Organic Roots, Summer 2015 (Only to page 26)

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Dennis A ergut, Chair Barkley Stuart, Vice-Chair Hope Knight, Treasurer Sandy Gray Nowicki, Secretary Jenny Ewing Allen Karla Ayala Lisa Beck Barry Breeman Peter R. Brest J. Ma hew Davidson Guillaume de Ramel Brian Eng Laura Thrower Harris Nick Hewi Caroline Kenney Roger S. Loud Jennifer Maslow Bob Parker Marty Rosenberg Pamela Rosenthal Ma Salinger Hume Steyer Manny Weintraub Bethany Dickerson Wynder Jun Zhang

HONORARY TRUSTEES Joan K. Davidson Colin C. Tait Richard E. Wilde

TRUSTEES EMERITI David T. Kenney Rose Kean Lansbury Sumner Parker

ORGANIC ROOTS SUMMER Editor Emilie Allen Layout & Design Aaron Hobson Contributors Emilie Allen, Jenny Ewing Allen, Karen Culpepper, Emily Eisman, Kimberly Corwin Gray, David Hochschartner, Greta Konkler, Bill Localio, Susie Localio, Derick Nicholas, Mark Richards, Mike Tholen Photography Emilie Allen, Nancie Ba aglia, Tom Clark, John Eldridge, Kimberly Corwin Gray, Sierra Grennan, Meredith Hanson, Aaron Hobson, Shaun Ondak, Larry Robjent, Kurt Terrell, Susan Topper Editing Lisa Rowley Cover Photo Aaron Hobson Printing Print Management Pi sburgh, PA

ORGANIC ROOTS SUMMER 2015 CONTENTS

11

13

15

19

25

33

3-6

18

32

Editorials

A Dialogue About the Way We Eat: Tracie McMillan visits NCS

Trustee Profile: Jenny Ewing Allen, NCS 84, parent 14-present, CTT parent 10-present

19-26

33

Music at NCS & Treetops

From the Archive

7-10 Treetops Tributes: Jeff Jonathan, CTT staff 85-93, parent 02-11 & Gail Schumacher, CTT staff 56-97, parent 6471, 73-87

11

27 Alumni Events

Greening & Renewal: Cleaner, Greener Communities Grants Projects 2015

Alumni Profile: Jim Steyer, CTT 65-68

13-14

31

A Farmer’s Wisdom

15 Why Lake Placid?

Derick Nicholas, NCS 48

29

Young Alum Spotlight: Tierra Jones, CTT o3-07, NCS 08

35 2015 Graduation

38 Strong Roots, High Peaks Campaign

41-46 In Memoriam / News & Notes

ON TINKERING

By David Hochschartner, Head of School and Camp During long months of skiing, shoveling snow, and breaking ice out of water buckets at the barn, it can be difficult to imagine this time of seedlings taking root in our gardens. But soon a er the last boil in the sugarhouse, spring does come to the Adirondacks.

The snow ebbs from the fields, then the woods, and gradually our landscape brightens into green.

Recently North Country School students served our

fresh maple syrup to nearly 300 guests at our annual free Community Pancake Breakfast. A er a hearty meal of homemade pancakes and sausage, visitors have the opportunity to tour the building, the barns, and the greenhouses with student guides. This tenyear tradition has introduced hundreds of locals to the special world beyond the sign on Route 73.

Reporting on the event, the Lake Placid News called this place “A Shangri-la for Kids.”

Photo: NCS Founder Walter Clark with children tinkering in the woodshop, late 1930s.

page 3 Organic Roots Summer 2015

School and Camp may not be utopias, but they are surely a sanctuary in today’s world. Every day I am more convinced our founders were on to big ideas. In April, The New York Times published an op-ed column

by Allison Arieff, “Learning Through Tinkering.” As I

problem solvers. Our students are masters in the art of tinkering—whether rebuilding a bear skeleton in a science Intersession course, welding recycled bed frames to construct a ship for this spring’s production of Swiss Family Robinson, or milking goats to make

At NCS and CTT we give children the time, tools, and adult mentorship required to become accomplished problem solvers. read, I was struck by how much of what the article calls for, NCS and Treetops have done for decades.

Arieff maintains that hands-on, project based curricula are vital to helping kids learn to think strategically and solve problems. She profiles Gever Tulley, head of The Tinkering School program in San Francisco.

“There are not enough opportunities in a child’s life to be taken seriously, to be given autonomy and to learn authentically,” Tulley believes. “I think they need learning opportunities that respect and incorporate their ideas.”

cheese. Similarly, our campers learn to carve canoe paddles; dye wool and weave it; care for their horses on overnight trail rides, and plan, map, and lead wilderness trips. The result of these experiences is a child who exhibits a sense of confidence, creativity, and engagement—all essential to success in life.

As Camp and School move forward in strategic planning for the future, we remain dedicated to safeguarding our signature programs. Part and parcel of our history for so long, they will continue to thrive, so your children’s children may enjoy them in the years to come.

