(Google Maps)

A request for the extension of site plan approval for a retail plaza in the Town of Ulster last week saw town officials reveal that what some local residents believe is a prehistoric circle of stone pillars is more Fauxhenge than Stonehenge — likely to have been erected in the mid-20th century.

On the relatively slender agenda for a Town Board meeting held on Thursday, February 15 was the request for the extension of site plan approval for Kingwood Park Plaza, a 14,400-square foot retail building proposed by developer Pasquale Iovieno which would also include ancillary driveways and 58 on-site parking spaces. The parcel at 1204 Ulster Avenue is directly behind Five Guys Burgers & Fries, and on that property is the circle of stone pillars roughly 75-feet in circumference described by Town Supervisor James E. Quigley, III as resembling Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, believed to have been constructed somewhere between 3000-2000 B.C.E.

According to Quigley, Ulster’s take on the venerable English edifice is decidedly more contemporary, seemingly having been built not by Druids nor by Native Americans, but by former town attorney Lou DiDonna.

“At 5 this evening I received a phone call from a citizen of the Town of Ulster asking me what the Ulster Town Board was going to do to protect the prehistoric stone monument that is on the site of the project,” Quigley said. “According to the tax map parcel views of the County of Ulster, the aerial views show a stone arrangement that looks like Stonehenge. So I was asked what the town is going to do to protect it. I made a commitment to check it out and call back the resident, and within 10 minutes I had three statements from two attorneys and a former town supervisor, who all had personal knowledge, that the structure was constructed approximately 60 years ago by the property owner as a park to take his girlfriend to. I state this because I want it clear that there is no historic structure there.”

Workers performing a partial restoration of Stonehenge in 1901. Unlike a similar theory regarding the ruin’s origin, the circle of stone pillars in the Town of Ulster was verified to have been erected in the mid-20th century.

Quigley said the initial approval process for the proposed retail project included a review of the state’s historic structure database, which does not include anything of note on the property. Still, the town board agreed to hire an archaeologist from SUNY New Paltz to review the structure, though it was unclear how much it might cost. Quigley said he expected it wouldn’t amount to much.

“I can’t believe it’s more than two hours’ worth of his time to come up … take a look at it and write a report,” Quigley said.

The area is now under construction

Kingston students are continuing their efforts to organize school walkouts in mid-March as part of a national movement to raise awareness about gun violence and to honor those who lost their lives in shootings. But some school officials say that student safety, even in a show of solidarity rooted in student safety, has to be a bigger piece of the puzzle.

Schools superintendent Paul Padalino this week said he planned on meeting with student government representatives and Kingston High School principal Kirk Reinhardt. He hopes to find a “happy medium” that allowed for voices to be heard without the potentially unsafe assembly of the entire student body in a relatively small space.

“Putting 2000 students on the front lawn of Kingston High School is just not a good idea, on a given date at a given time for a given period of time around an issue that could or could not be controversial,” Padalino said. “I think finding a place where the school board and administration can encourage students to have a voice, but to do it in a way that will have the least impact on their safety and the educational environment that we are supposed to keep in our school buildings is ideal.”

The National School Walkout is an initiative organized by Women’s March Youth Empower, a collective of teenage activists from across the country working within the larger Women’s March organization. The national walkout is planned for 17 minutes at 10 a.m. in each time zone across the country, one minute each for everyone who lost their lives in Florida.

While school officials said they won’t punish students for participating, they’re not openly advocating for it, either.

“This is a fine line,” said Padalino. “I think the [school] board really wants to support our students. If our students want to speak out about an issue, if they want to be heard, I really think our board wants them to be heard. That’s what we do. That’s part of the whole educational process, having students become advocates for themselves.”
Safety issues must also be considered, said Padalino. “At the end of the day, my job is to ensure the safety, health, well-being and education of every student at the school district. And in doing that I spend a lot of time, whether it’s about student walkouts or bus rides to school, worrying. My job is to think about what can go wrong.”

Asked by a handful of people during a meeting on Wednesday, February 21, the school board also declined to endorse the walkout. Michael D’Arcy and his daughter Scarlett, a KHS junior, were among those seeking support. Both made emotional pleas to trustees. The school board decided that it was not its place to have a say on the matter.

“The board of education did not endorse or give permission for a walkout,” said longtime trustee James Shaughnessy. “I don’t think that would have been appropriate. A walkout out is usually spontaneous and a sign of frustration and/or defiance. If it were sanctioned by the board of education, it would be an assembly, perhaps one that students had the option of attending.”

Shaughnessy thought student engagement in the conversation about gun violence was important. “I do hope that KHS students join the movement to demand a strong and effective response to gun violence in this country,” he said. “In any event, I want them to have an opportunity to show solidarity with their contemporaries around the country. I hope some of them join the march on March 24 in Washington, D.C.”

The March For Our Lives is a nationwide march scheduled for Saturday, March 24 organized by students in conjunction with Everytown For Gun Safety. Smaller marches will also take place across the country.

A second nationwide student walkout is also in the works for Friday, April 20, the 19th anniversary of the mass shooting by two students at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.

Students at J. Watson Bailey Middle School already held their own peaceful walkout and moment of silence, leaving school on Tuesday, February 20 to honor the victims of the most recent act of gun violence perpetrated on February 14. School officials at Bailey, including principal Debra Fitzgerald and vice-principal Dan Erceg worked with students to turn the event into a sanctioned school-wide response.

Padalino said he felt the event at Bailey was appropriate, but added he would have preferred it to take place indoors. With more time to make plans before March 14, the superintendent added that he hoped discussions with student leaders yields a safer option than assembling on the front lawn of Kingston High. “It’s not about us wanting to restrict their speech, because we don’t want to do that,” he said. “We want them to be heard, but to do it in a way that’s safe.”

Though school officials may not be able to give as much as students are hoping, Padalino said he appreciated that they’ve become so engaged in the world around them.

“What was the original purpose of having free public education in the United States? The purpose was to make sure that you had an educated citizenry who could vote and who could run the country,” Padalino said. “That’s what we want. It’s unfortunate that multiple tragedies had to happen. I think it’s a positive thing that kids are finding their voice and want to be heard, and want to have a positive influence on what the world that they grow up and live in is going to be like.”

The superintendent added that the debate about gun violence in schools may be different now than in the past because students are so actively involved.

“This is why we’re having the conversation, because it’s kids,” Padalino said. “Up to this point adults have had plenty of opportunity. Students leading this, especially the students from Parkland who are speaking out, I mean, we sit and hear them every night. It’s compelling. The significance of that is that they are realizing they can step up and make a difference and aren’t leaving it to other people.”

(Photo by Dion Ogust)

“If I didn’t do everything in my power to protect your children every single day,” said schools superintendent Seth Turner, “I could never live with myself in the event that something happened.”

Speaking to a crowd of over 200 assembled in the Saugerties High School cafeteria last Wednesday evening for a public forum on school safety, Saugerties police chief Joseph Sinagra said he would like to see local schoolteachers trained to carry firearms in case of an active shooter on school grounds. Sinagra’s comments came in response to a question about metal detectors. Sinagra said he believed metal detectors weren’t a good use of district funds.

“Everything costs money,” the police chief said. “There’s nothing more valuable to us than our children. But we have to spend our money wisely. Now, I’m going to dig myself a hole with the school board tonight when I say this. If we’re really going to have an honest dialogue about how we protect our children, let’s talk about teaching teachers to carry firearms.”

Sinagra’s comments were met with loud applause. The meeting, which included district administrators and the principals from all four elementary schools and the junior-senior high school, had been moved to the cafeteria from the media center when it became clear to school officials that there would be more attendees than expected.

If someone was looking to bring a weapon into a school, metal detectors wouldn’t necessarily stop them, said Sinagra. “If I’m going to come into this school armed, I’m going to avoid the metal detectors,” he said. “Or I’m going to sneak in here at night and I’m going to plant a firearm someplace.”

The opposing view was offered by school officials, including high school principal Thomas Averill. “I need to share an opposing view to chief Sinagra as far as my teachers being armed,” said Averill, who like Sinagra received a generous round of applause. “My teachers have an awesome responsibility. And if you don’t know, it’s an awesome responsibility to be in that classroom and teach those children. I’m all in for security, armed guards, the SRO [School Resource Officer]. But our teachers have to be in the classroom.”

Revisiting the safety plan

The size of the crowd at the forum presented a stark contrast to that at a public hearing on the district’s new safety plan, which drew no comments at a school-board meeting a month earlier. Board president Bob Thomann expected the subject to be revisited at a special board meeting this Tuesday evening.

The safety plan includes twelve fire and emergency drills each school year, including four with evacuations through a secondary exit. The plan also calls for the district to establish protocols for early intervention and conflict resolution, as well as what to do in cases of bomb threats, armed intruders, hostage and kidnapping, natural disasters, mass illness, bus accidents, and structural and system failures.

Superintendent Seth Turner, who served as chairperson of last week’s forum, said that he was pleased about the public engagement in the conversation about school safety despite the circumstances which had brought people out. “I’m glad they were here tonight,” Turner said. “We want to know their opinions. We have to work together on these issues.”

School safety measures

Turner shared some information about existing school safety measures. The ground-floor windows in all four elementary schools and most on those at the junior-senior high school campus have been strengthened with safety and security window films, a product of the 3M Company in Minnesota.

“They won’t call it bulletproof because if there are high-ballistic rifles those things could potentially still go through,” Turner said. “But a smaller .22 or a shotgun would likely be stopped, and a larger bullet would be slowed down.”

The district is also hoping to move ahead with enhanced video surveillance and other security upgrades. The program is in limbo while funding for school safety is discussed at the state level.

