Just Wondering – Did This Really Happen?
Kudos to our friends at WNYT for fighting back against the idea that TV news has to be buttoned up and scripted and take itself so darn seriously all the time. It’s risky business to let your guard down like this, but I like it. BC
Update: After posting this, I was clued into the joke by my colleague and pop culture maven Troy Burns. This was actually a very funny take on a popular video done by the cast of The Today Show during a segment title “Today Show Goes Viral.” Did WNYT outdo The Today Show? You be the judge.
A Thought for the Day Worth Pondering
A friend and former colleague passed along this gem the other day. The author is Michael Josephson, an ethicist and entrepreneur who blogs about the importance of character and character development.
As Mark Behan pointed out, great leaders live these rules in their organizations every day.
Enjoy.
Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear. So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
You can find the rest by going here.
Bill Callen
A Twitter post like that wouldn’t mean much coming from me, a weekend warrior who couldn’t make the cut for my high school basketball team. That same tweet coming from NBA superstar Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder? That’s a different story.
Durant tweeted his admiration for the scoring prowess of Fredette, a Glens Falls native, after Fredette went off for 43 points Wednesday night in a 71-58 BYU victory over previously unbeaten #4 San Diego State. That’s some high praise from a player who is the reigning NBA scoring champion and leads the league again this year at 28.6 points per game.
Fredette has attracted quite a bit of buzz in the twittersphere as of late, becoming a top trending discussion topic and being mentioned by everyone from rock stars to rappers.
The rest of the country is beginning to realize what Glens Falls has known for years. Headline writers this morning are offering such gems as “Fredette About it,” “Jimmer Glimmer” and “Mountain Best.” It’s pretty amazing to see a guy who played just across the street being discussed among the favorites for the national Player of the Year award.
A final side note: I was watching highlights of the game online when a celebrating BYU fan was shown wearing a t-shirt that really caught my eye. If you’re wondering what to get your significant other this Valentine’s Day, I suggest you look no further.
Rick Judge
Somehow, Honoree Finds More Time to Serve
“A leader is a dealer in hope.”
Napoleon Bonaparte
Each year, the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce recognizes members who exemplify great character and inspiring leadership with the J. Walter Juckett Community Service Award.
The honor is named for the late Mr. Juckett, a philanthropist and distinguished community and civic leader who was the legendary president of the Sandy Hill Corp. in Hudson Falls. Mr. Juckett served for years on the Glens Falls Hospital Board, the Salvation Army Board and the Lake Champlain Cancer Research Center Board. He was selfless in his determination to serve and improve the community, right up until his death in 1991.
The idea for the award, which was thought up many years ago in our offices at Behan and now handed out annually by the ARCC, honors an individual in mid-career who is making a meaningful contribution to the community through leadership of local civic and charitable causes.
This year’s honoree is Harold “Bud” Taylor, who over the years has given back tirelessly to the Glens Falls area. He will receive his award during the Chamber’s annual dinner Saturday at the Glens Falls Civic Center.
Bud serves on the boards of the Glens Falls Civic Center Foundation, Warren-Hamilton Community Action Agency, Warren County Local Development Corp. and the Warren-Washington Counties Industrial Development Agency. He also serves as president of the Crandall Park Beautification Committee, and president of the board of The Open Door Mission. On top of all that, he represents Glens Falls’ 3rd Ward on the Warren County Board of Supervisors. When does he find time to sleep?
We can’t think of a more deserving individual to honor this year. Congratulations, Bud!
Rick Judge
A Cold Wake-Up Call for Glens Falls
“How’d you like to be waking up in Glen Falls, New York?” Host Matt Lauer asked the nearly 6 million viewers of NBC’s Today show this morning as he introduced the day’s top news story, the deep freeze gripping the Northeast.
We’ll forgive him the slip. Happens all the time.
Glens Falls recorded an almost unimaginable overnight low of 30 below, setting a local record. Though at these temperatures it hardly matters, Glens Falls was not the coldest place in Upstate New York. Saranac Lake, at 36 below, and other Adirondack communities were even colder.
But Today — network television’s top-rated morning show — chose Glens Falls as the national symbol of shiver. We’ll take the spotlight. On a day like today, every little bit of warmth helps.
To his credit, Matt Lauer got the name right the second time through, when he joked with correspondent Peter Alexander, on location in Central Park, about sending him up to “Glens Falls” for his next live remote. Or maybe he was just s-s-s-shivering.
Mark Behan
The Greater Adirondack Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation holds its annual Gala at the Gideon Putnam on Saturday night, Jan. 22, at 7 p.m., where it will honor our friend Dan Burke, the Glens Falls/Saratoga Regional president of NBT Bank.
Dan is a longtime friend of many people in our firm and he’s our “down-under” neighbor. Behan Communications’ headquarters is just above NBT’s at 86 Glen Street.
