Midlakes student’s mural adorns local business
COURTESY OF PHELPS-CLIFTON SPRINGS CSD
Elena Graf is leaving her mark all over the community. Quite literally, too.
The Midlakes junior completed her second large mural, a quaint scene inside the recently opened Smokin’ Tails Distillery on Church Street in Phelps. The first scene Graf created was at Lighthouse Baptist Church of Newark. I just like to paint and this was a fun opportunity, she said. It is just something I like to do in my spare time. This was the perfect opportunity.
The business is run by Peter and Sharon Cheney and Chris and Lisa Orlando, Midlakes graduates who approached art teachers at the high school about having a student produce a large mural at their business. Peter Cheney, a funeral director at Cheney Funeral Home, was on Discovery’s “Master Distiller last year.
Eat, Drink and Be Murphy: Rebel with a cause for spirits
PHELPS Peter Cheney is just an outlaw at heart.
Cheney owns the Cheney Funeral Home and, thanks to an award-winning appearance a year ago on the Discovery Channel TV show “Moonshiners: Master Distiller,” has the title of master distiller and a nickname, “The Undertaker.” Now, he and his wife, Sharon, partnered with friends Chris and Lisa Orlando to open Smokin’ Tails Distillery in the village of Phelps.
Smoking tails describes the exhaust smoke rolling off the back of a 1940 Ford Coupe carrying shine as the people who made, sold and distributed it illegally outran the law. Later on, many of these spirited drivers took their skills to the oval track, over time building the sport of NASCAR.