You may have noticed the flurry of activity this week on the front lawn of Cooperstown Methodist Church at Chestnut and Glen. It’s the re-creation of a “Jerusalem Marketplace” from Biblical times, part of the annual ecumenical Vacation Bible School. All six churches in town collaborate. In top photo, Jordan Oliver participates in a javelin contest. Below, the Rev. Samuel B. Abbott, Christ Episcopal Church rector, instructs Henry James Fernandez in the reading of the Torah.

Labels: Front Page, Images

Dreams Park To Fight Reval

HARTWICK

Cooperstown Dreams Park has advised the Town of Hartwick it will challenge its new assessment in court.
Dreams Park saw its valuation quintuple in the just-completed assessment, from $3,229,546 to $16,917,700.
Seven property-owners’ disputes were resolved in small-claims court. The only one of the other 1,505 landowners to sue was another big one: Cooperstown Commons.

BACH’S BEST: Don’t miss two chances to hear the Brandenburg Concertos live, No. 5 at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 16, at Templeton Hall, and all of them 7:30 p.m. Sunday at The Farmers’ Museum. While you’re at it, join the 200 Club to benefit the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival.

NO TRIATHLON: The Glimmerglass Triathlon, held at Glimmerglass State Park for the past two decades, has been cancelled this year. The park has a new administration with new priorities.

ART SHOW: “Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art,” curated by CGP Director Gretchen S. Sorin, uses art from the Clark Collection to explore blacks in 19th century America. It opens Saturday, Aug. 23, at the Fenimore Art Museum.

‘CODE’ CALLED OFF: Bassett Hospital declared a rare “Code Yellow” emergency Monday, Aug. 12 – signaling possible multiple injuries – after a report that a Birnie Bus carrying Pathfinder Village residents had been rear-ended in downtown Edmeston. Extra personnel were called in and 11 people were brought in to be examined, but just as a precaution.

MUSEUM BOUND: The New York Yankees have requested two editions of The Freeman’s Journal on Rich “Goose” Gossage’s induction, July 25 and Aug. 1, to include in the museum associated with the new Yankee Stadium due to open in 2009.

Labels: Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown and Around, Cooperstown Dreams Park, Front Page

COOPERTOWN

Butch Welch feels he’s been doing his father’s penance. And how.
When Alva Welch – that’s Butch’s real name, too – was operating the Chevy dealership at 21 Railroad Ave., he met a salesman peddling that awful asphalt siding. You know the stuff.
So he approached the folks at Harrison’s Feed Store, where the Agway annex is now at Railroad and Leatherstocking. Yes, they’d be interested in siding their building.
Spurbeck’s owners would, too. Also members of The Improved Order of Redmen; their lodge was at 5 Railroad Ave.
“Dad talked them all into it,” said the son. “He was a good salesman.”
Alva Welch then asked his new salesman friend for an estimate.
What if you did a second building as well?
The salesman cut the price.
How about a third?
Another cut.
A fourth? Sure.
Butch Welch remembers his father coming home (the family lived in the former stone passenger depot, behind Bruce Hall’s) the day the deal was hatched.
“It’s going to be a neat street,” he said.
“A neat street,” the son repeated ruefully.
He’s thought about that episode quite a bit in recent years, after buying 5 Railroad – the big red building north of Spurbeck’s, the former Redmen’s hall – in 2002, with plans to convert the upper two floors into five apartments for the 55+ crowd, and retail or office space on the ground floor.
The first job – daughter Molly recruited friends Jeff Smith and Whitney Martens to help – was to tear off that awful siding.
“You expect to atone for your own sins,” Butch reflected. “But you don’t expect to atone for the sins of your father.”
Many toils followed, some financial, others structural, but the job – who hasn’t been dragging an eye on driving by over the past six years – it just about done.
All the sills had to be replaced. There was a 5 ½-inch bow in the south side.
“That east wall,” said Butch, “didn’t have one – not one – continuing stud between any of the floors. Not one.”
That wall had to be completely rebuilt.
Since plans are to rent the six apartments – four are two bedroom; two are one bedroom – to a crowd far enough along that no one will be blasting rock and roll into the wee hours, an elevator was installed as well.
Twice, worked stopped to allow financing to catch up. The Welches sold 27 Railroad; work started again. Butch turned 62, and was able to access his Roth IRA without penalty.
Welch expects the job to be done by Sept. 1.
The other day, Butch was installing appliances in a second-floor apartment. Son Tyler, who’s helping his dad with the final push, was making sure the windows were working fine on the third floor. Kevin Shulgay of Schenevus was packing tools in his pickup after a long day.
Butch – he and wife Mary live at 25 Railroad – has already rented one of the apartments, pending the COA, and four more are available. (With a two-year waiting list at Cooper Apartments, they should go quickly.)
A land surveyor and an Internet company have sounded him out on the 2,000 square feet on the ground floor.
The hardwood floors were installed by the Redmen in the 1950s, long enough ago so they have that vintage feeling. The windows, though new, follow the outlines of older ones, big enough so the building’s bright throughout.
All new appliances, carpet, paint – you name it. John Edgington – his carpentry skills are legendary in these parts – joined Butch’s effort in December, a suggestion of the quality of the near-complete job.
The building dates back to 1897 and was originally a hop house. Farmers would bring in their crops. The traders would buy the hops, sort the crop, then carry the bales across the street to the freight depot, where the DO Railroad is today.
When Butch was a boy he used to walk past the building daily en route back and forth to school at Glen and Chestnut, where the Cooper Apartments are now.
When he got back from the University of Georgia, he “wanted to use the skills I’d developed in college,” so he joined the Redmen – the lodge and the Mohican Club next to the Cooperstown Diner were the only establishments in town at the time with pool tables.
The Redmen are still extant, but the local lodge expired four decades ago. For 35 years, various auto-parts establishments were located there. When Butch and Mary bought it, there was a lot of shelving and tons of trash that had to be removed before renovations could begin in earnest.
Butch isn’t quite done, but he’s already itchy.
“It’s a strange feeling,” he said. “I was sitting the other day and suddenly thought to myself, ‘Gee, I’m going to be out of a job soon’.”
Next? He’ll be redoing an old home out in Middlefield for his retirement.


Tyler Welch makes sure the front windows on the third-floor apartment at 5 Railroad Ave. are functioning smoothly.

