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Friday, July 17, 2009

Glimmerglass Opera Opens With ‘Traviata’

COOPERSTOWN

Glimmerglass Opera’s seven-week 2009 season opens at 8 p .m. Saturday, July 18, with Verdi’s “La Traviata.” There will also be a 2 p.m. matinee Monday.
Sunday, Rossini’s “La Centerola” – the Cinderella story – premiers at 2 p.m.
Menotti’s “The Consul” premiers the following weekend, and Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” on the first of August.

GAS MEETING: The Maryland Town Board has scheduled an open meeting on natural-gas drilling 6:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 22, at Schenevus Central School. The county’s first well may be drilled on Crumhorn Mountain in the town.

CONSULAR VISIT: Steve Acunto, the honorary Italian vice consul in New York City and chairman of the Italian Academy Foundation, was to address NYSHA’s 106th annual meeting at 4 p.m. Thursday, July 16, at The Farmers’ Museum. His remarks will be keyed to “America’s Rome,” the main exhibit at The Fenimore.

SEWING CIRCLE: A sewing circle has been meeting at 9 a.m. on the fourth Saturday of the month at the Fly Creek fire hall, and an invitation is being extended to all. Details, 547-1275

SURVEYS DUE: Bassett Healthcare is mailing Upstate Health & Wellness Surveys to 55,000 people in Otsego and surrounding counties to gather data to help improve the region’s health.

Labels: 07-17-09, Cooperstown and Around, Front Page

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From Paper Chase To Shepherding Souls

...And Now, Christ Church’s Father Sam Abbott Contemplates Retirement To Brookline

By JIM KEVLIN

COOPERSTOWN

When attorney Samuel B. Abbott was a tenured law professor at Boston University, the profession’s model was actor John Houseman’s domineering and demeaning Professor Kingsfield in “The Paper Chase,” that 1973 movie.
Age 38, the Rev. Samuel B. Abbott was ordained in a new vocation on June 7, 1980.
In Kingsfield mode, “I had been on a big power trip. Suddenly, I was in an acute-care hospital” – Boston’s Deaconess Medical Center, ministering to ill and dying patients. “There were no rules. I was incredibly anxious.”
It was boot camp for recruits to the ministry.
“My fear” – that fear – is what Father Abbott remembers as he retires this month, 29 years later, after five years as rector of James Fenimore Cooper’s parish, Christ Church. “My desire to control was very strong. My over-verbalization. I used to come home exhausted, because listening was such hard work.”
Over that summer, he met regularly with his fellow chaplains, who were also trying to better understand themselves as they worked through this novel and stressful assignment.
But to listen to Father Abbott talk about his life and career in an interview on the back porch of the rambling rectory, a few steps from the columbarium where his name and his wife Edith’s are already carved, trying to understand himself, life, faith and the people around him emerges as his lifelong pursuit.
Sam Abbott, as fellow Rotarians know him, was born in 1942 in Orange, N.J., son of an unhappy department-store executive, related to the Lord & Taylor family by marriage, who, at 57, foreshadowed his son’s decision by becoming an Episcopal priest.
Young Sam went to Phillps Exeter, Harvard (he graduated cum laude), and volunteered for the Peace Corps, teaching English in Nigeria. He obtained his law degree from Berkeley, then a master’s in law from Yale, and worked as a legal services lawyer in Washington D.C. before joining BU in 1972.
His father’s late vocation was undoubtedly on his mind during those years. Father Everett Abbott had become pastor at St. Mary’s, Foggy Bottom, in Washington, D.C. (The son has been invited to deliver a guest sermon in his father’s pulpit this fall.)
“At age 67,” he said, “I admit to being more like him. At 27, never!”
While at Harvard, though, he had encountered a Baptist evangelist who “knocked the non-committed man out from underneath me.”
He spent three days in a fury. Growing up in Bedford, Westchester County – “a pretty Waspy ghetto; I knew two Democrats” – he had always been an observant Episcopalian, but had never experienced what was, in effect, a conversion experience.
“I had absolutely no peace for three days,” he recalled. “Then, the world was suddenly full of the presence of God, a personal, powerful presence that watched over me.” His world was different. He would look at the city’s glow reflecting on a low bank of clouds and say to himself, “That’s just a symbol of God’s presence, care and protection.”
Still, it was no straight road toward his eventually vocation. Was he too good to be a clergyman? Or was he not good enough to be a clergyman?
He looked around at his fellow law professors, some putting in their time. “You’re going to be like them in another 10 years,” he’d tell himself. “Because my heart wasn’t in it.”
Before he got tenure, he asked whether his impetus to do something else was simply the human tendency to think that patch of grass over there is greener. Paradoxically, tenure, by giving him security, freed him to do something else.
Still, he dreaded telling his father. But when he did – at Logan when his father was about to fly back to D.C. – the elder Father Abbott was unperturbed, and immediately started talking about what lay ahead for his son.
What if he hadn’t told him? the son still asks today. “He died of a heart attack a month later.”
He had met his future wife at a camp for young Christians in Pawling after returning from Nigeria. On their first evening walk, a comet crossed the sky. A good omen, the star-crossed future husband decided.
The couple was raising two children, Frances and Matthew, but Edith was undeterred by his pending decision.
And so he jumped. By 1983, he was rector at St. James’ in Cambridge, Mass., a position he held for nine years.
“I loved the variety of parish ministry,” he said.
He had evolved into teaching property law, ever more specialized. Every day was different. He would find himself listening to parents with a teen-age son in trouble. Or a married couple at odds. Or a son or daughter worried about an aging parent.
“I was enthusiast,” he said. “I think that helped. I was excited about God. I was excited about Jesus.”
In 1992, he became rector of Grace Church in New York City – the rectory, Edith said, was a 36-room mansion. He was an interim rector in Connecticut in 1999, then assumed the pulpit at a troubled parish in Walpole, Mass., increasing church-school enrollment by 50 percent in four year, extending his ministry into Norfolk Prison.
In 2004, John Clough, an elder at the Cooperstown church, invited him in as interim minister. Soon, however, he had been offered the job fulltime, and gave a five-year commitment, a commitment that expired June 20.
In their years in the church, Sam and Edith kept their home in Brookline, renting it out. It’s being renovated and they’re going home. The moving truck’s due July 27. Father Abbott plans to volunteer as a hospital chaplain, going back to his original ordeal.
His greatest satisfaction? Perhaps tipping parishioners who are teetering, a handful a year, perhaps a dozen or two, toward the life of faith that he’s found so satisfying, despite its challenges.
Asked about pursuing a career in faith in a secular world, he recounted Loren Eiseley’s “Starfish Story.”
A passerby sees a man on a beach full of starfish, throwing them back into the sheltering sea, one by one, although there are many more there than he can possibly save.
The passerby tells him so.
The man picks up another starfish and throws it into the sea.
“I helped that one,” he said.

