October 12, 2024 at 7:00 PM Christ Episcopal Church • 33 E First St., Corning, NY
Celebrate Oktoberfest in style with German composers Beethoven, Brahms and the Strauss family!
*In cooperation with Corning Rotary’s Crystal City Oktoberfest.
Season Ticket Subscriptions On Sale Now!
Save up to 15% over single ticket prices by ordering a season subscription today.
Guaranteed seats at every concert and special perks just for subscribers.
Jinyoung Yoon, an award-winning violinist from Seoul, South Korea, will enchant audiences with the Brahms Violin Concerto. Get tickets now at
Don’t wait. Space is limited. Tickets start at just $29.
Johann Strauss, Jr. and Johannes Brahms
18 Still Life with Railroad
By Anne Alexander
Skip Cavanaugh distills birch oil and rural wisdoms from the Pennsylvania Wilds.
22 Shooting into the Future
By Chris Espenshade
New leadership takes aim at Cowanesque Rod and Gun Club.
24 Field Notes
By David Nowacoski
The great migration is upon us.
30 A Brush of Fresh Air
By Carolyn Straniere
Step outside into Wellsboro’s first plein air festival.
34 Back of the Mountain
By Bernadette Chiaramonte
Ready for the second cutting.
And She’s Off!
By Jimmy Guignard
Dawn Burlew takes the lead as the first woman president of Watkins Glen International.
Making Faces in Elmira
By Karey Solomon
Jen Sekella’s poetic transformations inhabit Przygoda Gallery.
By Lilace Mellin Guignard
Cover photo: Dawn Burlew, by Wade Spencer; (top) Dawn Burlew, by Jimmy Guignard; (middle) face painting, courtesy Jen Sekella; (bottom) D.J. Kitzel, by Lilace Mellin Guignard
mountainhomemag.com
E ditors & P ublish E rs
Teresa Banik Capuzzo
Michael Capuzzo
A ssoci A t E E ditor & P ublish E r
Lilace Mellin Guignard
A ssoci A t E P ublish E r
George Bochetto, Esq.
A rt d ir E ctor
Wade Spencer
M A n A ging E ditor
Gayle Morrow
s A l E s r EP r E s E nt A tiv E
Shelly Moore
c ircul A tion d ir E ctor
Michael Banik
Helping people buy houses in communities we call home. For 150+ years, C&N has helped individuals and families to purchase a home. Today, we continue to offer great rates, same-day prequalification, low/no down payment options and the personalized service you expect from C&N.
*Subject
A ccounting
Amy Packard
c ov E r d E sign
Wade Spencer
c ontributing W rit E rs
Anne Alexander, Chris Espenshade, Jimmy Guignard, David Nowacoski, Karey Solomon, Carolyn Straniere
c ontributing P hotogr AP h E rs
Bernadette Chiaramonte, Chris Espenshade, Jimmy Guignard
d istribution t EAM
Dawn Litzelman, Grapevine Distribution, Linda Roller
AWARDS: Mountain Home has won over 100 international and statewide journalism awards from the International Regional Magazine Association and the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association for excellence in writing, photography, and design.
DISTRIBUTION: Mountain Home is available “Free as the Wind” at hundreds of locations in Tioga, Potter, Bradford, Lycoming, Union, and Clinton counties in PA and Steuben, Chemung, Schuyler, Yates, Seneca, Tioga, and Ontario counties in NY.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: For a one-year subscription (12 issues), send $24.95, payable to Beagle Media LLC, 39 Water Street, Wellsboro, PA 16901 or visit mountainhomemag.com..
AND SHE’S OFF!
Dawn Burlew Takes the Lead as the First Woman President of Watkins Glen International
By Jimmy Guignard
Setting a fast pace: Dawn Burlew, in her first year as the first woman president of Watkins Glen International, stands with an official pace car on the track as she learns all the twists and turns of her new job.
Courtesy Watkins Glen International
Dawn Burlew lines up the Watkins Glen International pace car behind a Corvette Z06 Supercar. The Vette’s tag reads “W8 4 US.” “Beautiful car,” Dawn says, while waiting for lead pace car driver Rob Roessel to guide eight Corvettes around the track for Drive the Glen.
Dawn pulls onto the track, elbows at sixty degrees, hands at three and nine o’clock, shoulders against the seat. Her sleek, silver-blonde hair frames her face, very focused at the moment, eyes hidden behind stylish shades. This is no mellow Friday afternoon cruise to a winery. Dawn looks like a NASCAR driver. All she needs is a fire suit and a helmet.
“Rob races, so he’ll probably take the cars around for some pretty quick laps,” Dawn says. The Vettes take off. The W8 4 US Vette isn’t waiting. Dawn says, “I’ve been learning how to drive this track,” as she accelerates past sponsor signs, crash barriers, and grandstands.
Coming up on a section of track called the Boot (because it looks like, well, a boot), Dawn talks through the process of turning. Turns in the Boot are tricky. The track loses elevation before bending 180 degrees right around the toe and climbing up to a ninety-degree right around the heel, then two lefts and a right before she zooms down the start/ finish straight. A complex section of track with a short line of sight, the Boot, like the Glen more generally, is about the turns. Drivers have to be flexible, nimble, quick, and willing to trust there’s space for them even when they can’t see around the next bend.
A perfect metaphor for a local farm girl who loves horses and loud cars and who became the first woman president of Watkins Glen International, AKA the Glen.
Dawn saw a turn and she took it.
Getting On Track Early
The Glen’s new president grew up in Erin, New York, in Chemung County, about twenty minutes south of the Watkins Glen racetrack. Now sixty, Dawn still lives in the area. As a child, she lived and worked on a farm with her parents, where her attraction to things with motors came early. Her dad worked on all types of farm equipment as well as trucks and jeeps.
“My father had a passion for the Jeep Willys, Ford Mustangs, and Ford trucks, all of which we owned either new or by buying and rebuilding,” Dawn says. “There was always some type of garage work happening, and often I was there with my father, watching and handing him tools until the vehicle was ready for a test drive.” They then used the machines to work the farm.
Cars really grabbed Dawn when she learned to drive. She recalls, “My first car was a Pontiac Ventura with a manual transmission. Luckily, I knew how to drive stan-
dard.” These days, she enjoys driving her 2001 BMW Z3. Which, of course, is a stick. She also loves the sound of race cars roaring around the track.