As a member of the Greater Adirondack Chapter JDRF board, I was asked to put together a news release announcing the choice of Dan as honoree. I was awed by the tremendous good that he has done and continues to do in our community.
Do you remember the movie where the kid had a Christmas wish list that was on a scroll? A scroll almost sums up what Dan has accomplished in his professional life and in our community.
Where do I start? Dan was past President and CEO of the regional arm of TD Banknorth, co-founder of the Banknorth Holiday Parade and Past President and Finance Committee Chair of the SUNY Plattsburgh Foundation. He currently serves as a member of the Glens Falls Hospital Board of Governors; chairman of the Glens Falls Business Improvement District (BID), and a Glens Falls YMCA trustee.
Dan has a lot in common with Staples. When it comes to not-for-profit organizations, you say Dan Burke, and they say, “Yeah, we’ve got him!”
Congratulations, Dan! You are the epitome of civic-minded community leadership and we thank you for your community service. JDRF could not have chosen a better person for this honor.
Oh, and relax, Dan. Your story about the youthful shenanigans at Griffin Lumber in Hudson Falls is safe with me.
Troy Burns
Banishing Words that Have “Jumped the Shark”
Kudos to the folks at Lake Superior State University for proposing a 2011 list of banished words. I always appreciate people who are on the lookout for hackneyed or just plain annoying words and phrases.
Are you ready to have an “a-ha moment” and “man up,” and banish these words and phrases from your lexicon? And I’m sure all of us can think of some others….. Sarah Metzgar Boggess
A Remarkable Public Life: Dick Bartlett
His wisdom, experience and steadiness have made Glens Falls attorney Dick Bartlett the indispensable man for New York State leaders for more than 50 years. On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo added one more distinguished title to Dick’s astonishingly full career, appointing him to the New York State Public Integrity Commission, which enforces the state ethics and lobbying laws.
Dick Bartlett’s lifetime of service to the public and the legal profession may well be unprecedented in New York State.
It began in 1959 when he was elected to the New York State Assembly. He served for seven years and became a leader of the Republican minority. In 1961, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller appointed Dick to lead the New York State Penal Law Revision Commission. The Bartlett Commission is remembered for completing the first major revision of the state’s criminal laws in more than 80 years.
He authored the New York law that provides for representation of indigent people in criminal and family court cases. He was later elected a State Supreme Court justice and served for six years before becoming the first administrator of the New York State Court system. That responsibility is now discharged by the Office of Court Administration, which he helped establish. Dick has long been an energetic and effective advocate for modernizing state and local courts and served as a Director of the Fund for Modern Courts.
In the days following the deadly 1970s riot at Attica State Prison, Dick served as chair of the Select Committee on New York State Penal Institutions. He chaired the New York State Crime Control Council, the New York State Crime Control Planning Board and the Judicial Commission on Justice for Children.
He was named Dean of Albany Law School in 1976 and led the institution for a decade. New York’s Chief Judge Judith Kaye appointed him to the New York Board of Law Examiners, which prepares and administers examinations for admission to the Bar. He served as president of The New York Bar Foundation, and as a member of the House of Delegates of both the New York State and American Bar Associations.
In 2002, the Warren County Bar Association honored Dick’s career in law and public service with the first Charles Evans Hughes Award, named for the United States Chief Justice, New York Governor and one-time presidential candidate who also grew up in Glens Falls. Two years later, the New York State Bar Association conferred upon Dick its highest award, the Gold Medal. Last year, Crandall Public Library honored Dick with its first Henry Crandall Award. Next week at a ceremony at the New York State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in New York City, the New York Bar Foundation will confer on Dick its lifetime achievement award, expressing the deep respect and affection of so many of his colleagues, friends and admirers.
Even as he managed major public responsibilities, he and his wife Claire remained active in the life of Glens Falls. Dick was a longtime trustee of The Hyde Collection and a director of Arrow Financial Corp. He served as a trustee of the Adirondack Park Institute and a director of the Adirondack Nature Conservancy as well as a director of the Glens Falls Symphony. When they weren’t sailing or entertaining friends on Lake George, the Bartletts were busy in Glens Falls supporting benefits, concerts and civic activities.
He is retired now as a partner with the Glens Falls law firm that bears his name, Bartlett, Pontiff, Stewart and Rhodes.
Sadly, Dick, the Bartlett family and our broader community lost Claire last April. She was distinguished in her own right for leadership of many community organizations, including the Voluntary Action Center, Glens Falls Hospital, the Family Service Association, Greater Adirondack Home Health Aides and others. They had been married for 59 years.
Mark Behan
The Surprising Glens Falls Literary Tradition
Glens Falls native and author Lorrie Moore published a sensitive and insightful essay on the controversy over sanitizing “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in the Sunday issue of The New York Times.