Labels: 07-17-09, Front Page

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Toward A More Perfect Route 28 Entry

Cornell To Pick Up Where Notre Dame Left Off: Cooperstown’s First Impression

COOPERSTOWN

Cornell is picking up where Notre Dame left off.
In 2007-08, a team of architectural graduate students from South Bend put together a plan intended to increase Cooperstown’s economic vitality and demographic diversity.
On Sunday, July 12, graduate students in landscape architecture walked Route 28 between the Great American and Wilber Bank, preliminary to developing a plan to make the southern entryway to Cooperstown more inviting.
A major difference: One of the three students was Tom Breiten, the veteran Otsego town supervisor (who is leaving office at the end of this year) with a keen interest in seeing whatever plan that results is implemented.
Joining Breiten and fellow students Jennifer Ng and Chris Hardy were Trustee Neil Weiller, chairman of the Sustainability Committee; Chuck Hage, a village resident who has been collaborating with Breiten, and Jeff Haggerty, whose Haggerty Ace Hardware is in the middle of the mile-long stretch under consideration.
Right now, the southern entry to the village has a mix of uses: in addition to the bank, hardware store and supermarket, there is an insurance office, Kerns Body Shop, a pharmacy and, on the west side, a half-dozen homes on a steep hillside.
The village has been seeking funding for a “gateway” project just south of Wilber Bank, where tourists could park and be carried by trolley to the attractions on Main Street and beyond, and that fueled some of the conversation.
“If they have the gateway,” asked Breiten rhetorically, “will that mean more pedestrian traffic and more bike traffic?”
The prospective $2.3 million upgrade – Hage envisions lamp posts, sidewalks and the like – has already gotten the interest of the state Department of Transportation, which would rebuild the road, improving the drainage.
In a meeting that followed in village hall – Planning Board member Richard Blabey and his wife Ann joined the gathering – Hardy and Ng said they are pulling together a team of Cornell students they hope will include a civil engineer and a lawyer.
As did the Notre Dame students, the Cornell team will study the stretch over the course of the semester that begins in September, returning to Cooperstown in mid-semester to report on the program, and provide a plan early in 2010.

Labels: 07-17-09, Front Page

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Hydro-Power Developer Wins Trustees’ Approval

N.H. Firm Seeks Grant For Village

COOPERSTOWN

What’s not to like?
Developer Ralph Dumke, president of Waterline Industries, Seabrook, N.H., told trustees Monday, July 13, that he will apply for a NYSERDA grant to cover all costs of installing small hydro-power turbines on the Susquehanna River dam at Mill Street.
If he receives the grant – the program is underwritten by federal stimulus money, and Cooperstown may be the first municipality to apply – then his company will do the engineering, oversee the installation, then – if the trustees wish – would manage the facility.
All the trustees needed to say was OK, and wait for an estimated $63,000 in electricity savings and revenues to flow in.
And so the five trustees present – Eric Hage, Jeff Katz, Lynne Mebust, Willis Monie Jr. and Neil Weiller – at the trustees’ Sustainability Committee meeting (Weiller chairs it) said OK, and Dumke is off to the races. The application to NYSERDA – the state Energy Research and Development Authority – is due by mid-August.
“I think it’s great,” said Weiller, noting what’s happened here could be a model for future sustainability efforts. “We’ve identified a project, gone through the research, and now we’re going through to implementation.”
“If you are ever going to do something like this, this is the perfect scenario,” Dumke said in a telephone interview at mid-week.
The village water plant – intended as the main user of the hydro-generated electricity – is only 100 yards from the Mill Street dam, so power from the dam can easily be made accessible, Dumke said. Any excess electricity can be fed into the grid through the plant’s meter.
Dumke visited the site the morning of the committee meeting – he flew his private plane into Oneonta Airport from Seabrook in the morning, then back in late afternoon – with Chuck Hage, the citizen (and, now, a Sustainability Committee member) who has championed the idea.
The original idea was to obtain one generator from Mavel, a Boston-based manufacturer, that would fit over the existing dam, minimizing any construction.
Dumke, however, said that, due to seasonal fluctuations in the Susquehanna’s flow, three smaller turbines would provide additional flexibility. During low-flow periods, you can turn off one or two of the turbines, and still produce electricity, he said.
“You have an ideal site,” said Hage. “You have everything you want.

Labels: 07-17-09, Front Page

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Steps Lessen Canadarago Flood Threat

High-Tech Equipment Allows Lake Watchers To Anticipate Trouble

By JIM KEVLIN

CANADARAGO LAKE

In the 1950s, before pesky regulations governing the shifting of streams, Herkimer Creek was adjusted so it entered Canadarago Lake at the southern outlet.
Previously, it had connected with Oaks Creek downstream from Otsego County’s second-largest body of water.
After the Great Flood of 2006, Canadarago Lake Improvement Association members – these folks actually get out there and do the work themselves – removed five silt bars from the lake’s outlet.
The weir that purportedly controlled the lake level – you can see it to the right off Route 22 if, heading north, you take a right at Schuyler Lake.
The lake association also discovered five “major tree falls” blocking Oaks Creek between the wier and Cattown, seven miles south.
Because of the silt bars and tree falls, the weir wasn’t working effectively, and while flooded Otsego Lake quickly dropped to non-flood levels in June 2006, not so Canadarago.
The result was considerably more damage than necessary, even from a 100-year flood.
The experience spurred the CLIA into action, as association President Rod Sluyter pointed out recently during a tour of high-tech installations at the state boat launch.
“We have not had any serious water-level problems for the past two years,” said Sluyter, although he added, “knock on iron,” rapping his knuckles against an aluminium railing.
Knock on wood, perhaps, but the CLIA in the past two years has taken very specific steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Paul Palumbo, CLIA vice president, ticks off the equipment, $500 worth: rain gauge, anemometer (for wind speed and direction), air temperature sensor, a small sonar unit that measures lake level.
Readings from all those pieces of equipment are fed into a micro-computer in the shed there. Once daily, Palumbo dials up the connection and downloads all the data.
The equipment was operational by last October.
“We have the instruments that are necessary to basically record rain events,” said Palumbo, “and using past recorded data to make informed decisions on forecasted weather events.”
The lake has a flood point – Palumbo doesn’t know how far above sea-level that is, but he knows it’s 31 inches below the boat-launch deck.
At that point, the lake starts spilling over into flatland at its south end, which can absorb “quite a bit of flood water” before rising waters effect properties around the rest of the lake.
That gives the CLIA some room to maneuver.
Palumbo calls it “a good buffer, even for the rains we had the past 4-6 weeks. We hit flood point and crested an inch over it; considering the amount of rain we had, it was very well contained.”
At the weir, there is one board, 12 inches wide, that CLIA members can remove manually when waters rise.
Playing it safe, the association simply removed the board for the past couple of months, allowing 4 inches of water a day to pour out of Canadarago.
When the water drops to 6 inches below flood level, or Palumbo predicts it might, the board goes back in so it doesn’t get too low for recreation.