After finishing high school in the early eighties, Dawn found herself trying to figure out a way to stay in Chemung County. Not one to spin her wheels, she enrolled in Cazenovia College, then transferred to Keuka College to earn a business management degree. While there, she laid out the course that would lead her to fulfilling her dreams of having an indoor horse arena, owning a show horse, and owning a sports car. She developed the plan for the arena and a horse boarding facility while at Cazenovia. In July 1995, she married Rodney Schmidt. They were a great team for the farm. Rod took care of the horses—feeding, cleaning stalls, maintaining equipment, putting up hay (they grew their own)—while Dawn managed farriers, veterinarians, show schedules, and transportation for their daughter, born in 1998, who competed in horse shows once she was old enough. As she had planned in college, Dawn also bought a horse and a Toyota Supra sports car right after graduation. By her mid-thirties, married with a successful horse farm, show horses, a sports car, and a kid, it seems Dawn had already finished her race.
One Turn Leads to Another
One turn she couldn’t see beyond at the time was an internship in corporate communications at Corning, Inc. while she was an undergraduate at Keuka. That internship led to a job with Corning in IT, which led to corporate services (mail, copy centers, payroll checks), which led to accounts payable/employee expense, which led to corporate facilities, which led to corporate real estate. When Dawn retired from Corning in January 2024 (starting at the Glen a day later!), she had been the director of government affairs and the director of business development for ten years. Same number of turns as the Glen’s NASCAR track. Dawn says that working at Corning was “great.” They like people who are “change agents” and “nimble.”
The internship connected her to the track. The Glen was struggling when Corning motored in and bought it, thanks to the vision of Jim Reisbeck, the comptroller for Corning Glass in the eighties and a racing nut. As Carrie Hagen relates in the May 2019 issue of Mountain Home, Jim could see far enough down the track to make the Glen into a NASCAR destination, a change that cost less than staging Formula One races, and that injected some high-octane fuel
She’s Off continued from page 7
Wade Spencer
Mosey on up to the trolley: The renovated Twain hospitality trolley is ready to serve at the Watkins Glen International Racetrack.
into an economic engine for the region. Dawn saw the twists and turns up close as an intern, supporting the writers and the communications team working on the track project. (Read “Coming to the Rescue” at mountainhomemag.com.)
Dawn’s experiences at Corning, Inc.—corporate communications, IT, facilities, real estate, accounts payable, government affairs, business development—read like a job description for a racetrack president. Between Corning and the horse farm, she’d learned the skills necessary to keep the Glen, a sprawling organization with a lot of moving parts, in tune. Though Dawn says she didn’t plan to become president of the Glen, that college internship during the winter of 1984 and the spring of 1985 certainly steered her that way.
Green Flagging the Mark Twain Trolley
A local to the bottom of her white tennis shoes with the checkered-flag soles, Dawn values community. As she says, “community is my passion.” One way she seeks to build community is by recognizing the region’s history and working it into events at the Glen.
Based in Chemung County, the Mark Twain Trolley was used to provide tours for Twain enthusiasts until a few years ago, and Dawn, who sits on the Chemung County Chamber of Commerce board, saw an opportunity to connect the counties.
Perhaps she saw the trolley like her dad would see a broken down Willys—an idle machine that could be put to use. In this case, the use was in connecting Chemung and Schuyler counties and sharing some history. Everyone knows Twain, right?
The trolley rolls up just as we sit down to talk. “I’m sorry,” she says, hustling out of the room, “but I’ve got to see this!”
Three maintenance guys climb off the trolley, whose engine hums steadily. “You got it running!” Dawn exclaims.
“Everything on board works, too,” one of them comments. Dawn’s enthusiasm hums along with the trolley’s diesel. She and other staff members climb on board, look around, and climb off. “It looks great inside!” Dawn says. “This is great!”
Dawn’s crew introduced the trolley as a hospitality bus at the July Finger Lakes Wine Festival, where it was a big hit. The Glen will use the bus for other events and teach people about Twain’s history in Chemung County.
“Mark Twain wrote a lot at Quarry Farm,” Dawn says, “and we need to remember that. And we’ve got great mechanics and woodworkers to keep it in top shape.” History powering community. So it’s no surprise that Dawn sits on the council of the International Motor Racing Research Center, an organization dedicated to collecting, sharing, and preserving the history of motorsports.
Steering Yesterday into Today
The Glen encompasses just under 1,800 acres and includes everything from RV parking to tent camping to its own medical facility to the Media Center to the Jack Daniel’s Club. A road course means slower speeds and more turns, but it’s popular with fans. USA Today readers voted the Glen “Best NASCAR Track” in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020. The short course, used for NASCAR
70 Years of Hospitality
events, measures 2.4 miles with seven turns. The long course, used for Grand Prix and other events, measures 3.4 miles with eleven turns. Turns are banked between six and ten degrees, and the long course drops about thirteen stories each lap. NASCAR laps at the Glen average around 120 mph—slow compared to superspeedways like Talladega—but the turns keep things interesting.
People come from all over the world to drive the Glen, bringing an international vibe. During Drive the Glen events, drivers pay thirty bucks per vehicle (no motorcycles, RVs, or motorcoaches), then channel their inner Jackie Stewart or Chase Elliott for three laps of the long course, escorted by an official WGI pace car. Drivers can also practice their turns as members of car clubs. Dawn mentions that, three weeks before the Wine Festival, Ferrari rented the track for six days. Some drivers shipped their cars from Europe to drive. Ferrari, who will be back with another spectacular event in 2025, even brought in their own red Adirondack chairs, splashing some Italian accents across the track.
“We have cars on the track 177 days a year,” Dawn says. That’s a lot of turns.
Life in the fast lane:
Dawn Burlew in the (race car) driver’s seat at the Little Speed Shop (top); Dawn drove her daughter, Sydney, to many competitions before Sydney took over their horse farm; during Winning Wednesday, Dawn and Rob Roessel talk to Corning Museum of Glass visitors about the NASCAR trophies—like the one on the table— made at CMoG.
Speaking of turns, this year Dawn will preside over the Go Bowling at the Glen Weekend race, the first year the Glen has been included in the NASCAR playoffs Round of 16. This turn involves the Glen shifting the traditional August race weekend to September 11 to 15. The Round of 16 brackets the road race with the intermediate oval of the Atlanta Motor Speedway the weekend before and the short oval of Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway the weekend after. Three exciting and different races for the fans (you can find out more at nascar.com).
