Highlands Current Audio Stories

Sojourner Truth plied the Hudson for 20 years

Over seven decades, the Clearwater and Woody Guthrie have sailed the Hudson, amplifying folk singer and Beacon resident Pete Seeger's passionate call to clean up the river and make it more accessible.

The iconic sloops are part of Seeger's legacy, but what has largely faded from the collective memory is a third boat he inspired, Sojourner Truth, which carried out his environmental mission for two decades before being destroyed in a storm.

Like the Woody Guthrie, the Sojourner Truth was a replica of the ferry sloops that carried goods and people across the Hudson in the 18th and 19th centuries. By the 1830s, more than 1,000 of the wide, shallow-hulled boats were navigating the river.

"Pete was an enthusiast for ferry sloops and after failing to convince people to build one, he decided to pay for the Woody and Sojourner out of pocket," hoping to inspire other river towns, said James Malchow, a Woody Guthrie captain.

Seeger wanted the smaller, affordable, volunteer-led sloops to carry out Clearwater's environmental mission. "Pete saw the ferry sloops as an organizing tool - a way to get people to work together," Malchow said.

Seeger and his wife, Toshi, are credited with naming the Sojourner Truth, an homage to the former enslaved woman from Ulster County who during the 19th century advocated abolition, temperance, civil rights and women's rights.

The sloop's hull was built in 1979 by Ferro Boat Builders in Annapolis, Maryland, using a mold from the Woody Guthrie. The hull consisted of steel mesh, rebar and concrete, which is less costly than wood and requires less maintenance.

The hull was trucked to Eddyville, near Kingston, where Seeger and other volunteers began outfitting the boat until Ferry Sloops, a newly created nonprofit, took over the project in Yonkers and later in Hastings-on-Hudson.

Con Edison donated a utility pole that became the 46-foot mast. The local highway department provided yellow paint for the hull. The boom was shaped from Clearwater's original gaff. Seeger, who owned the Woody Guthrie, contributed its spare suit of sails. An inboard motor was donated.

The 47-foot Sojourner Truth was launched in August 1981 and, within two years, began appearing at riverfront festivals. Its ports included Hastings-on-Hudson; Alpine, New Jersey; Yonkers; and Croton-on-Hudson. Other than the hull color, the Sojourner Truth was a twin to Woody Guthrie, launched three years earlier. (The Clearwater, launched in 1969, is 106 feet.)

In the early 1990s, Sojourner Truth was vandalized while moored at Yonkers. Fire destroyed its sails and damaged the deck, but it was repaired and continued to sail.

Its volunteer crew numbered from four to eight and the sloop, which could hold a dozen passengers, offered sailor training, venturing as far north as Albany and as far south as Sandy Hook, New Jersey. For years until the late 1990s, in October and November, the three sloops sailed the river filled with pumpkins, replicating the work of the 19th-century sloops. Free sails were offered at each port of call, culminating around Halloween at South Street Seaport in New York City, recalled Maryellen Healy, a former Woody Guthrie captain and Clearwater sailor.

"It felt like a special moment in time," she said.

Sojourner Truth also was a frequent visitor at the Great Hudson River Revival Festival, a celebration of music and the environment co-founded by Seeger and, until recently, held each June at Croton Point Park.

Beverly Dyckman, a former Peekskill resident, sailed on Sojourner Truth in the 1980s, training as a crew member. "It was empowering," she said. "I felt freedom, a respite from my worries. When we were zigzagging across the river, slicing into the wind, there was a feeling of power, with water coming up over the rail because we were going so fast."

Although Sojourner Truth had a top speed of 7 knots (about 8 miles an hour), Healy has similar memories. "That sounds slow in the auto...

Transfers Fair Street property to Cold Spring

The Putnam County Legislature on Tuesday (Sept. 2) approved contributions of $10,000 each for Boscobel and the Garrison Art Center and the transfer of property on Fair Street to Cold Spring for the village's stormwater project.

