Cover: We asked local artist Alison Haas of Wildly Pressed to bring our iconic Balanced Rocks jump to life for this issue’s cover. The result is beautiful and fun. But something was missing—the iconic backdrop of the High Peaks. We found this photo taken by Holger Van Aller around 1940–41 in our archives and married the two. Alongside this familiar backdrop, Alison’s pressed-flower art brings to life the sense of whimsy, curiosity, and wonder that our campers and students go on to spread beyond our mountain home. She used pressed botanicals from our gardens to create the piece, including candytuft, clover, cosmos, mint, salvia, scabiosa, snapdragon, strawflower, sunflower, and yarrow.
OUR ADIRONDACK ANTIDOTE
TODD ORMISTON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
“ The best environment for children to develop strong values and become contributing members of society is one that combines loving support, quality education, community engagement, and exposure to diverse perspectives, fostering empathy, responsibility, and critical thinking.”
This sounds like something I might overhear during a conversation about our learning philosophy at North Country School & Camp Treetops, and how it benefits children and society.
But it actually came from ChatGPT. You may have heard of this generative artificial intel-
ligence (AI) algorithm, which has an uncanny ability to provide human-like answers in response to prompts, or input, users provide. It produced that opening text after I asked: “In fifty words or less, what is the best environment for children to develop strong values and become contributing members of society?”
There is no doubt that our campers and students will be impacted by AI; it has already produced several real-world applications in healthcare, drug research, and other areas that may improve our quality of life. But we can’t overlook the very valid concerns about AI’s negative impacts, such as bias, diminished empathy and social skills, and erosion of ethical and moral values.
So many of these pitfalls result from replacing human relationships with machines. The experiences children gain at Camp and School provide an antidote to AI in the way that they come to develop the EI, or emotional intelligence, that is often overlooked in our rush to a future that sidelines humans in favor of technology.
This has all been deeply on our minds as we’ve begun to implement our strategic plan over the past year. As we consider where we’re going, we want to make sure we remember where we started. That means keeping our values at the center of our work— values that haven’t wavered since our founding.
As you will read in this issue, there is a lot to be excited about as we seek to enhance our programs, support our people, and amplify our impact on the world as outlined in our strategic plan (see page 14). And while our commitment to community, empathy, perseverance, curiosity, and environmental stewardship are timeless, we’re hardly stuck in the past. As we look forward, we will also need to invest in new tools and enhancements that will help us continue to provide an exceptional environment where our children, counselors, and teachers can thrive.
Our campus master planning process, in particular, has helped us to identify opportunities for physical improvements to our campus facilities. We’re taking a hard look at our outdoor programs for Camp and School to improve safety and efficiency, optimize the experience, and effectively allocate resources. We are also evaluating our farm and garden program to identify ways a working farm can further develop our children’s character and knowledge, while reinforcing the value of knowing where our food comes from and utilizing it as an extension of our place-based learning experience.
To guarantee competitive salaries and housing for our hardworking counselors, teachers, and staff, we are addressing our compensation and benefits policies. We have begun an ambitious exercise in planning for and providing new and improved campus housing options for teachers and counselors. Culpepper Cabin (see the story on page 16) and the Mountain Den, a new apartment in Mountain House, are the first examples of much-needed housing additions that will help to take care of the people who take care of our children.
And ongoing local, regional, and national outreach is creating opportunities to spread the philosophy of Camp and School, while allowing us to learn from other leaders in the field. In addition to partnerships with The Wild Center, Shelburne Farms, and the Edible Schoolyard Project, others have asked us to share our approach on podcasts, during conferences hosted on our campus, and through speaking engagements at events such as the Society of Experiential Education’s annual conference.
While artificial intelligence is a tool that can benefit our world for good, we’re most interested in a prompt best answered right here: “How can we develop good people who make the world a better place through the skills and values they learned on our mountain campus?”
We’re not alone in that conviction. Camp is full this summer, with 185 campers benefitting from the gift of a timeless summer. School will open its doors in September for the eighty-seventh time to a full school of ninety students. North Country School & Camp Treetops continue to thrive because of the “profoundly humane” experience we provide, a phrase mentioned by graduation speaker Aubrey Snowden in her address to our ninth-grade graduates this spring (read her speech on page 10). And it’s the emotional intelligence that our children gain here through this experience that our world needs more of right now.
Struggle & Success
HANNAH EDWARDS CAMP DIRECTOR
At Treetops, we often say: “We believe kids can do hard things.” That’s not a revolutionary concept—but in the wake of COVID-19, in which young people lost so much, it seems we want to shelter children from discomfort and pain. And while this sentiment comes from a place of genuine care, this impulse doesn’t do kids any favors: Keeping children away from struggle also blocks them from success.
As camp director, I often talk with concerned parents who are wondering whether Camp is right for their children. They’re picky eaters, prone to homesickness, afraid of the dark, or just generally nervous about leaving home. These conditions are all normal. But none are reasons against attending Camp. In fact, quite the opposite. The experience and confidence that children gain from trying new foods, spending a month or more away from home, learning to feel safe in the darkness of their tent, and realizing they can overcome their nervousness will stick with them forever. Away from the watchful and sometimes anxious eyes of their parents, children have the space to try hard things at Treetops. Here, we take a challenge-by-choice approach. Campers don’t need to attempt the hardest hike or the longest paddle, but we want them to pick a challenge that tests their limits—and then do their best to overcome them. Almost always, campers learn they are stronger and more capable than they realized and gain experience they can draw on when facing a future challenge.
Although I was never fortunate to be a Treetops camper, when I was fifteen, I endured my own formative struggle. In the fall of tenth grade, one of my classmates spoke about hiking the Long Trail the
previous summer. This 273-mile trek traverses the length of my home state, Vermont, from its southern border with Massachusetts all the way to Canada. I was awestruck—how could a fourteen-year-old kid have completed this journey? I was so inspired that I rashly promised that I, too, would hike the Long Trail. By spring, my plans were coming together. Fortuitously, that year I made a friend who had hiked the trail a few years before and agreed to accompany me. Guidebooks were read. Training hikes were completed. Grocery lists were written, and Costco runs made. Food was sorted into four-day batches, and drop-off points along the hike were assigned to parents. We were on our way!
I was woefully unprepared. My brand-new, stiff leather boots caused pain with every step. I couldn’t fathom finishing the hike. And, to make things worse, it rained constantly in that first week. My feet were chronically prune-like, blistered, and bleeding. But it got better. The pain subsided, the ibuprofen helped, and over time, my strength grew. The more miles I put behind me, the more I believed I could cover the ones ahead. We planned on hiking thirteen miles a day, finishing the trail in twenty-one days. It took nineteen. My knees and legs were ruined, and my feet were so soggy and raw I didn’t recognize them as my own. And after eating a diet of instant oatmeal, bagels, energy bars, and ramen for nearly three weeks, my immune system was wrecked and I soon came down with mononucleosis that took me out of field hockey season and two weeks of school. Nevertheless, I had done it. That hike served as a benchmark of a really hard thing I accomplished, against which I could measure all future hard things I might do. And if I could do this, surely I could do anything.
At Treetops, campers are given countless opportunities to try new things and have moments of struggle and success. Tiny junior campers groom horses one hundred times their size; children afraid of heights successfully climb to the top of the Crag; first-time paddlers at the start of the summer conquer tough portages and are paddling all day by the end; those who had never summited a mountain before coming to Camp embark on the “Idiot Trip,” sometimes hiking over twenty-five miles in a single day. And so much more.
At Treetops, we believe kids can do hard things— because they can.
New Beginnings
Ashley Waldorf became North Country School’s new director of school in July. She is well suited to take on this role—her past leadership experiences include six years at The Island School in the Bahamas as school director and director of curriculum, and more recently she was a founding faculty member at the Mastery School of Hawken in Cleveland. While at Hawken, Ashley also earned her Ed.D. from Vanderbilt University’s Doctorate of Education program, where she researched the application of competency-based education in public schools. Ashley, her husband, Alex, and their adopted Portuguese Water Dog, Luna, recently welcomed their newest addition, River Whitley Cook-Waldorf, in late April. Ashley penned this letter to our community as she prepares to begin her duties here this summer.
ASHLEY WALDORF DIRECTOR OF SCHOOL
I pushed back my dust-covered bangs as the coastal breeze filled my senses. My dad and I scanned the horizon for any glimpse of clear sky while pausing for a sip of water.
“What do you think? Should we keep going?” Dad sought my thoughts on the matter, determining whether we should continue our way up Maine’s Cadillac Mountain despite being socked in.
I eagerly nodded my reply, somehow knowing the view didn’t matter. This was my first
mountain hike to the summit, and we’d traveled from Michigan to Acadia National Park for this moment. While my ten-year-old self couldn’t understand how that climb would influence my trajectory, some piece of me knew the effort and experience were worth far more than the outcome.