Given her love for loud cars, it’s perhaps not surprising that Dawn also digs loud music. She’s aware that one of the most famous—and the largest—concerts of all time took place at Watkins Glen. Summer Jam was on July 28, 1973, on the land that is now the Geico camping grounds. The Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, and The Band played to over 600,000 people, dwarfing Woodstock by 200,000 and shutting down the roads around Watkins Glen for several days. Dawn’s sense of history shows in her appreciation of Steeln’ Peaches, an Allman Brothers revue that played Saturday night, July 27, after the Finger Lakes Wine Festival corked festivities for the evening. Nearly fifty years to the day, the band ripped through songs that the Allmans covered in their Summer Jam set, including “Blue Sky,” “Southbound,” and “Whipping Post.” Exuberant jams captured the Allmans’ vibe and prompted more than a few wine drinkers and old Deadheads to groove with the band. Like the trolley, Steeln’ Peaches fired on all pistons, and their inclusion in the festivities suggests the sense of history Dawn and the Glen’s crew bring to their events at the track.
Just over a week after the wine festival, Winning Wednesday at the Corning Museum of Glass celebrated it’s twelve-year partnership with the racetrack. Visitors could see WGI pace cars and stock cars up close. Dawn and Rob (in addition to driving the lead pace car he is director of corporate sales) talked to visitors at
See She’s Off on page 12
She’s Off continued from page 9
Jimmy Guignard
Courtesy Dawn Burlew
Give Yourself a Fighting Chance
Early detection saves lives. Take this opportunity to prioritize your health and give yourself a fighting chance by scheduling a mammogram at one of our multiple hospital locations today.
Schedule your Saturday mammogram online at www.Guthrie.org/mammography, scanning the QR code on your smartphone or calling 866-GUTHRIE (866-488-4743).
To
Libraries for Life ANNUAL FUNDRAISER
contact Dale Wexell at wexell72@gmail.com.
She’s Off continued from page 10
the Hot Glass race-themed glassblowing demonstrations about the one-of-a-kind champion trophy CMoG provides each year for the ARCA Menards Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series, and NASCAR Cup Series Major Events at WGI.
A Team Effort
Watch any clip of a NASCAR or sports car driver in the winner’s circle and you’ll see them thank their crew. Dawn understands the need for a strong team, whether at the track or at home. Growing up, she saw one with her parents, and she and Rodney worked the farm together and raised their daughter, Sydney, now twenty-six. They supported Sydney’s horse competitions, and she repaid the effort by winning some. After graduating from SUNYMorrisville in 2020, Sydney came home and, a week later, took over the horse farm.
Good presidents, like good drivers and good parents, know they can’t win alone. As Dawn told her staff at the Glen when she was hired, “You’re not joining my team. I’m joining your team.” Dawn also says, “I prefer to work in streams, not silos.” Seems she learned this in part from her parents, in part from her time at Corning.
“My mother worked a full-time job, then came home and helped my father with the farm,” Dawn says. “Multitasking was her specialty. My father worked for the Village of Horseheads, was a town board member, and ran a small farm. Both believed in volunteering and being part of the community and the organizations that supported our hobbies, which was horses and our church.”
Making a pit stop: Before the Porsches whiz past, Dawn chats with Race Control Coordinator Terry Bowdren (in the booth) and Lynn Finck, a staging coordinator who waves the green flag that starts the fun.
As for her tenure at Corning, Dawn says, “I had some great mentors and team members during my career that provided professional insight as well as personal support that can’t be learned in a classroom or book.”
Like the drivers teaching her to drive, Dawn passes on her knowledge to the next generation. The Glen hosts around five interns a year. One of those individuals, Jordyn Robinson, is studying marketing at the University of Tampa and interning at the track while home for the summer. Taking in the action when the trolley appears, she says, “Dawn’s great. Keeps us in the loop. She’s so involved.” No surprise there. If anyone understands the value of internships, it’s Dawn.
Part of her drive for helping others comes from her student days at Keuka, which admitted only women during her time there.
“I had both men and women professors who truly believed that women could and should be able to do anything career-wise they wanted to, and pushed me outside my comfort zone,” she recounts. Yet, like a driver connecting turns by setting up early, Dawn understands the need to connect with people as people. She got her internship in part because she connected with Susan B. King, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Corning, Inc., through a mutual love of horses. Horses to horsepower.
Pontiacs to President to Porsches
Scattered clouds hang in a clear blue sky as Dawn walks toward pit row. Drivers from the Porsche Club of America (metro See She’s Off on page 32
412 N. Franklin St. • Watkins Glen, NY 14891 Open Mon-Sat 9am-8pm • Sun 10am-8pm
N. Franklin St. • Watkins Glen, NY 14891
*Subject to change based on NYS regulations. www.famousbrandsoutlet.com 607-535-4952
Famous Brands began in 1983, offering “famous brand” clothing and footwear at below retail prices. Since that humble beginning in a tiny storefront, we have grown to 30,000 sq. ft. covering 3 floors and half a city block, becoming a destination store for millions of visitors and locals alike.
Brands began in 1983, offering “famous brand” clothing and footwear at below retail prices. Since that humble beginning in a tiny storefront, we have grown to 30,000 sq. ft. covering 3 floors and half a city block, becoming a destination store for
Jimmy Guignard
Making Faces in Elmira
Jen Sekella’s Poetic Transformations Inhabit Przygoda Gallery
By Karey Solomon
When the nose on your face looks like one you’d ordinarily see on a dog or a kitten—complete with freckles and whiskers—or you’ve been decorated with butterflies on your cheeks, or flowers on your forehead, chances are good everyone who sees you will be smiling. If you got these decorations at an event in this area, chances are good Jen Sekella of Painted Love Face & Body Painting is the one who transformed you.
Jen says face painters and body painters are often asked “What’s your real job?” Or they’ll say, “It’s almost like art.”
More than almost. To use someone else’s face and body as a canvas, Jen draws on specific skills she’s honed for years. The Finger Lakes native was involved with art from childhood on, taking classes at 171 Cedar Arts and at the Rockwell Museum before earning a teaching degree, which
she did while also taking studio art classes. For a while she worked as a middle school English teacher, but art remained her true passion. A little more than ten years ago, a friend asked her to paint faces at a festival. Jen researched face painting techniques and best practices, then recruited friends as the models.
“It’s a constant learning curve,” she says. She mines advice from a worldwide community of face painters online, goes to conventions, and takes classes. What’s used on skin has to be FDA approved, she explains. The tools she uses that touch paint and people have to be washed and sanitized between clients. She needs to be fast (she usually has a line of people waiting to be painted). And for the person sitting in the chair being transformed, “It’s empowering and magic!” Jen says. “It’s a huge thing for me to help create that experience.”