Though it was not without moments of tension, the safety forum was largely civil, due in part to the format. Attendees were encouraged to write questions on index cards, which were addressed to the panel by deputy schools superintendent Lawrence Mautone. School officials were able to tackle some, but not all, of the questions.

“What we don’t share is our building emergency response plans,” said Turner. “We don’t want the bad guys to know all of our practices. [But] we practice evacuation drills, lockdown drills, lockout drills, fire drills, high-winds drills, go-home-early drills.”

Most drills occur in periods 1-3 and 7-8 to avoid lunch breaks. “We usually don’t do a drill during lunch, because as you can see this is a big lunch room that holds a lot of people,” said Averill, “and it would be disastrous for us to leave the food at the table and try to come back in and [have students] scramble to find their place.” The district took note of this issue during a few alarms that “inadvertently went off” during lunch hours.

Law enforcement investigates

The extensive lengths the district and local law enforcement will go to investigate when a student is believed by classmates or others to pose a safety risk were also revealed. “A student said something that some other students took as a potential threat towards the student body or towards the school,” said Sinagra of an incident that took place February 15. “The school immediately conducts an investigation. The student is asked to leave the school. Parents are contacted. The police are contacted. We conduct a criminal investigation.”

When a student has the means and capability to carry out a shooting, Sinagra said, a process is followed. “There’s nothing more intrusive to a parent than having the police come to your house and say, ‘We need to speak to you and we need to speak to your child,’” he explained. “We try to be very delicate when we handle these situations. But we also know because we’ve seen it time and time again through school shootings that if we don’t investigate it as law enforcement, we miss the [red] flags, we miss the key points of the investigation, and this is how shootings happen.”

It doesn’t always mean the student planned on committing violence, but Sinagra said it was important to carry out an investigation whether a student is planning violence or not. “Sometimes our students are bullied and they overreact to a comment,” he said. “This is exactly what happened on Thursday. The student had no intentions whatsoever of hurting anybody. Once we determine that, we stop our investigation.”

The district’s best chance at preventing school violence is by helping students deal with their feelings in a constructive way, said Turner. During his time as superintendent, the Rockland County Psychiatric Center, with which the district has a relationship, has doubled its number of school psychologists from two to four, and increased its number of social workers from one to three.

“We’re educators,” Turner said. “We’re here to teach and help students develop self-discipline.” Turner hoped the district’s after-school options can also be beneficial to a student’s emotional well-being. “Do we ever have to deal with adolescents who have conversations? Yes, we do,” Turner said. “Do we ever have to deal with the rumor mill that gets on steroids? Yes, we do. I speak on behalf of every staff member who works in this school district, and I mean it when I say this: If I didn’t do everything in my power to protect your children every single day, I could never live with myself in the event that something happened.”

“They’re not going away”

After the meeting, the superintendent said he hoped it had been a success. “I just had a woman come up to me that is getting assistance for her son that would not have been getting that assistance had she not been here tonight,” he said. “For that it was beneficial. A lot of people walked out of here getting information about what we do for safety and security that they otherwise would not have known.”

School officials and students have been discussing plans for awareness-raising events and tributes to the victims in Florida, including a nationwide action on Wednesday, March 14, and another on Friday, April 20, the 19th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.

“The students have started to engage the administration at the secondary level about this,” Turner said. “We, the school officials, want to support the students in this endeavor. We want to help the kids coordinate something so it’s done in a safe fashion and it’s not just mayhem, and that they also get to make their points.”

There are some who believe the incident in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day could be a turning point in the national conversation about gun violence and school safety. If that’s so, Turner said, it would be because kids are having their voices heard. “The students are leading the way, and that to me is making the difference,” Turner said, “They’ve put a face on this tragedy, and they’re not going away.”

The discussion over a proposed 20-megawatt electric-generating power plant in the Town of Ulster continued last week with town officials holding a public scoping meeting to seek public input on the anticipated impacts of the project across a number of dimensions. Nineteen members of the public spoke during the meeting. Town supervisor James E. Quigley, III said it was clear that most of them would like to see the project simply go away.

“From what I’ve seen they’ve made up their minds,” said Quigley. “The comments I keep hearing are, ‘Just say no,’ ‘Just say no,’ ‘Just say no.’ That doesn’t even work for drugs.”

The town board is serving as lead agency on the project. It is tasked with assembling the scoping document and ensuring the Lincoln Park Grid Support Center proposed by Chicago-based energy concern GlidePath adheres to local, state and federal laws.

“The town board, and town itself, is in a difficult position,” said Quigley. “When you look at all the bodies of laws in New York State and all the requirements that have to be met through SEQR, there is no technical reason for this size facility that they can’t be met.”

The supervisor added that many of the questions being raised by area residents are also being raised by the town in its ongoing conversation with GlidePath.

“The concerns that have been raised heretofore have been the focus points of the town from the very beginning,” Quigley said. “With the exception of the fracked-gas issue, which is a national issue and a state issue, there is a body of law that is federal, state and local. And when someone comes and makes an application to the Town of Ulster planning board, we have an obligation to follow the law.

“And if in the process of the application and the study, they check all the boxes off and satisfy all the requirements under the law, if the town arbitrarily says, ‘No, thank you, your project is not approved,’ there will be a financial repercussion to the town. And that’s what we’re facing here: Some people don’t care. They don’t want it, period. Which is an arbitrary decision in relation to the planning and zoning laws in the Town of Ulster.”

The GlidePath power plant would operate on a small portion of a 121-acre site currently owned by Kingston Landing LLC off Frank Sottile Boulevard. According to the developer’s plans, a building housing the equipment would stand for between 30 and 40 feet in height. An exhaust stack would rise above the structure, and though developers were initially determined to keep that below the 100-foot height limit for the area. Developers last month said they’d scaled back the proposed height to around 80 feet, and hoped to get the stack lower than the tree line along the property, which is roughly 70 feet high. The project would include the 20 MW lithium-ion battery array and natural gas-powered reciprocating engine generators which would use on-site low-sulfur diesel stored in a tank if the gas supply were disrupted.

According to David Young, an engineer with the Chazen Companies, a Poughkeepsie-based planning firm involved with the project, the area housing the facility has been reduced from 3.09 acres to 2.3 acres, largely because of concern from nearby residents. “We’ve shrunk it down as much as we could and still accommodate the facilities that need to be on the site,” Young said. The total area of disturbance on the property would be 5.32 acres, with remaining green space at roughly 118 acres.

Involved in the presentation during last week’s scoping meeting was GlidePath’s chief development officer, Peter Rood.

Among the members of the public speaking at the scoping session was Sandra Pierson, a resident of Ulster Gardens Court, which she described as 161 units of “mostly elderly or disabled individuals.” Pierson said she and many others in the area surrounding the proposed site had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other respiratory issues that might be exacerbated by emissions from the plant. “I’m extremely concerned about emissions,” said Pierson. “I think it’s a very dangerous thing for those of us who are elderly. This is an extremely fragile group of people, and I really need to know that they are going to be protected.”

Air quality was also a concern for Judith Carpova, a Kerhonkson resident who said the facility going forward could set a dangerous precedent for Ulster County. “We have clean air here, and we’re proud of that,” Carpova said. “We prize it. It’s part of our tourism and many other economic benefits. But it also apparently makes us a dartboard for companies that can use us to exploit our clean air and pollute it and be able to be permitted to do so.”

Other concerns included the potential financial impact on property values, visual and sound issues, the impact on wildlife and others.

The safety of the facility was also discussed. “From a safety perspective, why would the sponsor propose a fossil-fuel-fired plant, mostly unmanned, in the middle of a forest which may be subject to external threat from natural causes or vandalism?” wondered Regis Obijiski, a Ledge Road resident.

Laura Hartmann, a member of TownOfUlsterCitizens.org and Democratic challenger last year to James Maloney for the Ulster County Legislature, said the proposed power plant raised many concerns, including environmental and fiscal. “GlidePath is not coming to the Town of Ulster to produce any significant jobs for our area,” she said. “They list four [jobs] in their EAF [environmental assessment form] for what is an unmanned facility. We understand that this project is being considered for the very much-needed tax revenue that it would bring to our town. But that shouldn’t outweigh the quality-of-life impacts and decrease in property investments that this will have on the residents and their futures.”

Quigley said he was encouraged by GlidePath’s willingness to listen to concerns from the public, and where possible, to adapt their proposal accordingly. “It’s a dynamic process, not a static process,” Quigley said. “There will never be a project that will be submitted on the first draft and the planning board is going to say, ‘Yes, that’s a great plan. We’re going to do that.’ There’s going to be changes. That’s the nature of the process. And here what you see is a very technologically complicated project that as they continue to consult with design engineers on the equipment, the project changes somewhat.”

The town board is planning to vote on seeking an extension from GlidePath for submission of the scoping document beyond the 60-day deadline to accommodate more public inquiry, Quigley added, something that is legally allowed by mutual consent.

The supervisor said the reason for the request was a simple one. “I’ve got 500 signatures on petitions and 187 PO’d residents,” he said.

The area is now under construction

Last week it was reported that a circle of stone pillars in the Town of Ulster believed by some to have been built in prehistoric times was more likely to have been erected in the mid-20th century. This week, town officials revealed “Fauxhenge” had been even newer than they thought.

A request for the extension of site plan approval for a retail plaza in the Town of Ulster during a meeting held February 15 brought the issue to the fore. Kingwood Park Plaza is a 14,400-square-foot retail building proposed by developer Pasquale Iovieno which would also include ancillary driveways and 58 on-site parking spaces. The parcel at 1204 Ulster Avenue is directly behind Five Guys Burgers & Fries, and on that property is the circle of stone pillars roughly 75 feet in circumference.