Boscobel said it will use its funding to expand participation in its Patriots and Loyalists program, an initiative that educates students in about 80 schools about the Revolutionary War. Boscobel wants to involve more schools and older students, said Abby Adams, its communications and marketing manager.

Legislator Nancy Montgomery, who represents Philipstown and part of Putnam Valley, requested the funding for Boscobel and the Garrison Art Center, which will use its $10,000 on Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant building upgrades. Montgomery also requested the $10,000 the Legislature approved for Second Chance Foods, a Brewster organization that distributes free meals and earlier had received $20,000 from the county.

Because Second Chance recently lost $70,000 in federal funding, "there's a lot of pressure on us to meet our community's needs and to find ways to make up that lost funding," said Martha Elder, its executive director.

In another vote, legislators approved spending $17,950 to purchase 500 U.S. flags and poles for the county's Row of Honor, an annual display erected on Memorial Day along Lake Gleneida in Carmel. Karl Rohde, director of the Veterans Service Agency, said the current poles are "woefully inadequate" and must be repaired each year. The program allows residents to sponsor a flag for three years for $100.

Cold Spring land

The Legislature voted to transfer to Cold Spring a vacant 0.9-acre property at 101 Fair St. that the county has owned since 2000. Cold Spring will use the property for a stormwater outfall that is part of its drainage work on Fair Street.

Heavy rains in July 2023 caused a subsurface stormwater drain to fail, and parking adjacent to Mayor's Park has been prohibited since. The project will replace the failed 30-inch pipe with two 42-inch pipes.

"While it seems to be a simple resolution, it's critical for Cold Spring" in managing stormwater and preventing flooding, said Montgomery.

County golf course

Legislators voted to pay off the remaining $4.7 million debt on bonds whose proceeds were used by the county to purchase the Mahopac golf course in 2003. Paying off the bonds early will save $477,000 in interest, but the main benefit will be to release Putnam from restrictive IRS rules governing tax-exempt bonds, said Bill Carlin, the interim finance commissioner, on Aug. 25.

Because of the restrictions, Putnam owns the drink, food and pro shop inventory and is responsible for the cash-handling, John Tully, the commissioner of general services, said in June. Michael Lewis, the former finance commissioner, noted at the time that Homestyle Caterers & Food Services, which provides beverage and food service to golfers, cannot "claim ownership, claim depreciation and/or amortization deductions, investment tax credits or deduct for any payment."

In addition to Homestyle, Putnam contracts with Troon Golf to run and maintain the course and its pro shop, along with a third company "to protect our interests and make sure that those two other contractors are playing nice in the sandbox, and that they're coordinating events and all things together," said Tully.

Being released from the IRS rules "will free up the Legislature to make decisions about how the course is run," said Carlin.

Montgomery voted in favor of retiring the bonds but said she had "real discomfort with what this signals" because the main driver is not debt reduction but the ability of the county to renegotiate a contract with a vendor. With the vote, she said, the Legislature is "strategically reshaping" financing policy to "allow government-owned property to be run more like a private business."

"That's a slippery slope," said Montgomery. "Government's role is n...

Beacon's Jayoung Yoon weaves with hair

Jayoung Yoon wants to create larger works, but her hair only grows so long.

The artist, who lives in Beacon, specializes in sculpture and two-dimensional pieces created with her hair. During the pandemic, she studied the ancient art of Korean horsehair weaving on the island of Jeju-do and is now crafting intricate works that incorporate her hair, horsetails and, in a deft detail added to "The Fabric of Energy 03," two milkweed seeds suspended at the center of the piece's open ends.

For her residency at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan, which runs through February, she seeks hair donations to incorporate into a sculpture in her Fabric of Energy series. Visitors to her Saturday studio hours or people who contact her online will receive an index card to fill out and a prepaid envelope to mail in at least four to five strands no shorter than 3 inches.

Designed to hang at eye level, "The Fabric of Energy 03" is a stunning work of intricate weaving technique that consists of eight separate parts created by making wood molds with a lathe and then dunking the sculpted elements in boiling water for 30 minutes.