Face and body painting has a long history, particularly among indigenous people. Doing it for fun may have been introduced to non-indigenous Americans in the early 1930s by Maksymilian Faktorowicz, a Polish-American inventor, entrepreneur, and beautician better known in America by his Anglicized name, Max Factor. He also re-created “makeup” as a noun while developing products for the movie industry that crossed over to become popular with middle-class women striving to transform their own appearances.
At the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago, Max painted an impressionistic zipper across nude burlesque actress Sally Rand, with the dark shapes of the zipper’s teeth strategically camouflaging parts of Sally that were illegal to display in public. Sally had only recently been released from prison af-
See Making Faces on page 16
Release your inner critter: At fairs and festivals in New York and Pennsylvania, Jen Sekella of Painted Love Face & Body Painting enjoys transforming people into whatever they can imagine.
GAFFER DISTRICT
Faces continued from page 14
ter her dramatic ride into a pre-fair opening party on a white horse, wearing only a scanty velvet cape, a feat that earned her prompt arrest for public indecency.
Face painters work on a smaller but equally challenging canvas. The first thing you look at, Jen says, is hairlines. If someone has a high forehead, there’s more room to paint above the eyebrows, and often less room on the sides of the face.
“So you’re constantly altering visually before you even start to paint,” she says. “You have to design with the shape [of a face], be aware of facial structure. It’s not a flat wall but a three-dimensional surface, different from person to person, though with the same focal points. And often you have to move beyond designs you know.”
And it all gets done in about three minutes, often on wiggly children, a process that includes talking to each child about what they’d like. “Sometimes parents will say, ‘I can’t believe she’s actually sitting still and letting you paint her!’” Jen says. “But it’s an experience. She’s telling me what she wants and I’m trying to bring that to life with my entire attention on her.”
Most people gravitate toward cooler colors, though sometimes a child, examining the results, will surprise her by asking for a pop of brighter hue. “I love seeing how each skin reacts differently as a canvas,” Jen continues. “The same design on two different complexions might look entirely different.”
Painting faces has taken her interesting places, including a volunteer gig at Camp Good Days and Special Times, a Keuka Lake camp serving children and their families dealing with cancer. Jen, who had her own experience with breast cancer some years ago, says she had a lot of help getting through it, “and the idea that I can do something to help kids is very humbling. It’s a fill-yourcup thing to get to do that.” She calls her breast cancer journey “devastating and freeing.”
Jen says, “I stopped worrying about a lot of things. It makes you do a reckoning.” She began writing poetry, combining that with her visual art and culminating in her upcoming solo installation at the Przygoda Gallery at Community Arts of Elmira. She characterizes the show as being “about me and what I’m willing to bare to the world.” Jen received a grant for this project through the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, allowing her to hire models, whose painted forms will illustrate poetry based on her lived experiences.
“Jennifer has pushed herself and her work to reveal the deep pain of struggle as well as the visceral joy of celebration in a rare mix of compelling complexities that we recognize in our own humanity,” says Lynne Rusinko, president of the Community Arts of Elmira’s board of directors.
The gallery is at the 413 Lake Street, Elmira. Jen’s opening is September 6, and her show runs through October 19. For more information, visit communityartsofelmira.com or call (607) 8462418. Contact Jen through Facebook at Painted Love Face & Body Painting, or at (607) 857-5417.
Karey Solomon is the author of a poetry chapbook, Voices Like the Sound of Water, a book on frugal living (now out of print), and more than thirty-six needlework books. Her work has also appeared in several fiction and nonfiction anthologies.
Sponsored
PA wild and wintergreen: Skip Cavananaugh (second from left) attends the April 2023 ribbon cutting for Woodside Oils, a dōTERRA production facility in Kane. With him from dōTERRA are (l to r) Ben Platt, Corey Lindley, Tim Valentiner, A.J. McGarity, and Shannon Bible. Inset: Skip tends the fire in the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum’s birch still in 2016.
Still Life with Railroad
Skip Cavanaugh Distills Birch Oil and Rural Wisdoms from the Pennsylvania Wilds
In August of 2023, at the dōTERRA Global Conference in Salt Lake City, the atmosphere was buzzing as nearly 10,000 attendees celebrated the rollout of a new line of birch essential oil. dōTERRA, the international company known for unadulterated and uncontaminated essential oils whose sourcing team is renowned for exhaustively researching their methods of oil production, kept coming back to one name within the realm of birch oil production—Grant “Skip” Cavanaugh. The jumbovision screen played a story of Skip, the world’s expert on birch oil, as he described his childhood in the woods of Tioga County with his father learning to run a birch oil still. It is Skip’s attention to detail and over 100 years of family records that made him the key to bridging methods of the past with commercial production. With silver hair and smile lines etched deep around blue eyes, he spoke about the art of birch oil production.
By Anne Alexander
Ben Platt, dōTERRA director of strategic sourcing development, said, “We’ve done a lot of due diligence to try and figure out where we should be centered for birch oil production, and Skip not only reassured us that producing birch oil was possible on a commercial scale, but he also willingly coached us through the process of when to harvest and how to harvest, so that we could produce pure birch essential oil.” dōTERRA opened their distillery, Woodside Oils, in Kane, Pennsylvania, four months before Skip addressed the dōTERRA Global Conference.
His voice echoed throughout the arena, drawing everyone in like the comforting rumble of an approaching train. He shared his journey, not just as a craftsman of oil of wintergreen, but as a steward of things that might otherwise be lost. It was through Skip, and cooperation with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, that an authentic wood-fired
birch oil still was built at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum on Route 6 east of Coudersport. It opened for operation in 2012 and continues to today for annual special events. When he’s there, Skip always draws a crowd. His winning smile and gift of storytelling appeal to anyone curious about the craft and local history.
Growing up alongside the railroad tracks and Marsh Creek in Stokesdale, a collection of homes along Routes 6 and 287 just west of Wellsboro, Skip knew the rhythm of the trains by heart—the distant whistle echoing through the valley and the wheels clattering on the metal rails, a source of steady comfort and income for his family. The rhythmic chugging of the engines was not just a sound; for Skip, it was the heartbeat of an industrial age. Every Friday through his youth, he would accompany his father to the railyard where he would be loaded into one of the electric diesel locoSee Railroad on page 20
Courtesy
PA Lumber Museum
motives to tag along as cars were jockeyed around the yard. His father and uncles worked for the railroad, firing the engines that connected their small town to the wider world. When the trains stopped rolling for Skip’s father, who was laid off amidst the shifting tides of industry, he transitioned to farming the celery flats at Wellsboro Junction during the growing season and producing birch oil during the winter. Under his father’s guidance, Skip became the fifth generation in his family to master this art. The warm scent of wintergreen mingled with the forest air, wrapping around him in the form of steam rising from the still box.