Town supervisor James E. Quigley, III described it as resembling Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, believed to have been constructed somewhere between 3000 B.C. and 2000 B.C. In mid-February, Quigley said he’d been told by “two attorneys and a former town supervisor” that the structure was built approximately 60 years ago by former town attorney Lou DiDonna “as a park to take his girlfriend to.”

This week, Quigley said further research indicated the structure was more likely built in the 1990s. “I have aerial photographs of the property from 1979 from the town engineer: There were no rocks there,” he said. “And then after I got that map, I said, wait a second, there’s a map outside the town clerk’s office on the wall, an aerial photograph from approximately 1982. There were no rocks. In talking around town I’m getting feedback that says he did it in the early Nineties. So at the end of the day, it’s not 50 or 60 years old. It’s 25 years old.”

Quigley said some local residents believed the structure was prehistoric and because it held significant historic and cultural value should therefore be protected.

One woman had started a Facebook petition to save the circle of stones. “I explained it to her,” Quigley said. “I said, ‘This is not what you’re purporting it to be on Facebook, would you please remove the Facebook post?’ And she did.”

Another call came from a local man who recalled playing on the stones as a child. “And as we talked it through and I asked him to establish a timeline,” Quigley said. “I got to the point where we agreed on a range of time where he would have been playing there, which happened to be the mid-Seventies. And I said, ‘What would you say if I showed you an aerial photograph that proves the rocks were not there in 1979?’”

Quigley said he believed the matter has finally been settled, even if some area residents may not be as sure. Plans for hire an archaeologist from SUNY New Paltz to review the structure were canceled in light of the new information, and the property owner has since removed the stone pillars. Fauxhenge is no more.

“Citizens are asking me to protect the rocks,” he said. “Unfortunately it’s a matter of private property rights. It is not a culturally significant artifact. So the owner has removed them.”

The Saugerties High School varsity girls’ basketball team won its second Section IX, Class A title in three years on Monday night, ousting reigning champ Red Hook 65-58 in a game played at Mount Saint Mary College. With the win, the Sawyers improved to 16-5 on the season and earned a bye in the semifinal round.

Saugerties dominated early in the game, racing out to a 17-10 first-quarter advantage and taking a five-point lead into intermission. In the third quarter, though, Red Hook got hot, and the two teams were knotted at 44 points apiece heading into the final frame.

Over the course of a basketball season, teams will see their fortunes rise and fall, with everyone from stars to role players having a chance to play a part in pivotal moments. Julia Quinlan, a sophomore guard, was the right player at the right time for the Sawyers on Monday night, coming off the bench in the fourth quarter to drill three crucial three-pointers. With leading scorer Grace Van Roy’s role diminished by foul trouble, Quinlan stepped in and gave coach Mike Melville the boost his team needed.

Quinlan’s treys were her only points of the game, but the Sawyers were buoyed by Grace Van Roy’s 21 points, and solid shooting nights from Erin Dudzic (12 points), Anna VanRoy (eight points), Jaclyn Murphy (eight points) and Christie Collins (six points).

The Sawyers had a much easier time in the semifinals on Saturday, March 3, when they played host to Goshen, winning 59-32. Saugerties outscored Goshen 21-4 in the first quarter, and while the team sagged a bit in the second quarter, the result was never in doubt.

Grace Van Roy led Saugerties with 17 points and six rebounds, while Anna Van Roy (eleven points, eight rebounds, six blocks), Murphy (eleven points, six assists), Dudzic (three points, five steals) and Collins (three points, three blocks) also contributed significantly.

The Sawyers look to punch their ticket to the state Final Four this Friday, March 9 when they play a regional final against either Rye (Section I) or Seton Catholic (Section IV).

(file photo)

Students at Kingston High School are moving forward with their plans to walk out of class next week as part of a national movement to raise awareness about gun violence and honor those who lost their lives in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

While Kingston City School District school officials have expressed concern about safety surrounding the walkout, they’ve said they won’t punish students for participating.

“It’s not about us wanting to restrict their speech, because we don’t want to do that,” said Superintendent Paul Padalino. “We want them to be heard, but to do it in a way that’s safe.”

The ENOUGH National School Walkout is an initiative organized by Women’s March Youth Empower, a collective of teenage activists from across the country working within the larger Women’s March organization. The national walkout is planned for 17 minutes starting at 10 a.m. in each time zone across the country on Wednesday, March 14 — one minute each for everyone who lost their lives in the Florida shooting one month earlier.

At a meeting of the Kingston school board on Wednesday, Feb. 21, trustees declined to endorse the walkout, though, like Padalino, they cited safety among their reasons.

“It should not be presumed that just because we’re on the [school] board that we don’t feel the same grief,” said Trustee Suzanne Jordan. “As Dr. Padalino said, the safety of our students and our schools and faculty and administrators are the most important thing. And it is a sad day that we have to have this discussion.”

Students at J. Watson Bailey Middle School have already held their own peaceful walkout and moment of silence, leaving school on Tuesday, Feb. 20 to honor the victims in Parkland.

Initially planned as an impromptu student demonstration, school officials at Bailey, including Principal Debra Fitzgerald and Vice Principal Dan Erceg, worked with students to turn the event into a sanctioned school-wide response.

Padalino said he felt the event at Bailey was appropriate, but added he would have preferred it to take place indoors. Whether a possible similar solution for the March 14 walkout can be reached remains to be seen, but students are still planning to move forward in some capacity.

While the superintendent declined to endorse the walkout, he acknowledged last week that the debate about gun violence in schools may be different now than in the past because students are so actively involved.

“This is why we’re having the conversation, because it’s kids,” Padalino said. “Up to this point adults have had plenty of opportunity. Students leading this, especially the students from Parkland who are speaking out — I mean, we sit and hear them every night — it’s compelling. The significance of that is that they are realizing they can step up and make a difference and aren’t leaving it to other people.”

Trustee the Rev. James Childs paraphrased the Old Testament (“…and a little child shall lead them”; Isaiah 11:6) as a means of offering similar faith in students to have their voices heard.

“I think we saw this happen in the ’60s when it was children that really made the civil rights movement effective,” Childs said. “And I think we’re seeing that now with the children who are stepping out and speaking out about the things that have impacted their lives and they want to see changed.”

Students at Saugerties High School are moving forward with their plans to walk out of school next week as part of a national movement to raise awareness about gun violence and honor those who lost their lives in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Sisters Kaia and Evi Dedek are among the students organizing the SHS walkout, which is still taking shape this week. Kaia said the more the word has gotten, the more students are planning to participate.

“We’re all really passionate about this cause,” said Kaia. “People are spreading the word, and I’m really happy that people are getting more involved.”

The ENOUGH National School Walkout is an initiative organized by Women’s March Youth Empower, a collective of teenage activists from across the country working within the larger Women’s March organization. The national walkout is planned for 17 minutes starting at 10 a.m. in each time zone across the country on Wednesday, March 14 — one minute each for every person who’d lost their life in the Florida shooting one month earlier. Organizers locally and across the nation are hoping school administrators, teachers, parents and the community at large support their efforts to raise awareness about gun violence on school grounds.

“We’re the core organizers and we’re going to get groups together soon to make signs and write letters to Congress, get them to spread the word,” said Kaia. “By ‘core organizers’ I mean we’re the ones who are talking to the principal and the school to help make this happen.”

Kaia said involving school officials like SHS Principal Thomas Averill and Superintendent Seth Turner in the planning of the walkout is crucial.

“If the school has our back it will be a much better experience and everyone will unite together as one,” Kaia said. “I would be OK with getting in trouble, but I know a lot of people were iffy about that, and I think it makes it so much better that the school is on our side.”

After a meeting focused on school safety held in the high school cafeteria on Wednesday, February 21, Turner said that students had already engaged in discussions with administrators about plans for awareness-raising events and tributes to the victims in Florida, including the March 14 walkout, and another planned for Friday, April 20, the 19th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.

“The students have started to engage the administration at the secondary level about this,” Turner said. “We, the school officials, want to support the students in this endeavor. We want to help the kids coordinate something so it’s done in a safe fashion and it’s not just mayhem, and that they also get to make their points.”

While there have been numerous school shootings in the nearly two decades since two students at Columbine High killed 13 people before committing suicides, there are some who believe the Parkland incident could be a turning point in the national conversation about gun violence and school safety. Turner said if so, it’s because kids like Kaia and Evi Dedek are having their voices heard.

“The students are leading the way, and that to me is making the difference,” Turner said, “They’ve put a face on this tragedy, and they’re not going away.”

Kaia agreed. “When we all do this our voices will be heard and it will have a much bigger impact on Congress, and they’ll kind of feel like they have to do something now,” she said. “I would hope that it would be harder for people to purchase guns. I don’t think anyone needs any type of automatic weapon, and I hope they will eventually put a ban on that.”

Kaia added that the alleged shooter, 19-year old Nikolas Cruz, was another young life lost, if not literally, then possibly to mental illness or depression.

“I think about the age of this boy, and he clearly was in some mental state,” she said. “That really made me sad. It’s like broken children doing this. Mental health is a real issue that people are overlooking.”

Last month, Turner also said that the school district’s best chance at preventing school violence of any kind is by helping students in crisis. The district has a relationship with the Rockland County Psychiatric Center, and during Turner’s time as superintendent has doubled its number of school psychologists from two to four, and increased its number of social workers from one to three.

A student speaker addresses her classmates (BOCES)

Some 400 to 500 students at the Saugerties Jr./Sr. High participated in a nationwide walkout this morning in the senior-high gymnasium as tribute to the 17 students and staff members in Parkland, Florida who lost their lives to gun violence on campus a month ago. Students packed the bleachers and court.

It was by inside accounts a positive experience. “It’s such an amazing feeling of unity,” said Lula Rappoport, a senior at Saugerties High and one of the student organizers of the walkout. “I am honestly so overwhelmed and happily taken aback by the response.”