Labels: Butch Welch, Front Page

By JIM KEVLIN

---

BURLINGTON GREEN

It’s a bit of a mystery why it’s called Cranberry Bog, Earle Peterson will tell you.
Perhaps it reminded early settlers of the bogs near Burlington, N.J., their home town, and William Cooper’s.
There are two species of wild cranberries in the 75-acre watery expanse, but too bitter, Earle will tell you, to eat with any enjoyment.
The dike, in Peterson’s view, may actually be no more than a beaver dam that, after centuries of settling, looks like a man-made barrier, but actually just happened.
Whatever, it’s a wild place, a poem by Poe, perhaps. But there a heron, here a bright mushroom, ducks scattering beyond, make it irrestible.
With certifiably beautiful Otsego County – James Fenimore Cooper penned the certification – under siege from windmills, natural-gas wildcatters, Madison Square Garden’s huge music fest, mini-Wrigleys and mini-Fenways, and just garden-variety development, it’s hard not to be occasionally pessimistic about what the future may hold.
Don’t surrender to those feelings: Earle Peterson, who spent several years as president of the Otsego Land Trust, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary at a reception Saturday, Aug. 23, at Thayer Farm, is holding the line.
All of those concerns seem a million miles away at Peterson’s 1,200 acres, just a few minutes from the flagpole at Main and Pioneer. On the Fourth of July, he can see the fireworks at Fairy Spring from a field high on one of his hills.
One Fourth, the grass had grown so tall it was peeking over the hood of his truck when a space alien appeared before him, long neck, huge eyes and ears flapping forward. “I saw E-T,” Peterson said. (It turned out to be a fawn.)
The Otsego Land Trust goes back to a late ‘80s meeting at Fifth Avenue’s historic Villard Mansion, across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as George Snell, Herkimer native, New York City lawyer (by way of Yale) and a summerer on Hyde Bay remembers it. (Since 1981, the mansion’s been the elegant entryway to the 55-story Helmsley Palace Hotel.)
The usual suspects in these matters were there: Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr., Kent Barwick, Lin and Gib Vincent.
They were Friends of PROTECT, which was evolving into Otsego 2000, but they recognized the need for something more: A land trust, which would allow land owners, through easements, to control, at some degree, what would happen, or not happen, to beloved properties after they passed away.
There was some immediacy to the meeting, since the Campbell family, owners of 100 acres around Leatherstocking Falls in Pierstown, was looking for a way to preserve that property.
As the lawyer in the room, Snell was prevailed upon to perform the “arduous” task of establishing the trust, and he wended his way through the necessary approvals by banking and education authorities, with the final approval by a judge.
“...and now,” Snell told the group at a subsequent meeting, “I’m turning the baby over to you.” Pause. “They didn’t take him.”
It was about that time – “I’m not very good at dates,” he’ll tell you – that Earle Peterson, who had a 50-employee veterinary practice in Hunterton County, New Jersey, discovered 250 acres at the end of a dirt road near Burlington Green, the kind of place he remembered from his boyhood on a farm near Unadilla.
He bought it – or, rather, convinced the realtor who owned it to sell it to him. The crown jewel of the property was the bog. And in the years that followed, Peterson and his wife, Cynthia, began buying up land as it became available to protect the bog’s watershed.
Looking to protect what is there beyond their lifespans, they approached the Nature Conservancy, but learned that entity was only interested in accepting the gift, selling it, and using the proceeds for what it considered more environmentally critical properties.
Cynthia, who has worked for years in the New York City mayor’s office, discovered the 1,700-organization Land Trust Alliance involved in protecting 37 million acres, and the allliance in turn “made me aware of a small land trust in Cooperstown.”
Soon, the Petersons had established The Greenwoods Trust and begun crafting the easement – it allowed construction of a house or two, and includes a provision for an emergency airstrip at some point – to protect their beloved property.
Along the way, George Snell was finally able to turn over the baby; Peterson took it.
In New Jersey, Peterson at one point had found himself chairing the board of a 1,000-bed hospital system. At another point, he was heading a regional chamber of commerce populated with Fortune 500 companies.
“I knew what had to be done” at the Otsego Land Trust, he said: “I created structure.”
One day, arriving home at 10 Pine Boulevard, he found an unfamiliar woman picking flowers from his backyard for, as she explained, a cocktail party she was planning at her home at the north end of Otsego Lake.
You have plenty of flowers; I didn’t think you’d mind, she told Earle.
Her embarrassed husband showed up 20 minutes later and invited Earle to the party.
There, he ran into Jane Forbes Clark – “an outstanding person,” Peterson says – who had heard of his efforts and questioned him closely. By evening’s end, he had found a dependable financial supporter of the land-trust concept.
Today, the Otsego Land Trust is in the midst of a phase that began two years ago, when Peterson handed over the reins to Harry Levine of Princeton, N.J., and Springfield; Levine also heads the Advocates for Springfield.
Levine, in turn, led the search committee that hired Peter Hujick, a Dartmouth grad and Nature Conservancy administrator in northern California, who came to town to implement the “10,000 acres by 2010” effort.
The extent of the challenge soon became clear. The U.S. Forest Service’s study, “Forests on the Edge,” listed the upper Susquehanna among the nation’s 20 most endangered watersheds. The American Farmland Trust’s “Farming on the Edge” came to the same conclusion about northern Otesgo County agricultural land.
Hujick’s accomplishments to date include obtaining a $50,000 grant from the Land Trust Alliance to help develop a “conservation blueprint” – a vision – for the region. Recently, the Otsego trust expanded its reach into the Butternut Valley, where Carla Hall Friedman and Ben Friedman, who halped assemble Sterling Forest on the New York-New Jersey line, crafted easements for extensive acreage in the Morris area.
If anything, the demand is greater than ever, Hujick said – “people are knocking on our door” – but so are the satisfactions.
“The best part of my job,” he said over a cup of coffee at The Stagecoach, “is working with community-minded people who want to do something good.”

Labels: Burlington Green, Front Page, Land Trust

PHOTO: Wes St. Onge, Town of Maryland, warms up on the steps of the old schoolhouse before the start of the Middlefield Fiddlers School.

180 JOBS? Renewable Energy Development Inc. (REDI), a new company, has won a $750,000 federal Small Cities Grant to manufacture “ultracapacitors” in a new plant in Oneonta. The $3.3 million undertaking will employ 124 people at the outset, increasing to 180 over five years.

WORLD CAPITAL: Cooperstown Dreams Park owner Lou Presutti III has agreed in concept to leasing 120 acres in Louisville’s McNeely Park for a $20 million, 25-field sports complex. He plans to expand that to 75 fields and make Nation Dreams Park “the world’s capital of youth baseball,” according to the Courier-Journal.

ON STATE PANEL: Penney Gentile of Cooperstown has been named to the state panel, chaired by the DMV and education commissioners, to develop a 21st Century driver’s-ed curriculum for New York State. The legislation grew out of the death of her son, Chris, a CCS senior, in an accident in 2007.

PLAY CLOSED: Due to an illness of its technical director, The Leatherstocking Theatre Company has cancelled “Paris Was Yesterday,” its second offering of the summer season, which had been scheduled to open Thursday, Aug. 7.