In 1965, Skip landed a job at the Corning Glass Works Wellsboro Division, working his way over the years to supervisor, becoming intimate with not only light bulb production, but with the railroad tracks that provided the plant with raw materials. It was his responsibility as the plant’s technical general manger to inspect the company’s section of tracks for hazards. As he walked the lines, he saw the rail bed was eroding, becoming less and less safe for both trains and the residents of Stokesdale.
“Sometimes a storm would bring the water level of Marsh Creek up four feet above the surrounding yards,” Skip recalls. “The only thing holding it back was the rail bed, which wasn’t intended to be used as a dike.” He recognized the danger to not only the supply line, but to the surrounding communities. But the railroad company refused to repair the problems, citing too high a cost.
“There weren’t a lot of us living in Stokesdale at the time, so we all got together to talk about what was going on,” Skip remembers. “I said, ‘Somebody needs to do something.’ I remember a neighbor’s big, calloused finger jabbing me in the center of my chest as he hollered, ‘I nominate YOU, Skip Cavanaugh!’ Everyone present agreed, and that’s how I became the mayor of Stokesdale. You could say that I was literally railroaded into it.” Skip laughs at that. He has, though, worked tirelessly, attending meetings, appealing to the county commissioners, applying for funds, and rallying support from the surrounding communities and government entities.
His dedication led not only to the purchase of land and restructuring of the railroad bed as the northeast extension of the Pine Creek rails-to-trails, but also to the relocation of a portion of Marsh Creek to achieve a more stable channel and to enhance fish habitat. The once-busy train route is being transformed into a walking/biking trail, with plans to include a visitors’ center and informational kiosks along the way. Skip’s vision that started in 2005 as a flood control project continues to expand as the Marsh Creek Greenway develops into a route connecting Wellsboro with the rail trail.
Nowadays, Skip is retired from many of his interests, but continues to volunteer when he can at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum, sharing his knowledge and expertise. He distills his stories about producing birch oil, and about his days along the railroad and Marsh Creek, for all who’ll listen. Like trains leaving the station, each story is a reminder of where Tioga County came from and where we might go.
Anne Alexander lives in Nelson, Pennsylvania, with her family. Most days you’ll find her at her forge, Higher Ground Welding & Art in Elkland, making original sculptures or repairs, but during the Bark Peelers’ Festival you’ll find her at the old birch oil still.
Shooting into the Future
New Leadership Takes Aim at Cowanesque Rod and Gun Club
By Chris Espenshade
Nailing the target begins with a strong foundation—your position. You screen out distractions and focus on the task at hand. Improvement is not going to happen overnight. There will be setbacks, days when the skeets fall to the grass unmolested and the ten-ring (the center ring of a paper target) is unblemished. Then, even as you achieve your initial goal, there is always room for improvement.
While the above description applies to various forms of target shooting, it is equally applicable to the operation or rejuvenation of a rod and gun club. Specifically, the Cowanesque Valley Rod and Gun Club in Elkland, at the border with New York. Interesting changes are taking place at CVRGC.
In general, rod and gun clubs are a twentieth-century phenomenon. While some were established earlier—the Corry Rod and Gun Club in Columbus, northwestern Pennsylvania, is more than 150 years old—most clubs were created in the
1930s through 1950s. In those days, the National Rifle Association, founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, was urging the creation of facilities to teach safe riflery skills, and a wave of World War II veterans came home with a desire to target shoot and hunt. The mid-century also saw skeet and trap shooting evolve from a hoitytoity activity of the upper classes to a populist means of honing scattergun skills.
The essence of such clubs boils down to four ingredients: comradery, safety, access, and education. Comradery is the social aspect, hanging around with sportspersons with common interests. Some clubs even have restaurant and bar access as part of their membership package.
Not everybody has their own property where they can safely shoot a variety of weapons. Gun clubs allow a pooling of resources to develop safe facilities for skeet, trap, target rifle, and target pistol. Teaching firearm safety is also a priority.
Access is certainly related to safety. The
average Twin Tiers resident cannot afford their personal skeet/trap range or benchshooting setup. Club membership provides the opportunity to use the range facilities and to participate in a variety of events and contests.
The education component includes improving the skills of existing shooters and recruiting and training the next generation of gun enthusiasts. Clubs have figured out that offering interesting, family-friendly events is often the key to attracting potential members. Clubs have also learned that years of the good-old-boy nature of their establishments was discouraging participation and membership by women.
CVRGC was at a crossroads less than a year ago. Membership had stagnated and the facilities were in dire need of upgrades. Only a handful of people were committed to the organization. Ken Shadle, the current CVRGC president and owner of Shadle’s Firearms in Knoxville, notes that lack of member contributions in terms of time and
A range of possibilities: Cowanesque Valley Rod and Gun Club President Ken Shadle (right) and Vice President Matt Dunbar have stepped up to grow the club and improve the facilities.
labor is always an issue with 501(c)(3)s like CVRGC, and believes that, in general, “not-for-profits are a dying thing.”
Luckily for CVRGC, a new generation of leadership has stepped up to the proverbial plate with a commitment to resuscitating the organization. Ken, Vice President Matt Dunbar, and Secretary/Treasurer Autumn Brown, Ken’s wife, recognize that they and the other officers of the club will be doing the heavy lifting for the next few years. Ken says their mission remains “realistically to promote comradery and safety” and to “educate the next generation.” Their short-term goals include improvement of the access road and parking lot at the pistol range, and overhaul of the five skeet houses.
The club occupies fifty-three acres at 128 Addison Hill Road under a ninety-nine-year lease from Elkland Borough. The facilities include a pavilion and a headquarters building.
“The club features a ten-lane outdoor rifle range with various targets out to 300 yards,” Ken explains. “There is also a six-lane indoor portion which allows shooting out to 300 yards from inside on the rifle range. The pistol range features a six-lane covered shooting area with various targets out to twenty-five yards. You can shoot at the swinging metal targets or staple your own up for a more customized experience. The club has two trap and two skeet fields as well.”
In addition to leasing their facilities for private parties, the club donates its pavilion and hall to numerous community events. The club’s annual Gun Bash is September 7. This carnival-like event will have family-friendly contests including axe throwing, darts, and ring toss. At least ten firearms will be up for grabs, with prizes exceeding $20,000. There will be 350 tickets available for a forty-dollar donation, and this event is likely to sell out. Tioga County’s Second Chance Animal Sanctuaries will receive proceeds from one of the games.