It’s a lesson that has become increasingly evident over the years: that hard work and nature, mixed with a good bit of reflection and guidance, shape your soul in immeasurable ways. It’s the same lesson my grandmother shared as we tended to her gardens while
she’d recount her favorite childhood farm chore of milking twelve cows twice daily. Real responsibility, she’d remind me, makes for real learning. That’s also a truth at the heart of North Country School, and it’s one of many aspects that has drawn me here as the new director of school.
NCS’s rich history and traditions have created a playbook for leveraging the Adirondacks as a classroom while cultivating the human spirit through experience, mentorship, and compassion. This much was evident from afar when I first heard of School’s vast campus, outdoor program (including ice climbing!), and barn chores tradition. Yet upon visiting, I found something even more profound.
I saw how this vibrant community espouses its values in every moment. That way of living and valuing youth requires sustained effort, thoughtful reflection, and a willingness to dig deep and keep growing. I saw this in the dining room, as I ate my pancakes with campus-made maple syrup. I experienced this as I chatted with community members, taking note of traditions balanced with upcoming goals.
Each of these things attracted me. So has a sense that we’re poised to take our place at the front of an ongoing conversation about education in this country. In many ways, NCS has been ahead of its time. Today, many schools are balancing a sense of community with globalism, infusing their teaching with place-based and experiential learning focused on the environment. That’s a road our community has long traveled. At its heart, an NCS education has always been about making sense of our world, and empathetically communicating learned lessons. In a time when we’re acutely aware of our connection to each other—whether through a fragile environment or a seemingly frayed social network—these lessons are vital.
Here, we learn that to know a place, we must listen not only to its people but to the land and its inhabitants. An NCS education teaches that doing so requires patience, empathy, and a sense of duty to our shared planet. We have long leaned into these values, allowing lessons to take root as students carry them forward throughout their lives. As we pay more attention to the needs of our planet, we need to do a better job prepar-
ing our students to meet them.
I am both honored and thrilled to be joining this community. It’s hard to say whether I’m more excited for my first hike up Balanced Rocks, a morning of mucking stalls alongside students, or my first meeting with colleagues. Regardless, I know that each experience will call forth the same values-driven effort and approach that was just taking root during my hike up Cadillac Mountain so many years ago.
1. Ashley with husband Alex Cook hiking in Wyoming’s Wind River Range. 2. Ashley interacting with students during her tenure at The Island School (photo courtesy of The Island School). 3. Ashley and Alex with Luna and baby River (photo by Eileen Turk).
THIS WEEK AT NCS
Staff Writer and Photographer Becca Miller first proposed the idea for This Week at NCS in 2018. Since then, she has turned it into a storytelling platform, capturing the moments that make our mountain campus so special and highlighting the lives of our students as well as the vast talents and dedication of our faculty. This fall, Becca transitions to a new role as our full-time ceramics teacher. We're deeply grateful for Becca's talent and years of dedication. We will be back in the fall with new and fresh ideas for this weekly window into life at NCS. Stay tuned and, as always, reach out with ideas and feedback.
Barnyard Book Club | Dec. 15
This winter in the barnyard, we began a delightful new out-time tradition. During “Barnyard Book Club,” students read some of their favorite stories aloud to our barnyard creatures. It has been a wonderful—not to mention adorable—way for our students to interact with our farm animals while participating in a beloved NCS pastime that never fails to make us smile: reading books around campus.
“Puffs” Full Cast Read | Jan. 26
The full cast read-through of the spring term theater production is a milestone we look forward to each January and marks the first time the entire cast comes together ahead of their final performance in
Lamb Watch | Mar. 29
late May. Early this year, the cast met in the Walter Breeman Performing Arts Center (WallyPAC)’s Don Rand Theater to read through the script for this year’s spring play, “Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic.” The show, written by playwright Matt Cox, parodies the Harry Potter book series by acknowledging the livedin experience of the students in the often overlooked Hufflepuff House.
Skimeister | Feb. 23
Each year we mark the final week of the winter term with our day-long Skimeister event, which takes place at Mt. Pisgah Recreation Center in nearby Saranac Lake. Skimeister is always a day filled with fun—students and faculty donned colorful snow gear and silly costumes and spent hours skiing and snowboarding down Pisgah’s snow-covered terrain, stopping here and there to engage in some friendly competition. It was a fantastic day, with near-perfect snow conditions and mild temperatures, not to mention delicious food and live music.
The cycles of life on a farm are always in motion on our campus. In March, our ewes gave birth to this year’s lambs, marking the start of this special time of year on our farm. Students witnessed the births of our new lambs during classes and afternoon out-times and learned about the signs of labor including pawing, nesting, and restlessness. Our ninth graders also had the opportunity to get even closer to the process during their Lamb Watch overnights, a tradition during which small groups of our oldest students sleep in the barn and radio the farmers when a ewe begins the birthing process.
Total Eclipse of the Park | Apr. 12
We were fortunate to be in the path of totality during this year’s total solar eclipse in April, a once-in-tenlifetimes event here in the Adirondack and North Country region. On the day of the eclipse, students headed to various locations around campus and looked up in awe as the sun became entirely obscured by the moon for more than three minutes. The 360-degree sunset and mid-afternoon night sky were incredible to behold, and included views of several planets. Witnessing this incredible natural phenomenon was a day none of us will ever forget—one made all the more special because we shared the experience together.
This spring, twenty students in the class of 2024 graduated from North Country School. In introducing our commencement speaker, director and theater educator Aubrey Snowden (NCS 94–97, CTT 92–94, CTT staff 17–18), Executive Director Todd Ormiston borrowed the salient words of co-founder Walter Clark in his commencement address to the class of 1950: ”These achievements are much more than the usual knowledge and skills which your teachers have taught you than we normally think of when we say ‘school.’ They are the sum total of all the experiences you have had during the years of living here. And let us remember that learning is a two-way affair, a doing and sharing process. You have made your mark upon this place almost to the same degree that this place has influenced you.” Aubrey‘s speech echoed his sentiments, as these excerpts show.
When I graduated from North Country School, I thought that I would never step foot inside a lean-to or tent ever again. My time hoof-picking, turning over compost, and being forced to read after dinner was done. And I was glad for it. But while I might not have continued at a farm or hiking mountains, the ethos of this place became rooted inside me. Ultimately, North Country School created and fortified my moral fiber. That has helped me infinitely within a career in the arts, and to carve my three tenets of theater.
EMBRACE FAILURE
Twenty-seven years ago, I found myself on stage in the Quonset. Our humanities teacher, Tor, decided to write his own play for the eighth-grade class to perform. My part involved starting the show with a monologue and delivering another monologue halfway through the performance. I was thrilled and super-nervous. I loved theater and acting so much and I was so scared of messing it up. When the lights came up, I began my monologue with one-hundred percent commitment. I really went for it. As a theater director, I have coined a term for this level of commitment: “Loud and Proud.” But I started the play with the second monologue instead of the first. Here I am, delivering the wrong monologue, while simultaneously thinking, “Hey, wait a second, these aren’t the right words. Oh my…” Mid-sentence, I took a breath, course-corrected, and started the entire play over again with the correct monologue. So I went from
“Loud and Proud” to another term I also use a lot as a director, “Strong and Wrong.”
“Embrace failure” is my first tenet of theater. Find the moments when you are strong and wrong. Messing up is actually the key to a bigger and richer experience. After you leave here, it is inevitable that you will struggle. You will absolutely fail at things. But how you show up to the failure—to acknowledge it, to learn, to course correct—is what matters. Failure can be embarrassing and overwhelming and cause that inner cringe feeling I know so well. Those feelings are real and valid, and you must feel them. But then what? In the words of one of my favorite playwrights, Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” I believe that the person who can fail is also the person who can keep going. And I believe this about each and every one of you.
THE POWER OF GENEROSITY
In a world that is so distracted by scrolling screens and warp-speed editing, North Country School gave me time to listen and pay attention. Here, I learned that generosity can take the form of paying attention and listening close enough to hear the other, possibly quieter, voices in the room. As you go out into the world, you will have opportunities to make space for others and to take space as your own unique selves. Both are acts of generosity. Make enough room to be able to hear your own voice and hear the voices of others.
THE VALUE OF CURIOSITY
I have come to learn that curiosity takes a bit of bravery. Because the minute you stop exploring, seeking, and figuring out what you are curious about, is the minute some part of the art that you are making dies. When I spoke with the class of 2024 yesterday, I asked what they were curious about in regard to their own futures, as well as North Country School’s. What I gleaned from their answers was the care and concern this class has for maintaining the sense of community created here. To this thoughtful and curious class, whether your time in high school is spent in the arts, math, science, or most likely a combination, remem-
It was a beautiful spring day for North Country School’s 86th graduation ceremony, filled with joy, bittersweet goodbyes, and boundless love. Our graduates may have departed our campus for the last time as students, but it will always remain their mountain home.