The walkout was an initiative organized by Women’s March Youth Empower, a collective of teenage activists from across the country working within the larger Women’s March organization. The national walkout was planned for 17 minutes starting at 10 a.m. in each time zone across the country, one minute each for each life lost in the Florida shooting. Organizers estimated beforehand that as many as 3000 different schools across the country would participate in the collective walkout.

(Max Martinez)

In an open letter posted to the school district’s website earlier in the week, schools superintendent Seth Turner said that the 17-minute walkout would occur indoors on a closed campus, under the supervision by school officials and with uniformed local police officers stationed at both entrances to the school grounds.

While all students who wanted to participate were allowed to, no one was forced to join in. “All interested students in grades seven to twelve may participate in the walkout if they choose, and there will be no disciplinary consequences for those attending,” wrote Turner. “We also recognize that some students may not wish to participate. We respect and support that decision as well, and we expect each person to be allowed to make her/his own decision about participating without pressure or criticism from others.”

In his letter, Turner said that the district supported the students in peaceful protest. “As a district, we encourage our students to develop the skills to become engaged citizens who take an active role in the civic life of our country,” Turner wrote. “Freedom of speech is a cherished American right. We support our students in their exercise of that right.”

(Lula Rappoport)

Rappoport said the atmosphere was ideal because of the work student leaders and school officials did beforehand. “The administration was extremely accommodating and helpful,” she said.

Students signed petitions in favor of stricter gun legislation and increased mental-health services, listened to speeches by fellow students, and honored victims and survivors with a prayer circle led by eleventh grader Max Martinez, another student organizer.

“Helping plan this walkout I thought maybe 100 people would show, but to see a half a gym full of students made me feel amazing,” said Martinez. “To see how many other students can come together with us for such an important topic is just amazing. There is no reason for young children being shot going to school. We need better school security, we need more mental health help, and we need more gun control. People say guns are not the problem, it’s the people behind them, and that’s why we need gun control.”

Rappoport stressed that the walkout was not just about gun control, but honoring victims, coming together, and whatever each student who chose to participate felt most strongly about. It was also an opportunity for young people to come together and have their voices heard.

Supporters of the students demonstrated outside (photo by David Gordon)

“Our walkout gave students a voice and place to feel listened by administration and the press,” said Rappoport.

Martinez agreed, adding that the local walkout was buoyed by the national movement. “These walkouts are nationwide and a step towards making a change,” he said. “We say enough is enough. Our politicians need to take action. We as students should not be scared to walk into school. Parents should not be scared to send their kid to school. People say it will never happen to us. Maybe they’re right, but all the schools thought the same thing before it happened to them. We say, Enough is enough and we will not stop until change is made.”

(Photo by Phyllis McCabe)

Hundreds of students at Kingston High School  participated in a nationwide walkout this morning in tribute to the 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. who lost their lives to gun violence on campus one month earlier.

The ENOUGH National School Walkout was an initiative organized by Women’s March Youth Empower, a collective of teenage activists from across the country working within the larger Women’s March organization. The national walkout was planned for 17 minutes starting at 10 a.m. in each time zone across the country on Wednesday, March 14, one minute each for everyone who lost their lives in the Florida shooting one month earlier. Organizers estimated that as many as 3,000 different schools across the country would participate in the collective walkout.

In a letter to parents earlier this week, Kingston High School Principal Kirk Reinhardt addressed the balance many school officials felt had to be struck between supporting students and wanting to keep them safe.

“As principal, I support the students’ freedom of speech and their participation in government and civic affairs,” Reinhardt wrote. “As a building leader, I have valid safety concerns about the idea of releasing nearly 2,000 students to the front lawn of a busy street at a nationally-publicized date and time. I am proud to say that we have worked with students to reach a compromise and create a collaborative and respectful event. It’s important that they are able to have a peaceful, organized, and effective demonstration. In order to accomplish this, students will be having a classroom walkout, congregating in the hallways for 17 minutes.”

But it didn’t exactly go as planned. While administrators discouraged non-sanctioned action, around 100 students followed the approved in-school walkout with an impromptu vocal protest along the edge of the Kingston High School campus on Broadway.

In addition to the walkout, members of the KHS student government read out the names and short biographies of the Parkland victims over the public-address system, and petitions were circulated on a wide range of topics.

Participation in the walkout was voluntary, and some students chose to stay in their classrooms rather than get involved.

Students make their point on the edge of school grounds. (Phyllis McCabe)

Sawyers cheer on their fellow team members.

In a Cinderella season which few would have predicted, the Saugerties High School girls’ varsity basketball team got to just one win away from the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Final Four. Falling 71-43 to Seton Catholic in the Class A regional final may sting a little, but the Sawyers will be back next year, perhaps even better for the experience.

“People don’t believe me now, but I really didn’t think we were going to be .500,” said Saugerties head coach Mike Melville. “The early schedule was Minisink Valley and Warwick, and then we went out to Binghamton to play Susquehanna Valley; they’re probably going to win the Class Bs this year. And then we went up to Amsterdam to play Guilderland and a team out of Utica, and I was scratching my head thinking, ‘What did I do to myself?’”

The Sawyers were just two seasons shy of their last Section IX, Class A title when they won it again this season. But Melville’s 2015-16 squad was very different to this year’s model.

“Two years ago it was [seniors] Kellyann [Averill] and Tanisha ([Edge], the 1000-point scorers. We had some great role players, but they were doing the heavy lifting,” Melville said. “This year it was kind if a 180, nothing like that at all. We had balanced scoring. We had leaders in the locker room and off the court — they’d lead by example. But as far as the stat sheets go, it was really spread out. And I think my style is better suited for that balance.”

That balance turned the Sawyers into a surprising force, a team in the truest sense of the word, with different players leading the balanced scoring on any given night. That got them past Red Hook in the sectional championship on Monday, March 5. But in the regionals on the SUNY New Paltz court four nights later, against a Seton Catholic team which had already dispatched top-seeded Rye, it just didn’t measure up.

Saugerties was used to playing tough opponents. As Melville noted, he’d stacked the early schedule with non-league games against perennial powerhouses in an effort to give his youthful team a sense of what they’d have to aspire to if they wanted to keep playing deep into March.

“We went to New Rochelle to scrimmage and up to Albany High to scrimmage, and Lansingburgh,” Melville said. “We scrimmage Kingston every year. The exposure that the girls got early in the year was the best basketball in New York State. We took our lumps and we took our losses, but I think it prepared us for that run in the second half of the year. We saw what we needed to work on and saw what we needed to do, and the girls kind of got on a roll there. It was fun to watch.”

It was fun to watch, right up until Friday’s regional final.

Unlike their opponents in that last game, the Sawyers didn’t seem to be having much fun. “They [the players] were tight,” said Melville. “It was a huge stage, one game away from the Final Four. We were tighter than I expected us to be going in. In the games before that we came out guns blazing, loose, shooting the ball and having fun. I think it was the bright lights.”

Seton Catholic, which moved up to Class A after winning the state tournament as a Class B program a year ago, may hit Class AA soon. It looked to Melville that the Sawyers’ opponents were ready to play. “For them it was just another game,” he said. “They were loose in warmups, relaxed. And I looked at my girls they were tight and quiet. And from the minute they stepped on the court I just didn’t get a good vibe from it.”

The game was a tale of two halves, and if there’s any good news to be taken from a tough season-ending loss it’s that the second half went much better than the first. The Sawyers found themselves in a 22-4 hole going into the second quarter, and their situation didn’t improve over the next eight minutes. At the half, the Saints were up 39-10, an insurmountable lead built on the kind of team play that was the hallmark of Saugerties’ own season up until that game. Four Seton Catholic players scored in double figures, led by Ava McCann’s 20 points. Marina Maerkl (16 points, 13 rebounds), Julia Hauer (15 points, nine rebounds) and Hanna Strawn (eleven points, six rebounds, five assists) also pitched in.

For the Sawyers, meanwhile, the trio of Grace VanRoy (ten points), Anna VanRoy (eight points) and Hilary Mulford (seven points) led the way.

It wasn’t all dismal for Saugerties in the first half; the team tightened up its defense in the second quarter, preventing Seton Catholic from scoring for four straight minutes, including six turnovers on nine possessions. But while the Sawyers only carved out a 5-0 run during that period, the Saints closed out the half with a 15-1 run of their own.

In the second half, the Sawyers outscored the Saints 33-32. The game was all but over and it was mostly playing for pride. But those 16 minutes also saw the Sawyers play like the Sawyers. And that’s good news for the 2018-19 season, when the entire team, including its starting lineup of the VanRoy sisters, Jaclyn Murphy, Skylar France and Erin Dudzic, will be back. And when they return, they’ll likely remember how this season ended and figure out how to make it last a little longer.

“It’s a learning experience,” Melville said. “In the second half we played them even and we could play with them, but you just can’t make the mistakes we made early and survive against a team like that.”

The Sawyers finished the season 16-6, a far more impressive record than they were supposed to have. Next year they’ll have targets on their backs. Next year they’ll be ready.

Saugerties girls’ basketball team after winning sectional title.

Ulster town officials this week revealed that their request to extend the public comment period on a proposed 20-megawatt electric-generating power plant had been denied by the project’s developer, Lincoln Park DG LLC.

The request for an extension by Town Supervisor James E. Quigley III came during a meeting last month after repeated requests from members of the public. Had the developer agreed, the town would have had until June 1 to submit the environmental boundaries to be studied under the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR); instead they’ll have until April 2, with public comment due a week earlier.

In a letter dated March 7, Richard J. Olson, an attorney with Poughkeepsie-based McCabe & Mack LLP, denied the request on behalf of the developer, claiming that the public has had ample time to study the parameters of the proposed project.