The pieces, a ball made from her hair, a funnel and what resembles a traditional Korean drum, interlock and are designed to shimmer in the sunlight.

Photos cannot do the works justice; they must be seen and experienced to be fully appreciated. The same goes for the Empty Void series, where she stretches her hair in four or five layers across a wood panel covered by canvas and uses a computer program to design shapes inspired by toruses and nature that seem to pop out of the frame, giving them a three-dimensional quality.

"The tension has to be perfect," she says. "Too tight and they break; too loose and it doesn't look right."

Most of the pieces are 8-by-8 inches. To get the longest length of hair possible, she has shaved her head seven times and created eight videos in which she is bald and naked.

For now, the 46-year-old artist's straight, jet-black mane dangles to her hips, but that state is impermanent, something she appreciates as a Buddhist: "I would love to work with gray hair. I look forward to that."

There is a conceptual element behind most of her work, some of it stemming from the burden of Korean history. The Japanese imprisoned her grandfather during World War II, and South Korean authorities arrested and monitored her mother during the 1970s for protesting the military dictatorship.

During Yoon's residency, she plans to complete four sculptures in the Fabric of Energy series. Of the 429 applicants for this cycle, the program chose six artists, and she will be in the studio greeting visitors on Saturdays through Feb. 20.

For a place once called the American Craft Museum, "handcrafting is still in our DNA, but we're trying to push the boundaries," says Lydia Brawner, its deputy director of education. "Many artists work with hair, but we've never collaborated with someone weaving horsehair or human hair with such precision, and we were wowed seeing it in person."

The Museum of Arts and Design, at 2 Columbus Circle in New York City, is open daily except Monday. Yoon's studio hours are 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays. Admission to the museum is $20 ($16 seniors, $14 students, free for 12 and younger). See madmuseum.org/learn/jayoung-yoon and @jayoungart

Expect the unexpected from Chimera Quartet

When the aptly named Chimera Quartet performs, the music is always different and difficult to describe. It will bring its experimental improvisations to the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon on Sunday (Sept. 7).

"Almost anything can happen when we play," says guitarist Timothy Hill. "We're not going to break into a pop song, but we go in a lot of divergent directions."

During a gig last year at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, violinist Iva Bittová tapped the instrument's backside for percussive purposes. At times, she flitted about the stage like a butterfly and scatted or sang bird-like calls.

"With her, you can expect the unexpected," says Hill.

Bamboo flute player Steve Gorn imitated avian chirps on a small wind instrument and joined Bittová on her otherworldly vocal wanderings. At one point, Hill and bass player Michael Bisio traded licks, with the guitar taking an atonal tack over an anchoring bass pattern. Bisio also bent low to pluck the strings underneath the bridge.

Gorn and Hill are steeped in eastern music and philosophy, which contributes a trance-like underpinning. Chimera's calmer, more mystical tones and drones could serve as the soundtrack for a meditation session.

Dynamics veer from slow and heady to bursting fireworks. At one point in the Omega show, the bass and violin erupted into screechy, scratchy interplay. Bisio abused his bow as strands of loose horsehair flapped around.

"We're all interested in the relationship between sound and silence," says Hill. "We also want to convey something through the music that brings people to a more peaceful, contemplative place."

Bittová often returns to the Czech Republic, where she is well-known as a musician, and brings a Moravian folk music influence to the mix. The group toured her native country earlier this year.

"During some of the more frenetic moments, she's quite good at bursting the balloon the rest of us are blowing up and getting us back on a track," says Hill.

Though classically trained, Bisio is primarily a jazz cat who teaches at Bennington College and holds down something of a center during Chimera's more avant-garde moments. He is also the low-end specialist with the Matthew Shipp Trio, known for improvisational twists and turns.

Gorn, a 2011 Grammy Award winner for Best New Age Album, Miho: Journey to the Mountain, has played with Paul Winter and Paul Simon and brings other instruments to Chimera gigs, including a clarinet and a soprano saxophone. Where the music meanders will determine if he pulls them out of his stand.

