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On Tuesday, May 17, the Byram Senior Citizen Club hosted their annual Senior of the Year Luncheon at the Farmstead Golf and Country Club (88 Lawrence Road, Lafayette). Two Byram seniors, Ellen Mitro and Thomas Wray, were awarded a plaque and recognized by their peers and members of the town.

Ellen Mitro

Ellen was born and raised in Clifton, NJ, and graduated from nursing school in 1964. She married her husband John in 1966 and in 1968 they moved to Byram Township. There they raised four children while Ellen continued her job as a registered nurse in Hackettstown Hospital. They became members of St. Michael’s R.C. Church where Ellen began volunteering. She was a “room mom” in the school for many years, taught CCD classes and enjoyed being a leader for the brownie and girl scout troops. In addition, Ellen conducted seminars on drug prevention for high school students.

After retiring in 2012, Ellen joined the Byram Senior Citizens’ Club, continuing her volunteer spirit. She assisted on the Kitchen Committee and served for six years as recording secretary. Ellen is currently the first vice president and is on the Entertainment Committee. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, crocheting, doing puzzles, and keeping up with her nine grandchildren’s activities.

“Ellen’s accomplishments and generous spirit to do whatever needs to be done are reasons why The Byram Senior Citizens’ Club takes pride in presenting Ellen Mitro with its Senior of the Year Award for 2022,” the organizers said.

Thomas Wray

Tom was born and raised in Queens, NY. He served in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper and was sent to Vietnam from 1966 to 1967. Tom and his wife became summer residents of Cranberry Lake, Byram Township, in 1971 and joined the Cranberry Lake Community Club (CLCC). After 35 years as a carpenter and installer for commercial overhead garage doors, he retired and with his wife became a full-time resident of Cranberry Lake in 2004.

Tom volunteered in different capacities for the CLCC, including using his boat to pull skiers for the Ski Team. In addition, he helped with the docks and different projects around the lake and was honored as Volunteer of the Year in 2011. In 2007, he and his wife, Sandra, joined the Byram Senior Citizens’ Club and since then has always helped wherever necessary, mostly behind the scenes.

As some members put it, “Tom has always been one of the first to step up to do the work and the last to leave doing things that no one else wants to do.”

“Tom’s generous spirit and tireless efforts helping wherever needed are reasons why the Byram Senior Citizens’ Club takes pride in presenting Thomas Wray with its Senior of the Year Award for 2022,” the organizers said.

BYRAM — Sand shifts under wooden wheels as a stagecoach glides toward the Golden Nugget Saloon.

Onlookers know a band of thieves will soon stick up the coach’s passengers near the general store. Still, the gathered crowd suspends disbelief to soak up a slice of the Old West that survives “by the grace of God” in North Jersey, said Mary Benson, manager of Wild West City.

“We’ve had a lot of trials and tribulations over the years, but we're very blessed with people who are happy to be here,” Benson said.

Opened in the spring of 1957, Wild West City is a family-owned, Western-themed park created by the American Foundation for the Preservation of the Old West.

The authentically sandy main street about 2,000 feet from Route 206 is lined with scale replicas of buildings from famed Western towns such as Dodge City, Kansas, and Tombstone, Arizona. Among them is C.S. Fly's Photography Gallery, where the gun fight at the O.K. Corral is reenacted daily at 3:45 p.m. from mid-June to Labor Day.

Story continues below gallery

Cowboy justice

Live-action shows, namely faux gunfights based on legends of the American West, are the park’s steady stream of daily entertainment. A palpable spirit of frontier justice is imbued in each of more than 20 daily shows.

The marshal and his young deputies invariably catch the bad guys. Every 15 minutes, good triumphs over evil on horseback.

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“This place has heart,” said employee Jon Butz-Fiscina. “It takes you to another place and time, but it appeals to the family because it’s grounded in family values and morals. I think that’s a good bedrock.”

The park operated under private ownership for its first five years before being leased by the local government in 1962. A subsequent closure led a consortium to purchase the site in fall 1963. Among the group were Michael and Mary Stabile of Nutley. The family bought out its partners in 1966 and retains ownership of the park today.

The sense of family stretches to the employees, said Frank Benson, Mary Benson’s son. At 23, the park performer said he is aware of the rarity of the park and his job.