Ken and Matt are both veterans and are active with the Westfield American Legion Post. The club will host a veterans appreciation celebration on September 14 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free and there will be games for the entire family. Meals will be available for purchase.
The most popular club events last year were the Cosmic Clay shoots. This trap shooting experience takes place after dark, using black lights to highlight the skeet. Each shooter faces fifty targets. Cosmic Clays will start again in October. Previous Cosmic Clay events have sold out quickly, so call (814) 258-5326, or check cvrgc.com or Facebook for dates and times, and sign up early.
Also in October, CVRGC will host an educational event on deer processing and a Youth Field Day, and will continue to offer the state-required hunter education classes. A tree stand safety class is planned for the fall, too.
Annual membership is thirty-five dollars for adults, ten bucks for junior members, and free for active military and law enforcement personnel. Lifetime membership is $400. If you are looking for a club, good things are happening at CVRGC. They’d love to see you.
Chris Espenshade is a professional archaeologist, an outdoor columnist, and a resident of Wellsboro. He is working to add wildlife photographer to his resume.
Rod & Gun Clubs abound in our area, each with their own regulations, rules, facilities, and events. Find one near you. Those that don’t have websites can be found on Facebook.
Cowanesque Valley Rod and Gun Club cvrgc.com 150 Dry Run Road, Elkland, PA
Nessmuk Rod & Gun Club nessmukgunclub.com 4646 Route 287, Wellsboro, PA
Hillside Rod and Gun Club hillsiderodandgun.org 625 Gulick Street, Blossburg, PA, (570) 638-3516
Lambs Creek Sportsmens Club sites.google.com/view/lambscreeksc/home 339 Sportsman’s Club Road, Mansfield, PA, (570) 662-7850
Morris Rod and Gun Club 18 Back Street, Morris, PA, (570) 447-2587
Troy Rod & Gun Club Gate 3 Alparon Community Park, Troy, PA
South Creek Northern Tier Sportmsman Club 585 Roaring Run Road, Gillett, PA, (570) 537-2088
Consolidated Sportsmen of Lycoming County cslcpa.org 6386 PA-87, Williamsport, PA, (570) 435-5480
Genesee Rod and Gun Club 747 Grover Hollow Road, Genesee, PA, (814) 228-3857
Chemung County Rod and Gun Club chemungrodandgun.50megs.com Lattabrook Road, Breesport, NY, (607) 796-9090
Corning Fish and Game Club sites.google.com/view/cfgclub 3472 Dyke Road, Corning, NY, (607) 377-5203
Bath Rod and Gun Club bathrodandgunclub.com 7771 Telegraph Road, Bath, NY
Sullivan Trail Rod and Gun Club 1525 Greatsinger Road, Elmira, NY, (607) 733-0107
Pine City Sportsmen’s Club 187 Mountain View Drive, Pine City, NY, (607) 733-4928
Branchport Rod and Gun Club 3061 Armstrong Road, Branchport, NY, (315) 595-2809
Yates County Sportsman’s Association myyatescountysportsmensassociationinc.com 424 Route 54, Penn Yan, NY
Addison Fish and Game Club 8482 McCarthy Road, Addison, NY, (607) 359-2542
Field Notes
The Great Migration Is Upon Us
By David Nowacoski
Each year, around the beginning of September, an amazing phenomenon happens across the small towns of northern Pennsylvania. Sometimes, if you get up very early, you can catch a glimpse of the wonderful migration of young humans.
Incredibly synchronized, they all somehow know when to start this march each fall. Barely awake, these little ones haul themselves out of their bedding areas and out onto the paths that connect their homes. They gather, in small bands, at each intersection of the pathways, waiting for exactly the right moment to proceed.
Restless, they clutch provisions in bags and lunchboxes as the moments tick by. Sometimes the pressure becomes too great and skirmishes erupt. Bobby tells Suzie she looks like a frog. Suzie sticks her tongue out, a show of defiance and aggression to her challenger. The older ones in the band drift away from these troublemakers and insert peculiar white objects into their ears. This action has puzzled observers for quite some time. See, humans are social creatures, but over the last couple decades they prefer to have white objects in their ears rather than communicate with others of their kind. Why? It’s still a mystery.
Suddenly, all chatter stops. Heads spin and look in the same direction. They can sense its arrival. The host that they will board for this migration approaches. Some sorting seems to happen. Instinctively they arrange themselves into some linear fashion to ease the process of climbing onto the host. It is truly amazing to witness…an immediate hierarchy is established and, without a word, is agreed upon.
Just then, we can see it. A large lumbering beast, displaying vivid yellow coloring that cannot be missed. It is not known why this relationship exists, but it actually stops right in front of this band of young humans.
In a most extraordinary show of trust and cooperation, it opens itself up and allows these young ones to crawl directly inside of its midsection. It closes itself up and lumbers on to gather more and more of these small tribes. We have recorded up to seventy-two young humans entering these yellow giants as they move from path to path.
And then, they are gone. The small towns become eerily quiet without the young ones around. The parents seem amazingly content with this arrangement as they go about their daily routines. Some of the other creatures, such as the canines, are less
enthusiastic. They seem to linger in doorways or by windows as if in hope the little ones will return.
And they do!
While the morning migration was subdued, the return migration is an explosion of energy. The yellow beast barely has time to open itself up as the young charge forth. They scramble, running in every direction as they seek out their way to their homes. The neat bags of provisions are drug behind them in their haste. From their disheveled appearance and the look of near starvation on their faces, we can only imagine how hard this trip was for them.
But they seem to recover quickly…by the time the sun rises again they will begin to gather once more for the great migration.
David Nowacoski grew up on a farm in East Smithfield and lives just down the road a bit from it still, where he runs WindStone Landing Farms and Delivered Fresh (deliveredfresh. store) with his wife (and high school sweetheart), Marla. He made his kids pick rocks from the garden and believes that sometimes a simple life is a more wise way to go.
Carolyn Straniere
Blossburg American Legion Post 572
10/19 Halloween Party
D.J. Kitzel: Keuka’s Master (Joy)Builder
Using Nature and Stories to Craft a Timeless Life
By Lilace Mellin Guignard
One day when D.J. Kitzel was a young man out of college leading wilderness trips, he had a touchstone moment as he was taking eighty kids from a karate camp on a canoe trip. The river was mellow, but a small ledge would dump a boat if hit sideways. D.J. eddied out just below to coach the kids through. The last boat had a spectacularly unfocused and uncoordinated boy in the stern. D.J. tried to get the boy’s attention as they approached, showing the boy the stroke he needed to do to straighten the canoe, but he didn’t notice. Anticipating having to fish them out and chase gear, D.J. watched as somehow the canoe shifted enough just in time for them to slide through upright— the boy in the back still clueless as to what had almost happened.