HOUSE TOUR: Spook Hill, Chartwell House and the Beekman Mansion are among seven homes on the 10th Sharon Springs Historic House Tour, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9. Tickets are $10 and available the day of at the Sharon Museum, Main Street.

BE A STAR: The Foothills Performing Arts Center is holding auditions for a stage adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” to be performed in early October. For appointments, call Sam Goodyear between 9 a.m. and noon at 431-2080, extension 202.

Labels: Beekman Manion, Chartwell House, Cooperstown and Around, Cooperstown Dreams Park, Foothills PAC, Front Page, Leatherstocking Theatre, Lou Presutti, Penney Gentile, REDI, Wes St. Onge

---

COOPERSTOWN

Six doctors-in-the-making are about to spend “the pinnacle experience, the capstone experience” of their medical training at Bassett Healthcare.
And Bassett is hoping the result will be a pinnacle experience, a capstone experience, in the Cooperstown hospital’s 80 years of training physicians.
Beginning Monday, Aug. 11, the six – the plan is to raise that number to 12 next year – will begin their third year of training in an intensive 13-week rotation through the hospital’s departments.
Then comes the second phase, “very innovative,” said Laura Schweitzer, Bassett’s chief academic officer, in a recent interview. “Not many hospitals are doing it.”
This is an “innovative clerkship,” where the students will be assigned patients as they come in the door.
“They will work with the physician,” said Schweitzer, “diagnosing, staying with the patient during the entire course of their illness, for surgery and post-op.
“And they will keep in touch with them after they return home.”
Some medical schools do this for six weeks; here, it will be 30 weeks. The academic officer used words like “longitudinal” and “integrated” to describe it.
This new program – the long-standing affiliation with Columbia Presbyterian continues – was made possible through a partnership with Albany Medical College announced in June.
The model was developed at Harvard. “They may be assigned a pregnant woman,” Schweitzer said, “and that same week, they may be assigned to a patient in the cardiac unit.”
The six students know each other, so there should be camaraderie right from the start.

Labels: Bassett Healthcare, Front Page, Laura Schweitzer

by JIM KEVLIN

---

SPRINGFIELD CENTER

In not even two years as a congressman, Mike Arcuri, the Utica Democrat, seems quite at home in the role.
And so he was at the famous Fourth of July Parade here, marching up Main Street with his pretty blonde wife Sabrina by his side, oldest son Carmen, a high school senior, carrying one end of the “reelect Arcuri” banner.
The freshman congressman was likewise perfectly poised later at the community center, pinning an Italian war medal – albeit 60 years late – on the chest of Chet Scerra, Richfield Springs, who served in the OSS.
In an interview, Arcuri credits Bob Ford, his “great college football coach” at SUNY Albany, with teaching him about hard work, but also patience and “staying focused on your goal.”
Look at Mike Arcuri’s official biography, and you can see that focus reflected there, as he moved methodically from SUNY Albany to New York Law School to counsel for local school districts to Oneida County district attorney.
He was elected in 1993, at age 34. After 13 years, it just seemed to make sense to do so when he was approached to run for Congress as Republican Sherwood Boehlert retired from the 24th District seat in 2006.
It’s not extraordinary to hear him say “all politics is local,” but it is interesting to hear him interpret the experience of his first term through the prism of what his district needs.
For instance, he recounted how, through an interpreter, he engaged a Hadifa shopkeeper in conversations during a trip to Iraq with U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana.
“Are you feeling safe?” he asked.
“There’s no danger,” was the reply. “We feel comfortable. We feel very safe. What we need from America is more money. Our power is on only two hours a day.”
Exactly, Arcuri said to himself, that’s exactly what the 24th District needs, “billions and billions of dollars” for roads, bridges, mass transit, sewage-treatment plants, all the infrastructure that’s been deteriorating over the past quarter-century.
He learned of a program, costing $21 million a week, to pay Iraqi youths $300 a week to work with the Americans.
“If I would have proposed we pay every gang member in Chicago, New York, Utica, Syracuse, New York and Los Angeles to stay out of gangs,” he mused, “they would never allow me to do that.”
Instead of pouring largesse into Iraq, we should be spending that money “on the sons of America and the daughters of America.
“We should do it here.”
His roommate is Zach Space, an Ohio Democrat. He’s friendly with Heath Schuler of North Carolina, and also Patrick Kennedy of Pennsylvania, the first Iraq War vet elected to Congress.
“I’ve made some great, great friends,” he said.
They’re Democrats, but the friendly trip to Iraq with a Republican congressman is not out of character. Arcuri is a “Blue Dog” Democrat, a centrist.
But on specific issues, as you might expect, he tilts Democratic.
He echoes the view that oil companies already have 68 million acres available for drilling. “They’re trying to change the debate” from windfall profits.
If Barack Obama is elected, “it will be a change in direction. It will be a beginning to getting the troops home. I don’t think there’s anything more important than bringing the troops home.
“The economy is linked to the war in Iraq. Gas prices are up. World oil production has dropped dramatically. Iran tests missiles and oil prices jump.
“Destabilization of the Middle East is the problem.”
In the interview, the talk keeps circling around to family.
His father, Carmen, was director of the Mohawk Valley Economic Development District and “the best mentor I could ever have.”
It astonished him when Bob Ford would say after a practice, “Hey, have you guys called your parents to tell them you love them?”
In addition to son Carmen, he has two children by his second marriage, daughter Dominique, 14, and son Nicky, 10.
The hardest part of the job? He talks about not being able to bring the troops home and related issues, but then gets back to family.
Negative campaigning – a blog or two in the Utica area digs up embarrassing allegations about his extended family; the NRCC has come after him – is tough, because it’s tough on the family.
“I see my role as a congressman as really trying to improve families,” he said. “I received a 100 percent voting record for families and children by national organizations.
“To me, there’s nothing more important with respect to what I do in Congress.”

A profile of Arcuri’s opponent, Richard Hanna, appeared in May.

Labels: congressman, Front Page, michael arcuri

Labels: Front Page, Jackie Cyprus, Robert Schorf, SunflowersJulia Rissberg

Labels: Baseball, Baseball Hall of Fame, Dave Neihaus, Dick Williams, Front Page, Goose Gossage, Induction Weekend

Fire Police Capt. Joe Carentz and firefighter Mike DeSimone lead the Cooperstown Fire Department in the Fire Service & School Band Parade that opened the 2008 Otesgo County Fair Tuesday, July 29 in Morris.

FLOWERS GONE: Flowers planted in memory of Andrew Ellis at the Day/Johnstons road intersection with Route 28 were stomped Monday afternoon, July 28, and a cross of artificial flowers taken from the scene. Andrew died in a motorcycle crash Monday, July 7, at the intersection. Anyone with information should call Sheriff Rich Devliln at 547-4271.

