Organic Roots, Summer 2016

LEADING THOUGHTS 3

SUMMER 2016 CONTENTS

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From David Hochschartner Head of School & Camp From Karen Culpepper Camp Treetops Director

FEATURES 9 13

The Writer’s Issue Treetops First & Last John Berendt CTT 48-53 Growing Up Progressive: Glamorous, Positive, and Advanced Piri Halasz CTT 43-44, 47, NCS 47

NCS & TREETOPS TODAY 17 21 23 25 27 31

Farming for the Future Katie Culpepper CTT 92-99 Eileen Rockefeller Challenge Grows and Grows An Evening Honoring Eileen Harnessing the Wind Student Photography 2016 Graduation

ALUMNAE/I BULLETIN 35 37

From the Treetops Archives Treetops Tribute: Bob Schumacher CTT staff 56-97, parent 64-71, 73-87

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Donor Profile with Susan Williams CTT 49-50, NCS 54, BRC

41 45 46

Alumni Events In Memoriam News & Notes

bow-drilling, an ancient method of fire making; sewed hammocks from scratch; and worked tirelessly over many hours in the woodshop to craft a massive, barn-red Adirondack chair. During this past school year, NCS’ project integration program had students building a windmill from scrap metal (see page 25), iceboats to sail on Round Lake, a “bog bridge” research platform to facilitate wetland studies, and much more.

Summer in the heart of the Adirondacks is, to my mind, one of the most magical experiences a child can have. Breathing in the natural world, harvesting vegetables with garden soil between one’s toes, jumping into bracing waters of an alpine stream, devouring blueberries on Owl’s Head, gazing skyward at the stars—these are all part and parcel of a Treetops summer. And with this season’s arrival, we bid farewell to North Country School’s Class of 2016, and in turn, welcome campers for seven weeks of unencumbered exploration, learning, and creativity.

Momentum, as I’ve written here before, is a kind of self-fulfilling optimism. Indeed, we’ve made a series of incredible strides over the past several years.

In October 2013, North Country School and Camp Treetops hosted an environmental panel discussion in New York City. More than 220 came out to hear panelists Bill McKibben, Richard Rockefeller, and Tom Steyer provide fascinating insights into the current state of climate change, including hopeful signs for the future of our planet. They spoke of the importance of places like Treetops and NCS in creating the strong ties to nature necessary for future activism. Our state-of-the-art biomass heating plants have significantly reduced our carbon footprint, and the recent installation of a NYSERDA grant-funded commercial composter furthers our ongoing campus greening efforts (see page 26).

With each passing season, I’m struck by the momentum that carries us forward, as children at Camp and School are more engaged than ever. Last year, campers explored the art of

In 2015, NCS received glowing reviews in our tenyear NYSAIS reaccreditation. And in a truly seminal moment for the institution last year, we purchased the Round Lake Cottage property (now named

‘CHANGE YOUR LEAVES, KEEP INTACT YOUR ROOTS’

By David Hochschartner, Head of School and Camp

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Eileen Rockefeller House, to be known informally as the RockE House (see page 23) to ensure the preservation of the lake and surrounding wilderness for generations to come.

While these accomplishments cannot be understated, as an institution, it is more vital than ever to remain forward thinking. John Dewey once wrote that the “audacity of imagination” has inspired “every great advance in science.” I believe the same could be said of advancements in any progressive movement, artistic breakthrough, or field of academic study. Such boldness of vision requires unwavering resolve and commitment to innovation. But the hard truth is that change is rarely a comfortable affair.

There is no doubt that our history and culture are immeasurably rich.

The lasting impact of Camp and School on generations of children is undeniable.

Almost two decades into the 21st century, we have arrived at a time of great uncertainty for educational institutions across the country, even those with significant endowments. To help us navigate a course forward, our Board of Trustees has called upon renowned strategic planning consultant Ian Symmonds to provide a comprehensive analysis of our organization and its place in the market. This process has involved extensive interviews with both internal and external constituencies, on-campus visits, and wide-ranging research, including a look at external marketplace perceptions of the institution and overall context within the realm of independent schools.

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component to the future success of the institution.

We also do well to remember that the vision of our formative leaders was bold, revolutionary, and effective. The Haskells and Clarks were unafraid to challenge orthodoxy as they pushed children’s learning to new heights. In this, as with so much, they proved remarkably prescient.

With the strategic planning process still under way, I welcome your thoughts. (And many thanks to those who completed the recent survey on this topic.) In the coming months, based on Ian’s recommendations and our own assessment, the Board of Trustees will be outlining a strategic plan for the future, which we will share broadly.

Despite the common philosophy and values shared

by Camp and School, programmatic changes will largely be limited to NCS, as Treetops is rooted in a rhythm all its own, and I believe, staying true to that rhythm is imperative. However, the fact is that School and Camp depend on each other. And Ian has underscored the importance of cultivating a shared vision of Camp and School for the future. So, as one community, we must ask ourselves: What does progressive education look and feel like in the 21st century? What overarching philosophy, spirit, and traditions from the founding century should be kept, and what needs to be reinterpreted? Our answers, I have no doubt, will uncover an exciting array of our best innovative thinking.

In the meantime, let me assure the entire community of one thing. In advancing our vision of the future of Camp and School, we will bear in mind the wise words of French author Victor Hugo: “Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”

And so we set forth together—with purpose, hope, and just the right touch of audacity—to ensure that the future children of NCS and Treetops grow to become as innovative, collaborative, culturally aware, and compassionate as those who preceded them.

continued from previous page Over the past five months, Ian has provided meaningful feedback to our leadership teams, presenting at the Board of Trustees meetings in January and April, and again to the strategic planning committee in New York City on May 9.

He will conference in once more at the July 2016 Board of Trustees meeting on campus, with his final recommendations to be delivered to the strategic planning committee in October. Fortunately, Ian has already conveyed several key insights, which I share with you here.

There is no doubt that our history and culture are immeasurably rich. The lasting impact of Camp and School on generations of children is undeniable.

Beautiful and bucolic, our Adirondack location provides unrivaled opportunities for the exploration of mountain wilderness. However, at a time when

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families are less inclined to travel great distances for education, our campus is arguably the most remote among our competitors.

In addition, the current buyer’s market sees junior boarding schools investing more and more capital to upgrade the facilities, aesthetics, and quality of their residential experience. We too have made, and continue to make, substantial improvements.

However, North Country School’s Adirondackinspired facilities remain rather rustic in comparison to those of other junior boarding schools.

As a result, we must assess how to evolve to meet market needs while remaining true to our own identity. Treetops stalwarts Helen and Doug Haskell and NCS founders Walter and Leo Clark all were keenly aware that change was a necessary and vital

From the Editor Nearly a decade ago, Organic Roots was a modest, black-and-white alumni bulletin.

Eventually, it would become the full color publication that I inherited from my predecessor, Lisa Rowley. Organic Roots’ evolution has continued under my tenure, with the hope (to echo Hock) that these changes be innovative and progressive, while remaining true to the spirit of both Camp and School. The choice of paper was inspired by The Nature Conservancy’s publications. Our new font, Neutraface, is described by its creators as designed with a “holistic ecology— unity with the surrounding landscape and uncompromising functionalism,” a concept that resonates, in my mind, with

our own values. Other aesthetic changes— larger photographs, use of archival images, illustrations, and student work— are intended to make the publication more visually appealing. In general, I’ve embraced a collaborative approach, so I invite you, the readers, to send me your ideas, stories, art work, and photographs.

Hope to hear from you.

Emilie Allen eallen@ncstreetops.org

02-07, staff 10-present), for her bachelor’s degree in environmental studies at the University of Chicago. In it, she writes: “The child’s world at Camp Treetops does not involve thinking critically about the production of the plastic-wrapped chicken found in the grocery store in New York City. Rather, in following the Camp’s philosophy and belief in progressive education, it exposes children… ‘to the cycles of nature’ [as stated in a Treetops brochure] and ‘our interrelatedness to and dependence upon all living things.’”

THE PEDAGOGY OF PIZZA

By Karen Culpepper, Camp Treetops Director

It begins with wheatberries. At Treetops, ours arrive from a local mill on Lake Champlain.

Campers learn to grind them into bran and germ. This simple task sets off an alchemic process—beginning with the creation of whole wheat flour. Campers also discover how much of the fiber found in a wheat kernel is lost in the processing of white flour, and how this difference affects not only the nutritional content, but the taste, as well.

In the camper kitchen, we use the whole wheat flour to dust the wood table, prior to kneading. But first, the yeast is mixed with water and stands until foamy. We whisk in a tablespoon of oil and scoop the flour, two cups at a time, stirring until a soft dough forms. Next we take the mixture gently from the bowl and place it on the table, kneading until it’s silky and smooth. We wait for the dough to rise, a lesson in fermentation, until the fire is lit and ready for baking.

Lighting the fire, of course, is its own task.

The architecture of the pizza oven requires children to understand the nuances of convection. They learn how to add wood to the sides, allowing the floor and dome to absorb the heat. While working with the wood, campers often learn the characteristics of different species — how they grow, where they grow, and how we manage forests in a sustainable way. They also learn an equally important lespage 7 Organic Roots Summer 2016

son: sometimes, scrappy soft wood will have to do. This, of course, ties into a larger lesson about utilizing the wood that we have on hand, in which our own higher quality wood is sent to the mill, or to our own woodshop.

