{"id":78073,"date":"2026-01-05T07:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/78073\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T07:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T07:39:12","slug":"erie-canal-champion-honored-for-years-of-dedication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/78073\/","title":{"rendered":"Erie Canal champion honored for years of dedication"},"content":{"rendered":"

A longtime volunteer turned Lyons into a must-stop canal town, and state leaders just made it official.<\/p>\n

Robert A. Stopper earned recognition for decades spent welcoming boaters, promoting local history, and helping visitors navigate the Erie Canal. After retiring in 2000, Stopper helped create an informal \u201cgreeter\u201d program in Lyons that now stands out along the entire canal system.<\/p>\n

State and local officials praised his hands-on approach, historic presentations, and leadership during the canal\u2019s 200th anniversary celebrations. Assemblyman Brian Manktelow presented Stopper with a proclamation recognizing his lasting impact on Lyons, Wayne County, and New York State.<\/p>\n

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FingerLakes1.com is the region\u2019s leading all-digital news publication. The company was founded in 1998 and has been keeping residents informed for more than two decades. Have a lead? Send it to [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A longtime volunteer turned Lyons into a must-stop canal town, and state leaders just made it official. Robert…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,10555],"class_list":{"0":"post-78073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news","11":"tag-top-story"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}