“You say you are a cowboy and people look at you with four eyes,” he said.

Frontier living

On a recent Wednesday, Butz-Fiscina manned the Studebaker chuck wagon and opined about frontier cuisine. A licensed commercial pilot, he has also served as the city's train driver, blacksmith, schoolhouse headmaster and mountain man.

The roles are designed to spur guest interaction and education. However, they also shape the park. The blacksmith creates hooks for the chuck wagon’s cooking utensils, arrow tips for the mountain man’s new bow and hinges for a creaking barn door.

“We want everything to be as authentic as possible. The chickens and the turkey over there come from our farm,” Butz-Fiscina said.

Annie Oinkley, a noisy pig, is also over at the long barn, try as she might to bust out. The expanded Barnyard Zoo and some coats of paint are among the park’s few obvious changes over the years, park employees said.

The air of originality that draws visitors today was not always a hallmark of Wild West City, however.

A rare East Coast find

After World War II, Western-themed parks dotted the East Coast. There were Wild West Ranch in Lake George, New York; Frontier Town in North Hudson, New York; and Cowboy City in Farmingdale. Now, Wild West City stands alone.

Owen Turner, a 12-year-old visiting from Pennsylvania in August, said his family drove about an hour to reach the park. Another visit was already in his thoughts.

“I heard it was fun, and it really is,” Owen said.

Dawn Taylor, a retiree from Florida, said the park reminded her of living in Arizona and riding horses to the grocery store. Taylor said she was brought to the park by her Rockaway-based grandchildren, who said they wanted to show her the horses.

Taylor said was happy for the suggestion, as she had the chance to show her grandchildren a different culture, in which horseback riding and working the soil outrank cellphones and television.

“I think places like this should be everywhere,” she said. “Are kids going to learn from books only?”

Glen Umland, a retired teacher from Hampton Township, said he brought classes to the park for 15 years before he took a job there. Nicknamed “Grubstake,” a term for a prospecting investment, Umland now dons different hats to educate visitors of all ages about frontier life.

“It reminds me of the time when our ancestors struggled but persevered,” he said. "It's definitely an interesting place to work."

The park perseveres

Pony rides, panning for “gold” and riding the stagecoach are among the few active amusements at the park. Modern concessions, such as an arcade and miniature golf course, exist but are often deserted. The main street, where hitching posts serve as velvet ropes to define the stage, is the center of the action.

For the most part, daily events are lighthearted. Beyond the occasional wedding party, visitors rarely hit the chapel — although it may be wise to pray for safe passage.

Stick-up kids stalk the woods and are quick to ask; "Which one of you has the most money?" If they spot a bag with a brand that is “played” or a youth with a freshly loaded cap gun, however, expect the keen-eyed and evidently seasoned robbers to make haste.

As expected, the sound of cap guns is steady. The city's shops sell the guns and various trinkets, while many other buildings house historic artifacts and showcase living history.

Butz-Fiscina said the dozens of cap guns sold and used in the park each day rarely see sunlight outside the gates. Wild West City is a place to be somebody else, or simply lose yourself, if just for a few hours, he said.

“It’s a place where people can come and not feel intruded upon,” he said. “It’s not like the big amusement parks. It's a place to relax and think of a simpler time."

True tragedy

As peaceful as it typically seems, however, the park has seen calamity.

In July 2006, a 37-year-old actor named Scott Harris took a bullet to the head during the "Sundance Kid" skit, now scheduled for 2:30 p.m. each day.

His shooter, 17-year-old DaSean Sears, told authorities he mistook live rounds, which were prohibited from the worksite, for blanks. The shooting left Harris partially paralyzed and resulted in a nearly $2 million settlement.

Sears served six months’ probation after pleading guilty to causing injury with a deadly weapon in 2007. The park was issued a $7,500 fine by the courts and told to adopt new safety protocols after park owner Michael Stabile admitted to being an accomplice by giving guns to employees to use without permits.

A ban on live ammunition and guns that can fire live rounds was coupled with required employee training, the appointment of a designated safety officer and other safeguards. Today, the marshal’s quarters are typically locked. Inside sits a desk with a cup of blanks and a ledger to track their distribution. The sand shifts, but Wild West City survives.