Making wood-fired pizza is a fairly new tradition at Treetops. In 2012, two ovens (one for bread and another for pizza and roasting) were hand built on wagons and generously donated by Dan Wing (NCS 62). Dan’s experience with bread, baking, and ovens stretches out over a lifetime. In 1999, with co-author Alan Scott, he published The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens to rave reviews. Nominated for a James Beard Award for best writing about food, the book has sold over 65,000 copies.

Dan says: “For me, the most important part of being at NCS/Treetops was the freedom (and necessity) to DO things. Clear brush on the ski hill with a sharp tool. Make a perfect pile of manure with a dangerous fork. Tend the raging fire in the sugarhouse while the hired man went out to check the sap tank. I have continued to DO things ever since, including making pizzas (and bread, and ovens). I knew that an oven at School and Camp would keep kids DOING things.”

And so it has. Pizza making at Treetops has become a vehicle for connecting children to

each other, to knowledge of where their food comes from, and to their own self-expression.

It’s also a hallmark of the long history of progressive education at Camp.

Treetops was one of the first camps in the United States to embrace the child-centered ideals and individual creativity popularized by John Dewey (whom Treetops director Helen Haskell studied under at Columbia’s Teacher College). And while we are not a formal educational institution like NCS, Treetops remains, above all, a place of learning. Here the tenets of progressive education emphasize a child’s personal choice, hands-on exploration, and creativity for seven weeks each summer.

As a result, campers gain new skills—be they pizza making, weaving, or horseback riding— as well as a vital sense of responsibility and accomplishment. This way of learning is so deeply immersive that campers may not even be aware that they’re learning at all.

It can take years, but eventually, former campers usually come to realize (and marvel at) the extent of the education they received at Treetops. Perhaps this is why many of our alums choose to write their undergraduate theses about Camp. The most recent example, to my knowledge, is that of Lily Gordon (CTT photo: Lily Gordon preparing pizza with a camper

At home, pizza often comes frozen or by delivery. At Treetops, there’s pedagogy to the pizza. Once the chemistry of making dough and the art of kneading and stretching have been mastered, it’s time to express your tastes and creativity.

Whether sweetly ripened tomatoes harvested for red sauce or fresh basil pesto with its peppery scent of mint and anise, this imprimatura, or toning of the canvas, is when the fun really starts. Raw dough is decorated with ingredients straight from the garden—spinach greens or yellow sweet peppers or snips of asparagus, garlic and chives, fiddleheads and onions. Our farm animals play a role, as well.

Children milk the goats to make a mild and tangy cheese perfect for topping.

And after consuming one’s tasty creation with friends, food scraps are shared with the pigs or hauled to the compost. In doing so—at once an important lesson for a child and longstanding Treetops tradition—the pizza is returned to the earth from which it came.

WRITER’S ISSUE

photo: John in his office at home in New York City

There is a mobile that hangs over my desk in New York that’s made of copper wires tipped with arrow-shaped pieces cut from the top of a tin can. The mobile’s five arms turn and bob in a pleasing sort of way, and every time I look at it I’m reminded of Camp Treetops and the summer of 1952. I was 12 years old, and George Rickey (CTT parent 64-72) had been put in charge of woodworking shop in senior camp for that one year.

George had not yet become a world-famous sculptor, much less the namesake of Rickey Circle, but he was well on his way to achieving both distinctions. Back then, he was preoccupied with small-scale mobiles, and the lucky few of us who opted to hang out at his shop that summer learned how to make mobiles ourselves. George taught us the tricks of his trade. He told us, for example, that in order to bring the elements of a mobile into balance, you had to make the

bottom tier first and then work your way up.

Making that mobile was one of the countless activities I experienced for the first time during my six years at Treetops, from the age of eight to 13. Those years are formative ones for any child, but when they are filled with a variety of carefully planned activities, guided by talented and dedicated counselors as they are at Treetops, they become immeasurably richer.

I made a kite and flew it for the first time, at Treetops. I wove a place mat on a loom. I molded a clay pot on a potter’s wheel and fired it in a kiln. I made a small pouch out of a piece of cloth, stuffed it with balsam needles, and kept the pillow as a fragrant reminder of Treetops for many years after.

I learned how to swim, of course, and how to ride a horse, both with and without a saddle.

I even became one of the elite riders who was designated to ride one of the camp’s

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WRITER’S ISSUE

I’ve ridden horses many times since Treetops, but never bareback, always with a saddle.

I’ve climbed steep inclines as an adult, but none have come close to the height of the thirty-eight 46ers I notched in my belt at Treetops.

I do miss those mountain-climbing expeditions. But what I miss most about them is the exquisite pleasure of arriving at a rocky peak after an invigorating climb and finding scrubby bushes of plump, tart wild blueberries waiting for us, free for the picking—a delectable reward for having made the effort to get there.

photo: John at Camp

more temperamental horses. My special-needs horse was Pepper. His quirk was that he liked to come to a sudden stop in the riding ring, kneel down and roll over in the dirt, with or without a rider on board. My qualifying talent for riding Pepper was that I never panicked and would simply hop off before he rolled over.

I learned how to play the recorder. I acted in a play. I helped make a soggy trail into firmer ground by laying a side-by-side corduroy of logs in the muck.

I climbed mountains for the first time and went on overnight canoe trips.

I made my first fishing rod from a tree branch, tied a fishing line to it, attached a hook to the line, stuck a worm on the hook and, accompanied by my counselor and three tent mates, caught my first fish from a rowboat on Round Lake.

At barn chores I milked a cow, groomed a horse, fed the chickens, and shoveled horse manure. All for the first time.

“I bet that’s one activity you haven’t missed,” a friend told me when I mentioned the bit about horse manure. page 11 Organic Roots Summer 2016

True, I can’t say I’ve yearned to shovel horse manure since, but I’m glad I had the experience. Otherwise, it would have been something I could only have imagined.

In fact, now that I think of it, a lot of the things I did for the first time at Treetops I’ve never done again.

I’ve never milked a cow since then or groomed a horse. Nor have I fed chickens or plucked their feathers after retrieving their headless bodies from the rhubarb patch where they’d hopped after Walter Clark chopped their heads off. “Gladys is going to make chicken and dumplings for dinner tonight,” Walter told us on that memorable day. He went on to make the sober point that if we were going to enjoy eating chicken, it was only proper that we knew what went into preparing it.

No one has asked me to act in a play since Treetops.

I’ve never corduroyed another trail or played the recorder again.

I’ve never held a live garter snake in my bare hands since doing it for the first time at Treetops. Ditto a frog, a salamander, a rabbit, a duckling or a goat.

Never again have I taken part in a bucket brigade the way I did that day in senior camp when white smoke was spotted high up on Trouble. We all lined up twenty feet apart and handed buckets of water from person to person in a successful and exhilarating group effort to put out the fire.

I haven’t played Capture the Flag since those all-day marathons we used to have at Treetops.

I’ve never again used a home-made, Huck Finn-style fishing rod to catch a fish. All the fishing I’ve done since Treetops has been with a store-bought rod and reel.

And mumbly-peg! I played mumbly-peg throughout my Treetops years, but never again after that. We used our pocket knives for other purposes besides mumbly-peg, of course, like whittling the tips of sticks into sharp points for jabbing into hot dogs and marshmallows and holding them over an open fire. All the marshmallows and hot dogs I’ve eaten since then have been roasted without the aid of sticks whittled by me. I should add that the first pocket knife I ever owned was the three-blade Boy Scout knife I was given at Treetops, lost shortly afterwards and never replaced.

I haven’t had the pleasure of walking around barefoot all summer since my last year at Treetops, so I haven’t

In fact, now that I think of it, a lot of the things I did for the first time at Treetops I’ve never done again. grown thick callouses on the soles of my feet since then either.

I’ve never made another clay pot, balsam-stuffed pillow, kite or loom-weaved place mat.

For that matter, I’ve never made another mobile like the one that hangs over my desk at home. Since Treetops, my creative abilities have taken me in different directions. But because of that mobile, and Treetops and George Rickey, I have a greater appreciation for the art of mobiles and the dynamics that underlie the making of them.

The same goes for all the other adventures I became involved in for the first time, and last, at Treetops.

The fact that I haven’t repeated them since then doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten or rejected them. On the contrary, I’ve absorbed them. They will always be part of what I know and who I am.

John Berendt is an American author, known for writing the best-selling non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction and made into a blockbuster movie directed by Clint Eastwood. He earned a bachelor’s in English from Harvard University, where he was an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. After graduating in 1961, he moved to New York City, where he was hired as an associate editor of Esquire at the age of 21. He was the editor of New York magazine from 1977 to 1979 and wrote a monthly column for Esquire from 1982 to 1994.

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WRITER’S ISSUE

I think it was my mother who told me that North Country School, to which she was sending me in the autumn of 1942, was “progressive.” That meant progressive had to be a glamorous, advanced, and positive thing. I was only seven, but already I knew that everything my mother did was glamorous and advanced. She had been one of New York’s first women advertising copywriters, in the 1930s when advertising was still a relatively unfashionable, dashing new field. She was, it went without saying, a Democrat and an ardent New Dealer. In 1942, she was advertising manager for Saks Fifth Avenue, and her clothes were all in the latest style; her cosmetics were samples of brands that weren’t even on the market yet.

Progressive education, it seemed, meant children being allowed to wear casual, practical clothes. At the

Brearley School, which I’d been attending in Manhattan, I had worn frilly frocks. At North Country School, I wore blue jeans and lumberjack shirts. In New York, I took a bath every night; at North Country, two a week.