BRASS TAPPED: MLB President Bob Dupuy, former Major League pitcher Phil Niekro and Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s board of directors at its annual meeting Saturday, July 26. One of the vacancies was caused by Tim Russert’s passing.

CASH ON HAND: Mayor Carol B. Waller said the Pay & Display machines in the Doubleday Field parking lot are generating $1,000 a day.

HELPING HAND: “Miss Mary Day,” to benefit Mary Turi, the Cooperstown Preschool teacher who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, is planned from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 9, at the Barnyard Swing, Route 28, Hartwick Seminary. All proceeds from mini-golf, laser-tag and food sales will go to help Miss Mary.

LEND A TRUCK: The Cooperstown Food Bank needs volunteers with pickup trucks to help bring supplies up from Oneonta once a month. To make up a shortfall, Bruce Hall Corp. has provided a larger truck several times this year, according to Fred St. John, a food bank organizer. If you can help, call the Murray sisters at 547-8089.

Labels: Cooperstown and Around, Front Page

While Jeff Idelson Can Now Relax, Steve Baumann Gears Up

By JIM KEVLIN

---

COOPERSTOWN

Playing against Babe Ruth, or Magic Johnson, or Donovan McNabb, or Pele – that can get a sport under your skin.
As a Miami Toro, Steve Baumann did get to play Pele, a Cosmo, in 1976.
But equally captivating was that famous college game in 1971. Steve was in the Penn squad, ranked third, on the field against Harvard, ranked second. There were 17,000 fans at Franklin Field, Philadelphia, a crowd that wouldn’t be surpassed for decades.
And Penn beat Harvard, 5-2.
“It was one of those moments where you get to feel what it’s like,” said Baumann, who is completing his first year as president of the Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta.
When he and wife Karen moved to Otsego County – son Keith, 29, is a lawyer in New York City, and daughter Amy, 26, is a fair-housing advocate in Philadelphia – they bought a house on Nelson Avenue. Jeff Idelson, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, lives on Pioneer Street.
So Baumann’s arrival made Cooperstown unique in yet another way: As the only community in the nation – prove otherwise! – that is home to the top executives of two major sports halls of fame.
Idelson can relax just a bit right now. His 2008 Induction Weekend ended Sunday, July 27, when Rich “Goose” Gossage entered the baseball hall. (The other night, when he stopped by to pose for a photo with his soccer counterpart, he was on his way to an evening boat ride on Otsego Lake – and perhaps a sip of wine or two.)
Steve Baumann wasn’t quite there yet. His peak weekend of the year is Friday through Sunday, Aug. 1-3, when Anson Dorrance, pioneering head coach of the University of North Carolina’s women’s soccer program, and Hugo Perez, the Salvador-born mid fielder who was 1991 U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year, are entered into the Oneonta hall.
When you chat with Baumann and look at his vita, the top job at the Soccer Hall of Fame seems like a perfect fit.
He was raised in Westport, Conn., at a time when Staples High was one of the few schools in the country that took soccer seriously. He played basketball and baseball, but it was soccer that got him in the end.
“The game itself” is what did it. The “free floating” nature of it. “Players are in control of the game, not coaches,” he continued. The coaching happens in advance; once the whistle blows, it’s teamwork and individual determination that make the difference.
Baumann’s stats at Penn reflected both those qualities. He chalked up 30 career goals, but also 39 assists, records that still stand, and records that got him into professional soccer.
He had received a B.A. in elementary education at Penn, and during his half-dozen years in pro soccer obtained a M.S. in science education at the University of Virginia. He taught in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia and also at the college level, at George Mason in Fairfax and Rosemont in Philadelphia.
He then shifted to museum work, with the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, before joining the Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena, Calif., as executive director. It was from there that he came to Otsego County, the choice of a national search effort chaired by SUNY Oneonta’s then-president Alan Donovan.
The interview naturally came around to the similar and different challenges faced by the two Halls of Fame.
Baumann is adulatory about Cooperstown’s hall: “The finest sports and sports history museum on the planet,” he calls 25 Main.
But he’s also bullish about soccer – the only youth-participation sport that’s actually growing, “year after year, more than baseball, football and basketball.”
It’s further fueled by the nation’s demographic changes. Not just Hispanics, but eastern Europeans – virtually every immigrant, for that matter – come from countries where soccer rules. “Now, more than ever, there are soccer fans in this country,” he said.
Whereas the Baseball Hall of Fame seems to be looking ever more beyond Otsego County – the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium was a Hall-of-Famer celebration; three vacancies on the HoF board were filled the other day by MLB President Bob Dupuy and two former players, no locals – Baumann is asking this question:
“What do we need to do to have a bigger impact in the local and regional community?” He adds, “How do we create value so people in the region” – from Albany, Binghamton, Utica, Syracuse – “come to visit us on a regular basis?”
Second, where the Cooperstown hall excells, the Oneonta hall has to as well: “How do we create larger image in the soccer world?”
If anything, Steve Baumann said, the proximity of the two halls can and should be a plus.
“What I hope we can do,” he said, “is aspire to an equal but different destination. I think that would make both of us stronger.”

Labels: Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, Front Page, Hall of Fame, Oneonta, Soccer Hall of Fame

Cherry Valley, Schenevus Tests Seek To Discover Size of Supply

By JIM KEVLIN

---

COOPERSTOWN

Did Orville Cole say more than he intended?
The village Board of Water Commissioners was meeting Monday, July 14, to determine whether to sell Covalent Energy Corp. (through its allied company, Gastem USA of Montreal), three chunks of 99,000 gallons each by the end of August to bore three test wells for natural gas, one each in Cherry Valley, Springfield and the Town of Maryland (near Schenevus).
In the end, the commissioners voted 3-1 to sell the water, despite concerns raised about damage of heavy trucks to village streets. The village trustees will make the final decision when they meet at 7:30 p.m. Monday, July 21, at 22 Main. More significant, perhaps, were the insights Cole, Gastem president, offered into what natural-gas wildcatters who have been scouting Otsego County for the past couple of years have in mind.
The goal of these three wells, he said, is to determine the scope of the possible natural-gas field under and around Otsego Lake. If the field is determined to be commercially viable, the idea will be to drive wells, two per square mile, all along the 18-mile stretch between the northern and southern ends.
That would add up to about 140 wells, he said. “If we are successful,” he said, “there will be more sites. If we are not successful, we’ll be somewhere else.”

Labels: Front Page, Natural Gas Drilling

Kim Kallen, retired New Hartford teacher, came down Route 28 Monday, July 14, in his Smart-brand car en route to visit his daughter in the Hudson Valley.
Made by Mercedes Benz, it costs $11,400 and gets 44 mph, more when it’s broken in. He test-drove the Smart during last year’s Hall of Fame Induction Weekend.