BYRAM - After one year of business, The Trout and the Troll was doing very well, but not according to owners Brad and Laurie Boyle, who recently decided it was time for a change for their restaurant, located on Lake Lackawanna.

“The Trout and the Troll kind of fell into our laps,” said Brad Boyle. “When this space opened, we rushed to get in here and open. And it was a fun idea, but it wasn’t fully thought out. I didn’t feel right and I wasn’t happy with it. And I thought if I wasn’t happy, other people must not be happy too.”

Read previous story: The Trout and the Troll http://dailyre.co/1MIyFK7

While that last part may not be true — the Trout and the Troll had a nice following and many were confused when it abruptly closed in December — the Boyles reopened the space last month as Orchard Beer Garden and they couldn’t be happier with the decision.

SEE VIDEO: Orchard Beer Garden opens in Byram http://dailyre.co/1oJPMEi

“We realized what we wanted to do,” said Brad Boyle, “Which is not a family-style restaurant, which was out of our comfort zone. We wanted to be more like Salt.”

The Boyles also own Salt Gastropub down the road in Byram, and when opening the Trout and the Troll, they thought they should make it different from their neighboring restaurant. But now, they said, they see the value in looking at the two as a single brand with a different aesthetic and menu.

“So if someone’s at Salt and there’s a wait, we could send them right down the road to Orchard,” Laurie Boyle said.

Brad Boyle said Orchard Beer Garden is more “for grown-ups,” than the restaurant’s previous iteration, which he feels much more comfortable with.

“Business was fine but I wasn’t happy coming to work when it was Trout and the Troll. It felt ‘blah,’” Brad Boyle said. “It got to the point that we were thinking, do we walk or do we change? We couldn’t get out heads around it. And then we came up with the idea of making it a beer garden.”

To the surprise of many, the restaurant closed down for the remodel in December. The Boyles worked through the holidays to reopen as soon as possible with the help of their property manager Ben Morales, who brought the ideas Brad Boyle had in his mind — of bringing the outside in — to life.

Those ideas are highlighted by a ceiling decorated with twigs and lights to recreate the feeling of being outdoors under the stars.

“It’s no longer a sterile feeling,” Laurie Boyle said. “People just love it. It’s like being in somebody’s home.”

Orchard Beer Garden also includes local artwork lining the walls, an adult 18-years-and-older lounge, and a large communal table in the center of the dining room, which was once used at Brad Boyle’s first job, the Heritage Inn, before it closed.

The restaurant reopened as Orchard Beer Garden Jan. 6 and Laurie Boyle said her husband is thrilled with the results.

“He’s happy coming to work now,” Laurie Boyle said, “which makes me happy.”

Brad Boyle agrees.

“I believe if we make something and we’re happy with it, then it reflects,” he said. “And I really love it.”

Brad Boyle said he hopes Orchard can simultaneously become a local favorite, while also attracting people from outside the area, a feat he’s already pulled off with Salt.

“We want to be more of an experience than just a restaurant. We want to be part of something,” said Brad Boyle. “There are a lot of great choices out there for food, so this needs to be more than that. We want people to feel something so they come back.”

He has already accomplished similar things in his other restaurants, including Salt, which welcomes the popular Salt Shakers running club at their facility each week. The Shakers have already used Orchard to host their monthly meeting.

SEE ALSO: Salt Shakers mix trails and ales http://dailyre.co/1T7WhxV

While craft beer is an important part of both Salt and Orchard Beer Garden, they have two completely different rotating draft lists, with Orchard focusing on European beers that better complement the menu with items like Bavarian pretzels and charcuterie.

There are also plenty of local choices on the more than dozen taps, the closest coming from Angry Erik brewing, right down the road in Lafayette.

SEE ALSO: Angry Erik Brewery celebrating first anniversary http://dailyre.co/1BLpjp6

Head chef David O’Connor has fine-tuned the menu, but since the Boyles work closely with local farms, they will also have “spontaneous specials” like a recent “snout-to-tail” charcuterie plate.

Like Salt, Orchard Beer Garden is using products from area farms and butchers, including Sussex Meat Packing in Wharton and Bobolink Dairy and Bakehouse in Milford.