In New York, Mrs. Johnson, the cook who looked after me, used to force my hair into corkscrew curls with the aid of metal rollers. At North Country, my hair hung straight, confined by only one barrette. My casual clothes and hair meant that I was much more comfortable in classes like “arts and crafts.” “Creativity” was something to be encouraged at progressive schools. In addition to arts and crafts, I could draw during regular classes at North Country.

In other ways, “progressive education” at North Country defined itself by the life we led, and a busy life it was. We were rousted out of bed at seven a.m., and we dressed hastily, both because of the chill in the

photo: Contact sheet of NCS classroom and Leo Clark, late 1940s page 13 Organic Roots Summer 2016

WRITER’S ISSUE

No one had ever challenged my sense of humor like that before. My mother and her friends usually cooed at my precocity.

air and because there were many things to be done before breakfast. When the children were assigned to “barn chores,” each had a horse to clean or chickens to feed or cows to milk. If it was their turn for “house chores,” they would be expected to help lay the breakfast tables, sweep the halls, or clean the bathrooms. We ate breakfast at 8:00, falling to ravenously on oranges, oatmeal, eggs, and toast or pancakes.

I was sent first to Camp Treetops, which was located during the summer months on the same tract of land in the Adirondacks where North Country was during the winter. It was run by Helen and Douglas Haskell, who looked after the older children in “senior camp,” a series of summer houses and tents that decorated a ridge of high land overlooking the lake. The “junior camp,” in which I was enrolled, used the school buildings and was supervised by Leonora Clark, Helen Haskell’s sister.

Leo, I soon discovered, was a tougher customer than any adult I had hitherto known. She was short, squarely built, and forever bustling about, clad in a pair of grey flannel slacks. She had iron-grey hair, a mouthful of buck teeth, and a tendency to deafness.

By the Saks Fifth Avenue standards to which I was accustomed, she did not seem very feminine. What she had was a preternatural ability to see through childish defenses; nor had she the slightest intention of letting anybody get away with anything.

My first Sunday at Treetops, all the children had to write postcards home. My idea of a graciously witty photo: Piri in 1945 or 1946 page 15 Organic Roots Summer 2016

Round Lake, and we picked juicy raspberries on the way back from swimming. I slept with three other children in a tent and discovered the arcane joy of sneaking out after “lights out” to pee in the fragrant balsam copse behind the tents.

The camp was set in the middle of friendly, tree-covered mountains. The counselors took us up some of them, starting with Trouble, a hillock at the back of the property. Eating our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we looked down on the naturally lovely landscape spread out beneath us—hayfields, pastures, woods, roads, brooks, and buildings. On drowsy July days we might see gnarled old Uncle Jesse, the tobacco-chewing farmhand, driving a huge load of new-mown hay along the camp’s dirt road, behind the draft team.

When my mother came to visit, she worked me into a conversation that got me saying how much I liked the place, then asked whether I would like to go to the school there in the winter. I said yes, sure, why postcard ran something like this: “Dear Mommy: We had soup for lunch today. I made Leo Clark lie down and roll in the soup.” To my amazement, Leo told me she didn’t think it was very funny. I had to write a totally different postcard. No one had ever challenged my sense of humor like that before. My mother and her friends usually cooed at my precocity.

Still, the camp otherwise did keep me occupied and moderately peaceable throughout the summer with an interesting new mixture of tastes, activities, and smells. On big grassy fields, we played “kick the can” and “capture the flag.” We rode the ponies who trotted out from the big old barn, smelling of manure, sweat, and saddle leather. We swam and canoed in

not? Though without any enthusiasm. The school I returned to in late September, after leaving the camp before Labor Day, was subtly different. The trees were already bare, and even in September, there was a nip in the air. The senior camp buildings on the ridge by Round Lake were all boarded up. The school was much smaller than the camp, with only 20 or 25 students, and the children seemed more serious about their endeavors. In some mysterious way, they seemed to feel that what happened to the school depended at least in part on them. It was a very young institution, only four years old.

Leo Clark was back at the school, but the Haskells had returned to Manhattan, and the school was really run by Walter Clark, Leo’s husband. Walter was tall

and skinny, with a gentle smile, a small dark mustache, a hank of hair that fell over his forehead, and the kind of total dignity which awes the average child. He used to preside, in a blue denim jacket, at morning barn chores, and he had the same calming effect on spooky horses.

Leo helped to manage the school’s office work, looked after the infirmary, and meddled in children’s affairs just as she had at the camp. She and Walter lived in the Main Building. Like most of the other children in the school, I also lived there, and we all ate, studied, and played there. A handful of older boys lived with a couple of teachers in the old farmhouse, while a half-dozen others lived in the “Little House,” [now known as Woods House] a new building not far from the Main Building.

I had never seen a building quite like the Main Building before. As might be expected for a progressive school, it was a progressive building, architecturally, with flat roofs, natural pine siding, large plate glass windows, and sun bays which jutted out to capture every last winter ray. We entered the building through a “locker room” where all the children had separate stalls in which to keep their galoshes and outdoor clothes.

The dining room was lined with bookshelves under the picture windows (it also doubled as the library).

The stairs in the main hall, as well as the back stairs, had slides built into one side of them, so children could whoosh down to breakfast, lunch, and supper.

It was a school built for children to learn and enjoy themselves in, but it was also designed by someone who knew a good deal about “progressive” architecture. Douglas Haskell, who had designed it, worked

continued on page 43

Not long ago, I came across an Organic Roots article about the farm written 12 years ago by John Culpepper, then farm manager, and Jennifer Morgan, who has a long family history with Treetops and extensive experience with organic farming. The article identifies our farm as being on the precipice of an exciting future: John and Jennifer note specifically the prospects for integrating the farm into our classrooms and the potential for partnering with other like-minded organizations like The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, California.

Reading this article makes me proud of the work of this institution over the past decade and more. Each topic covered in the article begs for follow-up. From basic farming practices to the ways in which we engage our community and connect with those outside of this institution, we have come a long way.

Take composting for example. At the writing of John and Jennifer’s article, we had just begun composting our manure and food scraps separately—the manure in a covered area whose concrete had recently been poured, the food scraps in small straw bale huts. At the time, that was a huge step towards a more effective method of returning nutrients to our soil. Fast forward to this past month, when a continuous-flow, rotating composting drum was installed where the straw bales once sat.

The drum, financed in part by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Cleaner, Greener Communities Program, not only will process our food scraps many months faster, but also will produce a more consistent finished compost for our

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gardens. John designed this composting unit to be much less expensive than other models and to fit within a shipping container to show other businesses and organizations an affordable and effective way to compost their own food scraps. The hope is that someone local will begin to build these composters, and that more groups will reduce their trash collecting fees, keep methane-producing organics out of landfills, and turn a “waste” into a valuable soil amendment.

The earlier article also described the decision in 1949

by NCS founder Walter Clark to stop using conventional fertilizers and pesticides. He recognized that our responsibility was to farm the land in a way that replenishes and restores natural systems. At the time, that put us on the cutting edge of sustainable agriculture. In the nearly 60 years since, we have maintained that commitment to minimizing synthetic inputs, pursuing greening initiatives on the farm and around campus that are not just “less bad,” but that actually make a positive impact.

photo: Zina (NCS 16) feeding the lambs at morning barn chores

More authentic and exciting learning can hardly be imagined than assisting in the birth of another living creature.

Our sustainable forestry practices are an excellent example. When we selectively thin our forests, we turn our own trees into lumber for campus use and fuel for our high efficiency heating plants. The use of wood fuel reduces operating costs and our use of fossil fuels, while improving the health of our forests.

In the same vein, I recently returned from a workshop called Carbon Farming, presented by Eric Toensmeier, an award-winning author in the field of permaculture and ecological design. He suggested that in addition to taking steps to reduce the amount of carbon we emit on our farm, we could farm in a way that actually sequesters carbon. All plants store carbon in their roots and in above-ground biomass.

In conventional farming, annual crops are pulled up and tilled, thus releasing that carbon. When instead a farm reduces tilling and grows more perennial crops

(those that stay in the ground year after year) that carbon remains in the soil instead of being released into the atmosphere. As environmental activist, founder of 350.org and former Treetops parent Bill McKibben writes about extensively, high levels of carbon (and other greenhouse gases) in our atmosphere are directly linked to the rapid and unpredictable changes in our climate. Scientists agree, the more carbon we can keep out of our atmosphere, the better.

With that in mind, we are beginning to work on a modest plot, about one-tenth of an acre adjacent to the tennis court, for our own experiment with carbon farming: a forest garden. This spring, with the help of students, we took cuttings from species on our campus, transplanted plants from neighboring farms, and even purchased a few saplings. All plants

These perennials wait beside our greenhouse until our plot is ready. Pigs are in the forest garden now, providing an important initial function: tearing up the sod, depositing nutrients (via their waste), and fluffing the soil. Once the metaphorical canvas is clear, we will begin to piece together what we hope is both a productive garden and a richly diverse ecosystem. The plot will serve as a model for a different kind of farming, one that shows how meeting our need for food can simultaneously produce some small benefit to a much more complex and integrated environmental system.

The carbon farming project is also further evidence of ongoing progress in creating meaningful connections for children between the farm and our educational programs. During the summer, the Children’s Garden bustles, the pizza oven is always hot, and campers are not just learning about how we grow food for our own consumption, but visiting local farms to see how our larger community is working to feed itself.