SEWERAGE OUT: The effort to create a sewer district in the Hickory Grove neighorhood on the west side of Otsego Lake has been abandoned. Win McIntyre, who championed the idea, said homeowners backed away after the Town of Otsego reval raised lakeside assessments four and five times.

BUD SOLD: Anheuser-Busch, the largest privately owned company in the U.S., owned by a family with century- old ties to Otsego County, is being sold to InBev, a Belgian brewer, for $52 billion.

RECORD TAKE: The annual Friends of the Library book sale raised a record $12,000 this year, 20 percent above last year’s take.

SEWARD CO-CHAIRS: State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, has named retired SUNY Oneonta president Alan Donovan and retired Hartwick College president Richard Miller as co-chairs of his reelection campaign.

OPPONENT HERE: Meanwhile, Henry Nicols, former Democratic county chair, hosted a fundraiser for Seward’s challenger, Town of Caroline Supervisor Don Barber, Saturday, July 12.

CHAIRMAN COLE: The chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dr. Bruce Cole, was due to keynote the New York State Historical Association’s 105th annual meeting Thursday, July 17, at The Farmers’ Museum.

RENEWAL: The state Office of Community Renewal was planning a forum Thursday, July 17, at The Otesaga, hosted by the county Economic Development Office.

Labels: Cooperstown and Around, Front Page

By JIM KEVLIN

---

FLY CREEK

Mary Winne, who lives at Johnstons/Day road intersection with Route 28, has witnessed too many close calls as traffic whips by in front of her house.
The crash that took the life of motorcyle rider Andrew Ellis, 23, of Hartwick on Monday, July 7, was the final straw. That Wednesday evening, she and neighbor Barbara Pope asked the Otsego town board for help in getting the state Department of Transportation to do something about the danger spot.
Since, the two neighbors and Pauline Stavola, a friend of the Ellis family, have been distributing petitions at the Fly Creek General Store, and the Doubleday Cafe and other points in downtown CooPerstown, seeking to make DOT aware “how dangerous this intersection is.”
Otsego Town Supervisor Tom Breiten said the town board is very willing to intervene.
“When someone’s child gets killed on a road, you want to do somethiing about it,” the supervisor, himself a father.
In her letter to the town board – copies were sent to Congressman Mike Arcuri, D-24, and state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford – Mary Winne asked for five things:

• Lower the speed limit from 55 to 45 between Cooperstown and Fly Creek.

• Eliminate the passing zone south of the intersection; it causes passing drivers to accelerate as they approach the intersection.

• Reduce the grade of the hill approaching Johnstons Road to improve visibility.

• Install a traffic light at the top of the hill.

• Put a traffic counter at the Johnstons/Day intersection with Route 28 to determine the amount of traffic. On July 14, Andrew Ellis was riding his motorcyle west on Route 28; when cresting the hill, it collided with a Jeep that was crossing 28 from Day to Johnston roads.

Labels: Front Page

By JESSICA GUIDO

---

SPRINGFIELD CENTER

Again, no development moratorium was adopted in the Town of Springfield.
But that doesn’t mean the monthly town board meeting Monday, July 14, was uneventful.
Quite the opposite. The packed gym in the Springfield Community Center was full of rhetoric and counter-rhetoric.
An opponent of MSG Entertainment’s plans for a music festival at Continental Road and Route 20, Maureen Culbert, submitted a 353-name petition urging the town board to adopt the moratorium.
“Among them are old and young, couples with families, singles, Amish community as a whole, part/full time residents, and business owners,” she said Of the signators.
“All are property owners and taxpayers."
To dramatize her fears about the music fest, she held up a copy of Rolling Stone magazine, open to a two-page spread of two topless women at such a festival elsewhere. The Amish in the audience turned their heads away.
At another point, town Councilman Dan Rosen chided Supervisor Tom Armstrong, who along with Councilman Rick Morris was seen sharing coffee with MSG lobbyist Tony Casale and MSG executive Andy Linn at the Stagecoach in Cooperstown.
He had been asked to a similar tete a tete, Rosen said, and although it may be “perfectly legitimate, I declined. I thought it would give the wrong impression.” Meet publicly, he said.

Labels: Front Page

HARTWICK
When David Petri saw the assessment on the 1818 one-room schoolhouse on his property rise from $500 to $9,300, “I was going to tear it down.”
Instead, Petri began spending Wednesdays and Saturdays, his days off, at the Village Library of Cooperstown poring over the county Real Property Tax Office
Web site.
He brought his findings to the Hartwick Town Board Monday, July 14, along with a 220-signature petition asking that the reassessment recently completed by George Cade of Middlefield be thrown out and started again from scratch.
Supervisor Pat Ryan’s immediate
reaction: “That’s $76,000 you’re asking the taxpayers to eat,” she said.
After being pummelled with apparent anomalies for 45 minutes,
however, she wasmore amenable. “We just have to figure out a way to fix it,” she said.
Petri, who lives on Route 59, said he discovered the $2,412 per acre assessment on his land was the highest in the neighborhood.
By contrast, the land of his next-door neighor, Town Attorney Lynn E. Green, was assessed for a mere $305.66 per acre, Petri said.
Greene was at the town board table when Petri confronted the board, but Ryan cut the back-and-forth off after a brief exchange.
After he complained to Steve Childs, the county Real Property
Tax director, Petri “looked in the computer” on March 30 and saw his neighbor’s assessment had been raised to $1,021.57 an acre.
He complained again to the town’s new assessor, Matt Lippit,0 who “zeroed out” 15 acres of wetland on Petri’s farm, dropping his per-acre average.
“Next time I looked,” he continued, his neighbor’s assessment had been raised again, this time to $1,731.51 an acre.
“The town’s fed up and disgusted with the reval,” Petri said, adding at another point, “It depends on who you are.”
That prompted other landowners to say their piece.
“There’s such a variance,” said Kelly Banner. “There’s no rhyme or reason.” She also questioned the qualifications of the Grievance Board.
Amy Kasak, who expressed fears she would have to sell her family’s Christian Hill property to pay the taxes, said of Cade, “We all know he has family and friends here. He never should have been assessor.”
“It makes me sick,” said Orrin Higgins, town justice.
Oddities are everywhere, said Petri. One farm with frontage on Route 28 at Gooey Pond Road, for instance, was assessed at $500 an acre.
Land in the neighborhood – a stone’s throw from Cooperstown Dream’s Park – is selling for $100,000 an acre, he said.