Like his bandmates, Hill dips his fingers into many musical pies, including singer-songwriter gigs, playing piano in a jazz duo, picking with a bossa nova group and performing with another musician fond of alternate tunings and non-Western microtones played on guitar, harp, lyre and zither.

With Chimera, he says, "we're all faithfully relating to the music each of us loves and has spent all our lives learning and playing. But we're trying to leave the past at the door and create something new as we pull out all the instruments' possibilities."

The Howland Cultural Center is located at 477 Main St. in Beacon. Tickets for the performance, which begins at 6 p.m., are $20 at dub.sh/howland-chimera or $25 at the door.

Yefim Bronfman will perform at Howland Center

Akiko Sasaki, music director of the Howland Chamber Music Circle, is crushing it. For the second year in a row, she has booked a pianist used to performing in the world's grandest halls for a recital on the music circle's Steinway grand at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon.

Last year, she landed Emanuel Ax. On Feb. 4, Yefim Bronfman will arrive in Beacon after touring Asia and Europe and playing Carnegie Hall. Bronfman, 67, who was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to Israel at age 15, has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and won in 1997 for a recording with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic of the three Bartók piano concerti.

His program will be announced later. In October, Ax performed two Beethoven pieces and another by Robert Schumann - consisting of thousands of notes - off the top of his head. He also played two modern pieces by Arnold Schoenberg.

The season, which features a bunch of other Grammy winners, opens Sept. 14 with a Beethoven tribute by violinist Joseph Lin and Friends that has already sold out. Bronfman's visit is on top of the Music Circle's annual piano series-within-a-series. Sasaki, a pianist herself, is featuring Fei Fei (Jan. 11), Timo Andres and Aaron Diehl (Jan. 25), Jeremy Denk (Feb. 15, also sold out) and Isata Kanneh-Mason (May 17).

Sasaki has also arranged some wild combos - for classical music. Two Grammy winners will appear onstage together on April 26 when mezzo soprano Fleur Barron (2025 for Best Opera Recording) teams up with the Parker Quartet (2011 for Chamber Music Performance).

"Voice and string quartet collaborations are not common, but they do exist and can be very powerful," says Sasaki.

Another unusual pairing will take place Oct. 12 when Stephen Banks joins the Verona Quartet on saxophone, an instrument more commonly associated with jazz, soul and funk. The quartet appeared at the Howland Center in 2022, and Sasaki learned that it had worked with Banks on a composition by Christopher Theofanidis. In addition to Banks' adaptation of a Mozart work and an original piece, the concert will include Theofanidis' Visions of the Hereafter (after Hieronymus Bosch).

The Akropolis Reed Quintet, the first ensemble of its kind to win a Grammy, presents another unorthodox combination: oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone and bass clarinet (Nov. 2). Brazilian guitarist Plinio Fernandes will appear with flutist Brandon Patrick George (a Grammy winner with Imani Winds) on May 3.

Although guitar ensembles are a thing, the Galvin Cello Quartet (March 29) is a rare bird consisting of young musicians from diverse backgrounds playing the same instrument. As some fans fret about the future of classical music, almost all the performers during the 2025-26 season demonstrate that the genre is adapting.

The Howland Cultural Center is located at 477 Main St. in Beacon. Tickets are $25 ($10 for students younger than 26) at howlandmusic.org/tickets; those for the Bronfman performance are $60 ($15 for students). Each concert is followed by a reception

Undersheriff will replace McConville on ballot

The Putnam Republican Committee on Aug. 28 chose the county's recently named undersheriff to replace the late Kevin McConville as its candidate for sheriff in the November election.

Brian Hess received the endorsement during a meeting that evening, according to the committee. A day earlier, hundreds of law enforcement officers from the Hudson Valley and New York City descended on Cold Spring for the funeral at Our Lady of Loretto for McConville, a village native and resident who died Aug. 22 at age 68.

Acting Sheriff Brian Hess

Although McConville's cause of death has not been disclosed, his illness was serious enough that in June he ended his bid for re-election to a second 4-year term. His name remained on the ballot because state law prevents political parties from replacing candidates except if they die or are disqualified.