Labels: 07-17-09, Front Page

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Letters to the Editor

‘In God We Trust’? Maybe Greed, Oil

To the Editor:
A recent brief news item reported that the House of Representatives had approved spending $100,000 to have “In God We Trust” engraved in the Capitol Visitors Center.
That amount is trivial compared to the billions the U.S. government wastes every month.
It’s still too much money to foster an erroneous belief that the U.S. is a “Christian Nation” by putting an apparently official stamp of approval on that fallacy.
Considering much of the recent past in this country, a more apt engraving would state, “In Greed We Trust” – or perhaps, “In Oil We Trust.”
WILLIAM F. ROBERTS
Otego

Running Village Like A Business Not Same As Being Pro-Business

To the Editor:
I agree with Ted Hargrove that the village government needs to be run like a business. But a business that is pro-active (planning ahead) rather than re-active (just letting things happen).
Mr. Hargrove comments that Mr. Katz mistakenly increased the fee for the use of Doubleday Field, thus depriving the village of revenue because fewer teams would come to play baseball.
Just the opposite: Mr. Katz and his committee had the foresight to do this knowing that money might be lost in the short run but, over time, this new rate would increase revenue for the village.
When the demand is high is the time to increase fees, (a good business practice.)
Dealing with paid parking at the Doubleday Field Parking lot is another example of this forward thinking. There are many examples of our trustees acting to make our future better.
Perhaps the one area where action should have taken place, and wasn’t, is obtaining federal money when it was being so freely passed out in stimulus funding. Our deteriorating streets could have used some of that money.
I’m suspicious that when Ted suggested that the village be run like a business, he wanted it to be more pro-business. I believe that the Board does take the needs of the business establishment into consideration, but it has to govern of an entire village. In balance, they do this very well.
BOB LETTIS
Cooperstown

Gas Drilling Offers Unique Opportunity

To the Editor:
Away from a “Chicken Little” energy policy in Otsego…
I am writing in response to last week’s editorial and to several recent letters on local gas development.
I believe that fear, junk science and political activism have the potential to ruin what may be the key to economic well being in this region for decades to come: the development of the Marcellus Shale gas field.
To put this energy source in context let me recap what I have read on energy issues in editorials and letters to the editor:
• Oil equals “Big Oil,” which is bad. Texans and stereotyped middle easterners live to gouge us.
• Nuclear is “risky” and should not be pursued. Never mind that France gets almost all its electric power from nuclear – and every day tens of thousands of Americans in the Navy sail the world safely in nuclear-powered ships.
• Biomass, specifically woodchips, should make sense in this region, but a generation project was turned down in Oneonta a few years ago which would have provided many rural Otsego County jobs.
• Water power has been treated fairly with regard to the smart idea to use the wasted energy at the Susquehanna dam in Cooperstown – but don’t try to build new dams on local rivers or streams.
• Wind power should be almost perfect, but some don’t like looking at windmills – and there were items in the paper alleging that the rotating blades could cause epileptic seizures. And windmills kill birds.
That brings us to natural gas. Natural gas is generally seen as a clean and efficient energy source. It can heat homes and schools, generate electric power, and, with some modification, power vehicles.
One problem is that much of our natural gas is not natural at all. It comes from half way around the world and moves across the ocean as liquefied natural gas in 100,000-ton pressure vessels at huge personal and environmental risk
Google “Marcellus Shale gas.” One can see that we are over one of the largest natural gas discoveries in the world. A team of professors from Penn State and SUNY estimated a potential natural gas supply of over 500 trillion cubic feet. To put that in perspective, the U.S. currently produces about 20 trillion cubic feet per year.
Local gas production has the potential to benefit every citizen of the region – property owners, consumers, and taxpayers. All of these parties are benefiting from Marcellus Shale gas production today in Pennsylvania – and the sky is not falling, nor are their faucets running with mud. Instead, rural communities in Pennsylvania are seeing jobs, property income, and new taxes and fees paid by developers.
Certainly this resource must be developed safely and responsibly. There are some risks, and going second behind Pennsylvania may help us to learn the best practices.
The bottom line is that we have a unique opportunity to change all our residents’ lives for the better. Let’s find the best way to use the gift that lies beneath this county.
JIM HOWARTH
Cooperstown

Many Made Project Prom Possible

To the Editor:
We would like to thank the Cooperstown community for all its support and the many volunteers who donated ideas and many hours of time to make Project Prom 2009 successful.
Our committee chairs started planning for this event in January and deserve special thanks for their hard work and dedication. We especially thank them for their wonderful ideas, commitment to their committee, great sense of humor and all the fun and camaraderie that they brought to each meeting.
The committee included Michelle Senif, treasurer; Tammi Kelly, decorations; Cindy Miller and Bernadette Ryan, Memory Lane; Jim Bernegger and Sandy Peevers, security; Jim and Pat Hogan, check-in; Kim Potts, casino; Betty Horrigan, food; Michael and Carole LaChance, fundraising; John and Maureen Rowley, tropical bar; Rosemary Craig, clean-up; Amy Townsend, Glimmerglass Queen boat cruise; Mark LaValley, entertainment.
Our special thanks go out to the Clark Sports Center for the support of the staff and the use of the facilities, particularly Val Paige, assistant director.
From our first meeting in January to the end of Project Prom at 5 a.m., June 14, Val was always available and extremely helpful.
A very special thank you goes out to Jennifer Pindar for her help with clean up at the Cooperstown Country Club.
To the class of 2009, it has been a joy to watch you grow through the years. Thank you for the wonderful memories that we will hold on to and cherish forever.
OUR BEST to the Class of 2010 and to the 2010 Project Prom Co-Chairs, Carol Hall and M.J. Harris.
MARY HARMON, SUE PIKARSKY
2009 Project Prom Co-Chairs
Cooperstown