At NCS and CTT we give children the time, tools, and adult mentorship required to become accomplished

From the Editor This year, sixth-grade ESY (Edible Schoolyard) students investigated our School archives. Each child was assigned a decade to explore. They poured over years of photographs, handwri en le ers, and keepsakes. In a sense, the project was a meditation on this place we call home. They noticed how the visual landscape had changed, architecturally and otherwise, while so much remained the same. And they came to an important realization. In the years a er they leave, children will continue to live here and do the very same things they now do: sleep, eat, make, learn, work, and play.

At the end of the year, the ESY class completed the archive project by planting apple trees in the Children’s Garden. Now this act had new meaning:

they weren’t just planting trees, but contributing to a larger narrative.

We each have a story about this place, and they all ma er. In telling our stories, we tend to look to the past, which is important. But ours is a living archive.

Now is the time to celebrate it. I hope you enjoy the sampling of old-time photographs featured in this issue.

Keep in touch.

Emilie Allen

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COMMUNITY

By Karen Culpepper, Camp Treetops Director

AT TREETOPS WE SHARE A RICH HISTORY AND VIBRANT COMMUNITY In 1954, a scrapbook was presented to Doug and Helen Haskell to honor their 25th anniversary as co-directors of Treetops. A handsome collection of le ers, stories, songs, Barbara Morgan photographs, collages, maps, watercolors, and all forms of whimsy, the book remains a Camp treasure. NCS music teacher Don Rand contributed a collection of folk songs illustrated with watercolor landscapes; see above.

On the first page, former counselor Linda Rennells Lewis writes of the Treetops community: “These were people who knew things, who laughed loudly, who played instruments, danced with abandon, climbed the fireplace chimney, had faraway looks in their eyes, were silly and serious, touching and awesome, wise and gay and warm.”

page 5 Organic Roots Summer 2015

That description of our community holds as true today as it did 60 years ago. And what also remains is the Treetops tradition of instilling in children the joys of community.

Every summer campers learn compassion for all living beings, from tentmates to counselors to animals at the barn. Connecting with a world larger than oneself and pu ing others first remain important Treetops ideals.

A feeling of accomplishment is achieved not simply in doing a job well done. We find joy in contributing to meaningful work that can only be accomplished when we succeed together. Almost every Camp activity is centered on these understandings. Climbing Algonquin means working toward a common goal and supporting your friends along the way. Creating original plays requires a collaboration of different creative talents. Community morning projects allow

all campers and counselors to participate in the care of our summer home. At Treetops, year a er year, we show children how “many hands make light work.”

Doing chores together in the barn or in the gardens connects us to the land, to the animals, and to the people we live and work with. Weekly Fund Lunches remind everyone of the larger causes beyond our doorstep—and that each of our contributions ma ers.

a tremendous impact on me. As the first full-time director of Treetops, Jeff set the highest standard of professionalism, one that inspires me to this day.

His mentorship was vital to my success as Camp director. Throughout her amazing 50 years of service, Gail personified the kindness, compassion, and connectedness from which our community draws its warmth and strength.

For generations, these practices have woven community into daily life at Treetops and helped cultivate life-long connections. For me, the friendships formed at Treetops are some of the most profound of my life.

In closing her le er in the 1954 scrapbook, Linda expresses her gratitude to Treetops: “for transmi ing a feeling of magic about each summer, a feeling for the elements, openness, water, textures, marvels of land and animals and most of all for people.”

That’s why the recent losses of former Treetops stalwarts Jeff Jonathan and Gail Schumacher have been so difficult to bear. (See pages 7-10 for tributes.)

Each played a huge role in our history, and each had

My own gratitude to Treetops includes the privilege of having known and learned from Gail and Jeff.

They will be greatly missed, but their impact on our community will not be forgo en.

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TREETOPS TRIBUTE JEFFREY R JONATHAN January 14, 1957 – March 16, 2015 The Treetops community lost a loyal friend and visionary leader when Jeff Jonathan died in March a er a long and courageous struggle with cancer. Jeff’s appointment as Treetops’ first full-time director in 1984 began a 30-year family devotion to Camp that continues to this day.

Jeff’s wife Julia, who predeceased him in 2013, served both Camp and School for decades in various roles as a nurse, administrator, and longtime trustee. Their three daughters, Eliza (23), Sarah (20), and Annie “AJ” (18), all loved Treetops as campers. The eldest two have served as counselors, and Annie will join us this summer, as well. Jeff’s leadership in a trailblazing role and the subsequent dedication of his entire family are a large part of what makes Treetops so special.

For more about Jeff’s life and accomplishments, see “In Memoriam” on page 41.

Photo from right: Jeff Jonathan (CTT staff 85-93, parent 02-11), Margaret Sloane (CTT 81-85, CTT staff 87-94), and Susie Localio (CTT 55-56, 58-59, staff 65-80, 89-94) with campers in the early 1990s. page 7 Organic Roots Summer 2015

EULOGY FOR ‘A MAN OF HONOR’

By Bill Localio, CTT 55-59, staff 64-15 (various), parent 94-98, Trustee 85-91 The first time I met Jeff — as well as Julia — we were all teaching at Hamden Hall Country Day School, outside of New Haven. I was running an outdoor program for upper school students. Even though Jeff was teaching 6th grade, because of his outdoor background, the head of school asked him if he would join me. The next year we recruited Julia.