Two weeks before he died, McConville appointed Hess, a lieutenant with the Westchester County Police Department, to oversee the Sheriff's Office. Hess succeeded Thomas Lindert, who retired.

"I'm honored and excited to receive the Republican endorsement," Hess said in a statement. "I look forward to working with everyone here to keep Putnam safe and strong for our families and future."

Hess, who holds a bachelor's degree from John Jay College, spent 20 months as a communications operator with the Fire Control Division of Westchester County's Department of Emergency Services before joining the New York Police Department. He left in 1999, after 18 months, to join the Westchester department. There, Hess rose in rank to lieutenant, founding the Westchester-Putnam Real Time Crime Center to enable intelligence-sharing between more than 65 local, state and federal agencies.

On Tuesday (Sept. 2), Hess named his replacement as undersheriff: James Menton, a Carmel resident and retired NYPD detective working as an investigator with the Westchester County District Attorney's Office.

Ralph Cilento, chief investigator for the Putnam County District Attorney's Office; Eric Grutzner, chief of the Pleasantville Police Department; and Mike Cazzari, the supervisor for the Town of Carmel, were among the other candidates who interviewed for the endorsement, said Andres Gil, chair for the Putnam Republican Committee.

Hess' law enforcement background and vision swayed committee members, he said. "He's a visionary leader who's going to have a very positive impact on the sheriff's office and our community."

The committee also interviewed Larry Burke, a Cold Spring police officer. Although he did not win the endorsement, Burke will appear on the November ballot on the independent Serve & Protect party line.

Burke, 59, has worked in law enforcement for 37 years, including 26 years with the NYPD. He joined the Cold Spring department in 2013 and served as officer-in-charge for seven years. He resigned in 2024 but continues as a part-time officer. Burke has also been a volunteer firefighter with North Highlands Fire Co. for 12 years.

Had ended campaign for re-election because of poor health

Putnam County Sheriff Kevin McConville, who had decided against running for a second term in November because of poor health, died at his Cold Spring home on Aug. 22.

McConville, 68, was elected as a Republican in 2021, defeating Democratic incumbent Robert Langley Jr. with 57 percent of the vote. The sheriff began his career in law enforcement as a Cold Spring police officer and rose to become chief of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority police force. He ran unsuccessfully for Putnam sheriff in 2009 as a Democrat and in 2013 as a Republican.

Following the sheriff's death, County Executive Kevin Byrne ordered flags flown at half-staff. A funeral service was held at Our Lady of Loretto in Cold Spring on Wednesday (Aug. 27).

Andres Gil, chair of the county's Republican Committee, said earlier this month that although McConville ended his re-election campaign in June, his name would remain on the ballot because state election law prevents political parties from replacing a candidate except if they die or are disqualified.

Photos by Ross Corsair

With McConville's death, the party had 10 days to file a certificate with the Board of Elections naming a new candidate. On Thursday, the Republican Committee announced it would submit the name of Undersheriff Brian Hess, who was appointed to the position by McConville on Aug. 13, following the retirement of Thomas Lindert. There is no Democratic candidate, but Larry Burke, a Cold Spring police officer, is running as an independent on the Serve & Protect party line.

Statement from Undersheriff Brian Hess

It is with deep sadness that the Putnam County Sheriff's Office announces the passing of Sheriff Kevin J. McConville on Aug. 22, 2025.

Sheriff McConville began his tenure on Jan. 1, 2022, after being elected to a four-year term. Prior to becoming sheriff, McConville had served with the MTA Police Department for 30 years, beginning as a patrolman and rising through the ranks and retiring as the chief. He worked during the 9/11 terror attacks and served as chief during the London and Madrid bombings on their commuter transport system, implementing plans and responses in incident reduction and management.

A lifelong resident of Putnam County, as sheriff he worked diligently to improve the working conditions for the men and women of the department so they could better serve the residents of the county. His accomplishments included achieving DCJS (Division of Criminal Justice Services) state accreditation in law enforcement, obtaining a new records management system, improving radio communication systems to greatly reduce areas of poor reception and obtaining newer vehicles.

