Letters 2/14/2008

Dear Editor,
This is an open letter to the Trustees of Onteora School District:
Judging from the feedback at the Community Forum held on Jan 26 at Onteora High School, and ongoing conversations, it seems like a vast number of people in the Onteora School District are still not sold on one or more of the following three issues that are pushed upon them:
1) A Grades 5-8 Middle School, that puts 9 year olds in the same building as 13 year olds.
2) The closure of another elementary school
3) The need to spend anywhere from $65-$85 million to upgrade our schools.
Respectfully, I believe that until you can convince the public about these issues, you’re going to have an uphill battle on your hands. That would be a shame because we do need to spend money on our infrastructure, and we do need a more distinct Middle School, with at least one extra grade. And yes, we are dealing with declining enrollment.
Each of you carries the title of trustee. I assume this means that you are entrusted by the School District. But surely you’re also entrusted by the public, the parents, the tax payers. We need to be able to place our trust in you too. And at the moment, because of your lack of clarity, you’re not earning that trust.
Last spring, you took a late night, split vote in favor of a Grades 5-8 configuration for a Middle School. Some of us believed that to spell the death of another elementary school, but despite our vocal fears, we were continually assured that such a vote had not been taken. A vote has still not been taken to close another elementary school. But at the Board Meeting on January 15, when KSQ Architects presented their Middle School designs, all options involved the closing of another Elementary School. So, our suspicions were founded, and the vote for a Grades 5-8 configuration turned out to be a back door vote to close another elementary school. Those of you who voted for Grades 5-8 never had the courage to come forward and tell the community as much. You betrayed our trust.
We know your job is not easy. In fact, it looks difficult bordering on thankless. But each of you chose to stand for the role of Trustee, and you are therefore accountable to the voters. Had you put forward an actual vision for the District a year ago, maybe we’d all be in a different place right now. Had you said to us then: ‘We want to create a separate and distinct Middle School for Grades 5-8, it will mean the closure of Bennett as an Elementary, but these are the reasons it’s the right thing to do and this is how we can make it cost effective,’ then maybe you’d have brought the public along with you. But you didn’t. And although such a plan is now on the table, we can’t assume that’s your intention because this board is unbalanced: a full five of the seven trustees live in one of the three towns that makes up this school district. As such, and because of its recent upgrades, we know that Bennett will stay open one way or another; we do not know that Woodstock/West Hurley and Phoenicia will stay open one way or the other. You have never looked us in the eyes and made us that promise. You put the cart before the horse and the result is that people in the district are confused and angry. You’re dividing us when you should be uniting us.
Over the last several months, at Board Meeting after Board Meeting, you have been presented with multiple requests to reconsider your vote. You were presented with reams of evidence relating to the educational and cultural value of rural community schools. Yet the material on the School web site justifying Grades 5-8 is ludicrous: a one-paged typed memo from a Steering Committee followed by pages of documents belonging to the National Middle School Association, none of which specifically endorses the Grades 5-8 configuration. There were limited copies of a pamphlet available at the Community Forum, but most people only saw the quarter page justification on the welcome sheet, which is too little, too late.
The analogy as I see it is that last year you voted yourself authority to go to war. And having given yourself that authority, you’re now going full steam ahead with your war – unwilling to acknowledge that we, the public, have not been sold on this war. We’re worried about the cost, we’re concerned about the justification, we’re confused about the goal. As trustees, you have a responsibility to sell us your vision – to lead us, to bring us along with you, to explain why this war is worth it. You’re not doing that.
At this moment, despite all the figures, there are only two options on the table, each of which calls for the closure of an elementary school:
(A) Turning Bennett into a separate and distinct Grades 5-8 Middle School.
(B) Keeping Bennett open as an elementary, cramming a Grades 5-8 configuration into the current Middle School, and closing Phoenicia or Woodstock instead.
Some of us who speak up frequently at Board Meetings have been led to believe that the only way to save the District’s outlying elementary schools is to get behind (A), and campaign for Bennett as the middle school. Not only does this pit us against those Bennett parents who want to keep the school as an Elementary, but we’re unwilling to do so because we don’t know that you, the Trustees, also believe in this plan. Do you? And if so, when will you come out and say as much? Three of you are up for re-election this year; we have a right to know your vision for the district.
Respectfully, then, I say that there is enough opposition from the public for you to rethink your plans. Be brave. Reopen the issue. Take a full evening out to debate why Grades 5-8 is the perfect plan. Then go home, absorb all the information, and come back and vote on it again. (After all, two Trustees are so new to the Board that they didn’t participate in the previous debate or the vote. Indeed, we have yet to hear them express their thoughts on the subject.) Tell us straight up, one trustee at a time, your vision. Be honest with us. Look us in the eyes and tell us what you’re thinking and why. We’ll respect you all so much more for it. Convince us that you know what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, and you have a chance to bring us along with you. Otherwise, we end up in a community at war, the cost of which – socially as well as economically – will outweigh any possible benefits.
Tony Fletcher
Mount Tremper, NY