Ms. Moore writes from Madison, Wisc., where she’s on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, a long way from her roots in the Glens Falls area, where she spent some growing-up years and graduated from high school. The Glens Falls area is the setting for her delightful novel “Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?” about her teenage adventures saving frogs from the evil clutches of neighborhood boys and working at the Storytown, U.S.A., theme park, charming forerunner of today’s Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom.
Ms. Moore is a literary superstar. She’s published many novels (“Anagrams,” “A Gate at the Stairs” and “The Forgotten Helper”) and short stories collections (“Self Help, ” “Like Life,” and “Birds of America”) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006.
Her essay in The Times brought to mind the long literary tradition of the Glens Falls area that starts perhaps with James Fenimore Cooper’s 1824 visit to the roaring falls at Glens Falls and the cave beneath — the trip that inspired “The Last of the Mohicans.”
It surely includes the late William Bronk, who by day ran a lumber and coal company and by night wrote poetry in Hudson Falls. The prolific Mr. Bronk won the American Book Award for “Life Supports” but published no fewer than a dozen other collections and read an original work at the inauguration of Gov. Mario Cuomo.
From another generation and his academic post in Florida, poet Michael Cleary has written candidly and lovingly about his Irish upbringing in Glens Falls in the manner one writes about family: He sees us for what we are and loves us just the same in “Hometown, U.S.A,” which won the American Book Series Award.
From her post at Adirondack Community College (now SUNY Adirondack), Jean Rikhoff wrote children’s, historical and local literature and an especially poignant memoir of the outsize American sculptor who made his home in Bolton, “David Smith, I Remember.”
And consider the gifted mother-daughter team of Anne White (“Cold Water Nights” and “An Affinity Murder,” among others), my Queensbury High School librarian and an inspiration, and Kate White, editor of Cosmopolitan and author of “Hush,” and “9 Secrets of Women Who Get Everything They Want” and “Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead But Gutsy Girls Do.”
Anne White still makes her home in Glens Falls as does the brilliant Brooklyn refugee Paul Pines, author of the compelling and unsettling memoir “My Brother’s Madness” and other books as well as poetry collections, notably the “Hotel Madden Poems.”
Stretching north and south, we can even lay claim to Albany’s Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Kennedy (“Ironweed” and “Ink Truck,” “Bill Phelan’s Greatest Game” and others) who spent a summer in Glens Falls writing sports for the Glens Falls Post-Star and Lake George native Rachael Ray who somehow finds time to churn out cookbooks among her other multi-media responsibilities.
Not surprisingly, Glens Falls area journalists have filled bookshelves in their spare time. Chronicle editor and founder Mark Frost published “Scattered Frost” and “Perma Frost” early in his career along with the appalling story of the demise of a local small-business institution, Pepper’s Turkey Farm. He’s got innumerable other books bouncing around in his head. The late local columnist Don Metivier published collections of his popular Saturday reminiscences from The Post-Star. Former Post-Star and Daily Gazette sports writer Mike Kane gave readers a front-row seat for the founding the first professional hockey team in Glens Falls (“Minor in Name Only: The History of the Adirondack Red Wings.”) Maury Thompson of The Post-Star is at work on a book now.
The Laydens of Whitehall — Tim and Joe — are publishing success stories. Joe has two New York Times bestsellers and his book “The Last Great Fight” about Buster Douglas’ surprising win over Mike Tyson was honored by Sports Illustrated as one of the best sports books of 2007. Tim has worked for Sports Illustrated for years where he covers the NFL and is the go-to guy for cover stories. He wrote “Blood, Sweat and Chalk” about modern professional football.
Local historians have published widely, too, including Austin Holden, Bill Gates, Joe King, Dr. Dan O’Keeffe, Stan Malecki, Marilyn VanDyke, John Austin and our own Pat Dowd.
Not a bad literary line for a town whose public library was commissioned by an Adirondack lumberman, Henry Crandall, who could not read.
Which local authors have I mistakenly overlooked? I ask your help in compiling a more complete list. Mark Behan
Addenda:
Maury Thompson of The Post-Star graciously offers these additions to the Glens Falls literary list:
Frieda Toth, teen librarian at Crandall Public Library, has written two books. Marika McCoola collaborated on one.
A. Nelson Cheney, who is burried in the Glens Falls Cemetery, was a well-known outdoors writer in the 19th century. He lived in Glens Falls and was also a state fisheries official. Among other works, he co-wrote “Fishing With Fly” with Charles F. Orvis — a highly-prized work among rare book collectors. He was a distant ancestor to Vice President Richard Cheney. City Historian Wayne Wright compiled some information a few years ago for Mrs. Cheney as part of a geneology project she gave to the vice president for a birthday present.