“Local is important to us,” Brad Boyle said. “It’s good for the people in Byram and in the county to help one another.”

SEE ALSO: More craft beer stories here http://dailyre.co/craftbeer

Orchard has its own staff but the same management as Salt, with general manager Jen Hornung and bar manager Mark Merville helping to ease the transition.

And events have already started populating Orchard’s calendar. The beer garden hosts a trivia night running on Wednesdays, musician Steve Chapin on Thursdays, and varying live folk and bluegrass music on the weekends.

“We’ll be expanding on all that come summer once we can do outside music,” Brad Boyle said, “to go along with deck seating and outdoor grilling and lawn games. We’re really looking forward to it. We’ll be good and ready for summer.”

They also plan to set up large tents and cater to large private parties and celebrations.

MORE FOOD STORIES IN TABLE SECTION: www.dailyrecord.com/life/table/

Orchard Beer Garden is located at 172 Lackawanna Dr., Byram (GPS directions).

Hours are 4 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday; 2 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday; and 12:30-8 p.m. Sunday. Kitchen hours vary; call 973-347-1534 for more information, to make reservations (recommended), or to schedule a private event. On Facebook: Facebook.com/Orchard-beer-garden-1321934154555859/

Staff Writer Michael Izzo: 973-428-6636; [email protected]

BYRAM — At just 24, Elizabeth Bonker is already a published author, poet and lyricist. Rock stars record her songs. The Sussex County native has also become a highly sought-after public speaker, after her graduation speech at Florida's Rollins College became a viral sensation this spring.

Her comments have captivated, inspired, resonated. And she's done it without ever uttering a word.

Bonker has a form of autism that has prevented her from speaking since she was a year old. Now, the Byram woman, who was valedictorian of her graduating class, hopes to help millions of other nonspeaking people worldwide find their voices as she did.

Earlier this year, she founded Communication 4 ALL, a nonprofit whose mission is to promote training in one-finger typing for others who share her condition. An estimated 40% of people with autism are nonspeaking, according to the group's website, yet relatively few have been taught to communicate in this way. The term "nonspeaking" includes people who speak unreliably or say the same word or phrase repeatedly, in addition to those unable to speak at all.

As she did at the Rollins graduation, Bonker "speaks" via a text-to-speech computer program, typing out her thoughts one letter at a time with her index finger. The computer converts the message into a clear, Siri-like female voice. At her family's Bridge Trail home for a recent interview, she sat calmly at her laptop and pecked away. In other settings, like her multiplying public appearances, her mother, Ginnie Breen, is by her side, holding an iPad for her daughter to type on.

"Growing up with no way to communicate is a trauma no one should ever have to face," Bonker said. "Think of a stroke victim — you understand everything going on around you, but people keep speaking like you aren't there."

'Locked inside a body that's betraying them'

Bonker's condition came on suddenly. She stopped talking at 15 months and spent years frustrated at her inability to convey her needs and desires to those around her. Her parents tried in vain to understand a child who was suddenly unable to speak. Ginnie and her husband, Ray Bonker, were forced to guess what their daughter wanted or what was bothering her, since autism took away the motor skills needed to gesture or use any kind of sign language.

"You're trying to guess, 'Why is she crying?'" Breen said. "Any other child could say, 'My stomach hurts' or 'my head hurts' or 'my tooth hurts.'"

Approximately 1 in 44 children in the United States is diagnosed with autism, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The advocacy group Autism Speaks estimates that about 40% of people with the disorder worldwide, or 31 million total, are nonspeaking.

"There's no other way to describe it other than it's a sort of grieving," said Ray Bonker, who is also a councilman in Byram Township. "These are kids who are locked away inside a body that's betraying them."

For Elizabeth, that began to change when she was 6 years old. Her grandmother saw a "60 Minutes" segment about Soma Mukhopadhyay, an Austin, Texas, mother who taught her autistic son to communicate by pointing to letters.

A turning point in Texas

Breen reached out to Mukhopadhyay, and she and her daughter began flying down to Texas for weeklong lessons, once a month over the course of half a year. Elizabeth started out selecting from a group of written answers and progressed to spelling out words. Improvement was slow, but within a year, she was able to express herself, her parents said.