Dear Editor,
Mark Twain: "In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards". It's easy to throw stones from the sidelines...but you do what you have to. We elect our officials to make the tough decisions while we scrabble for a living here in the land of summer homes and a stagnant service economy. However, as elected officials, we do expect you to explain and defend your positions and votes.
You have decided with little input that our ten year old fifth grade children should be schooled and bussed with the eighth graders (and vice versa).
This is one big decision. The result/reason of this is probably another school closing. Lest you think that a closed school costs us nothing, run the numbers on West Hurley. West Hurley has some serious deferred maintenance problems. Deferred maintenance is just that, deferred; not non-existent (unless, of course we just sell it off to a developer for, say, another dentist's complex or bridge building facility). I urge our school board members to take another look at the numbers. The shrinking enrollment may no longer be shrinking as NYC continues to expand its suburban limit. Federal leadership and the funds and testing mandates that flow from it will change, probably drastically. Bond and budget votes 'round these parts suffer seriously from taxpayer/voter backlash and outrage. As tax payers we deserve a full explanation and defense of any potential school closings before we pass a bond or budget. I personally also don't think fifth and eighth graders have all that much in common.
Someone needs to explain why the grades five through eight need and will benefit educationally by being combined and what one less open school truly gets us for our dollars while sitting there sucking them in, regardless.
Marcus Parris
Woodstock

Dear Editor,
As reported Onteora’s Superintendent Leslie Ford said at the last forum held at the school that there will be a bond proposal no matter how subsequent meets go. That doesn’t sound like anyone that’s too concerned about how much floating a bond will affect tax payers in her district for years to come. KSQ architects have put out plans that could cost upwards to 80 plus million dollars. It appears that the school and the Board of Education members are really pushing for a bond vote. What’s that all about? The last I looked I didn’t see any of the school buildings anywhere near collapsing, but there are two empty school buildings in West Hurley just sitting there costing tax payers plenty of money. From all reports no one wants the Woodstock or Phoenicia schools closed so why not take the less expensive option and open the West Hurley Schools.
With the declining student population and the district still owing a Debt Service for principal and interest payments associated with previous building projects the Board of Education members must start to show some fiscal discipline. According to the 2007-2008 proposed school budget the district has paid or will pay close to a million dollars in this school year in Debt Service. The district probably will still owe more Debt Service payments from previous building projects that would have to be paid for by district tax payers.
The Onteora Board of Education members should close their book on how to spend and open a book on economics and the effects that raising school taxes have on seniors and everyone living on fixed incomes. Board members ought to get out from underneath the School’s Administers wings and start thinking seriously about some cost effective measures. There are ways to be more cost effective. An example would be out sourcing or sub-contacting all or part of the Maintenance and Custodial departments.
Many retirees continue to have fewer finances to incorporate into their budgets. With everything costing more money including increased taxes, health insurance, medications, food and gas prices leave retirees with less spending money and the ability to save for their taxes. Some retirees that are fortunately enough to receive a retirement check see their pensions reduced year after year because their health assurance costs increase every year. The Feds trying to avoid a recession cut rates twice in eight days. Apparently School Board members are oblivious to the financial state of this country and what they do to retirees when they say yes to everything that’s proposed by the school.
At the last forum Board President Mary Jane Bernholz said, we as a board realize we have to do a better job in the community and getting feedback, and be more open to feedback. We want the information. If the board’s President is serious about getting feedback from all the tax payers in the district she should conduct a district wide opinion survey or a questionnaire. Taking the opinions of a couple of hundred people that attended the recently held forums is not a very good assessment of how district wide tax payers feel. Because of what all of Onteora’s tax payer’s will go through from the decisions made by the members of the board, all tax payers should have a say in their financial future.
William Warnecke
Glenford, NY