“While you write because of a request by the public for an extension of the scoping time frame, I would note that the public has been aware of this project since no later than December 15, 2017,” wrote Olson. “Several regional organizations sent a detailed six-page letter to the Town Board on December 15, 2017 which, among other things, included a detailed listing of no less than 11 specific items for inclusion in the scoping document. As of December 21, 2017 our client had created a public website (www.lincolnparkgridsupportcenter.com) explaining the project and has regularly updated the site with details about the project as well as copies of key project documents and presentations.”

The town board is serving as lead agency on the project and is tasked with assembling the scoping document as well as ensuring the Lincoln Park Grid Support Center, proposed by Chicago-based energy concern GlidePath, adheres to local, state and federal laws. Quigley said recently that he didn’t expect the extension request to be granted, and this week he added that he was under the impression that those opposed to the proposed project — many of whom have spoken up at public meetings over the past few months — were working under the same notion.

“From what I’ve seen from the correspondence over the last two weeks, the people who are in opposition to this project are going to do their best to meet the March 22-23 deadline for the submission of comments,” he said. “Just because we have a deadline, I expect 99.999 percent of the issues to be identified during the course of the comment period. We articulated a deadline. If they miss it, shame on them.”

Quigley added that even with the deadline, should new concerns arise during the review process, those queries can also be addressed.

“Should there be an outlier there is a relief valve within SEQR that allows the issue to be brought to the attention of the lead agency in a certain process,” he said. “The biggest concern was, well what happens if something new comes up. There’s a provision in SEQR as long as you follow the rules. And I’m all about following the rules.”

The GlidePath power plant would operate on a small parcel of a 121-acre site currently owned by Kingston Landing LLC off Frank Sottile Boulevard. According to the developer’s plans, a building housing the equipment would stand for between 30-40 feet in height; an exhaust stack would rise above the structure, and though developers were initially determined to keep that below the 100-foot height limit for the area, though developers last month said they’d scaled back the proposed height to around 80 feet, and hoped to get the stack lower than the tree line along the property, which is roughly 70 feet high. The project would include the 20 megawatt lithium-ion battery array, and natural gas-powered reciprocating engine generators which would also use onsite low-sulfur diesel stored in a tank if the gas supply is disrupted.

Mike Melville with his family.

Most members of the Saugerties Sports Hall of Fame are there for past accolades, records broken and big games won during their high-school days. That’s at least partly true for Mike Melville, a 1985 Saugerties High alum and 2018 Hall of Fame inductee. He played sports in all three high school seasons, and he played them well. But he’s also being honored for his post-high-school contribution to the local sports scene, up to and including his coaching of the varsity girls’ basketball team, which just wrapped a stellar 16-6 season.

Melville seems a natural fit for the Hall of Fame. His late father Ross Melville was inducted in 1999. But he admits to being humbled by his selection.

“I’m really kind of overwhelmed,” he said. “I’ve been going to the Hall of Fame banquets for 19 years now just in honor of my dad. He passed away in 2007. My mom and my three sisters, we go every year, and I’ve seen the people that have gone in ahead of me, and these are guys I grew up watching. I kind of looked up to them. I just can’t believe I’m considered in their class.”

Melville played numerous sports at Saugerties High, including baseball, football, and the one he’s probably best known for, basketball. He played modified football, moved on to other fall sports for awhile, and then returned to the gridiron as a wide receiver and backup quarterback during his junior and senior years.

By then, basketball had become his favorite sport.

But in the beginning, it was baseball. “It was probably my dad,” said Melville. “We lived in Barclay Heights and we had a little tiny front yard, and he’d be hitting me ground balls when I was four or five [years old] out front. That was his passion, baseball. I used to go watch him play softball up at Cantine with Maurice Hinchey and all those guys.”

Melville in High School.

Games at Cantine Field, whether watching them or playing them, is a formative part of the lives of many kids who grow up in Saugerties, whether they make the Hall of Fame or not. Melville played there, worked there, and watched his father play softball and the legendary Dutchmen teams play baseball there.

“I remember just being little, and it was like watching the Yankees. I remember riding my bike and being 13, 14 years old and sitting in the grandstand,” he said. Later, Melville joined the Dutchmen himself. “I was playing with a lot of my friends, all the Dodig boys. For me it was social, being with my friends, and playing baseball. It was a great time. Greg Helsmoortel ran the organization, and he made you feel like a professional.”

By then, Melville was a pitcher, a position he later played at Ulster County Community College. Before then he was in the hot corner, third base.

Baseball was the first organized sport in which Melville played, starting with the Grasshoppers, then Little League, and later Babe Ruth. But somewhere along the way, basketball became his favorite. “I think I was twelve years old when I started playing basketball,” he said. “I remember walking around the neighborhood and a friend of mine had a hoop up on a telephone pole, and we started playing one day. I really liked it, and that kind of became my passion.”

Melville played at all local levels, making the varsity team under head coach John Speirs during his junior and senior seasons.

“My junior year we had a really good team,” Melville said. “I played with Steven Freer, who was the all-time leading scorer. I was his point guard for two years. Him and I became best friends.  He was the best man at my wedding. I remember the first time meeting him was in eighth grade modified.”

After UCCC, Melville attended SUNY Cortland, where he studied physical education and played football as a wide receiver, free safety, and eventually tight end. He said he used the experiences to help guide him as a coach, something he’d already tried his hand at in his first two years of college. Melville coached modified football at SHS in 1986, as well as starting the school’s modified girls’ basketball program a year earlier.

Not long after college, Melville began dating his wife Dianne (née Longtoe), a 1984 SHS grad, and soon after he began teaching phys ed in an elementary school in the Rondout Valley school district. He stayed there eleven years, during which time his children Scott (now 23, a recent phys ed graduate of SUNY Cortland coaching basketball at The Albany Academy) and Michelle (18, a freshman at Bucknell University playing lacrosse) were born.

Melville’s time in Rondout Valley included a decade as the varsity boys’ basketball coach. His visits to Saugerties were sometimes noted by friends and fans alike. And that led, in a circuitous way, to his return to the district, this time as a phys ed teacher at the high school and a wildly successful varsity girls’ basketball coach.

“It was a Friday evening [in August 2001],” Melville said. “I’ll never forget it. Bobby McCaig was on the school board, and we crossed paths at Land & Sea [Grill]. Me and my wife were playing golf at Palenville — we lived in Hurley — and I was on my way home. They used to razz me a lot when I’d bring my team from Rondout, I used to coach football and basketball, and they’d bust my chops. [McCaig] looked at me and shook his head and said, ‘You need to come back to Saugerties.’ I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘I’ve been teaching eleven years, it’s kind of late for that.’”

After talking it over with his wife, Melville said he decided to give it a shot.

“We were looking at Bishop’s Gate, where we live now, because we wanted to build a house,” he said. “We had two little kids. My wife’s family is local, my family is here. I said, ‘Well, the chances of my getting it are very slim, but I’ll throw my hat in the ring.’ And sure enough I ended up getting the job. I was very surprised.”

The feelings of nostalgia were sometimes overwhelming for Melville, including one night where his sense memories took a trip through his old neighborhood. “I actually was driving home from the interview,” he said. “I lived in Hurley, but I accidentally drove to my old house where I grew up in Barclay Heights. I hadn’t been in the principal’s office probably since ‘85, and here I am in an interview for a job. I guess I wasn’t really thinking clearly, because I made a right turn at the old G-Tech, where World of Dance is, and I almost pulled into my old driveway thinking I was coming home from school.”

Melville draws a lot on his former playing days as a coach, as well as experiences seeing his heroes — including his dad — play at Cantine Field. It’s all very much part of the Saugerties experience.

“It’s the passion for the sports,” Melville said. “It wasn’t just a hobby, it was a lifestyle. I grew up with the Dodig clan, and for them sports is life. I didn’t have any older brothers. With them, Steve Freer, and my other friends, it was so competitive.”

He remembers summers at Cantine Field playing basketball. “You loved each other and you were best friends, but when you stepped out on the court you were going to win this game,” he recalled. “The level of competition, no matter how trivial the activity was, it was just all out all the time. And that’s how I try to coach, with that energy and passion.”

The 54th annual Saugerties Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony and dinner will be held on Saturday, April 14 at Diamond Mills, with doors opening at 5 p.m., a cocktail and meet-and-greet hour from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., and the ceremony beginning immediately after. Tickets, which include some drinks and dinner, are $30 and can be reserved by e-mailing Mike Hasenbalg at mikehasenbalg@yahoo.com or calling 914-388-2348.

Goalkeeper Steve Skonieczny. (File photo)(Ben Walsh | Stockade FC)

After months of rigorous training, much of it indoors and behind closed doors, Kingston Stockade FC will open its third-ever season with a couple of friendlies, a warm return to the friendly confines of Dietz Stadium, and will then open the year by playing in the 105th edition of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup just days before the National Premier Soccer League season gets underway.

Stockade FC earned their bid into the national tournament on the merits of their 2017 sophomore season, their first under Head Coach David Lindholm, which saw the semi-pro side thrill local fans on their way to an Atlantic Conference White-winning 8-5-1 record. The club, a popular choice among pundits to make the Open Cup, had an opportunity to punch their ticket last year, but their season-ending 6-3 loss to Clarkstown SC in the Northeast Region semis in late July left them wondering over the long, lonely winter whether they’d make the cut. Well, left some of them wondering, because neither Lindholm nor Club Chairman Dennis Crowley would admit to any sleepless nights.

“It was out of our control, so worrying about it wasn’t going to do anything,” said Lindholm. “It seemed like there was sort of a ranking for NPSL teams and it depended upon how many spots US Soccer was going to assign the league, and it didn’t seem like lobbying would get us anywhere, so it was just a waiting game.”