A few years later (the fall of 1983), Treetops was looking for a full-time director. Jeff worked at nearby Camp Lincoln and had spent a day off one earlier summer visiting me at Treetops. He’d been intrigued.

He and I were rock climbing one Saturday and I suggested, half-kiddingly, that he consider applying for the job. “Maybe I will,” he murmured. That was the last I heard about it until late in the hiring process.

Typically, Jeff didn’t ask me to write a recommendation or intercede on his behalf. He wanted to be considered strictly on his merits.

full-time camp director and all alone created what it involved. He didn’t even have a secretary. That next summer Camp enrollment plummeted, and the pressure must have been enormous.

Jeff applied his immense organizational skills to the job. He walked through Camp several times a year and drew up a meticulous maintenance list. He noticed things amiss that I had passed by for years.

He pushed hard to get these maintenance issues resolved, reading aloud at Board meetings each year which items had been fixed and which items remained. I was on the Board at that time, and it was a powerful message: pay a ention to the needs of Camp; don’t take anything for granted. Jeff certainly never did, and his legacy to Treetops has been profound.

Jeff dove into the archives and began organizing and doing critical preservation. He unearthed a series of photos that Holger “Van” Aller had taken from the roof of the Cra Shop — a panorama of Senior Camp in the 1940s. With the help of counselor and professional photographer Sue Topper, he had the negatives developed on acid-free paper and carefully

“Jeff’s legacy to Treetops has been profound.”

That first summer, 1984, Jeff was at Treetops “observing.” He would take over in September but was spending the summer learning how Treetops operated without any formal responsibilities. It must have been an awkward position. He was 27, surrounded by staff who were older and had many years of experience at Treetops: Bob Bliss (CTT 33, NCS staff 40-43), Gail Schumacher (CTT staff 56 – 97, parent 64-71 and 73-87) even my twin Susie (CTT 55-56, 58-59, staff 6580, 89-94) and I. One day Jeff quietly admi ed to me that he didn’t know how he was going to manage this — he knew so li le and so many others knew so much.

However, that proved to be the only moment of self-doubt I saw. Jeff strode into the new position of

mounted. They still hang in the hallway of the Main Building’s East End. These days former campers love browsing through old trip logs. The reason we have them is because Jeff saved the old steno pads Camp used to use; he found a pile going back to the mid ’70s in a corner of the archives, and he instituted the printed and bound trip logs we still employ today.

Jeff also created the structure of program directors for Junior and Senior camp. He instituted the “Summit” meetings that take place every January for Camp administrators and senior staffers to discuss broad issues.

He was meticulous about budgeting and worked closely continued on page 37

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TREETOPS TRIBUTE GAIL SCHUMACHER June 17, 1935 - January 10, 2015 A longtime high school English teacher, Gail taught riding and served as a tent counselor in her early days at Treetops. Later and for more than 30 years, she ran the Camp office, a job well-suited to her legendary organizational abilities and a ention to detail.

Gail’s command of the intricacies of Camp life was matched only by her huge heart.

Thoughtful and generous, giving and kind, Gail embodied all that was good about our Treetops community. When my son Tucker suffered from a brain tumor as a child, it was Gail who rallied everyone around us with such deep love and support. That was vintage Gail, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

Karen Culpepper, Camp Director

For more about Gail’s life and accomplishments, see “In Memoriam” on page 41.

Photo: Gail and Bob at Treetops page 9 Organic Roots Summer 2015

The foll owing are refl ection s f r o m G a i l ’s f a m i l y a n d f r i e n d s

ROBERT SCHUMACHER, husband CTT staff 56 – 97, parent 64-71 and 73-87 Helen Haskell hired me in 1956 as a carpentry shop teacher. One morning at breakfast with Franz Gierhass & Don Rand, I heard a girl named Molley Sager who taught riding say she was leaving Camp to go to Europe. So I talked to Helen about a girl I knew who had riding skills. Her name was Gail Stephenson, and she was counseling at Camp Twanakoda, a Girl Scout camp, near Jamestown, NY. Helen got in touch with her right away and gave her the position as a riding counselor.

A er two years as a riding counselor, Helen asked Gail for help with the parents (parents’ weekend) in the office in front of the Corn Crib. A er that, Gail transitioned into the office full time when Peggy Skinner departed. We lived in the back of the Corn Crib, and both Gail and Helen’s office were in the front of it.

Around 1960 the office was moved to NCS, and Gail continued to perform the Camp office duties: ordering children’s summer supplies, making doctor appointments, coordinating packing lists and admissions

During the early 1980s Gail took on the Camp admissions responsibilities for a few years. This was a year-round position, and we set up a home office in Hamilton to facilitate the winter time work. Gail traveled several times throughout two or three years to a end conferences, meet with parents, a end trade shows, etc.

Throughout the years we introduced many counselors to Treetops: Rebecca & Erica Lloyd (Bergamine), Joyce King, Carl & Ellie Metzloff, Bob and Ann Lamp, Mary Voker, Carol Nevulus, Debbie Walp. And our children all a ended and worked at Camp as well.