Labels: 07-17-09, Letters to the Editor, Opinion, Perspectives

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A Game To Remember

CHRIS McSWIGGIN

It was the craziest game of the season.
The Oneonta Tigers won 13-5 against the Tri City Valleycats in Troy, Friday, July 10, in a game that featured a seven-run second inning where the Tigers only recorded three hits and a homerun.
The rest of the scoring came from walks, wild pitches and stolen bases.
The hits: Jaime Johnson singled to right field, Michael Rockett tripled and Wade Gaynor doubled.
The inning began with catcher John Murrian being hit by a pitch.
After three wild pitches by Tri City’s Brandt Walker, and a walk for Palacios and Gulliver, Rawley Bishop homered to left field for his fourth of the season.
I had seen seven runs on three hits before, but never in the crazy walk, wild pitch, hit, walk, wild pitch sequence of that evening.
The madness would continue the next time the Tigers took to the plate.
The top of the third inning saw third baseman Luis Palacios hit in the head with a Brandt Walker wild pitch. Palacios was down for a lengthy period, then had to leave the game.
Carmelo Jaime would come in as his replacement. The next batter, Jimmy Gulliver, would then double, moving Jaime to 3rd base. Both would score two batters later when Jaime Johnson tripled, making the score 9-0 Oneonta.
This kind of offensive productivity felt good after the Tigers were swept by Vermont at home the series before, and it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time.
I had been at the most exciting baseball game I have ever attended, and it was only the third inning.
Oneonta played stellar defense as well, holding Tri City scoreless through four. The big sticks would continue as Rockett singled in the top of the fifth.
It was a beautiful night for baseball, which felt good after the deluge of Mother Nature’s bad attitude pretty much all season.
Oneonta, playing its first game on Tri City’s field after a rainout the first time around, certainly made its presence felt in the Capital District.
The Tigers, who would go up 10-0 on a John Murrian HR in the 6th, and would eventually make it 11-0.
Previews of the Indians/Yankees 22-4 rout came flashing into my head as this game was getting way beyond the point of being “out of control.”
Tri City would provide a little excitement for those who, like me, keep a close watch on statistics and player personel, as their worst hitter (batting 0.9-) hit two opposite field home runs late in the game.
His average is now .171. He would be the spark for Tri City, but his flame would simmer as Oneonta would tack on a few more runs and finish with their highest scoring outing of the season with 13 runs batted in.
Oneonta would go on to sweep the series with two 3-0 victories to follow.
I am glad that I traveled to Tri City for the game because I proved my opening addage true; you see something you have never seen before at every new game you watch.
Oneonta will take on Auburn for three games on the road then travel to Mahoning Valley before returning home on July 20th for a three game set vs. Batavia. Oneonta currently sits in first place in the NYPL Stedler Division at 13-8 with a two game lead over Lowell (12-11).
Oneonta has provided excitement this season to say the least, and with their new-look ownership and numerous improvement and renovations, the Tigers have become the team to beat this season both on and off the field.

Labels: 07-17-09, Oneonta Tigers, Sports

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Bound Volumes

175 YEARS AGO
Riots in New York – The City of New York has, for upwards of a week commencing on the 4th of July, been the scene of tumults and disorders, growing out of the over-zealous efforts of a few persons calling themselves “abolitionists,” to propagate their mad doctrines of the immediate emancipation of the blacks, and to carry into practice their revolting notions of the amalgamation of the European and African races.
The Rev. Dr. Cox, and the two Tappans, Arthur and Lewis, are the leaders in the fanatic enterprise, and have been the principal objects against whom the public indignation has shown itself. Dr. Cox, for the purpose of elevating the blacks, is stated to have declared from his pulpit that Jesus Christ was a colored man; Dr. Ludlow (another Clergyman) had married a white woman to a negro, and the Tappans had not only approved of these things, but practically had produced an equality of condition among the two races, by introducing them to each other at table and seating them together in houses of public worship.
July 21, 1834

150 YEARS AGO
Alcohol and the Laborer – It was the general belief formerly, that fatiguing labor – particularly hay-making and harvesting – could not be carried on without ardent spirits. Then, almost every farmer provided himself with his keg or barrel of New England rum for those occasions.
Many farmers have ascertained by actual experiments in later years that the cradle and the scythe can be used efficiently even better without, than with it; but some still adhere to the old creed. In some quarters, indeed, whiskey is substituted for rum, and barrels are now required instead of kegs.
July 15, 1859

125 YEARS AGO
Much sincere sympathy is felt among our villagers for Mr. and Mrs. F.G. Bourne, who came here from New York two weeks ago with a family of young children, one or two of whom were ill with mumps when they left home.
It is supposed that a slight cold was taken on the boat when they came up the Hudson, and croup of a dangerous form ensued. The sad result was the death of a little girl of five, on Friday night of last week, followed by the death of a little boy of eight about 48 hours later.
Mr. Bourne is the private secretary of Mr. A. Corning Clark. Everything that medical skill, the most careful nursing, and the kindest personal attention could avail, were brought in requisition – but in vain to save the lives of the dear little ones.
July 19, 1884

100 YEARS AGO
The O-te-sa-ga opened on Monday. The hotel was visited and admired by a large number of village folk and summer residents. Mr. Edward S. Clark, acting as host, was the first to register, and with Mr. Stephen C. Clark, took a personal interest in piloting the visitors from New York.
There is no more attractive summer hotel anywhere than the O-te-sa-ga. Its fine architecture and furnishings are a constant delight and the place is bound to be popular and bring to Cooperstown the fame as a summer resort to which the village and lake have long been entitled.
July 15, 1909

75 YEARS AGO
Many Cooperstown friends were saddened Thursday evening of last week when the wires brought the news from Philadelphia of the death of Joseph McCormick, aged 26 years, which occurred when a new autogiro which he was testing, crashed at Wings Field near Ambler, a suburb of that city.
Mr. McCormick came to Cooperstown two years ago to work at Iroquois Farm. Eyewitnesses reported that the plane plunged from an altitude of 300 feet shortly after it took off.
July 18, 1934

50 YEARS AGO
Both the in-patient and out-patient census at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital has changed abruptly since the first of the year from its downward trend first noted in the last half of 1957, and through 1958, according to Dr. James Bordley, III.
Dr. Bordley, director of the famed rural medical center in Cooperstown reports a 7.5 percent increase in admissions and an 8.5 increase in patient days in the first five months of 1959 as compared with the same period in 1958. There was a comparable increase in the number of out-patient visits.
“There is still no adequate explanation for the temporary decline in clinical activities in 1957-1958,” Dr. Bordley declared. “In retrospect it seems to have been roughly contemporaneous with the business recession.”
July 15, 1959

25 YEARS AGO
Bassett Hospital has changed its emergency room rates so that severely injured patients pay proportionately more than others. The new system lowers rates for about 80 percent of the nearly 11,000 people who use the emergency room annually.
For those with problems not considered urgent, such as a cold, the charge will be reduced from $59.50 to $35. For people needing cuts or simple fractures addressed, the rate falls from $66.50 to $60. For more serious problems such as appendicitis, or compound fractures, the rate increases from $91.50 to $125. Patients reporting with life-threatening situations will pay from $131.50 to $300.
July 18, 1984

10 YEARS AGO
The discovery of a water chestnut plant growing on the west side of Otsego Lake near the entrance to Glimmerglen Creek prompted an exotic species alert from the Biological Field Station last Thursday. Dr. Willard Harman, field station director, said the plant was discovered by an aquatic ecology student, who wisely brought it in for analysis.
July 16, 1999

Bound Volumes is compiled from resources provided courtesy of the New York State Historical Association Library. Tom Heitz is the Town of Otsego historian.