"It wasn't this magic thing that happened all of a sudden," her father recalled. "You drill a lot of dry holes trying to find a gusher at some point."

Once she was able to communicate, Elizabeth entered public school in Byram, followed by two years at Lenape Valley Regional High School in Stanhope. She completed high school at the online Laurel Springs School after the family moved to central Florida once her brother, Charles, graduated from Lenape Valley.

Though she thrived in school, Bonker said she was "haunted by the eyes of those nonspeakers I left behind in the autism classroom." She began to write poetry, and a collection of her work alongside commentary from Breen was published by Baker Publishing Group in "I Am in Here" in 2011.

In "My Plan," a 13-year-old Bonker declared her ambitions:

I have a plan

To make a stand

For people like me.

Someday you will see.

The book details her life with autism and challenges misconceptions about the nonspeaking community. One of the most common is that autism is a cognitive disorder affecting the brain, when it actually affects neuromotor control of the body, Elizabeth Bonker said.

"We cannot always get our bodies to obey our minds," she said. "We are thinking the words we want to say, but we can't get them out of our mouths. There is so much work to be done to change the way the world sees nonspeaking autism, so everyone has a voice."

Finding that voice through her keyboard, Bonker began writing song lyrics in addition to her poems. After about 20 songs, she decided to put together an album. Boston-based band The Bleeding Hearts, whose members are friends of her mother, heard about the girl's songwriting and volunteered to set her words to music.

Rage against the cage

She formed another musical partnership with Tom Morello, the Rage Against the Machine guitarist and a former classmate of Breen's at Harvard. Morello learned of Bonker's writing from her mother at a college reunion, and he and The Bleeding Hearts recorded her lyrics in a song titled "Silent Cage."

Welcome to my silent cage

Can you feel my simmering rage?

The world thinks I got nothing to say

They want me to stay that way

After high school, Bonker followed her brother, Charles, who also has autism but can speak, and enrolled at Rollins in Winter Park, Florida. Breen praised the college for focusing on her daughter's academic abilities and treating her like any other student.

Bonker majored in social innovation, minored in English and compiled a 4.0 GPA, making her one of five valedictorians the school honored in the spring. The other four selected her to give the commencement address in May.

At the graduation, Bonker strode to the podium with Breen by her side. Her speech, which she typed out before the event, urged graduates to live their lives in service to others in the spirit of another Rollins alumnus, television icon Fred Rogers.

"God gave you a voice. Use it," her computer intoned, as Bonker stood at the podium, looking only slightly nervous.

"And no, the irony of a nonspeaking autistic encouraging you to use your voice is not lost on me. Because if you can see the worth in me, then you can see the worth in everyone you meet."

Bonker concluded with a quote from Alan Turing, a British mathematician who helped break Nazi encryption codes but was later persecuted for his homosexuality in postwar England: "Sometimes, it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine," she said. The crowd erupted in a standing ovation at the end of the address.

Bonker called the moment a "great honor." It was a milestone in both her personal journey and for spreading the word about Communication 4 ALL, which she founded in April.

"It meant so much to me because I wanted it to be part of my mission to change the way the world sees nonspeaking autism," she said. "But I never dreamed it would change my life in the way it has."

'Saving a soul'

The speech exploded online. Communication 4 ALL said the video has appeared more than 4 billion times on social feeds worldwide. ABC News and National Public Radio covered the story, and donors including Google and Rotary International have offered to help grow her initiative.

The organization's goal is for every person with autism to achieve full communication by learning how to type, and Communication 4 ALL aims to empower schools and families to teach nonspeakers across the country. School districts in Illinois and Florida have signed on for pilot programs, Breen said, and the group is in talks with others. Bonker hopes that one day every school in the country will have accommodations for nonspeakers just as they do for blind and hearing-impaired students.

Bonker and her family now split their time between Byram and Florida. She has thought about returning to school for a master's degree in public policy to advance her efforts. For now, she said, her focus is on running and expanding Communication 4 ALL, which continues to pick up support.

Her lofty plans no longer surprise her parents. Breen called her daughter "the most persistent person that I know."

"Every single person that gets communication, she calls it 'saving a soul.' She counts every single one of them," her mother said. "This is her life mission."