Later at the campfire, D.J. told the boy, in front of everyone, “You were amazing back there. You didn’t freak out at all.”
He praised the one thing he could honestly praise. The boy looked up at him and a switch flipped in them both. When he saw the boy physically change in a small but real way, D.J. realized that “no one can take away a skill or experience, no matter what else happens anywhere else.” He says, “That’s when I knew I wanted to work with kids.”
And he has. In June 2023 he retired from teaching after twenty-seven years. Or sort of did, because everything he does is teaching. And everything he does is building—walls, furniture, confidence, stories. It’s hard to pick out one thing at the center of his life because everything is hitched to everything else. To underscore this, D.J. sprinkles his conversations with favorite quotes from Whitman or Muir or Thoreau. He contains multitudes.
These days he lives in Branchport and wakes early to do chores—the rooster crows
at 4 a.m.—then comes in for a second breakfast, frying up Adirondack red potatoes with garlic, all from the garden. He takes a plate to his partner, Sarah Carson, whose summer office is the screened porch off the deck. Several doors have Keuka Lake carved into them. A covered bridge across the creek leads to the horse barn, pastures, and solar panel array.
Brookside Farm dates back to the 1840s, but D.J. and Sarah bought it a few years ago when combining their households. D.J. has since built a log and stone lean-to in the woods where he does his spring sugaring. After building a table and benches for it, they listed it on Hipcamp, the Airbnb for campers. Guests can choose extras: a glamping package, horse experience, farm tour, outdoor guide, or boat and bike rentals. Heck, maybe he’d pedal you around in his motorless Tuk Tuk (a threewheeled conveyance), complete with red
Lilace Mellin
Guignard
Living deliberately: D.J. Kitzel and Stella share a quiet moment at the lean-to he built at Brookside Farms so others can enjoy a bit of the tonic of wildness and life in the woods.
fringe canopy and Chinese disco music.
He stores the Tuk Tuk in the top floor of the barn that also holds many varieties of human-powered boats as well as a homemade movie theater. And hay. The hay is important, not just for the horses, but for the barn’s structural integrity. He explains that, if left empty, this barn will collapse in on itself. The weight of the hay keeps pressure on the stones and the warmth from livestock in the winter keeps water from freezing between them. He believes people also fare better when we’re not left empty, when we do something that makes us feel useful. “All our ancestors could pick up a rock and make some kind of tool out of it,” he says. Not just because they had to, but because it gave them pleasure.
D.J. grew up outside of Rochester with water on three sides and trees on the other. Even when home didn’t feel peaceful and comfortable, there was always nature. “The woods feel like a big blanket,” he says. At St. Bonaventure University, majoring in English and minoring in Spanish and philosophy, he kept a canoe in the dorm basement. “When other kids went to mug club on Fridays,” he recalls, “I put my canoe in and floated nine miles downstream to the Route 219 bridge
near the Seneca reservation.”
While D.J. was always comfortable in nature, he wasn’t always comfortable in front of groups. He completed the coursework to become a teacher, but anxiety over public speaking kept him from student teaching, so he worked in sales after graduation. At twenty-five, he hiked the Appalachian Trail. He thought it’d be like Thoreau’s encounter, that “I’d attain enlightenment and levitate down from Mt. Katahdin. I thought I could just check that box.” It didn’t happen.
So, he got a job with a restoration masonry company to learn how to work with stone. It involved a lot of high, dangerous work, which he was good at. He also learned a lot about structural engineering, and moved up to foreman before starting his own company doing stone, brick, and timber framing. He’d gotten married and lived just outside of Naples. But ever since he’d returned (unenlightened) from hiking the AT, he’d worked at Pack Paddle Ski in south Lima because he “had to find some way to get paid to stay in the woods.” Not only did guiding keep him connected to the natural world, but it also helped him deal with his public speaking anxiety.
“I learned more about leadership riding around in the truck with the owners than in any teaching class,” he says. With a brandnew baby at home, D.J. needed a steady job and was now ready to complete his student teaching. Three weeks in, after a teacher fled that day, the principal spotted D.J. in the hall and hired him to teach tenth-grade English. That minute. Instead of a rural classroom imagine a Victorian family in need of a helper: D.J. was Nanny McPhee. His magic was that he’d experienced far scarier and less predictable creatures in the woods. (For that full story, search online for Rochester Storytellers Project: D.J. Kitzel.)
Thus began his public school teaching career, where he often worked with students challenged in a variety of ways. D.J.’s longest and last stint was fifteen years as an English teacher at Canandaigua Academic and Career Center, where he also taught woodcraft (skills needed to live in the woods). Classes still come to the farm to make maple syrup, press cider apples, and be around the “real magic” of horses. D.J. is a Forest School mentor at the Cumming Nature Center in Naples, and a few times a year gives workshops on rustic
Don’t be mortar-fied: D.J. Kitzel tweaks a dry laid stone wall built during a weekend workshop at Hunt Country Vineyards.
Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild 2024 Exhibit
14 - October 6
through Sundays 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. Gmeiner Art and Cultural Center • 134 Main Street, Wellsboro • 570-724-1917
Opening reception September 14 - 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Free admission to gallery View ~ Vote ~ Buy More information at mountainlaurelquiltguild.blogspot.com
Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild
Founded 1998 Serving Quilters in North Central Pennsylvania and the Southern Tier of New York
furniture making and the ancient art of dry laid stone. “My skill set is pretty eighteenth-century,” he jokes.
He’s not anti-technology. He’s grateful that Sarah, director of sustainability at Cornell University, understands the engineering of their geothermal heat and solar power. They even have a robot sweeper. But he’s not on social media because it’s not a tool he needs, saying, “I don’t need to learn stuff that’s ephemeral. Thoreau said, ‘Do not read the times, read the eternities.’”
Teaching adults how to see potential furniture in the shapes of downed branches, or to understand how to place a rock on a wall, is his way of teaching folks to “read the eternities.” His next workshop on dry laid stone, September 14 to 15 at Hunt Country Vineyards, includes a catered lunch and end-of-day glass of wine. (Find out more at huntwines.com.) “You don’t have to be King Kong,” to be a waller, says D.J.
Suzanne Hunt, winery co-owner, says some sign up with a project in mind, and others just want to learn and be inspired.