Labels: 07-17-09, Bound Volumes, Columns

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Obituaries

William C. Broeffle, 79; Served On State School Board, Leaves Several Relatives In Northern Otsego County

William C. Broeffle, a former member of the New York State school board, passed away June 8, 2009, in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 78.
Mr. Broeffle was born March 1, 1931, in Amsterdam, and lived much of his youth in Schenectady. The last 16 years he lived in Vero Beach with his wife of 54 years, Rosebelle Smith Broeffle of Richfield Springs.
Bill attended University of Rochester on an academic scholarship. Graduating in 1953, with a B.Sc. in physics, Bill joined General Electric’s three-year manufacturing-management program, retiring from GE 25 years later. He later worked with AMF and ADT Harris Corp.
He was on United Way boards in Syracuse and in Boca Raton. He was vice president of the Baldwinsville school board and served on the state School Board.
Living in Ireland while working for GE, he was vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and in 1973, he participated in the U.S. President’s Executive Interchange Program in Washington, D.C.
He was a board member of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Florida and of the English Speaking Union. He was also on the advisory board of Lynn University, formerly Boca Raton University.
Bill was a member of the Orchid Island Golf & Beach Club in Florida and the Cooperstown Country Club, and was past president of Marbrisa Homeowners Association in Vero Beach. He served as an elder and a former trustee of the First Presbyterian Church in Vero Beach.
In addition to his wife, survivors include a daughter, Allison Broeffle; grandchildren, Mark and Nicole Broeffle of Asheville, N.C.; brothers-in-law, H. William Smith Jr., of Norwich, Edward C. Smith of Cooperstown, and James D. Smith of Norwich; and sister-in-law Shirlee McCabe of Doylestown, Pa.
He was predeceased by his son, Mark William Broeffle, and a brother-in-law, Robert F. Smith of Richfield Springs.
Memorial contributions may be made in his name to the First Presbyterian Church Building Fund, 520 Royal Palm Blvd., Vero Beach, FL 32960.
A memorial service will be held later this summer in Cooperstown.

Anna M. Leech, 89; Retired Teacher

COOPERSTOWN – Anne Mohar Leech, 89, of Oneonta, passed away Wednesday, July 8, 2009, at the A. O. Fox Nursing Home.
She was born Dec. 25, 1919, in Keewatin, Minn., the daughter of Ludwig and Christine Mohar.
In 1921, she and her family moved to a farm in Oaksville. Anne was the youngest of two sisters and four brothers and thus, her nickname was, “Babe.”
She attended school in Oaksville and graduated from Cooperstown High School at the age of 16. She then went on to Elmira Girls School and became a teacher, ultimately ending up teaching school at the Homer Folks Hospital.
In 1973, she married Dr. Elfred Leech and they lived in Fort Plain until his death in 1983, at which time she returned to Oneonta and volunteered doing taxes for senior citizens and Hospice patients.
Anne is survived by her sister, Christine of Nashport, Ohio; nieces, Jeanne Bridger of Maryland, Cynthia Waymer of Nashport, Sandra Sandiford of Raleigh, N.C.; stepson, Thomas Leech of Grand Island, Fla.; her nephews, Marty Mohar of Bluffton, S.C., Ronald Mohar of Dewitt, Harmon Eggers of Bolivia, N.C. and several great-nieces and nephews.
Anne was a regular celebrant at St. Mary’s R.C. Church and had traveled extensively in her later years with her companion, Russell Southard Sr.
There will be no calling hours. Graveside services were Monday, July 13, in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Index, with the Rev. John Rosson officiating.
In lieu of flowers, friends are asked to make donations to Catskill Area Hospice and Palliative Care, 1 Birchwood Drive, Oneonta, NY 13820, in her memory.
Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.johnstonfh.com.
Arrangements are by the Johnston Funeral Home of Morris.

James S. Williams, 46; Forester, Father of Three

COOPERSTOWN – James S. Williams, 46, died Sunday, July 12, 2009, at his home on Christian Hill Road in the Town of Otsego.
The son of Kenneth L. and the late Jane C. (Delano) Williams, Jim was born July 7, 1963, in Glen Falls, moving to Cooperstown as a boy.
He graduated from Cooperstown High School in 1982. Following college and several years spent traveling, Jim returned to the Cooperstown area.
He married Lori Matteson in 1990, and they settled on Christian Hill, where they have raised their children, Corbin, Tanner and Lydia.
Although a “Jack of all trades,” Jim was a forestry consultant for the past 14 years, in business with his father at Kenneth L. Williams Consulting Foresters LLC.
Jim’s interests were varied and reflected his inquisitive nature and his love and zest for life. He was an avid reader of “everything” but particularly enjoyed reading and following financial and economic reports and statements.
He was a former member in Toastmasters and has been involved for many years as a Tory in the “Queen’s Ranger’s,” a Revolutionary War enactment group.
He enjoyed the out of doors, especially camping, downhill skiing, and rock climbing. He also had an artistic and creative side and loved to sketch and draw.
Jim will be remembered as a “people person” and his extroverted, warm and gregarious manner and his ever-present smile will be missed by his many friends. He was a remarkably loving and wonderful dad and husband, who always put his family first.
In addition to his wife and three children, survivors include his brothers, Kenneth J. (Janet) Williams of Auburn and Michael Williams of Round Rock, Texas; his sister, Susan (Daniel) Roberts of Ilion; his father and stepmother, Kenneth L. and Rosemary Harp-Williams of Cooperstown; and his grandmother, Eve Delano of Skaneateles. On Lori’s side of the family, he is survived by his sisters-in-law, Sharon Matteson (Bruce Haight) of Maryland, Sandra (James) Austin of Hartwick, and Margie (Jim) Leslie of Cooperstown; and his mother-in-law, Irene Matteson, who resides at Otsego Manor. He is also survived by his uncles, Gerald (Margaret) Williams of Jordan, and John (Carol) Delano of Skaneateles; as well as by many other relatives and his nieces and nephews.
Calling hours were planned 4-7 p.m. Thursday, July 16, at the Tillapaugh Funeral Home, 28 Pioneer St., Cooperstown, when Jim’s family will be in attendance.
Funeral and committal services in accordance with the family’s wishes will be private.
Memorial contributions may be made to Williams Education Fund, established to benefit Jim’s children, care of Kenneth L. Williams, 959 County Highway 33, Cooperstown, NY 13326.
Arrangements are under the supervision of Tillapaugh Funeral Service, Cooperstown.