Likewise, every day of the week during the school year, students are involved in cooking, gardening, or exploration of our food systems.

photo: Katie at the barn in 2015 page 19 Organic Roots Summer 2016

continued on page 26

By Katie Culpepper, Farm Manager I quietly open the door to the small animal barn.

My eyes adjust to the soft glow of the stall lights. Moments earlier, I was jolted awake by the crackly voice of a student over the radio next to my bed. It’s 2 a.m.

I come up behind the three ninth graders who are huddled in the sheep pen. They were right to call; in the time it took me to get to the barn, the ewe they suspected might be going into labor was very much having a baby. We gasp in unison as two tiny, cream-colored hooves emerge and then squeal when, within seconds of that first glimpse, a cinnamon-colored lamb lands with a gentle thump on the bed of hay the mom had fluffed seconds before the delivery.

We continue to watch as the mom begins to clean her baby, and almost as an afterthought, delivers a second lamb at our feet. Before long, the ewe has licked them clean, and the lambs, already standing on wobbly legs, look for milk. At that point, two of the students each gingerly pick up a newborn, careful not to come in between the ewe and her babies. The students carry the lambs backwards into the jug, a small pen just for new mothers and their babies. There students cut the umbilical cords, check the genders, and strip the teats of the mother.

By stripping the teat, we ensure that lanolin, the waxy coating on sheep’s wool, is not plugging up the teats and preventing the babies from successfully nursing in those critical first hours of life.

Our work is done for now. By morning, those students will likely have picked out names for the lambs and will have told and retold this story to their teachers and peers. They might even fall asleep at the breakfast table after a night of little sleep. It is in moments like these when the farm really comes alive and the educator in me wants to bottle the experience and ship it to schools far and wide. It’s the kind of experience that makes even 14 and 15 year olds stop and recognize the profound nature of the moment.

Though it was completely voluntary, many of our ninth graders chose to sleep overnight in the barn this lambing season. Not all of the groups saw a birth, and some saw multiple. But each group of students carried with them, as they laid out their sleeping bags on their hay bale beds, a sense of importance, a feeling of purpose.

To witness the live birth of a lamb at NCS and Treetops, visit: vimeo.com/ncstreetops/lambing

original screenprint by Day (NCS 16) and Jamie (NCS 16)

are perennial and will play a part in our multi-story garden. Some we know will do well; rhubarb, Echinacea, and currants have all thrived on our campus before. Others—like seaberry (a fruit shrub with orange berries), haskaps (a type of honeysuckle), and saskatoons (a blueberry look-alike more closely related to an apple)—are exciting new species for us.

EILEEN ROCKEFELLER’S CHALLENGE

GROWS AND GROWS Inspired by Eileen Rockefeller Growald’s forward thinking and dedication to the children of North Country School and Treetops, current and former trustees have rallied together to grow Eileen’s Challenge to $1.75 million.

ANY NEW GIFT OR INCREASE IN YOUR TYPICAL CONTRIBUTION WILL BE MATCHED DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR

BY EILEEN AND THE TRUSTEES UNTIL WE REACH OUR GOAL.

HOW DOES THIS WORK? If you usually give $100 but increase this year’s contribution to $250, the additional $150 will be matched 1 to 1, boosting your gift to $400.

Please consider taking advantage of this tremendous opportunity to magnify the impact of your giving. You can donate online at northcountryschool.org/giving or www.camptreetops.org/giving, or by using the envelope in this publication.

Your investment ensures great programs, facilities, and experiences for children today and for many years to come.

For more information visit www.northcountryschool.org/eileenschallenge or www.camptreetops.org/eileenschallege or contact Kurt Terrell, Director of Advancement, kterrell@ncstreetops.org or 518-837-5446.

camptreetops.org | northcountryschool.org page 22

An Evening Honoring Eileen DEDICATION OF THE EILEEN ROCKEFELLER HOUSE

By Chelsea Gibson On April 21, 2016, the Board of Trustees of North Country School and Camp Treetops honored Eileen Rockefeller Growald (CTT 63, NCS 66, CTT staff 69-71, trustee 76-84, 92-98, CTT parent 97-99) for her commitment to School and Camp at a dinner in New York City.

Throughout the evening Eileen was celebrated for her generous pledge and her philanthropic leadership, which have inspired so many to join her challenge.

One-half of Eileen’s gift will be used to establish the Richard Rockefeller Fresh Start Fund—an endowment to honor her brother’s vigor for life, learning, and commitment to diversity. Fully funded at $1 million, this scholarship will ensure our continued ability to enroll children from all walks of life. The second half of Eileen’s gift will help complete the acquisition and endowment of the 19th century Round Lake Cottage and its 20-acre property. page 23 Organic Roots Summer 2016

A highlight of the evening was the announcement by trustee Matt Salinger (NCS 74, CTT parent 04-08) of the re-naming of Round Lake Cottage as the Eileen Rockefeller House, to be known informally as the RockE House. Following the announcement Eileen spoke affectionately about her time at Camp and School: “The heart and the head combined—that’s what make North Country School and Camp Treetops so unique… Each one of you is a door to a child’s future.

Let’s pull together to make it happen.”

After the event, Matt Salinger reflected on the evening: “It was a real honor to be able to celebrate Eileen in this way; many thanks to her, and to her publicist, Carla von Trapp Hunter (NCS 95-96) for helping make it happen.”

Eileen Rockefeller Growald (CTT 63, NCS 66, CTT staff 69-71, trustee 76-84, 92-98, CTT parent 97-99), David Rockefeller (CTT parent 58-59, 63, NCS parent 60-66, CTT grandparent 97-99), Head of School David Hochschartner, Paul Growald (CTT parent 97-99) Delia and Randall Thompson Jr. (CTT 45-48. NCS/ CTT parent 83-87) Pam and Barry Breeman (NCS parent 07-10, CTT parent 10-13, trustee 08-present) Vanya Desai (CTT 80-85) and Douglas Semmes

camptreetops.org | northcountryschool.org page 24

HARNESSING

THE WIND

By Elie Rabinowitz

Farming for the Future continued from page 20

And this spring, students had an unusual opportunity to experience first-hand one of the farm’s most inspiring lessons. In groups of three, ninth graders spent the night in the barn at the height of the lambing season to help the farm staff deliver the pregnant ewes. More authentic and exciting learning can hardly be imagined than assisting in the birth of another living creature.

Lastly, we continue to seek opportunities to connect with like-minded organizations and individuals. This spring, North Country School and Treetops hosted on campus a group of farmers, educators, parents, and business owners to discuss the growth of farming in our region and the excitement and challenges of getting that food to those who want it. Sitting with nearly 50 other people from our community, I had that same feeling Jennifer Morgan wrote about 12 years ago of being on the precipice of an exciting time for our farm.

My four eighth-grade ESL students, along with teachers Larry Robjent and Garth Cilley, recently built a windmill from scrap materials found in Larry’s shop.

During the winter and spring terms, students read The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, about a young boy in Malawi who builds his own windmill to provide electricity for his family. The students worked once a week with the adults to create their own windmill, which also turned into a beautiful piece of installation art as the project developed.

Currently, the windmill stands in the meadow near the pond and is in a test phase to find the correct power generator. The goal is for the windmill to be aesthetically pleasing while powering outdoor lights for students’ walk to the barn and pond skating during the dark afternoons of winter. If anyone has expertise with small-scale wind power, we’d love to hear from you: erabinowitz@northcountryschool.org

Please check out the wind mill and other project integration videos at northcountryschool.org/projects page 25 Organic Roots Summer 2016

During the meeting, I sat next to one of our 8th graders, Ash, who furiously took down notes throughout the hour and a half meeting. Afterwards, Ash and I both marveled at the authenticity of the conversation. Ash said he didn’t know that communities came together to talk about things like supply and demand of healthy food and the strengths and weaknesses of the local food system. I told him, and I believe this, that what happened in that room was not something that happens every day. In fact it was remarkable: this was a conversation for the future of our food system.

photos: pigs in the forest garden; students watch compost tumbler in action; John Culpepper with the final product.

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STUDENT PHOTOGRAPHY

ALDARA

15 YEARS OLD MEXICO CITY NCS 16

page 27 Organic Roots Summer 2016

KHANYI 15 YEARS OLD SOUTH AFRICA NCS 16

Above photographs all student-chosen subject matter, shot with 35mm film, while learning the basics of technique, tone, composition, and critique.

By Emilie Allen Darshan’s portraits are simple yet richly evocative, rendering a sense of both vulnerability and empowerment. Completed over spring break in the Bronx, her assignment was to tell a story for a “Photo Narrative” elective, co-taught by Sierra Grennan and Peter Rowley, which challenged students to marry photos and words.

Initially, she wanted to take family portraits and focus on her relationship with her brother. But one day while at home, her mom photographed Darshan as she tried out hair styles from different eras. It was then that Darshan decided to take on herself as the subject instead.

​ Confidence was way IN

Summer 1960

​ Confidence was way IN

Summer 1960 “Don’t photograph me anymore!“

​ Confidence was way IN Winter 1980

Teacher Peter Rowley reflects: “Darshan had no trouble with the images, but she couldn’t find the words until she imagined herself a model in a former era. Then she had as much fun with the words as she’d had posing.” The phrases beneath each photograph describe Darshan’s self-perceptions over time​, a​s she​​ ​ hile also conjuring ​the​​voices of​​ has grown older, w women of color​a​ cross r​ ecent g​ enerations.

