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LAKE PLACID NEWS
Features
History of the schools of the Keene township: 1820 to 1986
LUCILE WASHBOND
SUPPLIED BY HER DAUGHTER,
CHARITY MARLATT
KEENE VALLEY
The first settlers came to
what is now Keene Valley in
1787. They were followed
by others who obtained
properties along the Ausable
River. As the settlement
grew, it seemed necessary to
provide a school house so
the young could receive
some much-needed education.
We can be proud to note
that the Town Of Keene
organized the first school
district in the Adirondacks.
Records of trustee meetings
date from 1813, and there is
evidence that school was
held in the homes of different parents before a schoolhouse could be built. In
1818 it was voted to erect a
building large enough for
forty sitters.
This building was completed in 1820 and stood
opposite the Keene Valley
Hardware near the site of the
present Kelley homestead.
The price of this building
was $168 and it was used
for 30 years. In those days,
usually a man was paid a
small sum of money and the
This new building was
across the street from the
home of Charles and Agnes
Holt. The new schooolhouse
was used for 23 years and is
still standing in its new location on Adirondack Street. It
is known as the Cheney and
rest of his salary in grain or Lucretia Crawford home.
iron at the market price at (Next door to the AuSable
Inn parking lot.)
the end of the school term.
As
the
enrollment
In the same year a branch
increased, the residents of school was built in St.
the school district decided to Huberts that was used until
build a new school. They the fall of 1923 when it was
obtained property on the closed, and the pupils transroad to the present Keene ferred to the Keene Valley
Valley Country Club and in School.
1850 built a new school for
Through the early years
$238, which was used con- the outlying areas in the
tinuously for 37 years. It Keene Township became
was not painted until 1882 more populated and it was
when it was given a coat of necessary to build a small
red paint and called the school to accommodate the
Little Red Schoolhouse.
children in these various
This building is still areas. Eventually there were
standing on the Keene 10 rural school districts
Valley
Country
Club with as many schools in the
grounds and is used as a Keene Township: Keene
locker room and tool stor- Valley, St. Huberts, Keene,
Corners,
age. Over the entrance is Holt's
found this inscription:
Hazzardsville, Alstead Hill,
"This building was erectd Cascade Road, East Hill,
for a district school house in Spruce Hill and Irish Hill.
1850 and was framed by
With the exception of St.
Orson S. Phelps. Divine Huberts, all of these schools
Worship was for many years remained in use until cenheld here by Thomas tralization was completed in
Watson, Pastor, Horace 1931.
Bushnell, James B. Shaw,
In 1910, for $11,000, a
Noah Porter, William B. fourth building was erected
Hodge, Joseph H. Twichell, on the Main Street lot 1920
William L. Kingsley."
that marked the growth of
In 1887, it was deemed the school from one room to
necessary to build a new a building which accommoschool at a cost of $ 1,400. dated all eight grades and
COURTESY KEENE VALLEY LIBRARY ARCHIVES
A Keene Valley School, c. 1912-1914. Information accompanying this photograph does not include the name of the school — there were 10 school districts and 10 schools in the hamlets of the Town of Keene at the time — but
judging from Luciie Washbond's paper, it was probably the Main Street school
erected in 1910.
the high school.
Times changed, and it
seemed wise to bring the
entire student body to a central location from all the
outlying districts. Much
effort was put forth and, by
1930, the Keene Central
Rural School was established using the new Keene
School that had been built in
1922 at a cost of
$13,340.41 for six elementary grades, and the Keene
Valley School for eight
grades and the high school.
The federal government
promised a PWA loan for
the erection of a new school
building. This amounted to
$180,000, of which 70 percent had to be paid back
over a period of 30 years at
an interest rate of 4 percent
per annum.
Work on this building was
begun in the spring of 1935.
The townspeople watched
the progress of the work
with interest and sometimes
surprise at the many different techniques used. Finally,
in September 1936, the
school buses rolled up to the
doors of the new school and
Keene Central came alive.
Eventually the Keene
School was closed and all
the students bussed to Keene
Valley. This building has
been used for 50 years continuously with a few
changes on the interior.
Let us keep this motto in
mind: "Step by step lift bad
to good, without halting,
without rest, lifting better up
to best."
PEOPLE
RICHARD ROSENTRETER/LAKE PLACID NEWS
Tupper Lake Village Police Officer Jason Amell, left, holds a "Do Not
Cross" tape during the Irohman race Sunday as Lake Placid Police Officer
Frank Strack looks on. Amell was assisting the LPPD in return for Lake
Placid's help during Woodsmen's Days.
RICHARD ROSENTRETER/LAKE PLACID,NEWS
Kids and staff from the Shipman Youth Center helped out during the I Love
Barbecue Festival July 4, 5 and 6. Pictured are Andrey Kolocdov, Danielle
Balestrini, Carmen Patnode, Assistant Director Jason Hooker, Director Jon
Fremante, Corey Detwiler and Stephanie Barker.
HEALTH ADVICE
How to take your own advice
with my fellow loggers in the
Adirondacks. Perhaps you,
Lifetalk
too, have some good advice
you are giving yourself, also
with...
without taking it?
I once wrote an unusual
Roberta
book, "RD Laing & Me:
Russell
Lessons in Love with the late
renowned British psychiatrist,
ost of us have something RD Laing." The front flap of
about ourselves that we the book cover advised the
would like to change, reader that its purpose was "to
some maladaptive habit, be it show you how to increase your
over-eating, over-spending, options and thereby to be selfchronically interrupting others, empowered to take your own
smoking, frequently arriving advice through the enhanced
late or failing to do enough confidence, courage, feelings
exercise. I know what I have to of well-being, and other saludo to lose thefinal6 pounds of tary effects of a good relationthe extra 12 that I had packed ship." Research clearly shows
on in the year since I moved that even in treatment with a
from Lake Placid to Meredith, professional therapist, this
N.H. - just eat 500 calories feeling of alliance is the most
less per day - but I wasn't important ingredient in effecdoing it until I reconnected tive psychotherapy, even more
M
important than the particular
method employed, the number
of times per week you meet or
the cost involved.