1. Board Chair Barkley Stuart (CTT 69–72, parent 03–07, NCS parent 09–11), Trustee Pamela Rosenthal (NCS parent 07–09), outgoing Director of School Matthew Preston-Smith, former Executive Director David Hochschartner, and Executive Director Todd Ormiston. 2 . Graduation speaker Aubrey Snowden. 3. The class of 2024’s three—yes, three!—sets of twins. 4. Executive Director Todd Ormiston and class of 2024 graduate Wyatt. 5. Three generations of the Corwin-Gray family with their Senior Books. Left to right: River Gray (NCS 20–24), Anabell Corwin (CTT 07, NCS 08–14), Kimberly Corwin-Gray (CTT 89–90, 94, parent 07, NCS 91–95, parent 08–14, 20–24, NCS staff 04–15), Tony Corwin (CTT 64, parent 89–90, 94, 96, 98–99, grandparent 07, NCS 63–68, parent 91–02, grandparent 08–14, 20–24, NCS staff 92–96), and Rayne Corwin, future NCS class of 2036! 6. This year’s Jamison Roseliep Work Award winners, Orrin and Marley Tracy-Deuss.
ber that curiosity is an active part of who you are and it is a vital part of seeking some greater understanding of the world and yourself. Give yourself permission to wonder and explore, to be curious.
THE PROFOUNDLY HUMANE
I also asked the class: “If you meet someone who asks you to tell them one thing about your time at North Country School, what would you say?” Their answers:
✽ “At NCS, everything you do is with, and for, others. Everyone is always helping.”
✽ “NCS has a work ethic. You can get your hands dirty.”
✽ “NCS has strong, tight-knit relationships to the students, to the school, and to each other, which is different from any other school.”
✽ “NCS is a small but strong community.”
I asked a similar question while interviewing for graduate school: “If I come here, what is the one thing you would want me to say about this program?” The interviewer took a moment. He then looked me in the eye and said, “That you had a profoundly humane experience.”
That answer has stayed with me. There is only one place or time in my life where I can honestly say I have experienced “a profoundly humane experience.” It was here on this campus—walking back from barn chores, laughing with my friends, and sharing that quiet moment of reverence before we sit down to eat a meal together. Would I have called it “profoundly humane” when I
graduated? Probably not. I can tell you, though, that everything I thought I was leaving behind was never that far away and the important stuff never left me at all. I have made my way back around to reading, enjoying a light hike every now and then. I even came back to work at Camp Treetops as a counselor.
The future is in better hands because your experience here is already planted deep within each of you. As you take your last trip down the driveway of NCS as a student please know it is not the end of the road. You have an opportunity to bring these tenets and profoundly humane experiences that you have had out into the world. Fail better, pay attention, be curious. And remember to visit your roots often.
Good luck. I believe in you.
—Remarks have been edited and condensed
Aubrey Snowden (NCS 94–97, CTT 92–94, CTT staff 17–18) teaches and directs the undergraduate and graduate Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has worked at The American Repertory Company, PlayMakers Rep, The Virginia Theater Festival, and The Wilbury Group. This fall, she will be directing the Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award-nominated play, “What the Constitution Means to Me” by Heidi Schreck, at PlayMakers Rep. Aubrey has her MFA in Directing from Brown University/Trinity Rep, and training from the National Theater Institute, SITI Company, Tectonic Theater Project, and La MaMa Umbria International Symposium for Directors in Umbria, Italy.
CONGRATULATIONS, NCS GRADUATES!
Adela Eastman
Matthew Garcia
River Gray
Zhixuan (Melissa) Kang
Zhiyang (Kevin) Kang
Runqi (Tina) Liu
Taylor Lubovsky
Wyatt Lustberg
Roan Mathur
Anika Mian
Luke Monaco
Nadya Mwandu
Joel Oke
Vivián Quesada
Matías Quesada
Katie Robbins
Marley Tracy-Deuss
Orrin Tracy-Deuss
Ian Wei
Jinzhou (Jack) Xie
This year’s graduates will continue their studies at these secondary schools:
Bard College at Simon’s Rock
Cambridge School of Weston
The Cate School
Cranbrook School
Frederick Gunn School
George School
Green Mountain Valley School
Lake Placid High School
Northwood School
Phillips Exeter Academy
St. Albans School
Stoneleigh Burnham School
Suffield Academy
Williston Northampton School
Jamison Roseliep Work Award
Marley Tracy-Deuss
Orrin Tracy-Deuss
Our latest strategic plan is a bold call-to-action for our Camp and School communities—and it deserves a name to match that spirit. Meet “Growing Evergreen.”
“Growing” reflects our dedication to evolving our programs and increasing our impact, reaching more kids in more ways, and doing our part to make the world a better place. “Evergreen” imparts a sense of perpetuity and the enduring nature of our organization—one firmly rooted in a 100-plus year history, rich and vital values, and a desire to live in community with each other and the Earth.
“Growing Evergreen” grounds this work in the present, connecting it to both our past and future. To represent that continuity visually, we’ve incorporated our beloved legacy roots logo, reinforced by a compelling design system that incorporates bold colors and organic shapes (some of which might look familiar).
Since our board endorsed the strategic plan in 2023, we’ve worked hard to outline projects and initiatives that will allow us to fulfill the commitments of the plan—to our program, our people, and our purpose
In its second year, we’ve made notable progress in all three areas, and our work continues apace. To learn more or to find out how to get involved, visit growingevergreen.org
We create transformational and enduring experiences through our programs.
Our Approach:
For over a century, Camp and School have provided life-changing experiences for our children. To elevate and carry on this tradition, we are strategically allocating resources, enhancing our facilities, and refining Camp and School programs.
Our Actions:
• Evaluate our signature programs across the outdoors, arts, and farm and garden to strengthen the experience we provide our children.
• Upgrade existing facilities and create new campus spaces where our campers and students can learn and grow, including an outdoor program center, environmental science labs, and studio arts spaces.
We invest in our people and empower them to guide and support our children.
Our Approach:
Our faculty and counselors are at the heart of our organization, bringing our programs and values to life and igniting a lifelong love of learning in our children. We are actively seeking to support them with the time, tools, and resources they need to foster remarkable learning experiences and growth in our campers and students.
Our Actions:
• Make investments to attract and retain exceptional faculty and staff through competitive compensation, access to professional development opportunities, and improved work-life balance.
• Enhance existing housing and build new living spaces for faculty and counselors.
• Develop new and improved teaching and learning spaces for our outstanding educators.
We commit to fulfilling our purpose by expanding our reach and increasing our impact.
Our Approach:
Our community has a deep legacy of positively impacting the world. Now, it’s our responsibility to share who we are and what we do to expand our reach. To do this, we are approaching and embracing new audiences that can benefit from, amplify, and share our unique approach to learning.
Our Actions:
• Expand access to Camp and School through increased financial aid.
• Share our proven learning model, experience, and expertise to benefit children and families beyond our community.
• Establish ourselves as thought leaders in education through collaboration with other educators and institutions.
• Forge strategic partnerships with like-minded organizations.
• Deepen our connection to the broader Adirondack community
FRAMING
On an unseasonably warm February day this winter, Industrial Arts teacher Larry Robjent and his Intersession class were hard at work in the back of the Walter Breeman Performing Arts Center (WallyPAC). That morning, they were putting the finishing touches on the beams and posts for a new Camp Treetops counselor cabin—one that will provide housing for up to four junior camp counselors beginning this summer.
The project has served as a year-long demonstration of our favorite campus maxim, “many hands make light work.” While the Intersession class was rounding the corner toward the project’s end, they got there by building upon the labor of students in another class of Larry’s, “CCC,” or Culpepper Cabin Class, during the previous term.
On this day, the group would be joined by some very special guests—the cabin’s namesakes, longtime former Camp Director Karen Culpepper and past Director of Facilities and Sustainability John Culpepper (also NCS parents 92–93 and CTT parents 91–03).
Karen and John arrived as Yes’ “Roundabout” provided that morning’s background music. They joyfully took in the progress of the structure, its name a nod to their decades of tireless dedication to our mountain home.
“This is a long overdue addition to Junior Camp,” Karen noted in between chatting with students, even jumping in at one point to help eighth-grader Val guide an auger bit into one of the cabin’s beams.
The project is also a reflection of our longtime be-
lief that kids can do hard things—like building a 14x20foot post-and-beam timber frame cabin essentially from scratch—and the special connection between Camp and School. It’s a through-line the Culpeppers, as much as anybody, could appreciate.
Every year, Intersession closes winter term at NCS with a weeklong series of condensed classes that offer students the chance to deepen their skills in an area of interest or try something new. When asked why they chose this one, most responded with a single word: “Larry.” It was a chance to learn from and hang out with one of their favorite teachers. Most of the students didn’t know who the Culpeppers were, other than they were the people the cabin would be named after.
The cabin is both a tribute to John and Karen’s decades of commitment to Camp and School and a demonstration of our strategic plan in action—of the power of our program to our children, the importance of supporting our people so they can do their best work to empower our kids, and the sense of purpose that stems from campers, students, and caring adults working together for the benefit of our community today and tomorrow.
Top left: Larry Robjent and students who worked on Culpepper Cabin gathered to celebrate after putting the finishing touches on the timber frame. Top right: Karen and John Culpepper visit to see the cabin’s progress. Bottom: Eighth-grader Mariana works during the Culpepper Cabin Intersession.