Summer 1960

She always hid.

Spring 1970

STUDENT ARTIST SPOTLIGHT DARSHAN 14 YEARS OLD BROOKLYN, NY NCS 17

​ Confidence was way IN

“I closed my eyes. Lost in feelings and thoughts.”

Fall 1990

“I closed my eyes. Lost in feelings and thoughts.”

“Don’t photograph me anymore!“

page 29 Organic Roots Summer 2016

Winter 1980

Summer 1960

She always hid.

Fall 1990 Spring 1970

“I closedLost my eyes. in feelings thoughts.”

“I closed my eyes. in Lost feelings andandthoughts.”

Fall 1990

Fall 1990

2016 GRADUATION

I grew up here. In this beautiful place.

In this community.

I’ve been a fairly uninvolved alumnus: an infrequent visitor and only an occasional financial contributor. But I carry North Country School within me wherever I go, and it has served me well. ...In 1970, Walter and Leo Clark, who had founded NCS in 1938, turned over the leadership of the school to Harry and Betty Eldridge. Harry asked my father if he would come join the faculty. It was the dream job that my father had always wanted. He had grown up in New York City, but had never really felt at home anywhere but in the mountains. So he packed up his family, moved us to the Adirondacks and took the lesser job.

And he never looked back.

Don Rand taught the fourth and fifth graders at that time, and he also became my piano teacher. He must have been good and sick of me, but he never showed it. The truth was, you never really knew where you stood with Don. He played his cards close to the vest, and kept us guessing. Most importantly, he was in charge of the only thing that I really cared about, which was the Thanksgiving play. He wrote the play, composed the music for it, cast it, taught it, directed it, designed it, and played the piano for it. He was the Florenz Ziegfeld of the Quonset. And I wanted to be in the play. I wanted lines to memorize. I wanted a song.

And I wanted the scenery and the lighting to be very good.

The shows that Don created were wonderful! The first year it was Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, with songs about Isis and Osiris. There was a version of the Caesar and Cleopatra and Mark Anthony story with heartbreakingly romantic music, and a patter song for Fatatateeta, Cleopatra’s maid, that rivaled Gilbert and Sullivan. The next year it was Greek myths and legends, with a rather bloodthirsty retelling of the Medusa legend…

Ah, Wolf!

Excerpts of 2016 Graduation Remarks

by David Loud CTT 71-74, NCS 75

…My favorite of them all was an oratorio called LRRH that Don composed. It was a very serioso composition, with Recitatives and Choruses and Arias that told the story of Little Red Riding Hood. And it climaxed in a very unusual way. The traditional ending of the story of

Little Red Riding Hood, as you may remember, involves the appearance of The Huntsman, who has had nothing to do with the story thus far. He arrives and deftly slices open the wolf, who has eaten both the girl and her grandmother, allowing them both to escape alive, the wolf having apparently swallowed them whole without killing or even chewing them.

This was not the ending that Don Rand wanted for his Oratorio. After the devouring of Little Red and Granny, Don had all the students face forward and sing the following Chorale, in which, I think, he was channeling the guiding spirit of North Country School, Walter Clark: We here refute the theology that brands the wolf a sinner. We hear salute ecology, wherein the wolf’s a winner! His appetite of great renown keeps the population down.

Nor is it to his detriment his conscientious use of excrement!

So as through the woodlands you go, Think of Gram and child helping trees to grow. Ah Wolf! Ah Wolf!!

I’m sure some of the students had no idea what all those big words meant, but we took it seriously and sang our hearts out and I remember more than one astonished parent’s face... I also remember the thrill I felt at those last lines: the audacity of “Ah, wolf,” with its rejection of traditional religion, and it’s clear-eyed embrace of the dark truth of the natural life cycle.

We were under the guidance of a unique artist, a shining example of the dictum that all artists eventually have to learn: being your own quirky self is far more interesting than attempting to live up to what people expect of you, and it is only when you stop trying to do things the way others do them, and find your own way, that you will create something lasting and meaningful.

I did, eventually, get to do a leading role in one of the Thanksgiving plays. It was in the revival, my senior year, of the Caesar-Cleopatra opus, my joy at being given the role of Mark Anthony, who had the big love song, only slightly diminished by the fact that I had to sing it to my sister, who was playing Cleopatra...

camptreetops.org | northcountryschool.org page 32

2016 GRADUATION

symptoms. I thought, not completely without reason, that word of the disease would make me a “risky hire.”

The first was coming out as a gay man to my father.

Coming out to my friends and colleagues in the theatre wasn’t a problem. But up here, in the land of “be rugged, be resilient, be resourceful,” there didn’t seem to be a place for “be homosexual.” I told him at the end of a three-day visit, while he was driving me to the train station. I think it was the comfort of being able to talk without actually looking at each other that made it seem finally doable. Thankfully, he didn’t drive off the road. He paused, expressed his surprise, asked a few questions, and changed the subject.

As time went along, I started turning down jobs that I felt would expose me, I stopped accompanying and conducting, preferring to supervise, and my work suffered so much that I was almost fired from one major revival. I made the decision to start telling my collaborators what I was going through, and, to my surprise, every single one was supportive and kind and has remained loyal. And, thanks to adjustments in my daily medication, plus my husband’s not-so-gentle nudging, I have been conducting and playing again, with excellent results.

My husband, Pedro, and I have been together for twenty-two years. Early in our relationship, one July, we visited my father in Lake Placid, and he took us on an early-morning hike up Cascade Mountain. This was a perfectly normal thing for me, but it was a completely alien experience for Pedro, who, had he known the difficulty of the climb, the earliness of the pre-dawn start, and the shockingly cold temperature of an Adirondack summer morning, would NEVER have agreed to such an escapade. Not knowing these things, and not wanting to disappoint my father, he went along, shivering, dressed in every article of clothing he had brought with him, his jaw dropping in amazement at the long, steep muddy trail and the complete absence of water fountains, rest areas, and gift shops….

The fear had actually been more paralyzing than the disease. And facing that fear, acknowledging the truth, celebrating it, has brought richness and a new sense of purpose to my life.

…Two years ago, at our wedding, my father made a funny, moving, politically insightful toast that all our friends still talk about. He also danced with me, square dance-style, and swung his partner round and round.

The second hard thing I had to do came after I had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. My initial reaction to the diagnosis was complete denial, combined with desperate camouflaging of my

Ah wolf! Indeed. Ah wolf...

David Loud’s distinguished body of work on Broadway showcases a variety of musical talents. He most recently served as music director for the Broadway premiere of The Visit. David is a graduate of Yale University, former faculty member of the Yale School of Drama and of Fordham University, and current faculty member at The Manhattan School of Music. He is the son of current trustee and former NCS Head, Roger Loud.

To view David’s speech in full, visit: vimeo.com/ncstreetops/2016-david-loud To view photos and order prints of 2016 graduation weekend, visit: galleries.northcountryschool.org/Graduation-2016

CLASS OF 2016

Ivy Hoig Undecided

Steven Umlauf Holderness School

Walter (Grady) Allen Dublin School

Jiayi (Kelly) Li Wyoming Seminary

Zina Asante Proctor Academy

Zhi (Steven) Luo Canterbury School

Santiago (Santi) Vargas-Daniels Bard Academy

at Simon’s Rock

Jamie Chao Cambridge School of Weston

Ellen McCarthy The Ethel Walker School

Aldara de la Vega Guadarrama Eton School

Karichelle Muhammad Kent School

Day El-Wattar Convent of the Sacred

Heart High School

Khanyisile (Khanyi) Ndaba Buxton School

Bernardo (Emanuel) Flores Undecided

Kevin Quinn Northwood School

Kyle Greenberg Dublin School

Dashauna Satenay The Marvelwood School

Daniel Gunther Proctor Academy

Owen Sweeney Undecided

Isaac Newcomb Northwood School

Elliot Vaughan Colorado Rocky Mountain School Jing Tao (Jimmy) Yan Kimball Union Academy Sade Yarwood Pacheco Christchurch School Xinyi (Cindy) Yu Westtown School Chiyang (Alice) Zhao The Ethel Walker School Zhan (Ava) Zhi Pomfret School

photos: Class of 2016; Hock with Jamieson-Roseliep Award winners, Jamie, Zina, and Jackson; graduates and their families; David Loud at the piano during his remarks

...North Country, involved telling the truth about myself, and risking everything in doing so.

From theTreetops Archive

page 35 Organic Roots Summer 2016

camptreetops.org | northcountryschool.org page 24

the lake, you could find him fixing some counselor’s car engine or making repairs to kitchen equipment. This was a man whose personal mantra was D.I.Y., but with a huge heart that made him a friend to all. Quite simply: Bob Schumacher lived his life to make others’ lives happier and better.

Marsh McCall

TREETOPS TRIBUTE

years, a cabin overlooking the Lake Hill was named in honor of the Schumachers, a fitting tribute to their lasting impact.

July 30, 1931 – March 24, 2016

Bob would hope that in his honor you enjoy a boat ride and milkshake this summer with friends.

BOB SCHUMACHER CTT staff 56-97, parent 64-71, 73-87

Helen Haskell hired Bob in 1956 to teach in the Treetops woodshop. That summer, she was also looking for a riding counselor, and Bob happened to know a girl at nearby Camp Twanakoda: Gail Stephenson. So began Bob and Gail’s love affair with Camp Treetops.

They married the October following their first summer at Camp.