Labels: 07-17-09, Obituaries

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WEEKEND’S BEST BETS

ART OPENING: A 5-7 p.m. opening reception Friday, July 17, launches the Cooperstown Art Association’s 74th Annual National Group Juried Show at the gallery/Village Library Hall, 22 Main St. Awards presented at 6 p.m. Information, 547-9777.

FLYING PANCAKES: 7:30-11 a.m. An annual pancake tradition continues at the Cooperstown/Westville Airport, Fly-in all you can eat breakfast. Rte 166., Adults $6.50, children under 12 $4. Info, 547-9007.

LUAU ON BEACH: 7-11 p.m. Friends of Glimmerglass host a Saturday evening of tropical fun with Hawaiian meal, hula dancing and limbo contest. $25/person, Hawaiian attire, BYOB, 547-8662. Purchase tickets at friendsofglimmerglass.com

CLASSICAL FARE with international flavor at Saturday’s 8 p.m. single performance as Joel Fan (of Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble) and David Temple combine on piano and guitar. Foothills Performing Arts Center, Oneonta. Tickets $25. Info, 431-2080, foothillspac.org.

HE’S BACK: Don Sherwood, the Otego native and creator of “DanFlagg,” the 1960s newspaper comic strip, will be at B Sharp Gallery on Franklin Mountain, 4-8 p.m. Saturday, July 18, for autographs and the opening of an exhibit of his work.

BLACKSMITHING provides Sunday fun, 1-4 p.m., Old Middlefield Schoolhouse, County Highway 35 off State Highway 166. Don Avery of Otego, blacksmith and master certified farrier, will work on a portable forge to demonstrate his craft. Free! Info, 547-9648, 547-9515.

SIDEWALK SALE: Don’t miss the all-day bargains at Oneonta’s downtown sidewalk sale. Enjoy live music, entertainment and children’s activities and special clearance deals along Main Street. 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Main Street, Oneonta.

Labels: 07-17-09, Glimmerglass

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It’s Music To The Ears Of Hundreds Of Budding Musicians

By LAURA COX

This summer, as for the past four, the hills of SUNY Oneonta‘s campus are alive with the sounds of nearly 400 music students and the counselors, faculty, directors and visiting artists.
In short, the New York Summer Music Festival.
It is successor to the New York State Music Camp, founded in 1947 in Otter Creek and moved to Hartwick College 10 years later.
When it began to shrink, SUNY Oneonta stepped in in 2005.
This music festival takes place over the course of three two-week sessions, each with nearly 200 students, ages 9 to 28, representing 35 states and 13 nations participating in over 50 ensembles and classes.
With the huge diversity of age and background, how well do students get along? Does it work to have a 10-year-old playing next to someone a decade and a half older?
“It’s all about the music,” responds Keisuke Hoashi, festival co-founder and director of communications, “In music age really makes no difference, some students start at age 3; others at 22.”
The festival in its present incarnation has seen 20-30 percent growth each year. This is the biggest year yet, with most students high-school age.
A typical day starts with an academic class at 8:20 a.m. – students can chose between sight reading, music theory, ear training, music history, or film making (the latter taught by Hoashi, who is an actor in Los Angeles).
At 9:30 a.m., all students and counselors gather in Chase gym for the All-NYSMF – they pronounce it NIZZ-miff – Choir.
Rehearsals in symphony orchestra, jazz band, jazz choir, jazz combos and piano ensemble follow until lunch.
At 1 p.m., technique classes. Then workshops, more rehearsals, classes and opportunities to practice.
While the mission is musical growth through opportunities, more than just music is happening at the camp.
Hoashi looks back at his own experience at the NYSMC – NIZZ-mick – in the early ‘80s and remembers really growing up in those three summers.
“At camp, students live together in dorms, play music together and experience conflicts and romances. There is a big social aspect which is as important as the musical aspects,” said Hoashi. “All feel like they belong, there is a lot of love happening here.”
One of the major highlights for students and the Oneonta public is the more than 30 free concerts and recitals put on by students, NYSMF faculty and visiting professional artists.
Some of the big names this summer include bass player John Patitucci, a multi-Grammy winner who played at the end of June.
Upcoming are Marty Erickson, former U.S. Navy Band principal tuba, at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, July 21, in the Hunt Union Ballroom, and Steven Reineke, the New York Pops Orchestra conductor, who will direct the NYSMF Pops Concert at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 5 in the Ballroom.
Student Concerts happen at the end of each two-week session, with the next series occurring on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, July 23-25. Check the NYSMF website for details: www.nysmf.org.
Among the 200 students in the first session – Sunday, June 28, to Sunday, July 12 – were Brandon Linhard, 17, a piano player, Xandry Langdon, 15, a singer, and Tricia Dyer, trumpeter, all from Oneonta; Virginia Ofer, the singer from Cooperstown; Natasha Crespi, 14, a clarinetist from Laurens; Kathryn Rudolph, 22, a trumpet player from Unadilla who is assisting NYSMF Executive Director Jungeun Kim this summer.
“It’s great, as a music person, to be around other people who appreciate music,” said Langdon, who’s attended the festival for three years, “and it’s a good opportunity to meet different kinds of people who like the same things.”
The camp offers the opportunity to play in an orchestra, to play chamber music, to perform next to professional musicians, something most local high schools are simply too small to provide.
The camp is about much more than just music, said Rudolph.
Langdon, Rudolph, Crespi and Linhard all said they would definitely recommend the camp to other local musicians.