Crowley agreed.

“I didn’t even consider it,” he said. “I’ve been so distracted getting everything ready for the 2018 season.”

Stockade FC is among 52 open division teams in the Open Cup, just 19 of which are from the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL). All open division teams will play in the tournament’s opening round on Wednesday, May 9. Their opponent and the location of the game will be revealed in early April. While Kingston will likely be paired off against a team that’s relatively close geographically, Open Cup rules prohibit teams from the same qualifying pool matching up against one another. So no familiar NPSL foes in the first round; their opponent will either come from the smattering of local qualifiers or those in the Premier Development League (PDL). The tournament will see a tiered bracket and eight rounds of single-elimination play until a champion is crowned in September.

But while they wouldn’t cop to wondering if they’d make the Open Cup, both Crowley and Lindholm were very clearly pleased with the selection.

“When we were starting the club, we really didn’t have a sense of what was realistic and what was not,” Crowley said. “I remember there were moments during the first season where we won a couple of matches in a row and I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’ll make the Open Cup.’ And of course we ended up in the middle of the table and we were far from qualifying. Last season we won the conference championship, but we didn’t win the playoff game that would have given us an automatic berth to the Cup. And I remember looking at a lot of other teams around the country and thinking, ‘I don’t know if we’ll make this. Maybe that was one of our best chances.’ So have it come through and for us to play in it this year, it’s awesome. There’s no ceiling over what the club can do. We’ll tick that goal off and add another one that seems equally hard to achieve.”

Like Crowley, Lindholm said the Open Cup has always been a dream.

“It’s a really cool tournament, and it’s an opportunity to say that we’re playing the same tournament as the best players in the country and the best teams that America has to offer,” he said, “It’s really exciting, and to be in that conversation as a team that represents the Hudson Valley and with these players that take so much pride in that … Guys like Jamal [Lis-Simmons, two-time Stockade team captain], who grew up playing here and says all the time that he wants to put Kingston on the [soccer] map. It’s a dream come true and a great opportunity to represent the Hudson Valley.”

Knockout tournaments across different levels of competition are a long-established practice in soccer, and even though the sport’s recent rise in this country appears likely to stick, the Open Cup has survived through many fallow periods. Begun in 1913-14 as the National Challenge Cup, the Open Cup was the first nationwide tournament in the United States, with previous tournaments largely played regionally due to the impracticality of brisk long-distance travel.

Travel is still a factor in today’s Open Cup, though that’s largely because many teams in the lower-tiered leagues simply can’t afford to pay for transportation and lodging, even with the prestige the tournament brings. U.S. Soccer has sought to combat those issues by pairing clubs relatively close to one another in the opening round, with travel reimbursement available the longer a club stays alive in competition.

According to the rules of the Open Cup, each team in the opening round has an equal chance of hosting their first game, meaning Kingston’s could be played at Dietz before a decidedly partisan Stockade crowd. That decision will be revealed by U.S. Soccer on April 4.

Should Stockade advance, the second round is scheduled for May 16, the third May 23, and the fourth June 6. After that is the round of 16 in late June, the quarterfinals in mid-July, the semifinals in early August, and the finals scheduled for September 26. When Stockade insiders announced their 2018 tryouts, they talked about the upcoming season and how the schedule was beneficial because it allowed players to build energy between games. Now, at least as long as they stay alive in the Open Cup, the team is going to be very busy.

“I think it’ll add a little bit of urgency to the training sessions, but I don’t think it’ll change the way we’ll prepare a whole lot, or the way I’ll go about training,” said Lindholm. “But it’ll really encourage the guys to be working hard, even on days they’re not in training, to get a workout in, to touch the ball, just to be as ready for that as they possibly can. And that’ll be the message that I’ll send too: The season starts fast and starts hard, and the first game we’ll play will be this unbelievably important one.”

The team’s season officially gets underway with a home match against the NPSL’s Rhode Island Reds at Dietz Stadium on Saturday, May 12, just three days after the Open Cup’s opening round.

Todd Kramer with dad and fellow Saugerties Sports Hall of Famer Pete Kramer and son Kole at a Red Sox game.

Todd Kramer was a 13-year-old eighth grader when he found his athletic calling. Kramer, a 1986 graduate of Saugerties High and member of the Saugerties Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2018, found golf.

“A childhood friend of mine with the same first name, Todd Morgan, him and I used to go out on the Sawyerkill golf course and find and sell balls to the golfers,” Kramer said. “We found a club one day, started hitting balls, and I kind of got into it. I think what I liked the most is I could practice on my own most of the time. I didn’t have to do it as a formal team practice. You can do that a little bit in other sports, but golf is one you can practice totally on your own. I really enjoyed that. I got hooked on the fact that you can hit a perfect shot but you can’t consistently hit a perfect shot.”

Until then, he’d played a fairly standard ration of sports, including soccer, Biddy League basketball, and especially baseball. “Baseball was the main sport,” said Kramer. “My dad was a baseball guy.”

Parents Pete and Sylvia Kramer are retired Saugerties teachers. Todd Kramer said people still tell him how much they love his parents. Pete Kramer, a longtime sports coach in Saugerties, is also in the Hall of Fame.

Todd Kramer’s love of golf took hold quickly, and he joined the varsity team. “We were competitive,” he said. “I really wanted to play in that first year, and I’d been practicing a lot and playing a lot. I remember kind of working my way into the starting lineup as an eighth grader on a pretty decent team. It was a big deal.”

His talent and drive put him in the starting lineup, but at the expense of Mike Hasenbalg, a 1983 SHS alum and member of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2016.

“He was older than me, and I remember I took his spot as an eighth grader,” Kramer said. “That wasn’t popular with some of the older kids on the team, but Mike — and I remember to this day —  handled it with so much class. He came up to me and said I deserved it, and he encouraged me. I’ll never forget that, because it taught me how to take disappointment in the right way. He was only a high-school kid at that time, and that stuck in my head.”

Todd Kramer

Under coach Bob Varrell, the team had a staggering 125-2 record. Kramer’s accolades during that run are numerous: He was a four-year all-league award winner, twice qualified for the state championship, was a three-time team captain, and shared with his teammates four straight Larry Johnson Memorial trophies honoring the best golf team in the league. As a senior, he earned the Delisio Award as the most outstanding golfer in Ulster County. And he and his Sawyer teammate Billy Travaglione qualified for the 1984 Big I Insurance Classic.

“Out of New York State they took three golfers, and we were two of them,” said Kramer. “We got flown all expenses paid to Mississippi and competed in a national tournament. We met a couple of guys there that ended up playing on the PGA tour years later.”

Kramer also continued playing basketball in high school, as a center-forward for the Sawyers on JV and varsity. “I loved basketball,” he said. “It’s one of my true loves, but I wasn’t very good. I was a big body down low.”

Kramer continued golf in college as a four-year captain of the NCAA Division III team at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he also received his degree in political science. After college, he was a PGA golf pro for eight years, including a stint as head pro at Cat Island in South Carolina and Groff’s Farm Country Club in Pennsylvania.

He tried to make it playing the game full-time. It didn’t last. “I learned very quickly how expensive that is, and the truth was my game just wasn’t at that level,” he said. “On a given day I could maybe squeeze in, but could never get to the point that these guys were day in and day out. So I turned to the business side of things and I enjoyed teaching.”

After marrying his wife Joan in 1993, Kramer began thinking about hanging up his golf bag, at least professionally. “At that point my wife and I were figuring out how we were going to raise kids, and I kind of didn’t feel fulfilled by golf as much,” he said. “If you want to know the truth, I think God was leading me in another direction.”

That direction took them to the Milton Hershey School, a private philanthropic school originally founded and funded in 1909 by the chocolate magnate to serve impoverished male orphans. With over $12 billion in assets, it is one of the wealthiest schools in the world, and it has since expanded its scope. Though the school is non-sectarian, exploration of belief in God and prayer is encouraged. Students are required to attend a Judeo-Christian chapel service on Sundays.

“I was coaching a college golf team at Messiah College, and one of the students told me about this place and said, ‘Coach, you’d be a great house parent,’” Kramer said. “And I thought, ‘What the heck is a house parent?’”

Kramer describes what he and his wife have done at the Milton Hershey School for the past 18 years as being “surrogate parents” in a family setting to twelve boys in grades nine through eleven. The school’s 2000 students are fully supported. “They’re housed, given food, medical, clothing, education, everything,” said Kramer. “If they earn it and their grades are there, they [Hershey] will even pay for college.”

Kramer said that he and his wife took to the job with the same enthusiasm he had showed for golf at an early age.

“We joked that we went through a very early midlife crisis,” Kramer said. “My wife was an executive in the corporate world …. For Joan and I, I think it’s a calling. I truly believe God placed us here. It’s challenging, but at the same time it’s also deeply, deeply rewarding.”

It’s also been rewarding for their children. Their son Kole is 16 and their daughter Hope is 13.

“What’s been really awesome is that they’ve both been able to grow up in a really diverse environment,” he said. “That has made them completely color-blind. It’s been a great way to expose them to different ethnicities and different backgrounds. And I think they’ve both developed a heart for helping people as well.”

Kramer said he’s humbled by his impending induction into the Hall of Fame, especially because of what it means to his parents.

“Everyone in Saugerties knows my mom and dad,” he said. “I think this was a big deal for them and obviously an honor for them. I only get back to Saugerties once a year for a couple of days, so I’ve really been kind of separated from that whole environment. I’m looking forward to seeing some people I haven’t seen in a long time.”

The 54th annual Saugerties Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony and dinner will be held on Saturday, April 14 at Diamond Mills, with doors opening at 5 p.m., a cocktail and meet-and-greet hour from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., and the ceremony beginning immediately after. Tickets, which include some drinks and dinner, are $30 and can be reserved by e-mailing Mike Hasenbalg (mikehasenbalg@yahoo.com) or calling 914-388-2348.