JANE PURDEN, daughter CTT 64-71, staff 75-76 My first memories of Camp are in the Corn Crib, Mom allowing a nap to be skipped — let’s go see the newly discovered ki ens. She had developed a severe allergy to hay, yet made sure I was in on the barn news. (One of those grey ki ens came home with us that fall; Twinkletoes became an adventure Gail chose never to repeat!)

“People were her true joy.” welcome packets. She would frequently perform the town trip and drive children to doctor appointments in Lake Placid. Gail really ran the administrative side of things at Camp for many years, organizing the office, paperwork, pre-camp checklists, coordinating arrival and departure details for each camper, ensuring progress reports were prepared (o en proof-reading them as well) so each parent received a timely and informative acknowledgement of their child’s summer activities. AKA “Gail Flashlight,” she ordered toothpaste, shampoo, ba eries, flashlights, jack knives, etc.

One of her most memorable moments in those earlier years was answering the office phone and speaking with Eleanor Roosevelt! Mrs. Roosevelt was calling to wish her godson a happy birthday. I went to the lake and took him back to the office for their conversation.

I spent hours within view of her office window, safe within the circle of Helen’s sun hued nasturtiums, building twig bridges for caterpillars, watching Tiger Swallows, dragonflies frolic. Never too far off from the sound of her typewriter — still far too young for Crow’s Nest, my world complete was a triangle, on land: Mom at the top of the hill near the visitor’s circle, Dad down at the lake or sometimes up at the woodshop. O en Mom would display my gathered offerings on her desk — a four year old’s handful of clover or Indian Paintbrush, perhaps a small pine cone, yet never the orange salamanders found near the boathouse rocks… I have vivid memories of Town Trips in the long, wood-sided station wagon; the full canvas mail sacks were at least as tall as a five year old — I couldn’t reach my arms around them, yet Mom would o en tell me how important each individual envelope was to a homesick camper waiting for mail call. continued on page 39 camptreetops.org | northcountryschool.org page 10

GREENING & RENEWAL

2015 NCS & Treetops Community art project, “Rooster,” using recycled metals and various materials

page 11 Organic Roots Summer 2015

C L E A N E R , G R E E N E R CO M M U N I T I E S GRANTS PROJECTS 2015 by Emilie Allen In 2013, North Country School and Camp Treetops were awarded two competitive New York State grants under the state’s Cleaner, Greener Communities Program.

Administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the program aims to empower regions in New York to develop sustainable projects that improve economic development and environmental well-being of their local community. The projects are in partnership with Northern Forest Center in New Hampshire and ANCA, a local community development organization based in Saranac Lake, NY. Director of Facilities and Sustainability John Culpepper hopes to complete both grant projects in 2015. “I am very excited about these projects,” he says, “as they will take our ongoing campus greening efforts several steps forward.”

“Our biomass program provides an excellent opportunity for children to draw a direct connection between the natural world and our own needs as human beings.”

– Hock

The first of the two grants awarded will help fund a new state-of-the-art biomass heating plant slated for either Farm House and the barn or Road House and the maintenance shop. It is the fourth different type of biomass technology now on campus. Six years ago, we were consuming approximately 27,000 gallons of fuel a year. A er implementing this latest addition, we will have one oil boiler le on campus that consumes 3,000 gallons of fuel annually. “That’s a significant reduction in our carbon footprint in a relatively short period of time,” John says.

The second Cleaner, Greener Communities grant will help us develop an affordable commercial composter. The $30,000 award will support design and assembly of a drum

composter, built with readily available materials that can be placed inside a 20-foot shipping container.

For many decades, we’ve utilized two static composting systems for both food and barn manure. The new unit will accommodate up to 150 pounds of food scraps per day, which will allow for composting of food scraps in several weeks instead of several months.

The new system, which will be built here on campus as a demonstration unit, could be used at any medium-to-large sized organization, such as other schools, hospitals, prisons, or restaurants. With an expected completion date later this fall, the project, John Culpepper hopes, will prove that commercial composting is possible at affordable costs. “The best possible outcome,” John says, “would be for a local community group or entrepreneur to begin building and selling these units. That would be a tremendous accomplishment.”

camptreetops.org | northcountryschool.org page 12

A Farmer’s Wisdom

By Mike Tholen, Farm Manager

arming at NCS and Treetops is not so different from farming anywhere else. Certainly, we face some challenges unique to this place, but mostly, the obstacles (and joys) are the same. I’ve cultivated many meaningful relationships here over the years. And in tending the garden and animals, I’ve also developed a pre y intimate relationship with our acreage. Saying goodbye is bi ersweet. Wendell Berry, among others, talks a lot about a farmer’s close connection to a piece of land, the way an agrarian lifestyle connects you on a profound level with a particular place. I can relate.

F

From Idaho to Maine, most old-school farm wisdom usually rings true no ma er the soil. Full moon, first week of June, watch for frost. Sugaring is over when the ice goes out on the lake. Plant potatoes when your fields are flush with dandelion flowers. All these are true for our region. There’s a reason why this area is famous for brassicas and potatoes: they are crops that have proven commercial success in this harsh climate so far north.

