Adirondack Journal 01-23-2010 by Sun Community News and Printing

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THIS WEEK Warrensburg ....................2-5 Opinion ..........................6-8 Thurman ........................11 Lake George....................12 Bolton Landing ................12 Calendar ........................13 Week in Sports................14-15 Classified........................16

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January 23, 2010

Helping out

Opinion

Sports

Local woman’s Haitian relief drive on facebook proves popular.

With the iron hot, could it be time to put an end to the APA?

All the scores and stats from all your favorite teams.

Page 7

Page 3

DEC cuts off community’s lifeline By Jon Alexander jon@denpubs.com

Pages 14-15

WCS honored for student achievement By Thom Randall thom@denpubs.com

BEAVER RIVER — Scott Thompson knows a thing or two about ferrying people across the Stillwater Reservoir in Herkimer County. After all, he has done it his entire life, as did his father and grandfather, reaching back 60 years. For 50 years or more, his family’s ferry has been the only way to get people in or out of the hamlet of Beaver River. Beaver River residents have depended solely on the ferry to shuttle food, supplies, vehicles and equipment, as well as taking people to doctor ’s appointments, to go shopping, or even visit the outside world. No access road to the hamlet has existed since 1876, when the sole pathway was flooded by the state to create the reservoir. Rail service to the hamlet of Beaver River was discontinued in 1949. Now, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is seeking to prohibit the ferry service from operating, citing that it’s illegally using state property. But the action is likely to strand dozens of local residents, cutting them off from the rest of civilization. Friday, the Warren County Board of Supervisors approved an emergency measure objecting to DEC’s order, issued Nov. 30, that the ferry service be halted permanently. According to DEC Region 6 spokesman Steve Litwhiler, the Thompsons have been operating their business illegally for decades, using state forest preserve as mooring, loading and unloading areas. “This involves the private and commercial use of state land, that’s the issue,” Litwhiler said. The order, threatening legal action, demanded that all docks immediately removed from the state-owned boat launch. Private enterprise is not typically allowed on state land, especially forest preserve, Litwhiler said. The Thompson family has owned and operated the Norridgewock Lodge in Beaver River since the 1940s. Thompson said that the ferry service accounts for the bulk of his business, transporting not only people and cars, but also municipal trucks and basic supplies for the residents of the 120 seasonal camps in the town of Webb hamlet. “Beaver River has continued to grow and the public awareness about it has developed some,” he said. In an interview, Thompson described how his father started the ferry about 60 years ago. “They started a barge service, a wooden raft of sorts, that ran people in and out of Beaver River,” he said. “There was no facilities at Beaver River to unload a car or supplies, so they kind of floated things across.” Thompson said that if the ferry service is shut down, his entire business will go under. Litwhiler said that even in the early days, the Thompsons were in violation since almost all of the land around the reservoir has been designated Forest Preserve since the Preserve was created.

WARRENSBURG — Warrensburg High School student Karen VanDusen listened to 11th grade students in her Language Arts Class talk about a provocative Arthur Miller play they’d just read. One student after another debated whether the play’s ending was too melodramatic, or whether the heated, agony-stricken conversation between characters reflected real life. “This was interesting — it was different, not like you’d expect,” Sam Mosher of Thurman said. “Chris and Kate got what they wanted, they got closure,” student Xavier Bell of Warrensburg replied about the play’s ending, full of epiphanies and anguish. “Life doesn’t necessarily work that way, though,” answered Mosher. VanDusen pressed the students to explore the aspects of the characters that the dialogue revealed, and a 10-minute discussion ensued, with students offering observations about the play’s emotional underpinnings. Minutes later the students exited the room, and offered comments about VanDusen, who’s been teaching for 32 years, most all of the time at Warrensburg High. “Ms. Van Dusen asks a lot of questions —she makes you think a lot,” Xavier Bell said. “She encourages everybody to offer their thoughts.” “She’s a lot of fun, but at the same time, she has standards for us to go by,” Mosh-

See DEC, page 13

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Those honored were the best in preparing students for college and exceeding state benchmarks on exams. The four schools earned a Bronze medal in the study, the results of which were published in U.S. News’ Dec. 29 issue. The study and award weighed assessments of the performance of those from low-income households. In the Warrensburg School District, 37 percent of students are from low-income households. VanDusen said she and other WCS teachers are committed to teaching with the

assumption that all students want to learn and achieve as much as they can despite their background. “You have to tap into what is relevant to them in their lives and their background, and when you make that connection, they really learn with enthusiasm,” she said. Down the hall a ways, Math Teacher Art Hull was explaining the mathematic relationship between angles and sectors of a circle. “The angles formed by a tangent and a chord is half the intersected arc, so angle AEH is what?” he asked his

See WCS, page 13

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Students listen intently as Warrensburg High School Math teacher Art Hull guides them through a complex geometry question. Students and graduates have praised Hull and other WCS teachers for their teaching abilities — and a U.S. News & World Report study shared the enthusiasm, naming the school as one of the top in the nation, particularly for its effective outreach to children from limitedincome households.