Labels: 07-17-09, Glimmerglass

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Varied Pleasures

SAM GOODYEAR

ART BEAT

If not by the weather, you can tell it’s summer here by the multitude of events to choose from for an evening or afternoon’s pleasure.
Of particular elegance and enjoyment is what is doing at the Cooperstown Theatre Festival just south of Glimmerglass Opera on Route 80.
It is once again featuring a series of Sunday Afternoon Teas, this month and next, providing light entertainment in the Barrymore Café along with leisurely and fine munching and nibbling, not to mention the excellent coffee lovingly brewed by Madame Bella Malinova, who presides over the culinary pleasures. (There is also tea, of course, and wine for those who like to sip lightly and politely.)
A literary afternoon kicked off the season on July 12, and we hope we will have occasion to hear more from the author in question.
Future events will spotlight the talents of the Grigorievs, a classical guitar and flute duo in our midst via Russia, Chile and Canada (July 19); the ShamRocks, who promise to raise your spirits with Irish pub tunes like you’ve never heard before (Aug. 9), and on Aug. 16, the Catskill Poetry Theatre (now there’s an original concept). Starting time: 2 p.m.
In addition to the Sunday series, Austin Sears (actor-manager of the Cooperstown Theatre Festival) and Susan Melchior (who has appeared numerous times on Otsego County stages) will perform A.R. Gurney’s epistolary favorite, “Love Letters,” at 8 p.m. July 30, 31 and Aug. 1.
For tickets and information, call 547-2335. Margarita Sears, the producer of these varied events, will be happy to help you with extreme cordiality.
In another vein, it’s too late now, but if you didn’t get to the Kelly Miller Circus in Richfield Springs last weekend, you missed out on some jaw-dropping excitement, plus many laughs.
No, they are not Ringling Brothers, or Big Apple, or Cirque du Soleil, but they dazzle and entertain and make your palms sweat with many of their more daring acts.
Hugely satisfying, and gratifyingly effective at proving that we still remain children at heart. First rate. Don’t let it pass you by the next time the circus comes to town.
And please avoid the necessity for saying, “Gee, I didn’t hear about it!” Make these pages your entertainment bible!

Labels: 07-17-09, Art Beat, Columns, Glimmerglass, Sam Goodyear

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Walker Evans’ Prints Made Even Better, Digitally

At Fenimore, Details You Never Saw Before

By JIM KEVLIN

COOPERSTOWN

Photo aficionados, you haven’t see it all.
When you go to “Walker Evans: Carbon and Silver,” which opens Saturday, July 18, at The Fenimore Art Museum, you’re going to see something very few people have seen before.
Take the 1936 portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs of Hale County, Ala.
Walker Evans, whose haunting portraits of Depression-era rural Americans are national icons, used the gelatin silver contact method to make the original Allie Mae photos.
This exhibit, under the direction of John Hill, who worked with Evans at Yale and knows what the master was trying to achieve, transformed the original prints into digital files and recreated them as larger, ink-jet prints.
The result is dramatic.
You can see an original Allie Mae portrait on a far wall of the exhibit – ethereal, like an Andrew Wyeth painting.
But in the poster-size recreation to the left of the entrance, you can see every hair on Allie Mae’s head. You can see her pores.
“You’ll find detail never apparent in the original darkroom print,” said Michelle Murdock, The Fenimore’s curator of exhibits, as she screwed in a final bulb and adjusted a final spotlight the other day.
A few images down from Allie Mae’s portrait, which was originally known as “Wife of Cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Ala.,” is “Sharecropper’s Family, Hale County, Ala.” – mom, dad, grandma and three kids, including a baby in his mother’s arms.
The black cloth at the mother’s feet, you discover, is actually a black cat, albeit a skinny one. You can see the sores and scars on her swollen legs. Quite exceptional.
Walker Evans was an established, although not prosperous, photographer when he was hired by the U.S. Farm Security Administration in the mid-1930s to record the ravages caused by the Depression. For 18 months, he ranged West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee.
During a leave of absence in 1936, he teamed up with poet James Agee on assignment from Fortune magazine and made the trip to Hale County. The result was published as “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” an American masterpiece.
The images – 70-some of them – are one part of the exhibit, which also includes Walker Evans’ books, showing how the play of the photos was an integral part of the book design, for “Praise Famous Men” as the rest.
The third element is Walker Evans’ equipment, including a camera with a sideways viewfinder that allowed him to photograph subway riders unawares.
According to Murdock, it was Milo V. Stewart Sr., the retired NYSHA director of education and formidable photographer in his own right, who first saw a version of the exhibit in Buffalo a couple of years ago and alerted The Fenimore.
The Fenimore was just coming off that successful 2007 Ansel Adams exhibit, so was interested in pursuing it.
“We’re always doing photography,” Murdock said.
Americans, she said, have always been interested in recording history, today, as it happens, and photography has been a perfect vehicle to do so.

Labels: 07-17-09, Glimmerglass

posted by The Freeman's Journal @ 7:43 AM 0 comments

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The Zimpher Initiative Could Harness SUNY To Upstate Revival

Who can “save” Upstate New York?
Precious few individuals, that’s for sure.
Governor Paterson is too downstate-focused.
Downstate Democrats now control both the General Assembly and state Senate; besides, the legislative process, at best, is fragmented.
The Empire State’s captains of industry are all in well-watered environs of Manhattan, making only occasional forays to summer homes Upstate.
That leaves – who else but? – the SUNY chancellor, who oversees a $2.4 billion budget expended through 64 facilities – universities, colleges, hospitals – from Stonybrook to Fredonia.
Only SUNY has the brainpower, the money and the clout to transform our lovely but forlorn rural counties into international models of sustainabililty, and our hollowed-out industrial cities into forward-thinking beacons of prosperity.
As it is, SUNY’s Upstate payroll is a huge economic benefit to communities surrounding the university colleges, but it’s not enough.
So Nancy L. Zimpher’s call for a strategic plan for the SUNY systerm, to be built from the bottom up, and to be in place by next spring, is exciting indeed.
“You have to have a plan; it’s trite but true,” the new chancellor said Monday, July 13, during her first visit to SUNY Oneonta (and 25th on her 100-day tour of all 64 institutions). Then she added, “Once you have a plan, you have accountability.”
We said “a strategic plan for the SUNY system,” but it’s much more than that.
As chancellor of the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, Dr. Zimpher was involved in The Milwaukee Idea, a strategic-planning effort based on the land-grant university’s original “Wisconsin Idea” – that the university would not be an ivory tower.
Rather, “the boundaries of the university would be the boundaries of the state,” the chancellor said.
As president of the University of Cincinnati, she helped create a vision there entitled, “UC/21: Defining the New Urban Research University.”
What a strategic-planning effort does is set consensus goals and create a process to reach those goals. It sounds warm and fuzzy, but when asked about “deliverables,” her response was peppered with the tough-minded verb “to track.”
The Milwaukee Idea focused on Technology Transfer – sharing skills, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing. Success was measured by the increase in research dollars and by counting newly created jobs; the most beneficial outcomes won’t be known for years, when the research bears fruit.
UC/21, growing out of a different social milieu, focused on urban challenges, measuring the decrease in the poverty rate, increases in home ownership, increases in the high-school graduates and college enrollees.
What measurements would reflect progress in Upstate New York?
Maybe decrease in outmigration of college graduates. Maybe dollars invested in SUNY-spawned economic sectors.
For instance, why shouldn’t the 600 music-industry grads SUNY Oneonta sends forth annually develop a music industry right here? Why shouldn’t the fashion majors spawn an Eighth Avenue north? Why shouldn’t the college’s new STEM initiative – for science, technology, engineering and mathematics – attract high-growth, high-tech startups: Silicon Valley east?
The Zimpher Initiative will get started right after Labor Day, with “town hall meetings” planned in campus communities around the state. A 200-person council representing the range of people who have a stake in the outcome – all of us, that is – will help hammer out the details.
New York was The Empire State, foremost in every way – finance, manufacturing, agriculture, railroads and then highways, institutions of higher learning, you name it – but today our poor Upstate is in sad decline.
Yes, the New York Metropolitan area prospered mightily by comparison, but overreaching has brought proud Wall Street low.
Upstate has it all, all but the will. Can The Zimpher Initiative summon it forth? – and the visionary plan – can The Zimpher Initiative create a worthy one? – and farsightedness to achieve it?
The new chancellor is determined to accomplish the first two steps – Godspeed. The third step will depend on the rest of us.