Photo: Mike Tholen visiting Sugar House Creamery, a nearby dairy in Upper Jay page 13 Organic Roots Summer 2015

Of course, when you devote yourself to a farm, you’re beholden to its climate, geology, hydrology, existing infrastructure and history, and all the idiosyncrasies that belong to it. So, farm wisdom comes with the particular caveats of whatever land you might be tending at the time. Not only are you at the whim of nature and her weather; our NCS/Treetops farm comes with the additional challenge of fi ing natural cycles of the calendar and seasons into School and Camp program schedules.

The following three bits of wisdom are true both to farming in general and to our operation.

ous use. The right thing to do is leave yourself more time than you think necessary for every task, because there are never enough hours to do things right the first go-around, but there is always enough time to do the task again.

A farm on this scale is on the cusp of being too big to do everything by hand, but that’s what we do. It would be near impossible for a husband and wife with one intern to run a business here and be successful. It needs many hands to make the work light, so you need all of your helpers.

But then you go to look for a rake, which was borrowed by someone with good intentions and doing good things, and you spend an hour trying to find it.

1. If it can break or go wrong, it will.

3. There’s always tomorrow.

There’s been a stretch of hard rain in the spring season, when finally, a break in the weather comes. At last the fields aren’t muddy, perfect for tilling. Of course, on that day the stars align and there will be six broken tiller knives. It’ll take you two hours to get the tiller fixed and then you’ve lost two hours in the field. That’s a good sum of how everything is on a farm.

In addition, on our farm, we have lots of “li le helpers.” We might plant a crop with the kitchen or a specific program in mind. So then one day you look over at whatever crop you’re intending to harvest for that particular purpose and there are half a dozen barefoot kids stuffing their faces in the garden. Usually it’s rhubarb, raspberry, carrots, or peas. But we would never discourage that. We just plant more at the start of the season. The only real downside is if you’re trying to keep track of what you’re growing, but it’s never that big of a kink. Plan for the worst, and hope for the best.

2. It always takes longer than you think.

Okay, so it’s time to harvest potatoes. At Camp and School, we have a single-row offset potato digger, “The Carlo i,” a sexy Italian implement. You use it exactly once a year, for digging potatoes. It behooves you to get it out the week prior, to grease it, run it, make sure the belts aren’t broken and the drive sha works. You have to check that the width is set correctly, so you actually dig potatoes, rather than slice them up. This may take you half a morning, but this relatively short time of preparation can save you a day of frustration in the field. Even be er is when the equipment was properly cleaned and put away a er its previ-

Sometimes you have an impossibly long list of things to do; you cross two off and ten more appear. But no ma er how bad things get, you always have tomorrow.

Mike Tholen taught Level I at NCS for five years before becoming the farm manager for School and Camp, in 2009.

In fall 2015, he returns to the classroom at The Grammar School in Putney, Vermont, where he will be teaching fi h grade.

Mike’s Recommended Reading for Children and Adults Mad Farmer Poems by Wendell Berry Our Only World by Wendell Berry The New Organic Grower: A Master’s Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener by Elliot Coleman Winter Harvest Handbook by Elliot Coleman Humane Livestock Handling: Understanding Livestock Behavior and Building Facilities for Animals by Temple Grandin Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan by F.H. King Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass by Gary Paulsen and Ruth Wright Paulsen Second Nature by Michael Pollen Botany of Desire by Michael Pollen Salad Bar Beef by Joel Salatin

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WHY LAKE PLACID? Last fall, right a er Thanksgiving, Derick Nicholas brought 26 members of his family to campus. The occasion was Derick’s 80th birthday, and he wanted his children and grandchildren to get a sense of a place that has meant so much to him. Here is the le er he wrote to his family, explaining his choice.

Photo: Spring 1943, the barn page 15 Organic Roots Summer 2015

then boil it down day and night in the “sugar house” into syrup and maple sugar candy.

WHY GO TO LAKE PLACID —AND NOT THE CARIBBEAN?

By Derick Nicholas, NCS 48 At nine years old, about [grandson] Saki dude’s age, I went to a boarding school in Lake Placid. The school was called North Country School (NCS) and the year was 1944. I cried all summer in Blue Hill before I went, desperate about leaving my parents, or they leaving me, quaking about what lay ahead. At nine you’d cry, too.

The school had been in existence about five plus years when I got there. It had 28 students, boys and girls, ages nine to 14, lots of weirdos from broken homes, and 15 adults. We called the adults “counselors.” Some were 18 years old. One or two were really old, like 50. Several married each other, like Ham and Jane [Corwin]. You will meet their granddaughter, Kimberly [Corwin Gray].

Many graduated from Oberlin and Antioch Colleges.

The adults taught us our lessons, supervised the houses we lived in, managed with us the property: such as cleaning and feeding daily the horses (10 plus) and cows (2), which we learned to milk; shoveling manure; feeding and watering chickens (35) and cleaning up chicken s---; harvesting and canning in jars vegetables we grew on the property. The counselors worked alongside of us, keeping the houses clean, cu ing ski trails, and installing rope tows, damming up brooks to build ponds for skating, building our own ski jumps (2), and keeping up the boats for the lake that fronted the property and reached a mile across.