Dear Editor,
I was reminded last week after reading in OFP’s last issue an article in which functional literacy was being discussed about a couple video clips I saw a few months ago from CNNN’s What’s This Weird Old Thing Called The World, in which the British host comes to the good old USA to interview “average” Americans to find out just how much us locals “really know about the world that [we] run.”
For those of you who may not know, CNNN is a news and current-affairs channel owned and operated by ChaserCorp. It was founded in 1983 “to counteract liberal bias in the media,” and is the cornerstone of a television network that contains over 40 different channels, spans 294 countries and reaches “a potential cumulative audience of 100 billion people per week.”
At first blush, I thought, surely these videos are some sort of hilarious or not so hilarious—depending on your point of view and gravity of mind—spoof. They are not. Little digs at Americans? Perhaps. Laughs at our expense? Decidedly. (Deserved? You decide.)
What is shocking about these interviews is not that they demonstrate how little we Americans embrace the world around us, but the reluctant knowledge that the participants in the interviews just might, indeed, represent the average American. The interviews for both video clips were conducted in Washington, D.C. Granted, only a couple dozen people were interviewed for each of the videos. But . . . still . . . In any case, the participants—black, white, Hispanic—range in age from early to mid 20s to a few in their early 60s. All looked to be about middle class—a couple lower, a couple upper. Participants appeared to range from college students to working stiffs to professionals and everything in between (no snot-nosed bleeding heart old lefties or ultra-conservative shock-jock right-wing nut jobs). The interviews for both videos were taken throughout the city.
What is disturbing about these interviews is also the reluctant knowledge that close to half of Americans of which the participants are purportedly representative of are going to vote in this year’s “high-stakes” presidential election (as if there’s any other kind). As well they should. But while the two videos may draw some unbelievable laughs, they also demonstrate what I would seriously argue could be defined as bordering on “functional” illiteracy. And that ain’t no laughing matter.
In one video the CNNN host asks Americans on the street which countries the United States should invade next in order to curb terrorism. Many interviewees couldn’t even find the so-called “terrorist” states they named—including Canada, France and Italy—on the map. Nobody questioned the morality or wisdom, not to mention legality, of invading another country. It was merely taken for granted that we should and would.
But it is the other video that causes perhaps even more serious pause—or should. Here are the questions and answers:
Name a country that begins with ‘U’: “Yugoslavia,” “Utah,” “Utopia.” Who’s in the Coalition of the Willing?: “No freaken idea,” “Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan.” What’s the religion of Israel?: “Israeli,” “Muslim,” “Islamic,” “Catholic, probably.” What religion are Buddhist monks?: “Islamic . . . I don’t know.” Who won the Vietnam War? “We did . . . wait . . . were we even in the Vietnam war? Yeah? Oh, good.” Who’s Fidel Castro?: “A singer?” How many sides does a triangle have?: “Damn . . . four?” “No sides . . . one?” What is the currency of the United Kingdom?: “What is the United Kingdom . . . I don’t even know,” “Possibly American money,” “Queen . . . Elizabeth’s . . . money? That’s all I know.”
And, as the CNNN host posits, who says Americans aren’t switched on?
We may still be asking ourselves how the H we elected Bush II, not once but twice, but I think the cat’s out of the bag, and the rest of the world is pretty clued in even if we are still running in circles chasing our tails.
Barbara Ellis
Boiceville, NY

Dear Editor,
There has been thousands and thousands of media words written about the proposed Crossroads Ventures LLC Resort at Highmount. Crossroads has carefully crafted a liaison between themselves and NYS (Re: taxpayer owned) Belleayre Ski Center. I have viewed very little media attention to the reality ofthis “connection at the hip.” The rhetoric by the Resort representatives would have us believe that everyone skiing at Belleayre will benefit from this arrangement.
Belleayre Ski Center has AL WAYS touted that it was a family-orientated facility. The fact is that lift tickets have always been priced below competing neighboring private slopes under the guise that the average citizen would also 1ike to ski but can’t afford to; Belleayre’s defense to this accusation is that they have the physical terrain that can be utilized for accommodating novice skiers. Once these novices become accomplished skiers they will meld into the neighboring ski facilities and ALL win benefit. Many years ago a neighboring Facility successfully won a lawsuit that forced Belleayre to raise its price of lift tickets. Like other NYS owned and operated facilities, Belleayne Ski Area is supposed to accommodate the average taxpayer. I suspect that the ,average John Q. Public and his family will in fact be afforded less consideration if this “ski in-ski out” proposal is implemented. We must assume that “ski in- ski out” users will be either people with enough wealth to afford slopeside housing accommodations or their guests.
We need to scrutinize the physical location of the defunct Highmount slope in relationship to the existing Belleayre facili1y. We find that whi1e the summit of both to be in acceptible proximity that the loading areas are separated by a reasonably lengthy and precipitous stretch of County 49A Highway. Connection of these base areas for workers and guests will need shuttle transport. Also if we look at a map we can see that ALL of the Highmount slope descends toward the West Side Resort Site. This appears to me that the Resort will have its own set of trails, ski lift, snow making, grooming and all ancillary necessities paid for by TAXPAYERS. -
The question is - who will get first preference of summer trail maintenance; yes, the brush grows in and needs to be cut back from time to time and the trails have to be mowed to abate the growth of brush. snow making and the winter maintenance; yes, water lines and hydrants freeze from time to time and need maintenance; snow grooming, yes.. grooming equipmen1 breaks down from time to time and there is a need to prioritize trail needs. Does anyone reading this correspondence actually believe that John Q. Public will be afforded these considerations before the “Rich & Famous?” Actua1ly if you are aff1uent or just an “Average Joe” you already know the answer!
That’s all I am going to say on this topic!
Jerry A Fairbairn
Millbrook, NY