Labels: Front Page

Labels: Front Page

Friends,
The whole point of community is to make things happen that individuals can’t do alone.
And when individuals work together toward a goal, they naturally find themselves committed to the outcome.
That is the thinking behind “The 200 Club,” which The Freeman’s Journal is forming with this edition – see Page 3 – as part of its Bicentennial celebration.
The hope is that the newspaper, as a communication medium, might be able to find 200 people to contribute $200 – neither a little nor a lot – to a worthy cause, a $40,000 total.
If the idea catches on, next year we’ll attempt “The 201 Club” with the goal of encouraging 201 people to contribute $201 each, and so on.
Coincidentally, this year the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary, 10 years of bringing some of the top classical music talent in the country to Otsego Lake’s shores – audiences have seen such world-class artists as Midori perform in intimate settings. It’s a rare experience few communities enjoy.
The festival’s founder and artistic directtor, Linda Chesis, is committed to keeping the
concerts affordable as well, and this has required80 percent of the $140,000 annual budget to be
raised above and beyond ticket revenues.
It’s a stunning accomplishment, but so far it’s meant the festival has been living by its wits
– Linda’s wits, if you will – from year to year. But this has not dampened the festival’s ambitions.
Linda, a professor at the Manhattan School of Music, is hoping to develop an ongoing partnership
between that institution’s top-notch music students and aspiring musicians in the school districts
around Otsego Lake.
Further, this summer the festival is undertaking three Pro-Am concerts, where professional musicians play with top-notch non-professionals. The first of the free concerts – noon Tuesday and Wednesday, July 15-16, at The Farmers’ Museum (and 7 p.m. Monday the 14th at Pathfinder Village) – will feature pianist Bruce Harris, the Bassett Healthcare neurosurgeon.
The $40,000 – contributions are tax-deductible and will go into a non-restricted endowment –
will be used to encourage this kind of innovation.
If this works, there are many worthy civic efforts that could use a one-time injection of funds
to move to the next level. The Friends of the Village Library, the Cooperstown Pride Campaign,
you name it.
I hope you will join the Honorable Carol B. Waller, who characteristically led the way by
making the fi rst $200 donation, in making The 200 Club a success.
Jump in, the water’s great.

Labels: Front Page

By JIM KEVLIN

---

COOPERSTOWN

Everybody agreed Bradley Goodyear Smith’s story best captured Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr.’s gentle personality.
On her way to a party, her car hit a skunk and she ended up smelling like one.
At the party, everyone stayed away. Except Henry Cooper, who insisted on repeatedly twirling her around the dance floor.
On her way home, she realized the aroma was so strong Henry must have ended up smelling like a skunk, too.
When the guest of honor took the podium to address 220 well-wishers at Otsego 2000’s Thursday, July 3, testimonial in his honor, he wouldn’t let Bradley Smith get away with making him seem like a nice guy.
“What makes you think I don’t like to smell like a skunk?” he asked.
There were more serious stories, but the skunk one captured the evening’s light-heartedness.
All the guests had been looking forward to celebrating a guy they really like, and the effervescence bubbled over in pre-dinner cocktails on The Otesaga’s packed veranda and in the ballroom feast – filet mignon and salmon – that followed.
Everyone was there. Jane Forbes Clark, in a brilliant light blue jacket, sat to the guest of honor’s right. (She later joined Lou and Susanna Hager to make the presentations.)
As dinner ended and the speechifying began, everyone munched on macaroons. (As editor of The Century Bulletin, Henry chronicled The Century Club’s loss of its macaroon supplier, a tragedy the New York Times picked up on and reported about in February.)
But there was a serious element to the evening as well, as speaker after speaker – many in a short film put together for the occasion – recognized Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr.’s role over the past 30 years in:
• One, recognizing the neighborhood around Otsego Lake is a special place.
• Two, raising the necessary funds -- mostly through Otsego 2000, which he founded -- to keep it safe from challenge after challenge, and
• Three, contributing his time, presence and voice in meeting after meeting in ensuring
the case for preservation was eloquently made.
In an interview at his Red Creek Farm home a few days later, Henry Cooper was still giddy about the evening. “I enjoyed myself immensely,” he said emphatically. Beyond knowing in a general way he was going to be recognized somehow, “I did not know anything about what was going to happen.”



In addition to all the personal tributes, he remarked on the letter from Gov. David Paterson, which described the honoree as “a motivational and gracious leader whose life’s work promises
to continue contributing in a meaningful way for generations to come.”
A letter from George and Laura Bush is on the way as well. Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr., who will be 75 this fall, was born in New York City but, a direct descendant of Judge William Cooper and James Fenimore Cooper tied him to Cooperstown from the outset.
His father, Henry S.F. Sr., was one of the young doctors who brought deserted Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital back to life in the 1920s, and the son spent virtually all his boyhood summers in these parts.
From 14 to 22, he raked hay on the family farm, beginning before the days of baling, when loose hay had to be pitchforked up a conveyor on the back of a wagon, then again into the barn.
Ask him about Angus, his mother’s yellow 1929 Model A that sister Susie – now Susie Weil – had painted plaid while their parents were away for a week in Bermuda. After getting over her fury, mom gave the car to Susie, who passed it down to Jimmy (ask Andy Blum about that) and then to Henry.
“It’s still somewhere in one of the barns,” the last owner allowed.
At Yale, Henry Cooper wrote avidly for the Yale Daily News, ending up with a column, “Sound and Fury.”
In the summer of 1956, his nephew Henry Weil relates, his uncle wanted to go to the Middle
East, but his mother wanted him to get a paying job. So he called the Herald Tribune and talked them into paying him for writing a series of articles on his travels.
And the Arab countries he visited – “they weren’t used to getting any attention back then,” said Henry Weil – rolled out the red carpet.
“They had colleges. But, apparently, only the children of royalty went to the colleges,” said the nephew. “They figured Uncle Henry was an earl or something.”
As it turned out, Henry Cooper was on the dais when the British ambassador turned the Suez Canal over to Nasser. The mostly non-Egyptian crowd gave Nasser a bit of a chilly reception
and the Yale undergrad “took it upon himself to console the guy,” an indication of his uncle’s ability to empathize, Henry Weil said.
Henry Cooper has a plentiful supply of stories about fighting the good fight to preserve Otesgo Lake, from the Marcy South line, to formation of the Lindesay Patent and Glimmerglass
national historic districts, to the successful efforts of the past two years to push back an army of 400-foot-tall windmills from the viewshed.
Before Marcy South, he said, people took the natural beauty around them for granted; controversy changed that. “People began to think of our area as a special landscape, and the lake as a national treasure.”
And an as-plentiful supply about his 25 years at the New Yorker magazine, where – launched by a Talk of the Town piece on the lunar module Grumman was building in Bethpage – he specialized in the “riveting” pioneering days of the space program, writing long essays that eventually became books, seven in all. (His book on the near-disaster of Apollo 13, rather than astronaut Jim Lovell’s memoir, incomplete at the time, was a source for the hit movie with Tom Hanks, the director acknowledged at one point.)
He’d had his sights on the New Yorker since he was 16, and getting out of Yale Henry Cooper went to see a Mr. Hofeller, who handled the hiring.
“We see you can write in New Haven,” Hofeller sniffed. “But we don’t know if you can write in New York.”
He sent Cooper away with an assignment to write two Talk of the Town pieces. Before he could, he was drafted into the Army, spending two years stateside as a clerk-typist. Discharged, Henry Cooper called Mr. Hofeller back and advised him he would stop by to see him Tuesday at 4.
“Listen, young Cooper,” the executive replied tartly, “I don’t want to see you, you want to see me,” although he did schedule the “chagrined” applicant a few weeks hence.
First question: “Where are those two Talk of the Town stories I asked you to do two years ago,” and sent him on his way with the admonition: “Don’t bring them in; send them in. Don’t call me; I’ll call you.”
Cooper did the two pieces – one on a cockroach hunter, the other on a weather forecaster
ensconced in a castle in Central Park – sent them in and, hearing nothing, enrolled in the Columbia School of Journalism, where he spent a couple of miserable months.
Then the phone rang. It was Hofeller. “Mr. Shawn wants to see you,” he said.
“Who’s Mr. Shawn?”
“My god, you want to work for the New Yorker and don’t even know who the editor is!”
In any event, Henry Cooper went to see the excruciatingly shy Shawn, who said only, “When can you start?”
When he was a boy, Henry Sr. used to read James Fenimore Cooper’s novels out loud to the kids, who would stretch out on the carpet and try to catch a nap while dad intoned about Hawkeye and his pals. As he grew, he continued to avoid the novels.
Shortly after he joined the New Yorker he went to a cocktail party in the city and he ran into Louis C. Jones, the long-time NYSHA director, who asked him about his famous novelist ancestor.
When Henry said he hadn’t read much Cooper, Jones replied, “that’s the most absurd affectation I’ve ever heard of.” Chagrined again, Henry Cooper immersed himself in The Leatherstocking
Tales, (even trying to indoctrinate daughter Lizzie, as unsuccessfully as Henry Sr. had him.)
Henry Weil said one thing people don’t immediately recognize about his uncle is his sense of fun, and he went on to tell of some quite hilarious practical jokes, but strictly off the record.
Still, that sense of fun was manifest a couple of years ago when Henry Cooper went to Rome to visit his younger daughter Molly, a director working on “The Life Aquatic,” the Jacques Cousteau spoof starring Bill Murray. (Eldest daughter Lizzie is a newspaper reporter in Utica; middle daughter Hannah is a professor.)
The actor who was to play a TV interviewer of Cousteau/Murray in the movie had flown into town and had a stroke.
“We’ve been calling all over the world,” Molly told her father at dinner in a restaurant he hadn’t dined at in 30 years, “and we can’t find a replacement.”
“How about your old man?”
“Oh, daddy,” was Molly’s reply.
The next morning, however, she called back. He auditioned and got the part. You can order the CD at Box Office Video. Meanwhile, if you see Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr. riding Otsego Lake’s waves aboard “The Life Aquatic,” you know what that’s all about.