O en we’d hike on a three-day overnight into the mountains, sometimes in snow, sleeping in Adirondack leantos. In March and April we trudged, off and on over about two weeks, into the woods in knee-high, melting snow with horses drawing sleds to tap trees for sap, and

Twice a year, as many that could ride horses would saddle up and move out for an overnight at a nearby farm, sometimes 20 strong. We rode on back woods dirt roads, galloping all of us like the cavalry coming to the rescue in a movie. A er a supper cooked over an open fire, we’d camp out in sleeping bags all bunched up together, boys and girls, in a field. The horses, turned loose, would mill around all night, munching, some sleeping standing up, others snoring lying near us. Then we’d rise at dawn, stiff in our jeans, sleeping bags damp in the spring or autumn dew, catch and feed the horses, breakfast ourselves on flap jacks and NCS maple syrup, saddle up, and walk, trot, gallop back to school. Hi-Yo, Silver!

Sometimes in winter, we’d climb herringbone style for four or five hours up some mountain trail on waxed skies, breaking the trail in deep snow. We also a ached seal skins to the bo om of our skies, to stop sliding backwards. Gaining the steep and rocky rugged mountaintop, a er breaking the last hundred yards of the trail by side stepping, packing the snow to make sure we would see the trail when skiing down and not careen off the mountain, we’d pause with only ourselves, the small pines of the tree line, and the wind. With the mid-a ernoon cold temperature beginning to se le in and the light dwindling, we’d take off the skins and whiz down in 35 minutes. There were no chair li s around back then.

Stowe, Vermont had the only one in the East.

In another winter activity—what would be considered madness today—we’d ski-jour behind a pick-up truck after a good snowfall. The roads would have been plowed, but still had some snow. Holding onto the rope pulled by the truck, 15 of us, like boats on a tow line, one behind the other, would cruise at 20 miles an hour. If someone toward the front of the line, close to the truck, fell, all behind would crash in a massive pile-up. The truck would stop. We’d sort ourselves out, remove the snow from our ears, and start again.

We had movies and square dances on weekends. One year we exhibited our square dancing in New York City, so good we were, for a new thing called TV. We engaged in sing-alongs every week around campfires outside or around the open hearths in some of the buildings. I still know the songs. I held a girl’s hand for the first time in a sing-along when I was a senior. I remember that, too. I don’t think she did. continued on next page Photo: Derick Nicholas on the Lake Hill, 1947 camptreetops.org | northcountryschool.org page 16

WHY LAKE PLACID? There were stairways in the houses, but because there were also waxed wooden slides that ran alongside of all stairways, we nixed the stairs, and slid down on our bu s, or standing up, lickety-split, corners and all. Girls and boys were housed in the same building in separate bedrooms for two, and in some cases used the same bathrooms. The counselors read to us at night in our PJs in the living rooms of the houses, and the books were sometimes full of ideas and words that would have shocked our parents, then and now.

There was still school every day. We had homework and went to classes in math, English, and current events.

One year I had at least six boys and girls in my English class. The workshop was big, and two counselors taught us every week to saw, hammer, plane, glue, chisel, paint, build models, and boxcar autos. The same two taught us science, and we all had to watch slicing up a dead possum or raccoon from time to time to understand slimy organs. We had to hold them. Yuck!

As for athletics, we had a ski team, a horse riding team, a baseball team, all boys and girls together. Two members of the ski team, who were seniors when I arrived, made the U.S. Ski team in 1956. Check ’em out: Sally Deaver Murray (NCS 44) and Doug Burden (NCS 44, parent 72-73). The starting pitcher of the baseball team was a girl who threw curve balls. With her we beat the Lake Placid Middle School boys. I played catcher, pads, mask and all. Her fastballs were all fear and trembling. As for music, if you didn’t play an instrument, you had to play a recorder. The school had 20, all kinds.

When the adults thought we kids knew our way around, we were allowed to go off for the day on the weekend, fishing the streams or walking the woods, on the buddy page 17 Organic Roots Summer 2015

system. Take a box lunch; be back for supper. At every meal before si ing down a counselor checked our hands for cleanliness. Our blue jeans, long underwear, and flannel shirts smelled like the barn, but we ate clean.

Although my experience was really unusual for its time, it would still be unusual for today. Much of what I remember is nostalgia for my youth and for a different America, innocent, confident, and optimistic a er World War II. Of course NCS has changed—much older, much bigger. I have changed, too—much older, much smaller.

As I knew it, it was wondrous, but that place and time have long gone. On the other hand, my memories and the emotions a ached to them have not gone.

I was nine, but a er a weepy summer, I was homesick for only one day at NCS. At Christmas vacation in my first year I was so homesick for the school, I could not wait to get back. It was that way for the four years I was there.

When I went to St. Paul’s a er graduating from North Country, I was home sick for three months at age 14.