Dear Editor,
The web site supporting the "Belleayre Resort at Catskill Resort" erroneously lists the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation ( DEC ) as one of the agreeing parties to the Agreement in Principle ( AIP ) brokered by the Governor and his Deputy Secretary to the Governor for the Environment, Judith Enck.The NYS DEC is even the first agency listed on this web site as agreeing. But no representative of the NYS DEC signed the Agreement in Principle. This error is serious and misleading to people looking at this web site for accurate information. The NYS DEC already has a conflict of interest as a co-developer of the complex, as the lead agency for the project and as the arbiter of the State Environmental Quality Review of the proposed public-private co-development. If the DEC were to be a signatory agency to the AIP their conflict of interest would be even greater. I called the number listed on the web site and requested that the sponsor check their facts and if they found that it was an error to remove it. The person who answered at the phone number listed on the website did not think that checking the facts would be necessary and that it would be a waste of their time. I guess it makes me wonder which of the facts on that web site were worth checking and which would be a waste of time.
Kevin Millar
Owego, NY

Dear Editor,
I would like to publicly thank the Olive Town Board for their many efforts to keep the cellular tower from being constructed and then later, to stall it’s actual operation, on South Mountain. With Supervisor Leifeld’s leadership along with Bruce Lamonda and Helen Chase’s help, they managed to delay construction of this tower for six years. I especially want to thank them for freely using our tax dollars in the many unsuccessful legal fights which ensued. Who knows? If we had you guys around in the 1930's, we might not have these unsightly telephone and electric poles gracing our view shed.
Chris Johansen
West Shokan, NY

Dear Editor,
We want to let you all know that we will be closing East Village Collective at the end of February. We will miss having the gallery and want to thank you all for your support.
We have met many creative, talented & wonderful people over the past two years and will miss you all.
We will be having a sale and closing reception for our last show Comfort & Joy: Paintings by Cathy Nichols and Marisa Haedike.
This will take place Presidents Day weekend, February 16, 17 and 18 from noon to 6 p.m. Please come by and see this beautiful show and visit with us. Thank you.
Serena, Bahram & Aziz
West Shokan, NY

Dear Editor,
Periodically Oil & Gas companies come through New York attempting to entice landowners to sign land leases for exploration. Members of the CATSKILL LANDOWNERS ASSO. [CLA] have recently been approached.
CLA urges its members and all landowners in the region to be extremely cautious before signing such a lease. While a term of five years with rents and royalties may appear enticing the lease becomes an encumbrance on the land. A landowner will encounter difficulties upon a sale or mortgage. These companies rarely take the appropriate steps to terminate the lease of record so the problem remains many years later.
The leases contain many onerous provisions which can extend it beyond the stated term as well as permitting easements across lands to serve the transport of oil or gas from a neighbors property. If you are approached we strongly suggest review by your attorney before entering into such a lease.
CLA is dedicated to the proposition that enlightened private stewardship has and will continue to provide a most effective method of preserving the aesthetic and environmental integrity of Catskill lands. For more information please visit www.catskilllandowners.org.
John J. Wadlin
President, CLA
Big Indian, NY

