a bear, but really it would be way cooler if it was a bigfoot. As the volunteers were being interviewed someone also tossed a fast food cup out the window in their general direction, which wasn't very nice. Littering hasn't been cool ever and I thought we'd all agreed on that at this point. If it was your cup, Terry took care of it. One volunteer also accidentally wore good clothes and was endeavoring to not get paint on them, which was quite a challenge.
The volunteers had some pretty great ideas for other improvements for the signs around town. One idea was a planter around the base featuring perennial flowers and greenery. The village doesn't really have any space in the budget for that, but if any local folks want to donate to that purpose you can reach out to Cindy Vance (who does the island and old Goodbody corner flowers) or Mel Thorpe as she does the other flower boxes in town and is on the village board of trustees. The volunteers were also brainstorming ideas for more long lasting solutions for the wildlife medallions as that part of the sign tends to show wear the quickest.
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