Giving Back
Camp and School rely on your generosity to thrive. Here are just a few of the ways that you can help:
PHILANTHROPIC SUPPORT
Annual Fund
Balanced Rocks Circle Legacy Giving
Capital Projects
Endowment Support
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
Admissions or Enrollment Volunteer
Annual Fund Volunteer
Class or Camp Decade Leader
Community Giving Week Advocate
Event Host
NCS Families Council
NCS Intersession Visiting Instructor
There are numerous ways to get involved and give back to North Country School and Camp Treetops. If you have an idea that is not listed here or you’d like to discuss making a gift, please reach out to us by contacting the Advancement Office at advancement@ncstreetops.org or 518.523.9329.
Shared Heritage
By
Sophia Carroll (CTT 11–13, CTT staff 18–23)
Though I didn’t attend Camp Treetops until I was twelve, I was raised with the spirit of the North Country in my blood. My grandmother, Donata “Doe” Coletti Mechem (NCS 43–45), has long said her experiences as a student at North Country School shaped her as a person, and guided her values and how she raised her children.
I grew up hearing stories of the whimsy, challenge, and adventure my grandmother experienced during her time at NCS— from the survivalist overnight trip where she and her group ate porcupine for dinner, to the time she rode a sick horse ten miles to the vet, all by herself. So I was excited to have the opportunity to sit down and talk with her and one of her dearest NCS friends, Nancy Dennett (NCS 43–44).
Nancy and Doe attended School with my Great Aunt Miriam “Mimi” Coletti Dow (NCS 43–45). In those days, shortly after NCS opened in 1938, the community was small; everyone lived, ate, and took most of their classes in the Main Building, and there were only six students in my grandmother’s graduating class. Nancy’s parents, Carl and Katherine, were the math teacher and secretary, and they were surrounded by other notable NCS and Treetops figures like Bob Bliss and Walter and Leo Clark.
“Walter was tall and imposing,” Nancy recalled. “But he was also soft-spoken. His emotion was so strong, so firm, that even though he talked very softly, in a sort of toned-down way, he still came off as very strong.”
Leo Clark, too, was a prominent figure in these women’s memories. After my grandmother once got in a tiff with another student, one teacher organized an unorthodox way to resolve the conflict: a boxing match in the foyer of the Main Building. Though my grandmother didn’t win the match, she doesn’t remember it as a loss. After the makeshift ring was put away and cuts and bruises were tended to, Leo Clark called her into her office. “You know, Doe,” Leo said, “He may have won the match—but you chipped his tooth.”
The steady presence of Nancy and Doe’s teachers was especially welcome during their time at NCS, which coincided with World War II. While the conflict was present—students received ration books—Nancy and Doe remember eating “like royalty,” thanks to the fresh vegetables they grew and preserved from the farm. Nancy remembers making sauerkraut and learning about fermentation, and my grandmother still marvels about the simple luxury of topping her Sunday ice cream with strawberries that had been grown and frozen by Treetops campers.
Sophia with her grandmother (right) and Nancy (left) in December 2023.
They participated in other rites that would become enduring traditions, such as maple sugaring, when they waded through deep snow to collect full buckets of sap, and Chicken Harvest. They also butchered larger animals, including pigs and even a cow, which was used in a biology lesson. In the woodshop, they turned bowls on the lathe and made chopsticks. And they went skiing, even when the rope tow was broken and they had to climb straight up the ski hill themselves.
Many of Nancy and Doe’s memories underscore our own values of being rugged, resilient, and resourceful. My grandmother recalls falling off of a horse when Walter Clark was walking by. As he came to help, he said, “You have to get right back on, you know. You truly have to do that with everything in your life.” And so, my grandmother told me, she did.
Doe both remember feeling they were part of something bigger, something truly special, something they believed in.
I was amazed at how casually Nancy and Doe told these incredible, sometimes wild stories, even as a Treetops kid myself. “It wasn’t a big deal,” Nancy said. “I think living outside, conserving natural resources, taking care of ourselves and each other, it’s just what we did. It felt natural.” But even as kids, Nancy and
Along with the rest of their school community, Nancy and Doe helped build an enduring legacy that has echoed across decades and touched thousands of lives. “I was aware then, and I’m even more aware now,” my grandmother mused later. “It was truly a privilege.”
Labor Day Weekend, 2022. From my backyard porch, I watch as my daughter, Rachel (CTT 99–03, CTT staff 05, 08), rehearses a wedding waltz with her fiancé, Jay, to be performed for real in a couple of days. The father-daughter dance will follow. When have we ever danced together? Other than at Treetops, probably never.
A Treetops Tradition: SQUARE DANCING AND THE SALTY DOG RAG
I asked my seven kids and stepkids, alumni all, what memories they had of square dancing. One recalled being “excited to shower and get dressed up, but nervous about asking, or being asked to dance!” Another reported ”a little bit of social pressure
or anxiety, like a school dance but always fun once I got there.”
Their feelings likely mirror those felt by campers engaged in our traditional square dances for more than one hundred years.
First as a community-wide event, then as a Camp-only activity, square dancing at Treetops has endured thanks to a small number of people who have kept it alive. These include several square dance callers, the individuals who direct the movements of the dancers by speaking or singing out a dance maneuver, who have each become Camp legends.
When I was a camper in the ‘60s, longtime Camp staffer Bob Bliss (CTT staff 33–91, NCS staff 40–43) was nearing the end of his tenure as caller, reminding us to Allemande Left and Dosado (doe-see-doe). He passed the torch to Roger Loud (CTT 42–48, staff 54–63, parent 71–95, 70–80, NCS parent 70–96, faculty 70–92), who had us pumping fists in the air as we went “Marching Through Georgia.” Bill Localio (CTT 55–56, 58–59, staff 1964–present) gradually assumed the caller mantle, and still makes cameo appearances to keep the Grand Right and Left alive.
Alongside the legendary callers was the virtuoso pianist Don Rand (NCS staff 59–17, CTT staff 54–59).
For half a century, the task of accompanying Bob, Roger, and Bill mostly fell to Don. It was only after I became a counselor in the ‘70s that I noticed how Don would amuse himself, riffing on the keyboard while the callers belted out the steps with unwavering fervor. Duck for the oysters, dig for the clams—the lyrics never varied—but if you paid attention, Don was extemporizing some musical adventure, perhaps to ward off boredom after all those years.
As campers, we learned there were certain dances reserved for Super Seniors, usually in the old Pavilion,
The author dancing the Salty Dog Rag with his daughter at her wedding.
with kerosene lanterns hung from the rafters that gave the space a nightclub feel. It was here, after 2nd Years went to bed, that Supers were taught the complexities of the “Grapevine Twist” or “Texas Star.”
Though callers valiantly attempted to teach proper swinging technique, results suggest it confounded many of us. Square dancing at Friends’ Weekend is still a highlight, but swinging remains uniquely individualized (“random” might be a more accurate description). You risk serious injury dancing “Pistol Packin’ Mama” or “Honolulu Baby” with four couples swinging at the dizzying edge of chaos.
First gent up to the right, swing that gal around Swing with the gal who loves you… maybe Then when you’re done, go back where you belong And swing with your Honolulu Baby”
Along with changes in callers, there have been other small shifts. The gendered terms of “gents” and “gals” were recently changed to “lead” and “partner” to remove pressure for campers who identify as nonbinary or trans. Venues, too, have changed. Dances moved outside to the Boathouse, where callers organized sets in the sand, with the setting sun over Round Lake as a backdrop. The new venue also led the way for a new dance to come into vogue, the “Circle Waltz,” also known as ”Star of the County Down,” a dance with no caller and soaring music. (Scan the QR code to listen.)
Through the decades the dance repertoire never varied—at least until 1974, when I helped Claire Basescu (CTT 62–65, staff 71–73, parent 97–01) introduce the “Salty Dog Rag” (SDR) to Treetops. We first came to know the SDR at Shaker Village Work Group, a co-ed summer camp in New Lebanon, NY, where
we learned other Shaker songs and dances, restored Shaker buildings, and created Shaker-style crafts.
From 1974 until the “Circle Waltz” was introduced, every square dance at Camp concluded with the SDR— an encore that everyone looked forward to before heading for snacks and the cooling evening walk back to tents and lean-tos, sweat chilling our backs in the night air.
While “Circle Waltz” has taken over the last dance spot at Camp, the SDR remains a mainstay. Amid these changes, it’s the perpetuation of a mostly common dance card that continues to serve as a thread linking multiple generations. A current camper can dance “Red River Valley” or the “Virginia Reel” at Friends’ Weekend with a grandparent who attended Camp, too. For both, it’s familiar.
Watching Rachel and Jay work on their dance, I fretted about what she and I should do; a traditional choice didn’t feel authentic. Then the light bulb went on. We found the SDR music online and rehearsed a few times. Muscle memory is a wondrous thing. With wedding guests encircling us, Rachel gave her invited camp friends a heads-up only moments before the music started and they quietly partnered up. She and I stood alone on the dance floor, poised for the assumed waltz to begin.