Bonker has met hundreds of nonspeakers through her activism. Now, she hopes her newfound fame will help others escape their own silent cages.

"All civil rights movements are a long march, so I expect it to take more than my lifetime to fully achieve," she said. "My message for nonspeakers is to hold on. Help is on the way."

For more information on Elizabeth Bonker's group, visit communication4all.org.

Kyle Morel is a local reporter covering Morris and Sussex counties.

Email: [email protected]; Twitter: @KMorelNJH

— The township has high hopes for replacing what used to be its biggest taxpayer, after the State Planning Commission changed a formal designation — making development in the International Trade Center more attractive.

But the move comes over the objections of environmentalists who say development or the property would put sensitive lands at risk.

The commission agreed earlier this month to redesignate 413 acres in the ITC from "Planning Area 5" (for environmentally sensitive lands) to "Planning Area 2" (for suburban land). That opens up the land to large financial incentive programs like those run by the state's Business Action Center, intended to promote job growth and business development in New Jersey

And Mount Olive officials are hopeful that could help bring a new tenant into the long-vacant BASF building in the trade center.

BASF left Mount Olive in 2004, and abandoned plans that had been approved in 1991 to expand its office space. When BASF left, it was paying $257,000 in taxes to the township, said Sean Canning, Mount Olive's business administrator.

BPG Properties, a private equity real estate fund, decided it no longer wanted to try and sell or lease the former BASF site in 2009, and transferred the title to Wells Fargo.

"We're competing against states to the south and the west to get corporations," Canning said. "I think this is the largest unoccupied office building in the state of New Jersey, and Mount Olive is at a huge disadvantage."

Several large companies have considered the BASF building over time, including Verizon and Bayer.

"Bayer was the most recent, but they really weren't able to get any grant money, so they moved on to another town," Canning said.

The New Jersey Sierra Club said the decision to reclassify the land wasn't supported by "actual science."

"This re-designation will take care of a developer, and is political science, not actual science. There are more fitting sites for this type of development. Under the State Strategic Plan they will get sewers and public financing, promoting growth in areas that are environmentally sensitive at the expense of areas such as Dover and Morristown," it wrote in a statement the week the State Planning Commission took its vote.

The BASF building is on a 97-acre part of the redesignated land. A 57-acre part had originally been part of Allamuchy State Park, but BASF acquired it in a land swap, intending to use it for the eventually abandoned office expansion. Mount Olive later bought that property and has kept it as an undeveloped, wooded parcel — but declined to accept county open space funds, so that it would have the option of selling it to a developer in the future.

Other groups including the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, the Morris Canal Society and neighboring Stanhope and Byram Township have objected to the redesignation. Canning said the neighboring towns have expressed concern development could interfere with underground water that leads into their wells — but he said those concerns were "misplaced."

The wells were in place when the BASF office expansion was proposed more than two decades ago, and concerns about contamination were explored and ruled out at the time, he said. Canning stressed the redesignation isn't a rezoning, and doesn't change municipal rules for what's allowed on the property.

"One of the concerns is about the Morris Canal. There is a preserved piece, but it's not adjacent to this property. On our 57-acre piece, we are not aware of any canals on that property — but we're committed that were this property to be sold, it would be protected. We're committed to preserving anything that would be found on that parcel," he said.

He also said Mount Olive has no deal in the works for the 57-acre property — for now, it's still preserved land. The township might look at a sale at some point, though.

In the State Planning Commission's own August 2013 report on the change, it says the land is "ideally located" within Morris County — adjacent to Routes 80, 206 and 406, and close to train stations.

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It notes that in 2004, New Jersey passed the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act — and that the property is in the so-called "planning area." Highlands environmental restrictions are not mandatory in that area.

It says while the "underlying assumption" is that the area is environmentally sensitive, half of it is already built, and there's further growth potential with existing water and sewer capacity.

An adjacent, protected area of land in Netcong is subject to state Department of Environmental Protection and Highlands Councils restrictions, which will help ensure water quality isn't negatively impacted by overdevelopment, it says.

"They are deliberately using the State Plan to undercut Highlands protections," Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said in his group's statement. "This is a giveaway to developers at the expense of our water supply and our environment."