Both as a couple and individually, Bob and Gail embodied all that was good about the Treetops community. For decades, Bob dedicated himself to the woodshop. He enjoyed instructing children in the fine crafting of canoe paddles, furniture making, and the first Treetops-made sailboats. In 1971, he became the waterfront director, where he oversaw the boathouse and its fleet. Gail taught riding, served as a tent counselor, and operated the Camp office. In recent page 37 Organic Roots Summer 2016

Karen Culpepper Camp Director

Roger Loud

CTT 42-48, staff 54-92, parent 71-95, NCS staff 7092, NCS parent 70-96, trustee 94-present, Balanced Rocks Circle I had the distinction of being Bob’s roommate before he wisely upgraded to become Gail’s: we bunked together at Camp in the front of The Palace in Bob’s first Treetops summer. From Day One, Bob impressed us all, young and old, with his cheerful approach to life, but I was most inspired—then and in all the years since—by the fact that he could build or fix anything. I thought he was a wizard! And for decades, he used his magical touch, keeping the CTT waterfront healthy and moving smoothly. In rare moments when he wasn’t by

CTT 47-51, staff 56, 58-60 In the summer of 1956 I had just graduated from Andover, and Helen Haskell took a chance on an 18-year-old neophyte (though a former camper for five years) and hired me to do tennis and be a part of hiking and canoeing. She, or some other smart person, gave me as my tent roommate Bob Schumacher, seven years my senior. We were something of an odd couple, with me a native New York City and private school boy, and Bob an upstater, already a college graduate, and very much a serious young adult. But we got along famously, and I learned a lot from Bob about doing my counselor job with consistent seriousness and follow-through. I was also a close witness (!) to the burgeoning romance between Bob and Gail, and I learned a lot about real and true love.

After that life-changing summer (I had my day off with such “immortals” as Franz Geierhaas, Louise Ganter, Molly Sager, and Don Rand), I went to England on an English Speaking Union Scholarship, and by the time I returned to Treetops in 1958, Bob and Gail were already an old married couple, and my tent mate for the rest of my Treetops years was Dwight Mason. But I’ve never forgotten my first Treetops counselor friend and how much he taught me about living a good and decent life. Requiescat in pace.

Robert Adeland

CTT 58-62 I recently sanded down and re-shellacked the voyagerstyle, cherry-wood canoe paddle I made in 1962 (my super senior year) and passed it along to my daughter, who continues to use it annually on her canoe trips in Algonquin National Park in Ontario. Bob had the patience of Job and even when we messed up or did not follow instructions, he always took the time to show you how to correct your dumbest mistake without you feeling like a dope! I had a great time in the wood shop. Thanks, Bob. Great memories.

Peter Hewitt

CTT 74-78, parent 08, 10-13, 15, staff 11 Bob Schumacher was the revered “Bob” of the junior camp waterfront. Revered but never feared, he was wonderfully approachable by little people, like me. He

was the senior leader of a junior camp overnight canoe trip that I was able to attend, most likely in the summer of ’75. He let me wear his rimmed, cotton, light blue sun hat that he always wore at Camp. This was fun! I’d never seen another camper wear it. And no other ever did, as it got away from me and made its way to the bottom of Weller Pond. Bob had no reprimand for me, only sympathy. Such grace assures me that I have much company as I miss him, am grateful for him.

Susie Localio

CTT 55-56, 58-59, staff 65-80, 89-94 Bob never got upset. He was like the lake on a calm evening. We would be in a twitter about something or other, and Bob would just carry on. He was one of our wise elders, the one you could go to for advice. I asked him once how he managed to work at Treetops at his age without being exhausted. He said naps. But it was more than that. He didn’t let things get to him. He was very good at what he did, and he had high expectations for kids and adults. In his quiet way he ran the waterfront asking kids to repair boats, staff to put in docks and rafts, everyone to be safety conscious and do a good job. With Bob in charge, the boathouse underwent a transformation and became an orderly place where on those hot evenings when boating was an evening activity, you wanted to linger as the sun got low over the lake. Bob taught me a lot. He showed me that you don’t have to shine a light on yourself to shine, that things will be okay, that children are very competent and are to be treated with respect. I hope we keep those lessons alive at Treetops and in our lives that are not on Round Lake.

Carl and Ellie Metzloff

CTT staff 71-97, parent 72-76, 79-83 grandparents 12,14 Bob was a lifelong best friend to Carl. They shared hundreds of activities together, including tennis and woodworking. He and Gail introduced us to Camp Treetops, and we became counselors for many years.

Our three sons attended Camp. Son Kyle and his wife Liz recently became counselors as well. All through our lives we shared happy occasions and home visits, too numerous to mention. Our children shared many, many happy times together. For several years since Gail’s illness, it was Bob’s phone calls and emails that kept us in touch. We will miss those spontaneous interactions. Most of all we will miss the enriching joy this couple and their family brought into our lives.

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NEW FRIENDS TRAVEL PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ANDES June 9-18, 2017 North Country School and Camp Treetops are pleased to partner with International Expeditions to offer a world class guided tour to Machu Picchu and Cusco. This Friends’ Travel Program’s pilot trip with David Hochschartner, Head of School and Camp, promises to be a wonderful opportunity to connect with fellow alumni and friends of Camp and School. All details will be coordinated

by International Expeditions.

DONOR PROFILE:

SUSAN WELCH WILLIAMS

CTT 49-50, NCS 54, Balanced Rocks Circle Member Interview by Matt Donahue You attended Treetops before you came to North Country School. What was it about Camp that helped you decide to come to School for four years?

Well, these kinds of decisions are not typically driven by eight year olds! I had been at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at 91st Street in New York for three years that overlapped with my Treetops summers. The school was not a good fit; it was very strict, and the ethos of the place was in direct contrast to the very natural program and setting of Treetops, where I had a lot of success. My mother decided with Walter Clark in February of 1950 that a transition to North Country School would be good for me, and I moved right away into Glass House with the Clarks as my house parents.

It turned out to be a great decision.

Could you describe an experience at Camp or School that was particularly formative for you?

photo © Grady Allen (NCS 16)

I can’t pinpoint one experience that shaped me, as it really was a cumulative thing. Being there meant associating with very good friends—bright and unusual kids—and having a lot of support. I loved that there was art everywhere and that you could not only ride the horses but also take care of them. (I remember the name of every horse in the barn in my time!) I learned to ski at School, acquiring a skill and passion that eventually brought me to my late husband. I really enjoyed being outdoors, and I deeply appreciated being encouraged to do our own things. I also liked the sense of family at North Country School. Family Thanksgivings were a big deal, with all of us at the same table, so to speak. I have really happy memories of them. Also, the personal and creative freedom I had there was terrific for me. I moved on to a small but very traditional girls school in Lenox, Massachusetts, and my mother had to persuade them to have an art program.

I was required to give up field hockey to enjoy an art class, but that was fine with me. I absolutely would not give up riding, though!

Which adults had a primary influence on you?

Kitty Dennett, the Clarks’ secretary, as well as math teacher Carl Dennett’s wife, taught me to type in fifth Please contact Chelsea Gibson at 518-837-5407 or cgibson@ncstreetops.org for information on registration and pricing.

grade. It was a great learning process for me, with tangible results and a lifelong skill—hands-on and terrific but unusual for a little girl to acquire. I fondly remember Howard Read, my sixth-grade teacher, as well as his wife, Tory. Howard really pushed creative writing, and when we studied Alaska, we built an igloo and took turns sleeping in it on winter nights. When we studied Chinese history, Ham Corwin, my seventh-grade teacher, had us making Chinese books, which we crafted in traditional Chinese style. We also built our own rice paddy, a very muddy and cold exercise! Whit Whitcomb was my superb eighth-grade teacher. He had us do a very grown up thing: we subscribed to Time magazine and read it carefully, learning about the world around us.

You have been an ardent supporter of School and Camp for many years, even devising a planned gift to benefit children here. Why has this place been a philanthropic priority of yours?

We’ll set aside the fact that this is one of the last educational programs I attended that still exists! My answer is quite simple: School and Camp are deeply meaningful to me. They played pivotal roles for me at an important time in my life, and they continue to do this now for others.

At Treetops and North Country School, children are encouraged to pursue their passions and speak with their own voices. In this spirit, we leave this space for you to add anything else you might like.

School and Camp were a special part of my life. They gave me experiences that couldn’t happen anywhere else. Where else could you learn to milk a cow, provide chickens for every Sunday dinner, or watch the horses Mickey and Buck haul the sap you gathered to the sugarhouse? This place really broadened my perspective.

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S T N E V E I N M

tr y e co u n h t s s al a c ro cities ession f e o n r i p n and ts in in social l even a w n o o r i oin us j g g l e l d i r n w a d l ou ild s he hope y y to b u a e reetop T w W t p . n l m elle Ca ps . hoo an exc Treeto ol and and Sc s o d i p h n t c a m n S a e S ry NC al ev om C Co u nt region ews f r efer to r n a t u g North u o n i y o s ab end familie ar. Att ormed w f e e n y i n s i n i e h a t or th rem tef u l f s and a k r r g o w e t r ne ea , and w e r u t u the f

ALU

We invite you to contact Chelsea Gibson, Alumni and Events Manager at cgibson@ncstreetops.org or (518) 837-5407 to help organize an event in your region.