The band set their instruments aside and someone pressed “play.” As the SDR cranked up, Rachel and I dropped our faux pose. The Treetops crew jumped in and away we went. Needless to say, the majority of our audience were flummoxed by the sight of this bizarre group, doing a lot of awkward motions, while silly music played loudly. It was phenomenal.
Why We Dance AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SQUARE DANCING’S ORIGINS
For more than a century, square dancing has been known as a rural American pastime, one that became the official dance of thirty-one states. But its roots, in fact, can be partly traced to enslaved Black people, who were the original “callers” and teachers of the tradition as we know it today. Over time, their influence—as well as that of the Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans who also contributed to the art form—has been ignored, if not lost. In the same way that we’re making square dancing more inclusive for our LGBTQIA+ community by removing gendered calling, we also want to elevate the communities at the heart of this tradition by celebrating the true history of this art. This acknowledgment is but a start to the conversation, one that we hope that you will continue to engage in with us. To learn more, scan the QR code above.
Have your own square dancing photos?
Are you in one of these photos? Do you have a memory of square dancing at Camp or School you’d like to share? Share them with us! We might share them on social media or in a future edition of Organic Roots. Email us at communications@ncstreetops.org.
Leave Your Legacy | Balanced Rocks Circle
Balanced Rocks Circle member Eva Singer (NCS 07–09) is a talent agent for LA-based Corson Agency and owner of Seaview Talent, a female-run talent agency. She caught up with faculty member Larry Robjent recently to reflect back on her time at NCS and discuss why she decided to join the Balanced Rocks Circle, our legacy giving society.
Tell me about your experience at NCS. I was not your average seventh grader. I went to NCS because it had the love, extra attention, and discipline and structure I needed at that age. Before NCS, I was a big horse girl and skier. I was grateful to find a place that valued those things as much as I did. It was an instant family. The people who work at NCS weren’t just teachers, they were people who were invested in your life. The impact they had on students was always clear. There is something really beautiful about that sense of community.
How did your time here shape who you are today?
I still have so much respect for nature and a love of being and working outside. I still go outside every afternoon. I pride myself in being really good at working with a team. At NCS, you learned how to communicate and express your feelings while making sure you were caring about other people's feelings at the same time. As a young kid that can be hard. Most importantly, NCS taught me it’s okay not to know something. I love to ask questions. I love to learn things. If I'm the smartest person in the room and I have nothing to learn, I'm in the wrong room.
What inspired you to make your first gift to North Country School and Camp Treetops?
It’s become important to pinpoint the things that shaped me. When I think about NCS, I know there are kids who can be changed by an experience like the one I had, and I wanted to help make that happen for someone. North Country School and Camp Treetops
puts your support in the right places. You can see it in the WallyPAC, named after a dear friend of mine. You can see it in upgrades across campus for Camp and School programming, and through scholarships that ensure that kids who need extra support are coming to North Country.
Why did you go beyond that and join the Balanced Rocks Circle?
A few years ago I got pretty sick and I was in and out of the hospital for about a year. I had to have treatments that required me to have both a living will and a will. It made me step back and think about things. I decided I wanted a percentage of my will to go to North Country School. Estate giving isn’t something people necessarily think about as much as giving through things like Community Giving Week or making an Annual Fund gift. Those things are equally important—but for the long run, when I'm not here to choose what I want to do with what I have left, leaving a legacy gift ensures it can go where it’s needed for future generations. I wanted part of my legacy to go toward that. I want to be able to give someone what I was given.
Interested in becoming a Balanced Rocks Circle member? Reach out to Christie Borden, director of advancement, at cborden@ncstreetops.org or 518.837.5402.
Maple Glazed Black Currant Scones
RECIPE BY BECCA MILLER
Our campus farm is a place where children have a hand in the work that brings food to our plates. In our four-season northern home, that work changes throughout the year. Most produce on our farm must be harvested and stored for later use during summer and fall. During that time of bounty, campers and students can often be found helping to dry, pickle, and freeze fruits and vegetables so they can be enjoyed long after our gardens have been put to bed.
Black currants are one of the most abundant fruits grown on our farm. Luckily, they are also one of the easiest to store. The tart gems can be frozen whole, or dried and used like a raisin. Once dried, they’re a perfect addition to baked goods like cakes, muffins, or scones.
Enjoy these black currant scones, glazed with maple syrup from our farm, and a mug of tea on chilly winter mornings. Or make a summertime version by swapping in some fresh currants harvested right from the garden.
CHILDREN’S GARDEN
Maple Glazed Black Currant Scones
(Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook)
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
250 grams cold salted butter, cut into pea-sized pieces
½ cup dried black currants, presoaked in a bit of hot water
1 cup heavy cream
For the glaze:
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup confectioners’ sugar, divided in half
Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line a metal baking sheet with parchment paper.
2) In a large bowl mix together the flour, maple syrup, baking powder, and salt. Add the cold butter.
3) Using the tips of your fingers, quickly work the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse sand.
4) Drain the water from the currants and add them into the bowl, mixing to distribute evenly.
5) Knead the dough for 20 seconds until it comes together into a shaggy ball. Place in the center of the parchment paper and press flat, smoothing the edges as you go, until it forms a 9-inch round disk.
6) Cut the disk into 8 equal wedges, but leave them in a circle and do not separate the pieces.
7) Bake for 9–13 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the edges and bottom are lightly golden brown.
Let cool completely before glazing.
While the scones are cooling, whisk together the ½ cup maple syrup and ¼ cup of the confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Add the rest of the confectioners’ sugar 1 teaspoon at a time, whisking with each addition, until the glaze is thick and remains intact when a bit is drizzled onto a plate.
Once the scones are cool, drizzle the tops with glaze, and let the glaze set.
Separate the wedges before serving.
Friends’ Weekend at Alta Lodge
Clockwise from top: Bill Savage (NCS 64–67), Cassie Levitt-Dippo (NCS 66–70, staff 80–82, CTT staff 80), Executive Director Todd Ormiston, and Elizabeth Ormiston gather for a meal and conversation. • Skiing keeps you young! From left, octogenarians Ron Smith (NCS and CTT friend), Ken Eng (CTT parent 84–89, grandparent 21–present), and Sally Powell Culverwell (CTT 45–47, parent 77–80, grandparent 12–15, NCS 46–51, staff 60–61, Balanced Rocks Circle Member) enjoy sunshine and powder. • The group gathers on the deck at Alta Lodge. We hope you can join us next year! • Caleb Eng (CTT 21–present), Brian Eng (Trustee 13–19, CTT 84–86, parent 21–present, Balanced Rocks Circle Member) and Renee Bourgeois (CTT parent 21–present) ready to hit the slopes.
In April, we gathered with more than 30 alumni and friends of all ages at Alta Lodge in Utah for a long weekend of skiing, sharing meals, and reconnecting. Cassie Levitt Dippo (NCS 66–70, staff 80–82, CTT staff 80) and the gracious team at Alta Lodge warmly welcomed us. In the evening, guests participated in conversation and discussion with Executive Director Todd Ormiston about Camp and School.
Save the date: Alta Friends’ Weekend 2025 is scheduled for Thursday, April 10, through Monday, April 14. NCS and CTT alumni, family, and friends save at least 20 percent on spring rates at Alta Lodge during Alta Friends’ Weekend. Lodging, breakfast, and dinner are included in all stays.
Show
and Tell SHINING A LIGHT ON THE CREATIVITY OF NCS STUDENTS
Our students are living, breathing examples of our core beliefs in action, though it will take years for some to see how the values they learn at NCS have shaped their lives . While our emphasis on community, empathy, perseverance, curiosity, and a deep appreciation for the natural world manifest in obvious ways and places during students’ time here—at our barn, in the dining room, out on a mountaintop, in their houses—it’s perhaps in their creative outputs those values shine most. Enjoy this sampling of award-winning, profound, and deeply amusing student pieces of art and writing from this past academic year.
Our students create for themselves, their academic classes, and their community both on and off campus. The photography and writing you see here was shared with our broader Adirondack community thanks to the educational initiatives of our nonprofit partners at the Adirondack Center for Writing and the Lake Placid Institute.
Above: This photo by ninth-grader Adela won first place in the Lake Placid Institute’s eighth annual “24 Hours: A Photographic Interpretation of Life in the Adirondacks” Photography Contest.
Well Versed
Several students contributed poetry to a pair of community-wide projects sponsored by the Adirondack Center for Writing (ACW). One, Poem Village, is an annual event that posts poetry in store windows throughout Saranac Lake; the other, Wild Words: Adirondack Teen Writing Anthology, is an annual publication offering teens a venue to publish their original creative writing.