North Country instilled awe for nature, a thrill and euphoria in communal living with all ages, a taste for freedom while conscious of responsibility, and the beginning of a sense of the independent me. North Country School was one of the most important things in my 80year life. I want y’all to see it.

That’s why.

Derick is a long and happily retired businessman who lives in Stonington, CT and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico with his partner Harriet Ballard, a painter. He writes from Mexico that he enjoys his peripatetic life and is developing a sensitive taste for fine tequila.

A DIALOGUE ABOUT THE WAY WE EAT Author Tracie McMillan Visits NCS

By Mark Richards, NCS Librarian North Country School recently had the pleasure of visiting with Tracie McMillan, journalist and award-winning author of The American Way of Eating. During her time here, Tracie cha ed with students and staff, spoke at a public gathering in her honor, and even helped out at the barn. She was extremely engaging and inspired students to think more critically about the way we eat.

While researching The American Way of Eating, Tracie went undercover as a kitchen worker at Applebee’s, picked vegetables with migrants in California, and stocked the shelves in the produce department at Walmart.

She used these experiences to discuss American eating habits, as well as ways we might work together to make food healthier and more affordable for all.

Tracie arrived on a Sunday a ernoon in time for barn chores. She eagerly jumped in to help corral a stray sheep and assisted with feeding and watering the animals. She admi ed that this was something new for a city girl like herself, but one wouldn’t have known that from watching her.

During Monday classes, Tracie visited with every student, taking the time to answer questions and provide more information about her book and the writing process. Perhaps the most

frequently asked question was whether or not she had received any retribution from the companies she wrote about. Tracie responded that she was just a small potato, so the big corporations didn’t pay her any mind.

Later that evening, Tracie was the keynote speaker at a community event and book signing presented by North Country School at the Green Goddess Market in Lake Placid. Also sponsored by the Bookstore Plus, the event generated discussion around why not everyone in our country has access to local and sustainable food. Following Tracie’s remarks, NCS and Treetops farm educator Katie Culpepper spoke about our farmto-fork philosophy and ESY [Edible Schoolyard] program. She shared with the audience “Challenge by Choice,” a short video featuring our chicken harvest. A wide variety of tasty, locally sourced appetizers was served to approximately 50 guests.

We even a racted the a ention of our local assemblywoman, Be y Li le, who dropped by the event.

Overall, it was an amazing visit. Tracie McMillan touched the lives of our students and the larger community.

She started a dialogue about the way we eat that will continue long a er her departure. And her praise of our work here is a testament to the dedicated professionals and hardworking students and campers of NCS and Treetops.

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M page 19 Organic Roots Summer 2015

“Don [Rand] instilled in me one of the greatest gi s I ever received from a teacher—a deep love and passion for music of all kinds. He actually convinced me that I could sing and act.

Whether playing the role of King Arthur in our senior play in 1980 or the part of Narcissus in the Thanksgiving show that same year, I have Don to thank for my continued love of music and theatre. He is an institutional gem! If the rest of the world knew Don, he’d be a national treasure.”

MUSIC at NCS & Treetops

Greg Marchildon CTT 74-79, staff 83-86, 10-15, parent 08-12, 14-15, NCS 80, staff 12-13, parent 12-13 Don Rand instructing Eileen Rockefeller (CTT 63, NCS 66, Trustee 76-84, 92-98, CTT parent 97-99 on piano, 1964 or ’65

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TWO-MAN SHOW NCS Music with Don Rand & John Doan

By Emilie Allen

Music teacher Don Rand turns 90 in December. He has been at NCS and Treetops for more than 50 years. In fact, he still teaches piano three days a week. Not only is he sharp, his sense of humor is remarkably intact. “At this point,” NCS music teacher John Doan says, “he has taught multiple generations. The kids love him to death.

Even the kids that don’t take lessons with him love him.

He’s like ‘Grandpa Music.’”

Don’s legacy at North Country School is a long one. A Lake Placid native and LPCS graduate, he le the region to pursue classical piano at Syracuse University. There he earned a master’s degree, continuing on to the PhD program before accepting a prestigious fellowship in musicology at Indiana University. In these circles, Don met Bernard (CTT staff 45-61) and Cola Heiden (CTT staff 4561), who spent their summers teaching music at Treetops.

At the time, Don had been employed as a professor at Florida State University and wanted to move on. As it happened, Bernard was planning to take a hiatus from

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students enthused beyond the classroom. On Tuesday mornings, Level I and II kids circle round in the dining room and sing folk music, accompanied by John Doan on the guitar, Level I teacher Dion Cook on bongos, and ESL teacher Meredith Hanson with the ukulele.

The kids sing along, plucky and full of joy, a li le bit naughty at times.

But everybody sings. It’s not a formal classroom se ing, though they all join in, and the feeling is infectious.

That’s what makes music at NCS so engaging—it brings together the community in such a simple, joyful way, and it has a whole lot to do with John and Don.

Treetops that summer, 1954. He introduced Don to Helen Haskell, who hired him immediately as a counselor and music instructor. Don stayed on at Treetops for a dozen years, leaving only when Helen retired in 1965.