Labels: 07-17-09, Editorial, Opinion, Perspectives

posted by The Freeman's Journal @ 7:43 AM 0 comments

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‘Single Payer’ The Way To Go

DOUGLAS M. DeLONG

OTHER VOICES

I was among a couple of dozen local people who had the opportunity to speak directly with Scott Murphy, our newly elected congressman in the 20th District, during a stopover the Roseboom Café.
Many concerns were raised, but my personal agenda was largely focused on health-care issues. I would like to share some thoughts of that meeting.
Primary Care medicine is truly in crisis in our country. In recent surveys of medical students only 2% are considering a career in Primary Care. General Internists and Family Practitioners are retiring in greater percentages than peers in other specialties. We know from many studies that the more Primary Care physicians for a given population the better the health outcomes and the lower the costs.
To his credit, Congressman Murphy, at least partly because of physicians in his family, seemed well informed on these issues. He clearly noted the urgency to “incentivize” physicians in training and to decrease the disparity in reimbursement between Primary Care physicians and subspecialty doctors.
I specifically urged him to support a “single payer” health care reform package and to sign on as a co-sponsor of HR676. As one might expect from a narrowly elected freshman representative, he hewed pretty much to the party line that a single payer plan is “not politically feasible.”
I very much disagree with that attitude.
The status quo is clearly not sustainable, with 47 million Americans without health insurance (including several at the Roseboom meeting), an equal number with inadequate insurance coverage, the majority of personal bankruptcies due to catastrophic health bills, and an ever-increasing portion of the country’s economy going to fund health care.
Fundamentally, I do not think that there is any role for investor-owned, for-profit insurance companies in our health-care system. Their primary responsibility is to maximize profits, and that means, in effect, denying health care to beneficiaries.
We can no longer afford to waste the 30 cents of every health dollar going to shareholder profits and obscene CEO salaries. There is no doubt that both the insurance and pharmaceutical industries will resist mightily any effort to curb their excesses, but that just means we will need major leadership from our elected officials.
The current proposals that are being batted around do little more than tinker around the edges. Even the best of the plans would leave millions of Americans without health coverage.
Funding for health-information technologies, curbing “fraud and abuse,” addressing tort reform are all worthy goals, but even in aggregate they will not give us universal access, improved outcomes and lower costs. We currently spend more than twice per person on health care than other industrialized countries and our health outcomes are almost universally worse.
It seems inevitable to me that there will eventually be a national health program, a Medicare-for-all with everybody in and nobody out, but the longer we put that off the greater the fiscal debt we will be leaving to our children and grandchildren.
I would ask all of you to write your representative, senators and President Obama to provide the political leadership we want and to stand up to the industry lobbyists. We need fundamental reform in health care. Today is not soon enough.
Douglas M DeLong, M.D., is Bassett Healthcare division chief/general internal medicine. He has been active in lobbying for health-care reform as a member of the American
College of Physicians.

Labels: 07-17-09, Guest Column, Opinion, Perspectives

posted by The Freeman's Journal @ 7:42 AM 0 comments

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Locals

Thursday, July 16, 2009

EXCHANGE OVER, EXCHANGE BEGINS

Outgoing Rotary students seated, from left, are Emily Davidson (Belgium), Julia Nelson (France) and Chelsea Moakler (Argentina). Incoming exchange students are, from left, Anna Snell (Peru), Kaitlyn Breiten (Poland), Erin Sullivan (Czech Republic), Jonathan Birch (Brazil) and Caitlyn Murphy (India). The Cooperstown Rotary Club hosted 150 people at a picnic for exchange students and their families Friday, July 10, at Barnyard Swing in Hartwick Seminary.

NEW FACES AT THE SMITHY

Ariell Ahearn, left, Unadilla native, Fulbright scholar and recent Cornell grad with a master’s in public communication, has taken over as executive director of the Smith Pioneer Gallery.

Helping her this summer are, from left, Jennifer Smith, Cherry Valley, a student at Alfred; Daniel Intriligator, a Hartwick College student, and Alyssa Kosmer, a recent Cooper Union grad who returned for a second summer as assistant director.

A SHAGGY CHAMP

Toby Harmon’s Shaggy won best of breed for Belted Galloway at The Farmers’ Museum Junior Livestock Show, which ended a three-day run with the Parade of Champions Tuesday, July 14. Toby, 9, is from Milford.

LIFEGUARDS HONORED

Three Mile Point lifeguards Ryan Davine, with plaque at left, and Todd Mayton, at right, were honored with citations from the state Senate and the Cooperstown village board on Monday, July 13, at a ceremony in the park’s pavilion. Ryan and Todd were credited with saving the lives of an out-of-area couple who had capsized their canoe off the village park in Otsego Lake on the Fourth of July Weekend. Family members and other well-wishers included, from left, Jan Kerr, Jack Kerr, state Sen. Jim Seward, Grant Davine, Ryan’s mother Kate, Ryan, his father Mark, Todd’s mother Polly Smith, Todd, Mayor Carol B. Waller, Todd’s stepfather Alex Thomas. In front, from left, are Alisa Davine and Lila Kerr.

Labels: 07-17-09, Locals

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