Dear Editor,
Former President Eisenhower warned that the greatest threat to our country could eventually become the military-industrial complex. Nevertheless, most politicians have managed to convince most Americans that a loosely organized band of third world criminals are the greatest threat our country faces.
The former head of the bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer, wrote: “It’s about the impact of our policies in the Islamic world. And because we won’t talk about that here in America, we’re not adequately defended.” However, my Democratic representatives in Congress, Senators Clinton, Schumer and Rep. Gillibrand refuse to mention that our past and present policies in the Middle East endanger our safety.
They ignore the fact that our CIA brought twenty-five years of tyranny and repression upon the Iranian people, which concluded with the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. That covert operation helped convince many people throughout the Islamic world that America was its mortal enemy. They avoid mentioning the fact that in 1980, Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran and was supported our tax dollars. Eight blood-soaked years later, hundreds of thousands of young Iranian men and boys had been injured or killed.
We’re not adequately defended, because they refuse to talk about how our past and present policies impact the Islamic world. They won’t acknowledge that our military has been ordered to commit horrendous acts, which has caused needless tragedy in the lives of millions of people. Yet, they've never suggest that America spend less on its military, whose primary mission is to protect the assets of the very wealthy or admit that most of the anguish, which our country suffers from can be traced to militarism and imperialism.
Those Republicans and Democrats in Congress that depend on contributions from arms dealers and the military industrial complex are endangering our safety.
Jim O'Leary
Delhi, NY

Dear Editor,
If anybody thinks it is easy to write these notes on February 5, which is being done, you have another think coming. Can't get any ideas to come alive as the brain is dominated by thoughts of today's primary. Never before has there been such an eclectic collection of aspirants running for the same post. When that the number had dwindled to only four it still offered four singularly different people. It seems to me that these four had each proven by their words and by their past records that they were capable and issue minded. Hopefully the voters will have been. It would be a sad day for America if the votes, the results of which we all know now, had been influenced more by the sex, age, race, or religion than on the candidate's ability objectives, and integrity.
We have other very troublesome concerns coming with the Presidential election. We all believe that every vote counts and we are troubled by the fact that the voting machines to be used just may not count all the votes. When we get a chance to speak out about our voting machine concerns let's hope we do. Of course with our peculiar and to many of us downright wrong way of determining who wins a election, the Electoral College system, we face another potential obstacle to a truly democratic process. Looks like we need to do a lot of work and get a dose of optimism to use along the way. We must get out of the economic, environmental and societal upheaval we are in. Let us hope that whoever leads us can get results.
Mescal Hornbeck
Woodstock, NY

Dear Editor,
It has been twenty years since my father last wrote one of these annual letters, asking your help in allowing us to stock Woodland Brook’s fly fishing stretch. It hardly seems possible that it has been that long. Tempus Fuget awful fast. In one way or another, the message has been the same each year. In memory of my father, and to get the request for alms out once again, I’m reprising the letter I first sent in 1989.
Here it is:
I have the sad duty to report that my father, Paul O’Neil, who has written these letters for many years, died last spring. The prospering of the Woodland Trout Fund and its result—the annual stocking of a 2 mile fly fishing only stretch of one of the East Coast’s loveliest trout streams—was one of the uppermost things on his mind in the final part of his life.
I have been asked to carry on in his stead. I would have killed, if I hadn’t been granted the honor. I know about the physical effort of stocking, having helped for the past twenty years—that part is not new to me. This part of it is. I’ll do my best.
Let me share a few things with you. When I was young, I would cringe when my father walked up to a stranger fishing Woodland Brook to talk. Besides wanting to chat, my father’s other purpose was to see if the person’s line was attached to (A) a fly, (B) fleshy bait of some sort, or (C) a dangerous metal lure. If it was a fly, he would put the gentle touch on the angler (ask the person to become a contributor—the world being divided into two camps, you see, contributors and all those others). If it was the dreaded (B) or (C), Pop would be kind but firm in his advice. “Go down to the Esopus,” he’d tell them. “ It’s a much better place to fish with a rig like that. You won’t catch anything here.” This embarrassed me terribly. “Damn,” I’d think, “here we go again. He’s going to ask them for money, or he’s going to tell them to get the Hell out of here. How can he DO that? Different strokes for different folks, right man?”
Of course, at the same time I was terribly proud of him for the way he carried off this exercise. Whatever the message the visitor received, it was delivered with a lightness of spirit and equanimity that was the very breath of soft mountain poetry. When I was even younger, and before the fly fishing only idea was promoted and put into operation by Fred Muehleck and his friends, I would commonly use any device to pull trout out of Woodland. If I’d been privy to dynamite, I’d have used it. Though one trout catching art I was keen to master kept eluding me—the ancient practice of tickling trout (now highly illegal, according to New York Statute, by the way).&n bsp; But the beautiful Trudi Miller knew how to do it—having been taught by her father Paul, a past master of everything a kid would consider useful—archery, gunnery, etc. I was madly in love with Trudi, but that emotion was tempered by pangs of heartfelt jealousy. After all, was it fair that she should have this magnificent talent, and that I should never master it? Tickle them? It was hard enough to entice the little darlings with worms, grasshoppers, crickets, and the gallery of other things that I used (which I will certainly not list here). So the advice my father would give interlopers years later about the uselessness of plying that kind of angling on Woodland Brook was not completely on the mark. But, as Huckleberry Finn said, it was mainl y the truth. On certain steamy summer days with the water low, I defy anyone to catch a trout from Woodland, outside of tickling them or using dynamite.
My conversion to the divine pursuit of fly fishing came at the hands of my father who took me down to the brook when I was twelve, equipped me with the second best fly rod in the cabin (my mother’s nicely balanced Shakespeare glass rod) and started me out with a Royal Coachman dry with white bucktail wing (Chile Allam’s favorite fly). On my ninth cast I hooked and caught a 14 inch wild rainbow. “JESUS!!!” my father intoned loudly, “keep the tip up, Mike, keep the line tight!!!” I did, and I’ve been a fly fisherman ever since—with strong ties to Woodland Brook, which become steadily more indelible as I age.
Now—I will not be coy. And, I will suffer no youthful attack of embarrassment as I ask you to contribute to this year’s stocking fund, and perhaps dig a little deeper than you might have otherwise as a memorial to Paul O’Neil.
The exact number of fat, healthy, spirited Brown Trout that we put into the stream will be defined to some extent by your munificence in response to this letter. Your generous and prompt response will, as always, be greatly appreciated.
To help us stock the stream, please send a check, made out to THE WOODLAND TROUT FUND, to Mike O’Neil, 101 Rambling Road, Vernon, CT 06066.
Mike O’Neil
Vernon, CT