“All ages and physical abilities are welcome,” she says. “You just do what you’re comfortable doing.” D.J. instructs how to move larger stones without picking them up, and the wall grows while stories are told.
Suzanne deserves the credit for keeping D.J. in the Finger Lakes when, years after his divorce, he considered moving to Vermont. She set him up with Sarah, and then set them up with Brookside Farm. She describes D.J. as a “true gentleman and rugged outdoorsman—exactly the type of person you’d want your best friend to be with.”
At sixty, D.J. has built a life full of connection, purpose, and play. His secret? “I’m doing things my inner ten-year-old finds joyful.” This may include, now and then, a barbaric yawp over the roofs of Branchport.
It’s a Whitman thing. D.J.
Lilace Mellin Guignard
Putting on airs: Wildflowers on Balsam Road outside Wellsboro made Bernadette Chiaramonte pull out her oils before picking up her camera again when she was done. “It was a very quiet uninterrupted day, with butterflies to keep me company.”
A Brush of Fresh Air
Step Outside into Wellsboro’s First Plein Air Festival
By Carolyn Straniere
Leaving behind the walls of the art studio and stepping out into the world of plein air art may be a new concept for some, but it has been around since the 1830s. Translated from French, en plein air means “in the open air,” where the artist paints outdoors with the subject in full view, taking advantage of natural light—sun and shadows. Its popularity increased in 1870s France with the introduction of tube paint and portable easels, allowing artists to take their medium with them (prior to that, artists had to mix their own paints from raw pigments, confining painters to their studios).
Monet and Renoir, French Impressionist painters in the late nineteenth century, were among the first artists painting en plein
The method spread throughout Europe and was soon brought to America, where artists like Mary Cassatt (a Pennsylvania native) chose to employ the outdoors as her studio. The idea has gained momentum over the years, with plein air festivals and competitions popping up across the globe and attracting hundreds of artists and curious onlookers.
“I attended a plein air festival in Michigan back in 2015 and thought it would be a
great idea for Wellsboro,” says Larry Harris, a member of the Wellsboro Art Club (and the only male in the group). “I was there for work and saw families having a great time enjoying the artists and their creations. I knew it was something we could do in Wellsboro with great success.”
After mulling it over for almost eight years, Larry proposed the idea of a plein air art competition to his Wellsboro Art Club colleagues during the group’s 2023 Christmas party. The response was positive. Fellow club member Colleen Krise says, “We’re excited for our first competition, which will be held September 13 and 14. It’s open to everyone, regardless of ability. We have three categories they can register for: professional, nonprofessional, and kids. It’s a competitive event with judges and prizes.
“The artists pick their own location, which can be anywhere in Tioga County,” she continues. “They’ll have eight hours to create their piece in order to have it judged. We’ll have a ‘Quick-Draw’ as well, between 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, the fourteenth. Friday night’s opening reception of the Wellsboro Wilds Plein Air Festival at the Deane Center for the Performing Arts
lobby will include a speaker. Saturday, there will be artists along Wellsboro’s Main Street and on the Green, where we’ll also have live music—an Appalachian Old-Time Jam! Old-time [style] musicians are welcome to join. The public is encouraged to come out to view the artists at work and ask questions. Saturday evening we’ll be hosting a reception at the Deane Center to showcase the artwork and have the award ceremony.”
Will there be a rain date? Colleen chuckles. “These are held in all sorts of weather. Artists bring tents, canopies, even painting out of the back of their vehicles.”
For more information on the festival or to become a member of the Wellsboro Art Club, visit their Facebook page or call (814) 331-5900.
Born in the Bronx, Carolyn Straniere grew up in northern New Jersey, and has called Wellsboro home for over twenty-four years, where she enjoys spending time with her grandkids and traveling. Carolyn lives with her four-legged wild child, Jersey, and daydreams of living on the beach in her old age.
Bernadette Chiaramonte
New York) prep their cars for the track, which the club has rented for the weekend. Club drivers are not professionals, but they take driving seriously and train with instructors before they drive the track solo. Club members rip around the track in morning and afternoon sessions.
A maintenance worker with a gray ponytail and beard near the start of pit row walks from behind his work cart festooned with weed eaters and other hand tools. He shouts at Dawn, “Hey! Is your radio channel number forty?”
“What?” she responds.
“Is your radio channel number forty?” he shouts again.
“No,” Dawn replies, with a chuckle. “I’m number one. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t have my radio with me.”
The worker throws his head back and laughs. “Number one? I like that better!”
Dawn waves and continues walking toward pit row. A staging coordinator, Lynn Finck, takes her green flag and her place at the pit row entrance. With a wave of her flag, Lynn starts releasing Porsches onto the track. Helmeted drivers flash thumbs up, turn right past Lynn, and mash accelerators, engines brapping as the horses are loosed. “This is cool,” Dawn says, whipping out her phone and videoing the Porsches speeding by.
Sporting a Watkins Glen black polo shirt, white pants, and a checkered flag pattern on her phone and her shoes, Dawn looks the part of a track president. But she also looks like a kid with the biggest slot car track ever, a kid who loves the cars, the fans, the staff, and the place where it all happens. Loves the noise. A kid who appreciates wine festivals and concerts. A kid who wants everyone to feel welcome. She’s like the spark that keeps the pistons of community firing. Or maybe the driver who keeps mashing the accelerator down, making history one turn at a time. Race on over to theglen.com to find the event for you. As Dawn says, “It’s a beautiful day. Where’s there a better place to be than at the track?”
Born in North Carolina, Jimmy Guignard teaches at Commonwealth University (Mansfield Campus) and tries to keep up with his family. Northcentral Pennsylvania reminds him of the North Carolina mountains, though with more bears and bald eagles and fewer barbecue joints.
BACK OF THE MOUNTAIN
Ready for the Second Cutting
When fall weather cooperates, a second cutting of hay is possible. During one of my wanderings along Stony Fork Road, the sun rising behind this colorful eight-wheel hay rake caught my eye. The wheels, which seem like suns themselves, refracted the light pouring down on the field of raked hay, as if basking in a job well done.
to have but she did choose UPMC.
- Linell S. Williamsport, Pa.
When Linell told her family she was going to UPMC Hillman Cancer Center for breast cancer care, she was relieved to hear them say it was the best place she could go. Today, with advanced treatments nearly behind her, Linell’s scans are clear. “I don’t know that I could have gotten any better care anywhere else in the world … and I didn’t have to travel far,” Linell says.
Learn more about Linell’s story and expert cancer care in north central Pa. at UPMC.com/ChooseNCPA.