He still credits Camp for inspiring the Clarks’ emphasis on music at North Country School, where he was hired in 1958. As music teacher, Don gave instruction in strings, piano and vocals. He also taught Level I, woodshop, and more, had a stint in publications, and covered admissions for ten years. Of the twelve adults on staff at the time, three including Don were professionally trained classical musicians. Bob Mark was a violinist and Janet, his wife, a flutist. Don, of course, has always insisted that children learn to read music. But with his generous wit and kind warmth, he makes classical music accessible. The twinkle in his eye has endured.

So has the musical nature of this community. A number of musicians and music lovers on our faculty and staff keeps

If you listen to John talk about it, most of us have music inside. We just need to find a way to let it out.

This simple but positive message infuses his teaching philosophy.

With some passion and practice, everyone can play music. John tells kids to relax and let it come. He applies the same idea to his own music career. Outside the classroom, John plays with local musicians in a band, Big Slyde, whose members include his two children, Hannah (NCS 05) and Jake (NCS 07). “John has an innate ability to nurture and bring out the unique ‘voice’ of each musician he plays with,” bandmate Christina Grant told me. “It’s rare that someone so experienced and technically skilled can still revel in sharing the pure joy of music with musicians of all skill levels—from total beginners to professionals.”

John Doan first came to North Country School 15 years ago as the garden manager with his wife Libby, who was hired as a teacher at the time, and a much younger Hannah and Jake. Though he describes his formal education as more “horticultural than musical,” John also came to NCS an accomplished musician. He has spent the be er part of his life playing guitar, banjo, and the Dobro. After reviving many gardens around campus, John moved continued on next page

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into his current role as music teacher. Over the years, he has also been integral in leading the ski program, and is equally popular on the mountain. His students love him.

Alumni musicians like Joey Schultz (NCS 04) return to NCS to perform with John on a regular basis. In fact, both Joey and alum Trillium Macario (NCS 14) will be recording banjo and bass, respectively, on John’s new solo album at BluSeed Studios this summer.

Writing music for students to play is a treat for John. He takes advantage of this every year during the spring theatre production. This year students incorporated Beatles tunes for a twist on Swiss Family Robinson. John offered a Beatles course to provide kids with a li le background study and to help them develop ideas for the production.

As always, he composed original music for the play. “The instrumentation is always changing depending on the kids,” John explains. He might write a piece on the banjo for a horn player. “One year we had an electric cello. There are always a couple guitars, ukulele or Native American flute.

The plays themselves are unique and creative, so it makes for a really great package.”

John’s talent for composing original music for the spring

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play follows Don Rand’s own legacy. In his day, Don wrote original and innovative scripts, as well as accompanying music. Even more meaningfully, he created and cast parts specifically for individual children. By all accounts, they were brilliant.

Dimitra Dreyer, an NCS alum who recently returned to teach at School, recalls Don’s tremendous influence on her. “I sang a li le before I arrived, but Don totally helped me find my voice. I was a shy kid, but he gave me the lead role, Guinevere, my senior year. Public speaking, selfawareness, confidence, joy—he taught me all those things.

somewhere in the basement of Clark House, a spectacularly large papier-mâché head, with distinctive blue eyes and snow-white hair, sits in the archives, the perfect likeness of Don Rand as “Oz” in Wicked (See le .)

Larry says, “Don is part of the fabric of the performing arts here. He always says, ‘the fun is in the doing.’

He’s done so much over the years, working tirelessly to get kids up in front of audiences, having them enjoying and being proud of what they do. Don rocks.”

Of course, Don’s own sense of humor was always on display in the productions he created. This spring I was lucky enough to get a taste of it. When we sat down together to discuss the past, Don spontaneously sang a final chorus from the finale to a Li le Red Riding Hood, which he put on eons ago. “We here deny the theologists who brand the wolf a sinner. We here salute the ecologists who know the wolf’s a winner,” he belts out with gusto right on the spot. This is pure Don Rand, off-thecuff, unrehearsed. [You can hear Don singing about the big bad wolf and other NCS music from the past at soundcloud.com/north-countryschool.]

He was my ‘guardian angel.’ I still remember the lyrics from my fourth grade play by Don Rand to this day. He is one of the single most influential teachers in my educational history. He’s why I came back to North Country School to teach.”

Every year, science and theatre tech teacher Larry Robjent pays tribute to Don with his set design for the spring production, incorporating him somehow into the visual landscape of the play. For this year’s musical, Swiss Family Robinson, Don takes shape as a parrot in a palm tree. Last year, he was painted onto the face of “The Donna (Mona) Lisa,” as backdrop for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And

While Don’s formal education is in classical music and John’s approach is more folk-based, together they make a remarkable team. Both are deeply admired by generations of NCS graduates, as well as their peers. Beyond a talent and passion for music, they share the innate ability to inspire. Each cultivates within others a deep joy, a creative spark, and the persistent desire to pursue both. Each has dedicated his career to the idea that music makes for a great teacher. And everyone who knows Don and John would agree.

Happy 90th birthday, Don.

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MUSIC

at Treetops

by Greta Konkler, CTT 00-07, sta 12-14

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