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Crowds come out for West Islip Country Fair A sunny day brought out the crowds for the annual West Islip Country Fair with lots of craft vendors and plenty of good food. Staff members from the West Islip Public Library were lending a hand selling books, toys and compact discs. Half of the money raised from the book sale was donated to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, which raised six hundred dollars, according to Library Director Andrew Hamm. The compact discs were obtained as a result of a settlement from a class action lawsuit against the recording industry Hamm said. The money raised from the compact discs sale will go back towards purchasing more compact discs for the library, according to Hamm. The sounds of Dan Fogelberg, The Moody Blues and Bach were from the West Islip String Ensemble which has been together since June 2004, according to Ed Lambese one of the group members. Sam Silverfarb, Rikki Di Leo, Charlene Faro and Anita Bravin were performing as well. Lambese notes, "it’s hard to find an audience (for classical music) because the kids want to hear popular music". However, Symphony President Nancy Donohue says hopefully "if we touch one student (through our performances) then we’ve accomplished our mission". The Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1979 inspired by Axel Norden, who was the Chairman of Music and Performing Arts for West Islip Schools. Murry Kahn now conducts the orchestra after several years as guest conductor. A group of former racing greyhounds were up for adoption at the Long Island Grey Hound Transfer booth. The group was founded ten years ago after Julia Ferrara and her neighbors watched a National Geographic special about the dog’s plight and decided to do something about it. Over nine hundred dogs have been rescued during the group’s tenure. The current group of hounds up for adoption were rescued from the Seabright Race Track in New Hampshire according to Pat Barney. She says that "(the dogs) are not used to anything but racing. They don’t even know what they look like in the mirror". In fact Barney says that up to twenty-two hours of a racing grey hounds’ day is spent on the track. Among the seventeen breeds of grey hounds up for adoption include tuxedos, noted for their white patch of fur and Bryndles. Before you can adopt a dog, Barney says that the dogs get a thorough health check from a veterinarian.
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