Outside of the confines of
professional therapy, however,
the hard part is finding an
appropriate and willing partner
who will put his or her challenging, but desired, behavior
change on the table and make
a time-limited commitment to
address this target problem
and be mutually accountable
to you about that and your proposed solution to the individual problem you choose to
address, as well. Your situations needn't be the same for
this to work, but you must be
reasonably intact to take on a
challenge of this sort. Each
partner in this alliance needs to
lay out a realistic plan —
that's the easiest part— that
you both believe will work,
and be accountable to each
other on a pre-agreed schedule. For instance, if I were to
promise that I would log the
calories that I eat and the exercise that I do every day and
create a calorie deficit of
3,500 calories per week - an
amount of energy guaranteed
to burn one pound of unwanted fat - I would arrive happily at my goal weight in July. In
fact, I am doing just that. If
you chose to join me and lay
out your plan of action, what
might you accomplish by
then?
I tried this approach in a
group once in Auckland, New
Zealand where I ran a Mutual
Alliance Therapy workshop in
which motivated people, some
of them complete strangers,
paired off with the purpose of
forming a therapeutic alliance.
They promised to speak to
their partner every day, at least
on the phone, about their compliance to the treatment plans
that they devised for themselves. For instance, a married
pair of overly busy entrepreneurs who had grown apart
agreed to get up early and
allow one partner each day to
talk to the other until he or she
felt understood. They alternated days and remarkably, over
time, this simple change dramatically altered their relationship.
If there is anyone out there
would like,to try this kind of
therapeutic alliance for a few
weeks, I, for one, would love
to hear about it, or if appropriate, even participate. If you
travel, as I do, the easiest way
to provide continuity is by use
of free video phone calls
through www.skype.com or, if
that is not practical, just a wellintentioned phone call should
do the trick.
If you can manage to survive each other's onslaughts, a
well-matched partnership is a
lot more fun and more motivating than the lone pursuit of
solitary goals into further solitude.
I wish us all the best of luck
in what is likely to be an invigorating and salutary adventure.
you can prune without hesitation. Once the old, dominating flower stalks are
removed, the new shoots
will be free to expand and
grow. The plant might look
a little bare after you prune
it, but those new shoots will
fill in very quickly.
watch the difference. Or cut
just half the plant back and
compare the two sides in a
couple of weeks. Seeing the
difference should convince
you to prune more, next
year.
I'm always amazed by the
amount of plant material I
haul out of my garden after
one of these mid-summer
pruning blitzes. The garden
looks quite different for a
week or two, but other
plants come into bloom and
the pruned plants produce
lots of lush foliage. It's definitely worth doing.
Roberta Russell is the
founder of the New York
Calorie & Exercise
Logging Group (www.per-
manent
weightloss.org).
Send letters to her at rus-
[email protected].
IN THE GARDEN
After the bloom
North
Country
Gardening
Amy Ivy
P
erennial flower gardens
are always changing as
different plants go in
and out of bloom. That's
one of their great appeals.
Even though no one plant
stays in bloom for more
than a few weeks, there's
always something else coming along.
Perennials also provide
interest with their form: tall
and vertical or broad and
spreading, and with their
leaf texture and color:
spiky dark green, ferny yel-
lowish green, large and
coarse leaves, or small and
delicate leaves. There's
always something interesting to look at in a perennial
garden.
Many perennials lose
their good looks after their
flowers have faded. They
often develop a tattered,
ragged appearance as the
leaves on the flowering
stems turn yellow or brown.
Just removing the spent
flower heads isn't enough.
To really keep your garden
looking its best after flowering, you need to do more
aggressive pruning. This
encourages new shoots of
attractive, healthy leaves to
grow from the base ol 1!K
plant.
Not all plants fade after
flowering. Some, including
Siberian iris, astilbe and
coral bells, look just as nice
after flowering as before.
Some have attractive seed
pods, like the Siberian iris,
and others, like Echinacea
(coneflower), produce seeds
that the birds love.
But most perennials look
much better if given a good
pruning after flowering.
This group includes centaurea (mountain bluet), Shasta
daisy, catmint (Nepeta),
mallow, coreopsis, delphinium,
lupine
and
dianthus.
Delphinium will almost
always reward you with a
second flower show in late
summer if you remove the
flower stalks as soon as
they fade, and sometimes
the centaurea will too, but
most other perennials
bloom just once a season.
H o w to prune
Before you begin cutting,
take a good look at a perennial that's finished flowering. Shasta daisies, mallow
and catmint are some of the
easiest to practice on.
Notice not just the faded
flowers and developing
seed heads, but the whole
flowering shoot. See how
some shoots produce flowers while others produce
only leaves? See how the
flowering shoots are beginning to yellow while the
leafy shoots still look fine?
Now push the old flower
stalks gently aside and see
if )ou can see any new
shoots beginning to emerge
near the base of the plants.
If you see the new shoots,
W h e n in doubt,
prune it out
The new shoots will
strengthen the root system
of the plant and produce
food to be stored for next
year, so you definitely want
to encourage them.
If you don't see any new
shoots at the base, you'll
need a little nerve to get
started. When in doubt, cut
back one plant but leave
another plant of the same
species unpruned; then
A m y Ivy is executive
director w i t h C o r n e l l
Cooperative Extension
in Clinton C o u n t y
E-mail questions to
[email protected]
I