Grace Gavis and Patricia Kuster.

Kingston High School this week announced Grace Gavis and Patricia Kuster as the valedictorian and salutatorian respectively for its Class of 2018.

Gavis earned top honors with a cumulative grade point average of 100.863. Gavis started her academic career as a kindergartner at Chambers Elementary School, moving on to M. Clifford Miller Middle School before finishing up at Kingston High. She credited teachers like Tom Muro, Teresa Myers and Rosemarie Wisneski with helping her through elementary and middle school, and Karen Garner and Nicholas Avossa as being among her key teachers at KHS.

Still in the thick of her senior year, Gavis has an ambitious schedule which includes science fiction, AP United States Government, AP macroeconomics, AP calculus, AP chemistry, honors physics and college Spanish II. She’s also the treasurer of the Class of 2018, secretary of both the National Honor Society and Key Club, and has excelled as an athlete and captain of both the varsity field hockey and girls lacrosse teams.

With an eye on a biology/pre-med major in college, Gavis is hoping to attend Cornell, Villanova, Holy Cross, or Colgate.

In addition to her teachers, Gavis credits her family, her boyfriend Ryan, and her twin sister Meghan — ranked sixth in the Class of 2018 — with helping her be a success.

“My sister makes me a better student, athlete, and person,” said Gavis in a district press release.

As for any advice she has for underclassmen in KHS and across the district, Gavis said, “Take time to study, but also to have fun. Take advantage of all Kingston High School has to offer.”

With a GPA of 100.565, Kuster will serve as the salutatorian of the Class of 2018. After attending the former Zena Elementary School, Kuster joined Gavis at Miller. She named Mr. Hansen and Mr. Sherman as among the teachers who stood out in both schools.

As a senior, Kuster’s busy schedule includes AP English literature, AP U.S. government, AP macroeconomics, AP calculus, AP chemistry and others. Sean Sullivan and Karen Garner were among the teachers she’s enjoyed having.

Kuster has also had a full slate outside of the classroom, participating in orchestra, chorus, choir, varsity tennis, the National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, math team, the Science Olympiad and the KHS marching band.

Planning to major in health sciences, Kuster is considering numerous colleges, including SUNY Stony Brook.

“Since first meeting Grace and Patricia at Miller Middle School years ago, they have grown into passionate young woman who are not only role models for those around them, but also leaders who fully embody the attributes of scholarship and citizenship, while maintaining their humble, positive nature,” said Assistant Principal Tina Montano.

Bailey Middle School

Kingston City School District officials last week rescinded the out-of-school suspensions of six J. Watson Bailey Middle School students they say disrupted access to a basketball court during lunch on the day students across the country participated in a national walkout to promote awareness about gun violence. But for some parents and students the response from administrators misses the point.

Bailey eighth-grader Lily Thompson addressed the school board at its March 22 meeting, eight days after the nationwide walkout which included an estimated 1,800 students at Kingston High. At Bailey, Thompson said, students were not permitted to participate.

“I saw teachers blocking the doors,” Thompson said. “I knew they were blocking the doors so they wouldn’t let kids out. At recess, a whole bunch of people were in a circle shouting, ‘We want justice!’ and the vice principal and the principal were there. After recess, people sat down for the moment of silence for those who were in the shooting.”

The demonstrations were part of a nationwide walkout in tribute to the 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. who lost their lives to gun violence on campus one month earlier. The ENOUGH National School Walkout was an initiative organized by Women’s March Youth Empower, a collective of teenage activists from across the country working within the larger Women’s March organization. The national walkout was planned for 17 minutes starting at 10 a.m. in each time zone across the country on Wednesday, March 14, one minute each for everyone who lost their lives in the Florida shooting one month earlier.

At Kingston High, student leaders worked with school officials to find common ground which would allow participation in the March 14 walkout without interference. After the sanctioned in-school rally, around 100 Kingston high students walked outside to continue their protest along the campus wall on Broadway. Superintendent Paul Padalino last week announced that those students would not be punished. But with the superintendent reportedly away from the district in the days immediately following the walkout, it took time before what unfolded at Bailey to reach his office.

It wasn’t the first time students at Bailey felt the need to be involved: On Tuesday, Feb. 20, students and faculty at the school participated in a peaceful walkout and moment of silence to honor the Parkland victims. Initially planned as an impromptu student demonstration, school officials at Bailey, including Principal Debra Fitzgerald and Vice Principal Dan Erceg, worked with students to turn the event into a sanctioned school-wide response.

During last week’s meeting, school board President Nora Scherer said the actions of the students on the Bailey playground on March 14 were a symptom of a bigger problem.

“There seems to be a widely held misconception that students do have the right to make their passionate devotion to any cause, make an announcement about it or have a march or sit-in about it at any point in time, which is not the case,” she said. “And there’s a lot of case law that comes out in favor of the [school] districts when students have created substantial disruption to the educational process.”

Scherer added that the best way for students and other to have their voices heard on this or any issue is to make informed choices at the polls.

“We shouldn’t have students attending school on a daily basis worrying about gun violence in their classroom,” she said. “So, get out and vote.”

Thompson, who said she was not one of the six suspended, said that while trustees and administrators focused primarily on the lunchtime demonstration on the Bailey basketball court, they did not mention that some students who hoped to walk out at 10 a.m. in solidarity with other kids across the country found the doors barred by teachers.

Former Third Ward alderman Brad Will, a parent of students at both Bailey and Harry L. Edson Elementary School, said during the school board meeting that he’d heard of teachers blocking the doors and was alarmed for a few reasons.

“What I did hear, which in legalese would be called hearsay, I found to be very disturbing,” Will said. “If teachers were indeed blocking the doors, I consider that to be, and I think I’m not alone in this because the ACLU has spoken about this, to be a violation of those students’ First Amendment rights. On top of that, it really was a denial of what could have been a tremendous civics learning opportunity. An educational opportunity.”

On Thursday, March 15, Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote an open letter to state Education Department Commissioner MaryEllen Elia with concerns about schools which planned to punish students and reports of exits being blocked in an effort to prevent participation in protest.

“Yesterday, I proudly stood shoulder to shoulder with brave students and faculty who spoke out against gun violence,” wrote Cuomo. “History provides moments where real change is possible, and the thousands of students who participated in organized walkouts all throughout the state are seizing the moment and admirably standing up for the safety of their classmates and students across the country…In the last 24 hours, there have been several reports of New York State schools disciplining students and faculty for participating in yesterday’s historic events to stop gun violence.  In at least one disturbing incident, it was reported that the school physically blocked the exits to prevent students from demonstrating…These actions send a terrible message to New York’s children and are against constitutional free speech protections. I call on you to use SED’s authority to stop these schools, reverse course and cease any disciplinary actions.”

Cuomo’s letter also asked Elia to investigate any instances of school exits being blocked to prevent participation in protest, which he called, “an egregious safety violation” and “unlawful.”

“Yesterday’s actions were a testament to the courage and leadership of New York’s students,” wrote Cuomo. “As I said yesterday, these young people are showing more leadership than the so-called leaders in Washington.  To punish or discipline them is inconsistent with the freedom of expression that we cherish. It would say more about the adults imposing discipline than it would about the students who exercised their rights to speak out.”

At the school board meeting, Thompson said she and other students who hoped to join in during the nationwide event at 10 a.m. on March 14 were doing just that — trying to exercise their rights to speak out.

“It is unfair that the high schoolers get to do it, but we can’t do the walkout,” said Thompson. “We want to be able to do the same things that high schoolers get to do like the walkout, because we know what’s going on. We know what happened on the day of the shooting. We’ve been doing lockdown drills since we were younger and we’ve watched the news at home. We know what’s going on.”

Thompson’s mother, Michele Hirsch, said shutting Bailey students out of participating on March 14 was a disappointment, whether it originated with district administrators or was the spontaneous action of educators in the school.

“I know the planned walkouts across the country weren’t just for high school students, that elementary and middle school students were planning on partaking in the protests as well,” Hirsch said. “And I know that the February observance was a remembrance, not a protest. The students really wanted to protest gun violence that was occurring in schools.”

Hirsch added that the punishments initially doled out to the six Bailey students seemed to run counter to the direction the district claims to be heading.

“It’s pretty harsh, especially when the district is promoting all those new [restorative] justice programs,” she said, adding that had her daughter been suspended to participating in a protest, she wouldn’t have minded. “Even if she got suspended, I would have been fine with her taking a punishment for it.”

Hirsch said Lily felt compelled to address the school board because her daughter felt it was important to keep speaking up.

“It was really important to her for people to understand what happened,” Hirsch said. “She was talking for days about these teachers blocking the doors, and that it really seemed to bother her a lot.”

Students from the third through the eighth grade across the Saugerties schools will notice a number of changes to their annual round of standardized tests this year, all of which have been characterized by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) and local school officials as positive. In a letter to parents and guardians earlier this month, schools superintendent Seth Turner outlined the changes.

Perhaps the most significant change is the reduction of testing days for each exam from three to two. “This change allows students to spend less time taking tests and have more instructional time in the classroom,” wrote Turner.

Other changes include shorter, untimed tests, giving students a greater chance at success without worrying about the clock ticking on the wall. “They’re making it so there’s less stress for the kids, but it’s still going to be beneficial in supplying the valid and reliable data that they need,” explained Darlene Westinghouse, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction, assessment and data.

Also new is that students with a reading accommodation in their Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 Plan can have the test read to them.

Unlike in the recent past, student test results will not be included in teacher evaluation scores.