Labels: Front Page

By JIM KEVLIN

---

COOPERSTOWN

After many months of whispered worries, it’s out in the open: Natural-gas drillers are targeting the Otsego Lake region.
The controversy seemed to skirt the Cooperstown area as informational meetings in Laurens, as well as Delaware and Chenango counties, drew 500-700 people curious about the threats and opportunities.
At 10 a.m. Monday, July 14, the debate comes to 22 Main St., as Covalent Energy Corp. of Virginia and Utah asks the village Board of Water Commissioners to sell it 99,000 gallons a day from the Mill Street water plant.
That water would be used to bore for natural gas in the Town of Maryland, and Milo V. Stewart, Jr., water board chair, says contributing to that potential environmental challenge is bad enough.
Worse, he said, would be the tanker trucks – perhaps 20 a day, according to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission – that would ferry the water from here to there.
Stewart said he’s also heard the drilling would increase the region’s “carbon footprint” much more than any natural-gas discoveries would warrant. He said he has asked county Rep. Jim Johnson, R-Town of Otsego, to consider enacting a countywide moratorium until the issue can be further studied. Exploration has been going on for a while, said Covalent’s president Jonathan Kelafant. Last summer, two wells were bored in the Otesgo Lake vicinity, one in Springfield, the other in Cherry Valley.
Two more are being drilled in Cherry Valley this summer – in the Irish Hollow section across from CV-S Central School – and another in Springfield. The state Department of Environmental Conservation said Covalent is the only driller interested in Otsego County right now.
However, the river basin commission said 50 different companies are looking at 62 different sites in the Susquehanna Valley of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, although only six projects have yet been permitted. While the boring doesn’t need the quality water produced by municipal plants, drillers can fast-track their applications by buying the water, since municipal plants have already passed muster with the river basin commission and other regulators, according to the commission’s Michael Brownell, a Laurens native.
The process being considered, made attractive by the rising price of oil and natural gas, is called “fracking” or “hydrofracking” and uses horizontal rather than vertical drilling. A bore hole goes down several thousand feet, then turns sideways to explore gas for thousands of feet around the initial bore.
Water is used to crack the Marcellus Shale – the gas-rich formation stretching from Tennessee to the ridge north of Jordanville – and sand forced in to keep the cracks open so the gas can be extracted. Kelefant said any finds will be in the magnitude of 100,000 cubic feet a day, compared to 5 million cubic feet in the Gulf of Mexico.
Extracting gas from shale is not particularly new, he continued: The first such operation occurred in Fredonia in 1820. Sustainable Otsego has been monitoring the developments and sharing information on its listserve. One of its founders, Adrian Kuzminski of Fly Creek, said there are a lot of questions about the environmental impacts, and he supported Stewart’s push for a moratorium.
Meanwhile, Cornell Cooperative Extension is sponsoring an informational meeting at 7
p.m. Tuesday, July 15, in the Town of Chenango, near Binghamton, for town officials.

Labels: Front Page

ELLIS REMEMBERED: Calling hours for Andrew L. Ellis, 23, of Hartwick, who died Monday afternoon, July 7, when his motorbike collided with a Jeep on Route 28 between Cooperstown and Fly Creek, are Friday, July 11. Andrew’s obituary appears on Page 12. Brittany Rombough, Cooperstown,
was driving across 28 from Day to Johnston roads when the crash occurred.
IN THE TIMES: Did you see Peter Applebome’s “Our Towns” column in the July 6 Sunday New York Times? It focused
on MSG Entertainment’s plans for a music festival in the Town of Springfield, saying controversy there, in part, is due to tensions between old timers and newcomers. It included a photo of Town Supervisor Tom Armstrong.
COINCIDENCE: It turns out the Susquehanna River Basin Commission’s water resources chief is Laurens’ native Michael G. Brownell, who moved to Harrisburg, Pa., after graduating
from SUNY Oneonta. He will be a key player in whether the proposed natural-gas drillers in Schenevus can use Cooperstown’s water. His parents, Jim and Ruth, and brother Tom, still live in Laurens.
FORD PIONEER: By the time you read this, you will have missed Ford Motor Co.’s manager, product sustainability,
Carrie Majeske, who was scheduled to speak at 10 a.m. Thursday, July 10, at the 105th annual convention of New York chapter of Triple A at The Otesaga.
BUMPER STICKERS: Due to printing delays, Sustainable Otsego’s bumper sticker, designed by Jim Herman, Hartwick, will be inserted in next week’s edition of The Freeman’s Journal. Watch for it.
MURPHY’S METER: One of the brand new Pay & Display parking meters in Doubleday Field, from Mackay Meters in Canada, stopped accepting bills and credit cards in recent days. The village is awaiting a new control board. Meanwhile, use change.