Dear Editor,
I want to take the time to thank everyone at the Mountainside Residential Care Center. The people there were absolutely wonderful and gave us the best care that we could have asked for. And when the time came they went over and above from what was expected of them! Thank you very much for everything that you did for us!
I also, want to thank our friends, family, Al’s Restaurant (Paul), Riccardella’s Restaurant (Mike), Michelangelo’s Pizzeria (Mike and Kim) and Phoenicia Wines and Spirits (Declan) for everything that they have done to make this time a little easier.
Thank for all your love and support.
Dorothy Gaede
Phoenicia, NY

Dear Editor,
I am writing this letter for one simple reason. to thank all those who have been there for me in my community. I am a freshman at Elmira College in Elmira New York, and the truth is I wouldn’t be here without the help of those in my hometown of Phoenicia, New York, the community of Shandaken and those beyond throughout Ulster County. Without the encouragement of everyone, getting into and being able to afford an amazing school like Elmira College, would have been difficult if not impossible.
I want to thank so many people for helping me get to this point in my life. First and foremost, my family, Diane Gehermy Methodist Youth Group leader, Pastor Richard of the Phoenicia United Methodist Church, and the rest of those in the church who helped me get to where I am. I’d also like to thank the ladies in the Thrift Store and Food Pantry, especially Ruth Houska and Hope Gilsinger, not only did they give me a generous amount of money for the purchase of books, but they gave me kindness and great advice. The Phoenicia Library Association was no different, thank you Molly Kilb, Debbie, Regina Johnson, and Judith Singer. I’d also like to thank the Shandaken Theatrical Society, for their generous contribution and their help in building my character; this includes the help of Dorothy Toman, who directed the first play I was ever a part of, thank you Sparrow and Violet for helping me with the art of theater and acting, and for your advice. Thank you to Tania Barriklo, Cole, and Sophia, a family I could always count on for their support. I also want to thank Liz Potter, Don Bucher, Lulu, and Gingy, who gave me so much advice, support and kindness before I left for schooL The ladies at Ulster Savings Bank, Jodi Reyes, Jackee Dragun, Janine Miller, Jane Booth thank you for helping me maximize my finances for college and giving me great advice. Robin and Ray Kirk ftom the Nest Egg, Ice Cream Station, and Video Store, thank you so much for the job experience and for your support. Finally, to a great community, school, and all the wonderful people in it, thank you so much for your support) your advice, and your encouragement. Thank you all so much!
Sincerely,
Iiona Scully
Elmira, NY


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