Dishwasher
HUDSON, GRADE 7
I can’t go to barn chores because I am very tired. This is because there is a magical dishwasher that talks to me and my 127 hamsters. At night the dishwasher tells me to wake up and that I have baloney cheese in my pillow. I think he‘s trying to torture me by calling me names like Hudson and Huddy even though I’m called Irresponsible. The dishwasher tells me to construct a particle accelerator with yogurt and give the dirty bowls to him.
I can‘t give him the dirty bowls because he flees before my family wakes up, so They call me crazy. Because I don‘t get enough sleep. I‘m then tired and the dishwasher follows me all the way to school in a car. Anyway, he begs me to give him the dirty bowls and when I do he runs away without taking them. I don’t know why.
And everyone says I‘m crazy because I‘m standing on a chair hollering in the air “Just take the damn bowl.”
You Are My Winter
CYNTHIA, GRADE 8
You are my winter
My only day of happiness is when There is no one around me but you
Because of you
I‘m alive
I need you
Just like a blueberry
Dark and deep
It‘s you
Cool and collected
I want to say I love you
Loudly
Without denials
Queries
You are my winter
Or, I say
The fifth season in my life
No one can substitute you
Woods
YOLANDA, GRADE 8
Trees do symbolize life, but what I see is neither alive nor dead.
New creatures grow like butterflies, while the bark falls off, declaring death.
The crossing branches block the light, darkness turns day into night.
That‘s when I start to think—
What is life?
The answer— it neither survives nor dies.
Would You..?
CHARLIE, GRADE 7
Would you be so bold
As to write our Story untold?
Would you be so kind, As to find
Our path, No matter the aftermath?
Would you spend your hours, Sitting in my bed of flowers?
Would you stay with me For however long
Our hearts can see?
BY JIM PUGH
Tales of Treetops
(CTT 62, 64, STAFF 69–73, 75–81)
BAREFOOT IN THE GRASS (SUMMER FEET )
Former Treetops camper and counselor Jim Pugh is the author of More Than 46 Stories About Camp Treetops: A Reminiscence, which he plans to self-publish this fall. “Much has been written about the philosophy of Helen Haskell and Camp Treetops," he writes. "This assortment of stories and vignettes is different. They are not intended to be a comprehensive look at the richness of Camp life. Indeed, they barely scratch the surface of the multitude of activities that make Treetops such a special place. All are part and parcel of what it takes, in Helen’s words, to create ‘a child’s world.’ I hope these stories will spur other Treetops veterans and alumni to write down their stories. There is so much of a greater story to tell.” morning is to jog barefoot around our hayfield with the dogs. Footgear is worn only when the temperature is below 45 degrees.
Walking barefoot in the grass is something Treetops honed into a lifelong habit. As a camper, the soles of my feet developed leather-like calluses, which stood up to the gravel driveway on the way to the garden. Except for hikes, visits to the barnyard, the riding ring, and the occasional early-morning frost, one could enjoy moving about in bare feet almost the entire time
THUNDERSTORM
My second hike as a first-year was a bushwhack of Big Slide. Don Rand led the trip. We took a trail to Second Brook, rock-hopped up the stream for a long time, and headed into the bush up the mountainside. Don hoped to find traces of the trail Treetops had created in World War II to get to the Garden, but we never found it.
It was a beautiful morning when we left camp so I didn’t bring along any rain gear. As we walked past the barn, Don pointed out the herringbone pattern of the cirrus clouds and mentioned the possibility of rain. On the climb we hit a few small patches of blowdown. Don’s little terrier Maggie went under the fallen trees. The sky was still clear when we made the summit of Big Slide. After lunch, we started down the Slide Brook Trail. Clouds came in. They darkened. A cold downpour soaked us. Lightning and thunder crashed through the trees. The final three miles of our hike on the Johns Brook Trail seemed endless. Finally, we reached the Garden. I was frozen, wet, and scared. It took me years to get over a fear of rain on hiking trips, including my first several years as a counselor. I had to pretend I didn’t mind. Eventually the fear faded away, but not soon enough.
VAN HOUTEN BARS
Campers were not allowed to have candy, so the most special treat we enjoyed were the Van Houten chocolate bars we received on more strenuous trips into the woods. The stated purpose was to give everyone an energy boost in the afternoon. It also provided a significant morale boost. The flavors included hazelnut, orange, milk chocolate, coffee, and bittersweet. My favorites were hazelnut and orange. Some campers ate their bar within minutes. Others nibbled at their bar for an hour as if they were taunting the faster eaters.
A HIKER’S BEST FRIEND
Paul Waddell was a camper who loved to hike as much as he loved to talk. Sometimes I had enough of his chatter. I tried different ways to turn off his motor mouth. On several occasions I told him, “Paul, remember, silence is the hiker’s best friend.” This rarely worked. One day on a long hike out from the peaks we had just climbed, I succeeded in spreading out the line of campers. I had the immediate woods all to myself, briefly. Paul caught up with me and started into a story. Several words into the story he stopped and said, “Oh, yes, silence is…”—he was quiet for the next ten minutes. A sweet victory.
FINDING SANDY
Tom Clark and I led a triple-overnight hike to the Lake Colden area. Campers Todd Weber and Tom Cohen became forty-sixers on Cliff and Tom Clark became a
forty-sixer on Allen. To our surprise, Roger Loud led a separate single-overnight trip which rendezvoused with us on the hike up Allen for Tom’s celebration.
Liz Leiman was one of the girls on the trip. For scheduling reasons it was difficult to find a second girl with hiking experience. The other girl hikers were committed to horse and canoe trips. Sandy Waddell was a super who was mostly interested in riding. She had one 46er— Lower Wolfjaw—which she had climbed every summer since she first arrived in Junior Camp. “I liked it when I was in Junior Camp,” she said. “So I put my hand up for it again each summer.” This was good enough for me. Sandy joined our seven-mountain expedition and was a delight the whole trip. She said on several occasions, “My mother is never going to believe this.”
WOOD CARVING AT REST HOUR
At afternoon Council, I announced a wood carving project for campers during rest hour. They could use their pocket knives. Bad idea. Numerous campers reported to the infirmary after rest hour with cuts to their hands. This activity was never repeated.
To read more from Jim’s upcoming book, scan the QR code.
Above: Sandy Waddell (CTT 67-71) and Liz Leiman (CTT 71) on Mount Redfield in 1971. Right: Jim Pugh as a first–year with sister Betsy in 1962. Opposite: Susie Localio as a counselor (CTT 55-58, staff 65-80, 89-94, grandparent 19, Balanced Rocks Circle Member) with a camper enjoying their “summer feet.”
Remembering Colin Tait
(CTT staff 54, 57, 67–82, parent 67–78)
During the academic year, Colin Tait was a revered law professor whose “Handbook of Connecticut Evidence” was a go-to reference for generations of lawyers in that state.
But every summer between 1967 and 1982, he left weighty questions of evidence and environmental law behind as he went to work at Camp Treetops—where, as co-director for most of that time, he helped transform the institution from its original incarnation to the one that exists today.
Colin died in February at his home in Montpelier, VT. He was 91.
For those who knew him, Colin’s impact on Camp was monumental.
“A titan,” said Bill Localio (CTT 55–56, 58–59, staff 1964–present), who will mark his 60th year at Camp this summer. “He was always wise. He gave wonderful advice. He is a standard I cannot match but continue to look up to, even at 77.”
and she was. But Colin and Dick (Wilde, his co-director) pulled Camp into the modern day,” she said.
Colin first came to Treetops in 1954 as a counselor. It was there that he met his wife, Debby. Soon after, he graduated from Cornell University, and then Yale Law School. After a stint as a partner at a law firm in Connecticut, he took a position as a faculty member at the University of Connecticut Law School in 1966. And just a year later, he returned to Treetops for the summer with his wife and four children—a pilgrimage he’d repeat until the 1980s.
“While my dad was a law professor, during the winter, he would go on weekends and interview and hire the whole Treetops staff,” said his son, Trevor (CTT 72–78, TTW 79–80,staff 83–90).
Colin assumed the role of co-director following the retirement of Helen Haskell, who led camp for 40 years; while her name remains a vital part of Treetops lore, Colin's impact shouldn’t be overlooked, Bill said. More than anybody, he deserves credit for putting Junior Camp on an equal footing with Senior Camp, ensuring that staff members of both received the same training and resources.
Bill’s sister, Susie, recalled one rain-soaked night she spent under a tarp at Pine Pond with eight other campers. After Colin arrived, Junior Camp received tents.
“We so often give Helen credit as the founder of Camp,
“And then he’d finish his semester in the spring, and we would all pile into the VW bus and drive up here in mid-June for the whole summer, and he’d run Treetops, and he’d go back to law school.”
“I don’t know how he did it,” Trevor said while visiting campus this spring. “It would have killed me. But that’s what he did for eighteen years.”
As far as alter-egos go, it’s hard to reconcile the image of a buttoned-up law professor with a summer camp director. But to Trevor, the common denominator for both jobs was teaching. It was at Treetops where Colin first found that love, and he aimed to help his law students cultivate that same wonder of discovery.