Labels: Cooperstown and Around, Front Page

The Glimmerglass Opera opens its Shakespeare-focused season Saturday, July 5, with Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate,” based on “The Taming of The Shrew.” Lisa Vroman stars as Lilli Vanessi/Kate and Brad Little stars as Fred Graham/Petruchio.





Friday, July 4

PARADE – 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Famous Fourth of July Parade, BBQ, concert. cakewalk, book signing, Springfield Center, 11 miles north of Cooperstown. Information, 547-9983.
CELEBRATION – 10 a.m.-5 p.m. The Farmers’ Museum, festooned with patriotic banners
and bunting, hosts typical 1845 celebration of our nation’s birthday that includes patriotic music, games, dances, and orations.
Information, 547-1450.
FOOD – 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Five of the Fly Creek Cider Mill’s top selling hot sauces will be featured with holiday recipe ideas to spice up any picnic. Learn how to make spicy chicken strips and hot wings! www.flycreekcidermill.com
CONCERT – 5 p.m. “A Quiet Concert for the Fourth,” classical
music, Windfall Dutch Barn, Salt Springville. Free admission,
potluck supper following concert.

Saturday, July 5

FIREWORKS – Cooperstown’s
Annual Fourth of July Fireworks, dusk, Lake Front Park. Preceded at 8 p.m. by Cooperstown Community Band concert. Rain date, July 6.

Sunday, July 6

FESTIVAL – 9 a.m.-4 p.m. 35th annual Town of Middlefield
Historical Association’s Community Day. Worship service, Brooks’ BBQ, The Small Town Big Band and Ice Cream Social, and Middlefield Marketplace. Details, www.middlefieldmuseum.
FASHION SHOW – 5th Annual
Runway at the Roseboro Fashion Show & Luncheon, 1 p.m. Historic Roseboro Hotel on Main Street, Sharon Springs. Tickets; $15. www.sharonspringschamber.
com
ANTIQUES – 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Early Birds 6:30-9 a.m. Cooperstown
Antiques Show. Wood Bull Antiques, 3920 State Hwy 28, Milford. Information, 286-9021.

Labels: Front Page

By JIM KEVLIN

---

COOPERSTOWN

Adults wouldn’t ask the question, but seventh-graders didn’t know better.
“What do you want to do before you die?” Henry Nicols was asked by a youngster during a TV appearance hosted by ABC’s Peter Jennings after the Cooperstown Eagle Scout’s 1991 press conference announcing he had AIDS.
Out of the mouths of babes.
“I want to run for president of the United States,” he replied.
The audience burst out laughing.
“No, no,” said Henry, stopping them. “That’s part of the problem: Everybody thinks that people with AIDS will die.”
Nine years of touring the country and world as an AIDS activist followed, before the weakened young man passed away on May 8, 2000, at age 26. Henry, president of the United States. That’s become part of the Nicols’ family lore, his father, Hank – also Henry – said the other day in explaining his book, “Henry for President,” that went up on amazon.com in the past few days.
Hank Nicols, a former village police chief and Bassett systems exec who now travels the world teaching on behalf of SUNY Buffalo, said he tried to write a memoir of his son’s long ordeal soon after Henry died, but found he simply could not: “Death was too close; I couldn’t talk about it for years.”
But this is the year Henry would have turned 35, and thus would have been Constitutionally permitted to run for president for the first time. As the year began, the father – he had vowed to have the book published by his son’s birthday,
Aug. 9 – sat down and, finally, wrote it.
“In a way, it was cathartic,”he said.
Listening to the story, you can understand how catharsis is appropriate. For one day in 1985, when AIDS was still known as GRIDS – gay-related immune deficiency syndrome – Henry, a 13-year-old hemophiliac from babyhood who required continuous blood transfusions, told his father he had contracted the disease. By 1986, Henry, his father and his mother Joan, had shared the news with the rest of the close family, including sisters Diana (now Cooperstown’s police chief) and Jennifer, “but we didn’t tell anyone else.”
Remember, those were the days when young Ryan White was expelled from school in
Kokoma, Ind., when it was discovered he was infected. The Ray family’s home was torched in Arcadia, Fla., to keep three young brothers, all hemophiliacs, from enrolling in school. “What would happen if our neighbors found out we had AIDS?” asked Hank. The son was treated in New York City for the next five years.
In 1990, Henry, then a senior at CCS, “got really, really sick,” developing thrush, that severe mouth infection. The doctor who examined him at Bassett knew immediately.
“Henry, you have AIDS,” he said. About this time, the young man was striving to complete the personal-responsibility requirement for Eagle Scout, and he told his parents, “I don’t think I should have to keep it secret.”
Collaborating with then-superintendent of schools Douglas Bradshaw, he organized a press conference and on March 8, 1991, told his story. Overnight, Henry Nicols
became a national – even an international – sensation. He was on the cover of Parade
magazine and the topic of an HBO special. Radicalized, he and his sisters traveled the country and world sharing the message: AIDS sufferers and their families are just like anybody else.
Visiting Japan, Henry was mobbed. Since, dad Hank has learned that a child with a debilitating disease “either destroys families or it makes them very strong. It
made us very strong.” Henry’s hepatitis, it turns out, was a great “training ground” for the trauma of AIDS. The first thing Hank and Joan did was dip into their retirement savings and take the whole family on a European trip. They took lots of photos, and bought a video camera. “We lived our lives to get the most out of every day,” the father remembered. “To make the most out of every day: We would have fewer regrets.”
And the family lives by that credo today. Joan is working parttime instead of fulltime, so as to spend more time with her elderly mother. The other morning, a
reporter calling to set up an interview about the book learned Hank was babysitting Diana’s children for a few hours while she attended to her village business. “Our legacy is to change things for the better, if we can,” said the father.
In addition to Diana’s public service role, Jennifer Nicols Curtis is a professor of public health at SUNY Cortland, and still an activist spreading the word about the dangers of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases generally.
Writing the book, Hank wanted to tell as much of the truth as he could, including the
“human frailties” encountered along the