PHOTOS, LEFT TO RIGHT FROM TOP ROW: NYC: David Loud and John Berendt

page 41 Organic Roots Summer 2016

SEATTLE: 33 gathered at Palisade Restaurant

ALTA: Meimei Ma, Bill Savage, Sally Culverwell, Wendy Culverwell, Nick Hewitt, and Ruth Hewitt DC: Tanya Welsh, Tiffany Wilson, and friend (far left)

DC: Connor Clinton, Sophie Kasimow, Mariah Kelly, Trish Harris DON RAND CELEBRATED HIS 90TH BIRTHDAY AT THE BOATHOUSE IN LAKE PLACID: Hock, Paul Douglas, Sandy Nowicki, Larry Gibbon, Seldon West, Leonard Hathaway, Eileen Rockefeller Growald, Don Rand, Lindsay Putnam, and Brian Kunz

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WRITER’S ISSUE

GROWING UP PROGRESSIVE continued from page 16 during the winter as editor of the Architectural Record in New York.

I returned to Treetops that summer. Among the new counselors was a couple in their twenties named Edgar and Elsa Bley. Ed was short, bespectacled, curlyhaired, and solidly built; Elsa was tall, skinny, and blonde. The following fall, when I returned to North Country, Ed was the teacher of my fifth-grade group, Group B. The group would have driven even an experienced teacher to the wall—and Ed Bley had never even taught a class before. He was, instead, a writer manqué who had graduated from City College in New York and spent his early twenties hitchhiking around the Kentucky mountains and trying to become a painter in New Orleans.

Elsa was a registered nurse of Swedish extraction, and, when they first came to North Country, they were newlyweds and still moony-eyed about each other.

They had a special song they whistled, to summon each other on hikes, and Elsa even had a private name for Ed. She called him Peter.

Needless to say, this sort of behavior struck us as grade-A adult idiocy, and we razzed them about it whenever we got the chance.

We were supposed to be studying the pioneers in Social Studies class. Alas, some of us had studied

the same subject the year before, and we voiced our overwhelming boredom with the subject. When we returned from Christmas vacation, we found that Ed had completely revised Social Studies. We were now going to study the different immigrant groups that had come to America: the English first,

In Group D, seventh grade, all or most of our class was living in the farmhouse, with Ed and Elsa as house parents. Our English class was studying newspapers. This was fortunate as I was to become

sent to the parents, carried a kind of newsletter at the beginning, describing the events of the term.

Ed decided to expand this into a miniature newspaper. He showed us the differences between papers

then the Germans, Irish, Poles, Czechs, Russians, Chinese, Italians, Scandinavians, and Greeks.

For each national group, Ed drew careful maps on the blackboard, showing where each group had come from and where they settled in the U.S. He wrote lists of foreign words that had come into English from each language on the blackboard, and we discussed these and the distinctive institutions which each nationality had brought to the U.S. Ed himself was fascinated by this aspect of American history, and we found ourselves catching fire from him, beginning to absorb information almost in spite of ourselves.

a journalist after I left college.

Each group at North Country had some special task connected with running the school. Group D’s task was to edit (and print) Northern Lights, a mimeographed magazine which came out once a term. It carried stories and poems written by children in every class. Usually, Northern Lights, which was also

like the New York Times and the Herald-Tribune, and the News and the Mirror, pointing out that the tabloids had the vocabulary of a child of 12. Since ours were, for the most part, comfortably beyond the average 12-year-old vocabularies already, we felt comfortably superior to the News.

[By the spring of 1947, when it was time to graduate], we all felt sorry for ourselves. North Country had been, if possible, too perfect an existence. Leaving it filled us with an oppressive sorrow, and when I thought about it an angry ache that was half tears, half rage formed at the back of my throat.

Where would we ever know a home as happy as the farmhouse? A pair of teachers as warm and clever as Ed and Elsa? A world where we could race about in the clean, serene mountain air to our hearts’ content, where we could ski and ride and climb mountains and love animals and eat raw, sweet, crispy-crunchy turnips and carrots fresh from the earth?

The rest of our lives seemed guaranteed to be an anticlimax. The only reason for living it seemed to be that we owed it to the school, to the Bleys, and to the Clarks to go out and be as happy and brilliant and successful as we possibly could.

As I look back, I’m constantly amazed at how far in advance of its time my education was—not only in terms of the clothes we wore or the subjects we studied, but in terms of the excellence of every kind with which we were surrounded. It was like a new and more beautiful world with standards vastly in excess of any still in general circulation, established with a kindness and humanity which made us want to live up to them and not resent them.

If I eventually became a modernist art critic, it’s at least in part because of the modernist environment in which I was raised, and the way I was taught to admire both the best of the present and how it had evolved from the best of the past. And, as the years have passed, I’ve come to realize how truly unique this orientation must have been.

Piri Halasz is the author of “Swinging London,” a 1966 Time magazine cover story, and two books: A Swinger’s Guide to London (1967) and A Memoir of Creativity (2009). Her current blog of art criticism is: “(An Appropriate Distance) From the Mayor’s Doorstep.”

photo: Main Building, circa 1945 page 43 Organic Roots Summer 2016

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IN MEMORIAM Elsa O. Bley (NCS staff 43-47), 100, died in her sleep at home in February 2016. She had declined gradually over the last two or three years, and rapidly in her last two weeks. Elsa was school nurse at North Country School from about 1943-47, where her husband, Ed Bley, was a teacher. The years she and Ed spent at NCS informed their personal and professional lives for the rest of their days. They remained friends with a number of their students to the end as well. Ed died in 2005. All are welcome to Elsa’s memorial gathering, to be held in East Alstead, NH, on Saturday, July 16, 2016, 2-4 p.m. For more details, contact Alexandra Bley-Vroman: sashabv@ gmail.com.

Glenn Lemke (NCS staff 82-84), 68, died suddenly and unexpectedly Christmas morning [2015] of a heart attack. Glenn was born March 12, 1947, in Troy, NY, to the late Shirley and Warren Lemke. He grew up in Glens Falls, NY, and graduated from St. Mary’s Academy in 1965 and the University of Buffalo in 1969. He then went on to teach at the Tupper and Saranac Lake schools and at several boarding schools: Adirondack Mountain School, North Country School and the Purnell School.

Having moved to Manchester, VT, in 1991 with his wife, Anne Cavanna Lemke, and their children, Glenn taught computers at Manchester Elementary Middle School until his retirement in 2007. Glenn touched numerous lives with his loving, kind, patient, steadfast, and thoughtful personality. He was an extraordinary partner and caretaker to his wife, who had a stem-cell transplant in December 2014, and an outstanding father, passing on his passions for biking, fishing, cooking, boating, and adventuring to his daughters, Molly Lemke Healy of Sunderland, VT, and Kelly Lemke Foster (Ethan) of

NEWS & NOTES Weston, VT. Besides his wife and daughters, he leaves his sister, brother-in-law, and five granddaughters.

Robert “Bob” Schumacher (CTT staff 56-97, parent 64-71, 73-87), 84, of Hamilton, NY, passed away Thursday, March 24, 2016 in Concord, NH, where he had resided for the past four years with his son’s family. A native of Tonawanda, NY, Bob was a woodshop and waterfront counselor at Camp Treetops for more than 40 years. The son of Leo and Lillian Schumacher, Bob attended SUNY Morrisville and received his AAS degree in aircraft instrumentation in 1952. He continued his education at SUNY Buffalo State, earning a BS in industrial arts and education in 1956 and his MS in education in 1961. While attending SUNY Buffalo, Bob met Gail Stephenson, daughter of William and Alice Stephenson, and on October 26, 1956, they were married at the Richmond Avenue Methodist Church in Buffalo, NY. Bob enjoyed teaching at Gowanda High School for 10 years before pursuing a 26-year career as professor of mechanical engineering and design at SUNY Morrisville.

Gail predeceased Bob in 2015, and he is survived by his sister, Nancy Walp (William) of Clifton Springs, NY; daughters Jane Purden (Joe) (CTT 64-71, staff 75-76) of Westlake Village, CA, and Marcy Veno (Marcus) (CTT 73-78, staff 13-present, parent 13-14) of Webster, NY, and son Jay Schumacher (Sonya) of Concord, NH; and six grandchildren and two nieces.

Carlton (Carl) Metzloff (CTT staff 71-97, parent 72-76, 79-83, grandparents 12-14) of Madison, WI, formerly of Tonawanda, NY, passed away on May 19, 2016, after a long, courageous battle with Lewy Body Dementia.

For nearly 30 years, Carl worked in Junior Camp as a woodshop and hiking counselor.

NCS ALUMS

Carl was a graduate of Tonawanda High School, Tonawanda, NY, and Erie Community College in metallurgical technology. He earned his BS and MS in industrial arts education from SUNY College at Buffalo, NY. During the Korean War, Carl served in the 472nd engineering aviation battalion, Company B, as company clerk and was stationed in France.

For 34 years Carl was a professor in the materials science and engineering science departments at Erie Community College, Williamsville, NY, where he also served as department chair for many years. When retired, he worked in admissions. In 1990 he was awarded the honor of Professor Emeritus (State University of NY), and he also received the Distinguished Professor Award.

He was a Key Professor for the Foundry Educational Foundation, which granted numerous scholarships for his students. Carl was loved by family, students, colleagues, and friends for his personality, warmth, and sense of humor.

Carl was an avid pigeon racer, tennis player, and woodworker. He was on the planning and zoning board for the city of Tonawanda and an active member of the Historical Society of the Tonawandas.