Westinghouse called the statewide changes “really excellent.” “They’re trying to work with the districts in the state, and the parents, families, and communities to make these tests better for the kids,” said Westinghouse. “They went out and gave a whole bunch of surveys to parents, teachers, administrators, everyone. And based on all of that feedback is the reason they’re trying to comply with the community.”

The English and math test questions have been written and reviewed by hundreds of teachers across the state, allowing for greater connection to the curriculum students are already learning.

For the first time, Saugerties will dip a toe in the digital water by offering computer-based ELA tests for students in grades six through eight, something state education officials are hoping will eventually be offered for all tests in every school.

“The long-term plan is for all schools use CBT [computer-based testing] for annual state tests,” read a fact sheet on the 2018 exams. “CBT has the potential to further reduce the need for stand-alone field tests and make assessments better instructional tools for students with disabilities.”

ELA tests for Saugerties students in grades 3-5 will remain paper-based for the time being, as will math exams. Science tests for grades 4 and 8 will be written, too.

Westinghouse said the computer-based tests will also allow educators to collate data much more quickly, shaping classroom focus to better serve students. “Eventually they’d like every district to go to computer-based testing,” she said. “They can get the feedback quicker. It will reduce scoring time for teachers and enable schools to transition sooner to computer-based testing. There’s a lot of positives about it.”

The questions on the exams will be same across the state no matter how the exams are administered. “Instead of filling in dots on a page, (students) use a computer,” said Westinghouse. “They get the question and click on an answer.”

“The state has really vetted this out,” Westinghouse said. “They’ve got all kinds of scenarios ready. What if the computer goes down while the students are taking the test? Will they have it saved so that the student can pick up right where they left off? They’ve thought of all of this.”

While the state hopes more students will be taking the exams, the Opt-Out movement hasn’t gone away. “While we recognize the important benefits of taking the assessments, we also recognize that some families will continue to have their children not participate in these assessments,” wrote Turner in his letter to parents. “We respect a parent’s prerogative with regard to this issue, but we remind parents that all children should attend school for the entirety of the day. Students who are not participating in the state tests and have notified the building principal in advance will complete teacher assigned work (which may include reading, writing, and/or drawing) in a separate location from those taking the assessments.”z
ELA tests for students in grades 3-5 will be administered between April 11 and April 13. ELA tests for students in grades 6-8 will be administered between April 10 and April 17. Math exams for students in grades 3-5 will be given between May 1 and May 3. And science exams for students in grades 4 and 8 will be given on Monday, June 4.

The Saugerties High School varsity baseball team enters the 2018 season hoping to extend the legacy of last year’s impressive campaign, which saw the team go 16-7-1 overall, win the Section IX, Class A title, and make it all the way to the Capital Region semifinals of the state tournament before their Cinderella season came to an end.

“We’re coming off of a year where we kind of did some things people really didn’t expect us to do,” said the Sawyers’ third-year coach Michael Pugliese. “Everyone on the team and around the team, we all expected that, but we may have surprised some people. This year coming in, expectations are high among everybody. We have ten seniors, and this is a team that’s had some success.”

The team’s 2017 run ended with an 8-4 loss to Vestal. It was the final high school game for six seniors, a graduation which erased the team’s entire starting outfield. But this season’s team is a potentially electrifying mix of seniors and underclassmen, all of whom seem to feel they’ve got something to prove.

“Our first conversation this season as a team was about having a chip on our shoulders and remembering what it was like to get to this point, and now everyone has a target on us,” Pugliese said. “Everyone is going to be motivated to beat us. But we remain hungry. So far I like what I’m seeing.”

The Sawyers wrap up a run of scrimmages through the end of March, jumping feet first into the regular slate with three non-league home games at Cantine Field over four days. It begins with a visit from Onteora on Tuesday, April 3, followed two days later when Port Jervis comes to town. After a home game against Monticello on Friday, April 6, Saugerties begins league play with a trip to Wallkill on Monday, April 9. That first league week they’ll host New Paltz (April 10) and travel to FDR (April 12.)

“That should give us an idea of what our division looks like,” said Pugliese. “And obviously Wallkill and New Paltz are also Class A schools. Those are teams we’ll see one more time in league play and maybe in sectionals.”

This season’s quad-captains include seniors Michael Averill (outfield, pitcher), Nick Brennan (catcher, DH) and Kieran Defino (pitcher, catcher, infielder), and sophomore Randy Dodig (second base, shortstop).

“I let the players pick the captains,” said Pugliese. “We have another sophomore, Ty Gallagher. Both him and Randy are very good players, and in order for us to make the impact we want to make and reach the goals we want to reach, they both have to be very good this year. They both started as freshmen last year. They’re our one and three hitters. They’re an important part of our team.”

Gallagher (1B) and Dodig (2B) are joined in the infield by seniors Evan Normann (SS) and Jake Roberti (3B). Those four are also the top of the batting order, and they’ll be relied upon to help stabilize the team early in the season while the outfield comes together.

“We lost our starting outfielders from last year, so realistically they need to carry us both offensively and defensively while we work some things out in the bottom of our order and in the outfield,” Pugliese said.

Pugliese expects the pitching rotation to include Defino, senior Drew Reynolds and junior Rick Janssen, with senior Brett Igoe working out of the bullpen. But the team boasts a number of arms that could be called upon to take the mound over the course of the season. “We have nine, ten guys that can pitch,” Pugliese said. “We did a ten-inning scrimmage on Saturday, and we had each guy throw one inning. We’re just working some things out.”

The Sawyers are hoping to work on their consistency from year to year. They hope 2018 isn’t a letdown from what they accomplished in 2017. “We want to get to the point where we’re a program that is expecting to be contending for the sectional championship every year,” Pugliese explained. “In order for that to happen, we need to put a couple of good years together here. It’s only my third year here, but we looked at the last couple of sectional championships and we’ve been under .500 after the last two sectional championships. We need to establish a standard for the program.”

To make that happen, players have to buy in. “It’s about commitment,” Pugliese said. “In the offseason we have our summer program. Some kids play other sports, but once January hits it’s about making sure you get better as a baseball player.”

The Sawyers have begun a bridge program, with some varsity players working with Little League teams, and JV players working with kids on teams for younger kids.

Pugliese is also hoping to get even more people out to games than in the past. He noted a trio of Saturday night games at Cantine Field this season, beginning with a visit from non-league opponent Ballston Spa at 7 p.m. on April 21 as part of that push. “We’d like to get the community involved and get people here and just kind of build a program that everyone is talking about and wants to be a part of,” Pugliese said.

Some of that excitement will come from Cantine itself, the crown jewel of baseball in the Hudson Valley. And some of that excitement will have to come from what the Sawyers do on that hallowed ground.

“I coached in Section I for four years, I coached in Section II for four years,” Pugliese said. “I played in Section IX, and now I’m coaching in my third year here. We have the best facilities on this side of the state, and I don’t even know if there’s anything better on the other side of the state. It kind of produces expectations to go along with it. But when you have great facilities and a great standard of baseball, we have to make sure our work habits are matching those. We have to make sure the kids aren’t just showing up and expecting they’re going to win because they’re from Saugerties or because their grandfathers or uncles were good baseball players.”

KHS’ Analiese Amato scores during the Tigers’ scrimmage with Arlington. (Photos by Phyllis McCabe)

Coach Emily Williams.

For the first time since before most of its players were even born, the Kingston High School varsity girls lacrosse team will open its season with a coach other than Deb Eaton at the helm. Eaton retired from coaching after the 2017 season, and fellow M. Clifford Miller Middle School teacher Emily Williams is set to take the reins of the perennial powerhouse program.

Williams, a 2006 graduate of Wading River High School on Long Island, played lacrosse for all four years of college at the University of Delaware, where she earned her degree in health and physical education in 2011. After four years teaching and coaching lacrosse at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh, Pa., Williams came to the Kingston City School District where she teaches health at Miller while also studying humanistic and multicultural education in graduate school at SUNY New Paltz. Her husband is a lacrosse coach and teacher at Millbook School.

Williams comes to a program that’s won 11 straight Section IV, Class A titles and which continues to exemplify the very definition of team lacrosse. Expectations are likely high for her inaugural campaign. She said her team is both experienced and committed.

“I am impressed by the dedication and commitment that the girls have shown in the offseason,” Williams said. “Many of them played together in an indoor lacrosse league and we competed in several tournaments. We have a number of girls who played other sports in the fall and winter, which helps them prepare for lacrosse in the spring.”

Williams hasn’t named captains yet, but she did identify a few of the players she expects will be leading by example in 2018.

“We have a talented senior class that includes Analiese Amato [midfielder], Grace Gavis [attacker], Meghan Gavis [attacker], Alex Lettre [defender] and Kate Lord [attack, wing],” Williams said. “They’ve done a great job of providing leadership for the younger girls. I also appreciate that they’ve welcomed me onto the team.”

The Tigers opened their season on Wednesday, March 27 after the Kingston Times went to press with a visit to non-league opponent Bethlehem. After a scrimmage at home against Red Hook next week, Kingston hits the road again when they play at Minisink Valley on Friday, April 6. Their official home opener is scheduled for Tuesday, April 10 when they host Washingtonville at Dietz Stadium.

“Playing smart is a major emphasis for this season,” said Williams. “We want to limit our turnovers and make good decisions on the field. Playing together as a team rather than a group of individuals and I want girls to have fun and enjoy being on the team.”

Williams said that in addition to the players, coaches and everyone else involved with the program have helped her get acclimated. That group includes the former coach who built the program from the ground up.

“All of the coaches and players are putting our best effort in and whatever the results are we are satisfied with the effort and that eliminates a lot of the pressure,” Williams said. “Deb [Eaton] and I are both teachers at Miller Middle School so we talk often. She has always been helpful and welcoming.”