“If you surveyed how many former counselors became lawyers, I bet you’d find a disproportionate num-
from above: Colin with a camper. The former Camp co-directors together, Dick Wilde on the left. Colin with Helen Haskell before her retirement in 1970. Opposite: Colin and Debby Tait, one of many Treetops love stories.
ber because my dad was their camp director,” Trevor said "He listened and was fair, reasonable, and just."
But Colin’s goal wasn’t to have his campers think about grown-up pursuits. In fact, his driving mandate was to keep Camp a haven for childlike things. Counselors—of which Trevor was one—knew the elder Tait was fanatic about maintaining a veil between the workaday pressures felt by Camp staff and the magical happenings of a Treetops summer.
His father’s philosophy, Trevor said, was: “This needs
to be a safe, developmentally appropriate place for kids to embrace the natural world themselves. To feel what it’s like to find a frog in a pond, and go out and camp and not worry about schedules and logistics and that kind of stuff.”
It’s a legacy that subsequent directors have done their best to uphold and emulate.
“People imagine that Camp was always the way it is,” Susie Localio said. “They do not realize that people like Colin had a huge role in shaping the way Treetops is today. He was one of the original ‘grey beards,’ and if Helen was the founding mother, they carried the torch forward.”
Clockwise
NEWS & NOTES
NCS ALUMNI
1954
Susan Williams
NCS 50–54, CTT 49–50, Balanced Rocks Circle Member
Still plugging along with great memories of both Camp and School!
1955
Helen Stuart Walker Twiss
NCS 51–55
Helen Twiss died peacefully at her home in Davis, CA, on Nov. 12, 2023. She was 82 and lived with cancer for eleven years.
A classical pianist and piano teacher, Helen gave numerous local concerts and devoted almost forty years to teaching private piano lessons to students of all ages. For her, this work was as much about nurturing people–giving them confidence, resilience, and a compassionate space–as cultivating musical skill. She had a gift for doing both.
Helen is survived by Robert, her husband of 55 years; son Ian (Nancy) of Ann Arbor, MI; son Andrew (Megham) of Chicago; grandsons Adrian and Eli; granddaughters Miranda and Devon; and sister Emilie Stuart (John Bradshaw) of Arlington, MA. She is preceded in death by her parents, Duane Reed Stuart Jr. and Helen Beatrice Stuart.
1959
Randall R. Larkin
NCS 56–59, CTT 57–60
Our grandson Elie Larkin has been on the jump team for five years. As a student I spent some of my time at those complexes. I am still skiing at Whiteface.
1. Dimitra Dreyer Dales and husband Ken Dales
2. David Stewart (Trustee 20–present, NCS 92–94, CTT 95) with wife, Rene, and children Julia (3) and Harlan (1) 3. Liz Strut
4. Meg Runyon (right) with partner Tash and dog Charlie
Patricia W. Fletcher
NCS 57–59
refugees. I have much to thank NCS for.
Graduated NCS in 1959, attended two and a half years. Arrived midyear into the sixth grade. We are lucky to be living on the northern shore of beautiful Lake Sunapee. After fifty-one years we continue to appreciate the pristine waters and spectacular view of Mt. Sunapee. Four grandchildren keep us connected to younger people and their perspectives.
1971
Tania Taubes
NCS 66–71
I’m pleased as punch to be having an exhibition of my paintings and clay masks this May in Connecticut. I see a lot of my twenty-fiveyear-old son, who is working with
1972
Susan Mahaffy
NCS 70–72
Love retirement, though I loved to teach. Anyone near Tahoe, come visit!
Hello everyone! I found the love of my life during my third stretch in the Adirondacks. We married in 2017. Ken Dales, my daughter Adeline, and I relocated to Red Hook in Dutchess County in 2021. Here we have found endless miles of trails,
NEWS & NOTES
dozens of farms, charming towns to explore, and so much more. Adeline is finishing her freshman year in the theater design and production program at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center Campus. I support and empower children. I have connected with most of the class of 1980 but would love to find everyone by our fiftieth in 2030.
2009
Meg Runyon
NCS 03–09, CTT 02–09, staff 15–17 In April 2021, I made the decision to relocate to Australia with my partner, Tash, to the place where she grew up outside Melbourne. After enduring some intense COVID lockdowns, we settled into life down here, both working at a high school. Fast forward to May 2023, Tash and I found ourselves the perfect home in Geelong that doesn’t need too much work, but we’re having fun with small projects. Recently, Tash and I went back to the Adirondacks for Christmas 2023, and it was wonderful to spend quality time with my family.
2023
Liz Strut
NCS 21–23, CTT 21 Liz is part of the Eco Club at Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, WI and participated in the annual Protect Wisconsin Waterways Park Clean Up at Beaver Dam’s Waterworks Park. Liz also recently had her photography displayed at the Dodge County Center of the Arts.
Lauren earned her second Sunburst Award from the Essex County (NY) Arts Council in November 2023. This funding allowed her to launch two creative nonfiction/memoir writing workshops in the North Country in February and March 2024. Read Lauren’s published work and learn more about her programs here: laurenmcgovern.online
Meredith Hanson
NCS faculty 12–present Meredith attended the NYSAIS Gender & Human Sexuality Conference in late January, focused this year on ”Imagining Masculinity.“ Participants explored how schools can promote healthy behaviors and healthy self-concept in boys and young men, and how to ”unlock a masculinity in their communities that is in service of the liberation of women, Queer folks, and People of Color, a masculinity that derives its
strength from its allyship, compassion, disruption of its own centrality, and ability to find its meaning to uplift of all,“ as conference organizers put it. She shared her takeaways from the conference with NCS faculty at the end of spring break.
Phyllis (Winkelstein) Reicher arrived at Camp two weeks late as she was recovering from measles. She attended CTT in 1934 and 1935 and went on to spend “most of her time in the barn” at Putney Work Camp and Putney School, leading her to be among the first women to study animal husbandry at Cornell.
Many cousins and grandchildren attended Camp and helped to celebrate Phyllis’ one hundredth birthday in May. She wonders if other camp-
1. Phyllis Winkelstein Reicher 2. Susan Localio 3. Cocona Yamamoto (NCS 18–21), Emily Piggee (NCS 19–20), Fred Wu (NCS 20–22), and Amon Yamamoto (NCS 18–22) reunited at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania for a tennis tournament in fall 2023.
NEWS & NOTES
ers from those years are still alive and always insists that her Treetops experience was one of the most transformative in her 100 years.
John Berendt
CTT 48–53
To mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John was featured in Garden & Gun Magazine’s Arts and Culture section in January 2024.
Susan Localio
CTT 55–58, staff 65–80, 89–94, grandparent 19, Balanced Rocks Circle Member
I garden and think of Helen. I cook and think of Beatrice. I admire wildflowers and think of Mildred. I hike in the Olympics and think of Harry. I thank them and so many more for enriching my childhood and showing me where to find peace when the world is too much with us. This bit of peace on the
1. (L–R): Henry Tashman (NCS 10–12), Nick Scafidi (NCS 06–10), Peter Robjent (CTT 17, 19), and Larry Robjent (NCS faculty 00–present, parent 18–21, CTT parent 17, 19) enjoying a Knicks/Celtics game at Madison Square Garden. 2. Natanya Schorr moved from Boston to Seattle in the fall to start nursing school. She joined a robust community of Treetops alumni in the Pacific Northwest. Top: Natanya Schorr (CTT 09–13, staff 16, 18–23). Middle: Eloise Bellingham (CTT staff 16, 18–22), Kai Yuen (CTT 12–16, staff 19–present). Bottom: Cricket Liebermann (CTT staff 19–22), Choochoo Killiam (CTT staff 16, 18–22, 24–present), Jarrett Daffern (CTT 10–12, 14–15, staff 21–22) 3. Lucy Rosenbaum (right) and Anna Pinkse, London in early 2024. 4. Sophia Carroll (CTT 11–13, staff 18–present) and Leah Yoes (CTT 07, 10–14, staff 23–present) traveled to Mexico City in January to visit Nimbe Osorio (CTT 11, 13–15, staff 21–present). 5. Benjamin Davidson (CTT 03, 05–06) was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Preservation League of New York State, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering New Yorkers to enrich their communities and pursue greater sustainability through historic preservation. 6. Mara Frankel Wallace (Trustee 17–present, CTT 77–80, parent 14–15, Balanced Rocks Circle Member) and Thatcher Brown (CTT 77–80, parent 10, 12, 14–16, 18) in Miami, FL, February 2024.
NEWS & NOTES
banks of the Duckabush River with grandchild, Etta. She provided the headdress and took the photo.
Elizabeth Harlan
CTT 55–58, parent 83–89, grandparent 22–present, former Trustee, Balanced Rocks Circle Member
My new novel, Becoming Carly Klein, will be published in September 2024.
Anne L. Benham
CTT 59–60
We still love beautiful California. Our oldest two grandchildren have had their Treetops-like camp experience at Bar 717 in Trinity Alps. I hope they experience it as life-changing as Treetops was for me. Now I am still teaching and practicing child psychiatry at Stanford but moving toward full time grandparenting of seven. What a joy!