Carl is survived by his beloved wife of 59 years Elma (Ellie) J. Hardy; sons and daughter-in-law Christian (Tho) Metzloff (CTT 72-74) of Oak Ridge, NC, Kurt Metzloff (CTT 72-76) of Columbus, IN, and Kyle (CTT 79-83, staff 12, parent 12, 14 - present), and Elizabeth Metzloff (CTT staff 12, parent 12, 14-present) of Madison, WI; and grandchildren Valerie, Erik, Tyler (CTT 12-14), Cayley (CTT 12-14), Laura, and Hunter Metzloff.

1945 Doe Mechem Doe attended NCS with her sister, Mimi (NCS 47). She has resided in San Francisco for a long time, raising her family there. Her husband, Kirke, is a composer.

Doe is pictured here in her home in San Francisco, holding a copy of Northern Lights, an NCS studentproduced magazine from the 1940s featuring art, essays, stories, and poems. As she sorted through the stack of magazines she was donating to School, she realized she had drawn the cover of one, and she holds her work here.

1952 Eric Lang (also CTT 1950) “The older I get the more I want to relive the years I spent at NCS. I’ve been living in the North Bay area of San Francisco for the past 45 years. Spend the summers in mid-coast Maine and trips to France with my French wife. What more could you ask for?”

continued on next page page 45 Organic Roots Winter 2015-2016

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NEWS & NOTES 1965

NEWS & NOTES TREETOPS FRIENDS

Brigit recently graduated from nursing school and moved to Saratoga Springs, NY, where she works as a registered nurse. As of December 2015, she is engaged to Calvin Gilkey (CTT staff 13-14), who has one year left of medical school in Cork, Ireland. They are planning a June 2017 wedding in the Adirondacks.

Peter Thatcher (also CTT 61) “Sarah and I are still in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where Sarah is with the law department of Saudi Aramco, and I am optimizing gas treatment and power generation processes. We spent Christmas and New Years in Schladming, Austria.”

2009

1966

Sarah Perry graduated this spring from SUNY Purchase with a degree in film studies.

Deor Baker (also CTT 63-65) “Still enjoying gardening and baking after all these years.”

NCS STAFF

Malcolm Willison CTT 41-43 “Planning to attend 75th anniversary at August gettogether, hoping fellow campers Bill Kinzer (CTT 42-43) and Eric Wagner (NCS 45, CTT 40-41, staff 50-55) can also attend.”

1969 Sara Hadden Sara lives in Simsbury, CT, and has retired from her work as a massage therapist.

Caroline Hlavacek, NCS Level II English and social studies teacher, recently celebrated her engagement to Justin Perry (NCS 03).

1978 Lisa Tappert Lisa is executive director of a health center without walls serving migrant and seasonal farm workers throughout the beautiful state of Maine.

1996 Brigit Loud (also CTT 90-95, staff 02-03, 05-07, 11-14)

Meredith Hanson, NCS ESL teacher, presented “Cross-Cultural Simulations for your Class and School” at the NYSAIS 2016 Global Language & Culture Conference at the Mohonk Mountain House on April 18th. Her presentation was very well received and drew both on her work as assistant dean of Concordia Language Villages’ summer Japanese immersion program and her work with town meetings as international student program coordinator at North Country School.

John Doan, NCS music teacher, is wrapping up an album of his own this year. Entitled “Cascadeville”, the name reflects that all songs were written by John since he first moved to the Adirondacks. NCS alums Hannah (NCS 05) and Jake Doan (NCS 07) and Trillium Macario (NCS 14) play and/or sing on numerous tracks as well as NCS science and theatre tech teacher Larry Robjent, Lowell Bailey, Mikey Portal, Kyle Murray, and Colin Dehond.

The recording is pretty much finished; John is currently working on post-production. “Cascadeville” should be out sometime this summer. John is pictured here recording at BeeHive Productions in Saranac Lake, NY.

Ellen (Craib) Mitchell (NCS staff 70-75, parent 70-78) writes: “NCS gave great strength to my family at a critical time. I am almost 80 now, but that strength still carries me forward.”

In July 2016, former NCS assistant head Nick Perry begins his tenure as the new head of school at The Grammar School in Putney, VT.

Charlotte Riley CTT 53-58 “I’m a child and adult psychoanalyst, teaching and in private practice. My son, Joshua Fadem, 33, is working in coding and website development. My husband, John Shannon is a novelist. When my brother Nathan (CTT 5355) and I brought Josh to visitors’ weekend many years ago, he said as we said good-bye, “Mom, can I go here when I’m 8?” I have wonderful memories of Treetops. I still have dreams in which particular horses appear, with their names. Because of those experiences I bought a horse when I was 64, and she gives me great joy. Thank you, Treetops! Keep it up.”

Susan Localio CTT 55-56, 58-59, staff 65-80, 89-94 “This year, gardening came upon me like a fury before it was even March. Spring comes early here in the Pacific Northwest.” Pictured above (far right) with friends in early April 2016 on Deer Ridge in the Olympic Mountains on “a lovely hike that starts at 2,800 feet and goes up to 5,360 feet in five miles.” continued on next page camptreetops.org | northcountryschool.org page 48

NEWS & NOTES Peter Gilbert CTT 58-60 Peter has retired from Lehigh University and relocated to Florida.

Joan Pachner CTT 68-70 “I do think of Treetops often for all sorts of reasons. As my life developed, I became an art historian with a specialty in modern sculpture, and met George Rickey when I worked at the Storm King Art Center. It was only then that I learned of his connection to Treetops, which created an immediate bond. When I read about Jacques Lipchitz, which I do with some regularity, I think about Lola Lipschitz, who arrived as a counselor when I was a camper. Many roads lead back to your most special corner of the world. My older brother just moved to Keene, so I hope to visit when I’m in the neighborhood, hopefully early in the summer (but after the black flies are gone).”

Cornelia Pillard CTT 72-74, parent 07, 12-13 “Sarah Pillard (CTT 12-13) has worked on an organic farm in Massachusetts during the summers post-Treetops, quite inspired by her garden work at Treetops. She gets together with CTT friends whenever she can in NYC, Vermont, or even Friends’ Weekend!”

Jill Werfel CTT 74-80, staff 86-88, parent 05-07 Jill Werfel and Kimberly Frost were married on April 8th,

BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2016 at the Ram’s Head Inn on Shelter Island. They had a beautiful ceremony and celebration with family and friends.

Cindy Marvel CTT 77-80 “Working on a show called Circu Delight by Stages of Circus, a very new production company. Hope to have a new website soon with my film script and juggling: www. bouldercircuscenter.com. My son Theo, 9, is active and brilliant.”

Margaret Sloan CTT 81-85, staff 87-94 “On March 29, 2015, I gave birth to my son, Nicholas George. I brought him up to Camp for Friends’ and look forward to seeing him be a camper someday!”

Susannah (Molly) Colina CTT 90-93, staff 13-14 Susannah and her husband, Edrian, welcomed a baby girl, Rosalind, in 2015. They reside in Brooklyn, NY. Alex Fuller CTT 94-98, staff 02-05, NCS staff 05-06 Alex and his wife recently gave birth to their first child, a son named Henry.

Miriam Goler CTT 96-02 “Just finished our first growing season at my organic vegetable farm in Pines Plains, NY: Full Circus Farm.

Come visit!”

Kia Salehi CTT 02-03, staff 10-11 “I’ve spent the last several months traveling and working on organic farms in New Zealand with my partner, Rachel. It’s made me nostalgic for barn chores at times (I thought the day would never come), and I can’t wait to be back for 2016 Friends’ Weekend!”

photo at right: NCS & Treetops pizza oven, 2016

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Dennis Aftergut, Chair Barkley Stuart, Vice-Chair Hope Knight, Treasurer Sandy Gray Nowicki, Secretary Jenny Ewing Allen Karla Ayala Lisa Beck Barry Breeman Peter R. Brest J. Matthew Davidson Guillaume de Ramel Brian Eng

Laura Thrower Harris Nick Hewitt Caroline Kenney Roger S. Loud Jennifer Maslow Bob Parker Marty Rosenberg Pamela Rosenthal Matt Salinger Hume Steyer Manny Weintraub Jun Zhang

HONORARY TRUSTEES Joan K. Davidson Colin C. Tait Richard E. Wilde TRUSTEES EMERITI David T. Kenney Rose Kean Lansbury Sumner Parker

ORGANIC ROOTS Summer 2016 Editor Emilie Allen Layout & Design, Cover Photo Aaron Hobson Calligraphy Gail Brill Design Contributors Emilie Allen, John Berendt, Karen Culpepper, Katie Culpepper, Matt Donahue, Emily Eisman, Chelsea Gibson, Piri Halasz, David Hochschartner, Elie Rabinowitz Photography Aldara (NCS 16), Darshan (NCS 17), Day (NCS 16), Grady (NCS 16), Jamie (NCS 16), Emilie Allen, Nancie Battaglia, Tom Clark, Aaron Hobson, Michelle Ocampo Editing Lisa Rowley Printing Print Management Pittsburgh, PA

JOIN US FOR FRIENDS’ WEEKEND AUGUST 17-21, 2016 Dip a paddle into Round Lake or help with garden harvest and barn chores. Hike Trouble or just enjoy the fresh air. Reconnect with classmates, tentmates, and other old friends.

Bring the whole family and make new NCS and Treetops memories.

Please contact Chelsea Gibson at 518-837-5407 or cgibson@ncstreetops.org for information on registration and pricing.

photo: Camp Treetops, Summer 2015