Christina Parrish wrote the novels “Home Another Way” and “Watch Over Me” and was working on a third novel, according to an April 2010 Post-Star report. Her mother is Ann Parrish, owner of Milk & Honey clothing and gift boutique on Excahnge Street in downtown Glens Falls.
Oliver Winch, the former South Glens Falls School Superintendent for whom the Junior High School there is named, wrote as many as eight books of poetry and local history.
Glens Falls Native and Poet Michael Cleary writes:
A kind friend alerted me to your mention of my poetry collection (Hometown, USA) on your piece on local authors. Thanks for the mention. A few other things in the event the piece ever gets revised.
1. My second book Halfway Decent Sinners (2005) deals a lot with my experiences at St. Mary’s Academy (class of ’63) and beyond. Got a long piece at the end connecting with sculptor David Smith’s work up at Bolton Landing.
2. My third book (Bearable Weight) will appear in November ’11, from Word Tech Communications. The first half is about growing up in GF ’til 30, then next 30 years here in Florida. Christine McDonald always hosts a debut reading in the Crandall, and I expect we’ll do that again.
3. Oddly enough, Anne and Kate White lived right next door to me on Orville St.–exact same house model. Kate, an only girl, and me, only boy, got stuck with the tiny bedroom at the top of the stairs. I used to babysit the White kids and later worked with Anne at Queensbury High School. How ’bout that!
Some other worthy additions:
In mentioning Mark Frost, I should, of course, have remembered to mention Sandra Hutchinson, his wife and author of “Jumping off Cliffs and Other Short Essays, “ the 2007 collection on family life published in The Chronicle and Adirondack Family. A charming, funny read about family life, Sandy’s book is available locally at Red Fox Books, Nine and the LARAC store in Glens Falls and on Amazon.com
Maury Thompson recently passed along “Service to Others,” the biography of George I. Davis, the legendary Chairman of the Board of the Glens Falls Insurance Co. (later part of the Continental Insurance Cos., now CNA). For students of important local institutions, Steven Davis’ biography of his Dad is fascinating reading. George I. Davis led the Glens Falls, as it was affectionately known, to great financial success in an unlikely little city far removed from the insurance and investment capitals of Hartford and New York and devoted his considerable leadership talents to Skidmore College, Albany Medical College, Crandall Library and The Hyde Collection.
Davis’ story of outstanding community leadership is not unlike that of J. Walter Juckett, longtime leader of Sandy Hill Corp. Mr. Juckett, who wrote two excellent books during his life, “In Retrospect,” and “My Philosophy of Religion,” served as as a founding director and chairman of the Lake Champlain Cancer Research Organization, chairman of the Adirondack Samaritan Counseling Center, and was active in the leadership of the Lake George Opera Festival, the ARCC and the First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls.
Presidential Visit Takes Hours
of Meticulous Preparation
The GE folks in Schenectady preparing for Tuesday’s presidential visit are in for five frenetic and exhilarating days that they’ll never forget.
Back in September 2009, when President Obama visited Hudson Valley Community College, I was a vice president of the college and took the lead in coordinating with the White House advance team. The logistics of planning a presidential visit are immense in scope. Every square inch of the facility will be taken apart – every file cabinet and every piece of equipment – and some of it will have to leave the premises. Secure phone lines will be installed.
Every inch of the president’s path will be identified, as well as all of the necessary private spaces – for every “clutch” with dignitaries and the various “hold” rooms for the president and his travel companions. The traveling White House press corps will have significant technical and space needs, and the local media will need to be vetted and credentialed. The setup of the room for the speech will be decided in meticulous, painstaking fashion.
And of course, there will be the natural impulse for the hosts to clean, paint, and make every nook and cranny look impressive for the big day.
As you can imagine, every politician and old friend within 100 square miles will be calling to ask for a ticket, and there are only so many tickets to be had. On top of that, the White House is clear about the types of people it wants in the room – a diverse group of “regular” people for the camera shots.
One interesting tidbit: For the HVCC event, all of the non-security advance staff were volunteers. They were people who had everyday lives around the country – graduate students and working people from Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio and Illinois. They were connected with the Obama camp in some way, perhaps through past campaigns, and they bank their vacation time to be able to arrange presidential events across the country. Their travel expenses are paid, of course, but they aren’t federal employees. And in our case, they were experienced, capable and great to work with.
One piece of advice for our friends at GE: Get the caterers on the line. Although they won’t ask to be fed, you will have at least 30 of your staff and at least 30 White House staff working at the site 13 hours a day over the next five days. I don’t know about you, but I would rather deal with well-fed Secret Service officers.
And if you’re lucky enough to score a ticket, you’d better remember to leave your cell phone at home or put it on vibrate, unless you want to be remembered forever as the person whose phone rang during the president’s speech. Sarah Metzgar Boggess
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