Ghosts of Glencoe was published in June. Per Bill McKibben, New York Times best-selling author, “The Adirondacks are magical, but also more complicated than many visitors ever realize. This book helps capture the majesty and the complexity of one of the world‘s great places.”
Emory J. Clark
CTT parent 75–78
Many joyful summers for Eugene Clark (camper, three summers) and Emory Clark (counselor, two summers), mid 1970s.
Eliza J. Pillard
CTT 76–78, parent 04, 07, NCS staff 94–00
My husband Ken Spencer’s nonprofit, Planet People, encourages all of us to pick up litter when we see it. He donates his invention, Planet Pack, to interested constituencies.
Glen Chapman
CTT staff 79
We have our first grandbaby! Malinda Chapman and I went out to Seattle to meet our grandson, Wren David Chapman, born to our son Ben and his wife, Natalie. We stayed all fall (couch surfing and helping) with my brother and his wife, Herb and Erica Bergamini, and also my brother, Fred Chapman, and his wife, Eleonor. Great to be with all our kids, including Linnaea Chapman Wright who lives with her husband, Charlie, in Tacoma. Also great to drive back home to the Adirondacks for the first snow of the winter in January, lots of XC skiing since.
Matthew Topper
CTT 87–92, staff 93–94
Matthew Topper has initiated Stormwise Foundation, a nonprofit to address issues related to natural disasters. For more information go to stormwisefoundation.org.
I‘m a professor of Cultural Anthropology and Dance at Duke University and last year I published Capoeira Connections: A Memoir In Motion (UPF 2023). The book is a journey through my thirty years of engagement with this Afro-Bra-
zilian game-fight-dance as a practitioner, researcher, and instructor. I taught capoeira at NCS in the 1990s and have also taught it at CTT: you may even find in the WallyPAC the berimbau—the musical bow that accompanies capoeira—that I made last summer with campers out of a striped maple branch and gourd from our garden! Read more about my work at katyawesolowski.com.
Marjorie Wright
CTT parent 99–07, NCS parent 04–06
My son Craig Alizadeh (CTT 02–07) is now working in the finance department at Apple in Silicon Valley.
Lucy Rosenbaum
CTT 11–16, staff 19–present
In December, I earned a degree in fashion business management from the Fashion Institute of Technology. To mark the occasion, I traveled to England to celebrate with Anna Pinkse and Chris Sanderson (both CTT staff 23). My trip also included a three-day exploration of the historic city of Porto, Portugal. In January, I began pursuing a degree in human development with a concentration in special education at the University at Albany. I’m thrilled to be returning to Treetops this summer as a counselor in Junior Camp.
We want to hear from you! Do you have news to share? Get together with Camp or School friends recently? We’d love to publish your updates in News and Notes. Please email alumni@ncstreetops.org or call 518.523.9329 with questions or to submit an update.
NEWS & NOTES
1. (L–R): Justin Perry (NCS 99–03), Caroline Hlavacek Perry (NCS faculty 15–present), Tim Weaver, Katie Weaver (NCS 71–78, CTT staff 82–03, 10–15, NCS faculty 15–present), Erin Weaver, maid of honor (CTT 03), Amy Weaver, bridesmaid (NCS 05–08, CTT 03, staff 11), Chris Beans, Sarah Perry, Noni Eldridge (NCS faculty 99–21, CTT staff 15, NCS 71–78), Ian Eldridge, Jessica Rutherford, Alex Eldridge, Molly Eldridge, Alan Eldridge (NCS 77–82), Alan Clark (NCS 50–57, CTT 43–56), Jean Hoins (NCS faculty 23–present, NCS 67–70, CTT 66), John Eldridge (NCS 55–58, CTT 52–57, CTT staff 62–67) 2. William Seider (CTT 03–08, CTT staff 14–16) was married on Sept. 30, 2023. Photo (L-R): John Seider (CTT 08–14), Pippi Seider (CTT 11–16, CTT staff 21–22), Mitch Seider, Brigid, William Seider, Lisa Beck (CTT 70–73, Trustee 08–present, CTT Staff 21–present, CTT parent 03–16, CTT staff 08–18), Abby (Charlie’s fiancé), Charlie Seider (CTT 05–10, CTT staff 14–16). 3. (L-R): Brenden Clark (CTT 96–03), Emily Clark Raeburn (CTT 96–01), Alison Riley-Clark (CTT parent 96–03, staff 81–83, 96–22), Kyle Raeburn, and Stephen Clark (CTT 96–03)
WEDDINGS
Sarah Perry
NCS 03–09, NCS staff 23–present, CTT 03, staff 16
Sarah Perry married Chris Beans on Aug. 18, 2023, at Rock-E House, thanks to collaborations with NCS and CTT! They were surrounded by close friends and family, including many NCS/CTT alumni. Sarah’s grandparents
Harry and Betty Eldridge and great-grandparents Walter and Leo Clark were certainly looking down on them as they were blessed with beautiful weather during a very wet August!
Emily Clark
CTT 96–01
Emily and Kyle Raeburn were married in Prescott Park in
Portsmouth, NH, on Sept. 30, 2023. Rain was forecasted but the weather was miraculously dry and overcast—perfect for photos. Tom’s doing, of course.
Kim and Jay Smart
Kim Smart (CTT 98–04, staff 10–14, 16–present, NCS staff 13–14, 21–present) and Jay Smart (CTT 04–06, staff 14, 16–17, 22–present)
NEWS & NOTES
got married in September 2023! We eloped at Cascade Lakes, just us and our dog, Kea. Then we celebrated with family and friends. After meeting as Camp counselors in 2014, we lived in California and Hawaii before returning back to CTT and NCS to farm in 2021. We were lucky to grow all of the flowers for our wedding, and to make hot sauce from veggies and fruits from this land. We were so happy to celebrate with so many of our close friends from Camp!
Greta Konkler & Micah Turner
Micah Turner (CTT 03–05, staff 11–13, 16–17) and Greta Konkler (CTT 00–07, staff 12–14, 18) got engaged at the Treetops waterfront during Friends’ Weekend of 2022 and celebrated their marriage in Hudson, WI, on Sept. 9, 2023. With the spirit of Treetops in mind, Greta and Micah’s ceremony was held in a pine forest at Camp Saint Croix surrounded by family and friends. Their wedding party included former Treetops campers and staff Naia Turner (CTT 03–09, staff 12–15), Griffin Konkler (CTT staff 19), Connor Clinton (CTT staff 12–13), Brett Carter (CTT 06, staff 17–18), Kirsten Turner (CTT staff
03–07), Brad Konkler (CTT Director 94–04, parent 01–07), along with Micah’s father, David Turner (CTT staff 03–07), as the officiant. Micah and Greta’s shared Treetops values continue to shape their life and marriage. They currently live in White Bear Lake, MN, with their golden retrievers, Miki and Pearl.
Willa Vail CTT 97–02, staff 07–present Zach and I got married in Harriman State Park on Sept. 9, 2023. My mom, Lucia Vail (CTT 66–67, CTT parent 95–02), had the brilliant idea to have us enter the
ceremony via canoe as an homage to my years of running the canoe program at Camp. Many Treetops folks were in our wedding party: Dana Lindsay, maid of honor (CTT 99–06, CTT staff 10–13, 15–17, 19, 22), Sarah Fuller (CTT 97–03, CTT staff 07, 10–11), Jack Smart (CTT 04, CTT staff 11–13), and Nolan Dumont (CTT 07–09, CTT staff 12–19) and even more were in attendance. It was a beautiful, misty day to be surrounded by family and friends while exchanging our vows. We’re looking forward to this new and exciting chapter in our lives!
1. Kim and Jay Smart 2. Greta Konkler and Micah Turner 3. Willa Vail and Zach Kuperstein
NEWS & NOTES
FUTURE CAMPERS & STUDENTS
Stanzi Rand Bliss
NCS/CTT staff 2023–present Director of Communications
Stanzi Bliss, her husband, Evan, and oldest son Torbin welcomed Lang Dax Bliss on Oct. 13, 2022.
Lang’s middle name “Dax” signifies their love of home (both parents are native to Lake Placid) and the Adirondacks.
Ashley Waldorf
NCS faculty 24–present
Director of School Ashley Waldorf and husband Alex Cook welcomed River Whitley Cook-Waldorf on Apr. 26, 2024! At 7 lbs 13 oz, he continues to grow healthy and strong. His parents couldn’t be happier.
Sarah Fuller
CTT 97–03, staff 07, 10–11
Sarah and her husband, Zack, and son, Theo, welcomed
Josephine on Dec. 26, 2023, in Cleveland, OH. Lynda Bernays (CTT 64–65, CTT staff 68–78, CTT parent 94–03) and Bill Fuller (CTT staff 74–76, CTT parent 94–03) have been kept busy with their additional grandparent duties.
Joe Shapiro
NCS faculty 22–present
Dean of Students Joe Shapiro and wife Jane welcomed their son, Rory, on May 31, 2023.
