Franklin What happens when a musical celebrity turns up at a local ice cream parlor to dish out the frosty treat? Well, as you might expect a lot of ice cream gets served. That was the scene at NY’s Finest Ice Cream in Franklin, when on a recent Wednesday night Travis McCoy, lead singer for the band Gym Class Heroes, put in an appearance. In between serving ice cream and Italian ice to screaming fans, he found time to sign autographs, pose for pictures and create his signature “Remix” frozen treat, named for the band. Called the Gym Class Hero, it combines vanilla soft serve ice cream, coconut Italian ice and cookie dough. The Franklin shop has made its name with this new type of product, the remix, which it brought out in 2008, just two years after “rebranding” to become NY’s Finest Ice Cream and Italian Ice. Owners Timm “Grins” Kostenko, John Barber and Myles Larsen, call the remix their signature product, which puts together soft serve and Italian ices in various combinations. Owner operators Kostenko and Barber spent formative years in Vernon, attending the area schools in early 1990s, and were MC’s in the local, internationally successful hip-hop group Arcane. They toured throughout North America and as far away as Eastern Europe from 2003-2005 and were part of Vans Warped Tour, where they toured with groups like Gym Class Heroes, Fall Out Boy, New Found Glory and others. The two shopowners spent years on road with Gym Class Heroes, creating a lasting friendship between them, that carried over and led to McCoy’s recent appearance at the Franklin store. Larsen, the third partner, and a grad of the West Milford school system, is currently serving in the U.S. Army and has been back and forth to Iraq. Local ties are strong. “We have been active in the community on a local and national level between sponsoring three baseball teams, two softball teams and a soccer team,” said Kostenko. He has also been raising money for Leukemia/Lymphoma research while completing the Mayors Midnight Run in Anchorage, Alaska, on June 21.