Sheriff McConville devoted his life to serving others with integrity, courage and compassion. Our hearts are heavy as we stand with the McConville family, but we will honor his legacy with pride and continue the mission that we have to serve and protect Putnam County.

McConville was a lifelong resident of Cold Spring; his late father, Ronald, served as mayor. According to an obituary posted by Clinton Funeral Home, McConville graduated from Haldane High School in 1975 before earning bachelor's and master's degrees from Marist College (now Marist University). In 1982, he married his high school sweetheart, Janice Brigati, and they raised their three children in the same house he grew up in.

McConville worked for 30 years for the MTA Police Department, beginning his career as a patrol officer and rising to become chief in 2005. During his tenure, he created the Interagency Counter Terrorism Team, worked with the FBI and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and created a 50-team K-9 unit. He managed the MTA Police response at Grand Central Station on Sept. 11, 2001.

After retiring as chief in 2008, McConville served for 12 years as director of security at what is now NewYork-Presbyterian Hudson Valley Hospital in Cortla...

Beacon hopes to take ownership of property

Linda Richards knows camp magic firsthand.

For eight years the former schoolteacher and education director for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater has led Beacon's Camp at the Camp at the 51-acre University Settlement property along Route 9D. There, Richards and her team unplug all devices and use song, art and woodland exploration to bring an immersive, exhaustive summer camp experience to children ages five to 12.

This summer, the camp served 180 children, expanding for the first time to three two-week sessions. "They're outside all day long and they love it," Richards said. "Now we've got counselors in training who were there when they were six. That's the magic, that they keep coming back."

After its launch in 2017, a decade after the University Settlement House in New York City closed its sleepaway camp there, Camp at the Camp quickly became the Beacon Recreation Department's signature offering at the property, an expansive, wooded campus at the foot of Mount Beacon. Owned by New York State since 2007, the site is managed by the city through a 20-year, no-cost lease that runs to November 2027.

The lease can be renewed, but Beacon officials earlier this year asked the state to convey University Settlement to the city. Linda Cooper, the director for the Taconic Region of the state parks department, said the state is reviewing the request.

The city has been reluctant to prioritize spending at the site, putting Recreation Department dollars toward the recent $893,000 rehabilitation of South Avenue Park or $400,000 in upgrades planned at Memorial Park next year. State ownership "makes it harder and creates some uncertainty" for the city to invest in the property, Mayor Lee Kyriacou said.

If Beacon were to take ownership of University Settlement, that could change.

Settlement Camp History

According to the Beacon Hebrew Alliance, Eliza Howland, the widow of Civil War hero Gen. Joseph P. Howland, in 1911 donated her family's 250-acre estate to University Settlement House, which had been founded 25 years earlier by the New York Society for Ethical Culture to serve Jewish refugees living in tenement housing on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

The Settlement House eventually sold the land west of what is now Route 9D, including the mansion that would become the Craig House psychiatric center, keeping 51 acres at the base of Mount Beacon.

In 1914, Charles B. Stover, a landscape architect and member of University Settlement who had been New York City's parks commissioner from 1910 to 1913, took over the site to run it as an idyllic countryside camp. Stover designed the landscape and supervised construction of the main building, dormitories and an Olympic-sized, concrete pool that is now Beacon's municipal pool. The structure now used as offices for the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater was housing for summer staff.

By the 1950s, folk singer, activist and future Clearwater founder Pete Seeger built his family's home nearby and became deeply involved with the camp, often leading camp-fire singalongs. Seeger's father-in-law, Takashi Ohta, was at one time the camp's gardener.

University Settlement House ran the summer camp for 90 years before selling the land to New York State, which added it to the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, in 2007. Pat Freeman, the property's longtime caretaker, is credited with helping to convince the Settlement House to resist selling the land to developers.

Richards would love to add a weeklong winter camp. Recreation Director Mark Price envisions a walking trail along the perimeter of the woods and a primitive camping site. The municipal swimming pool, which reopened in 2015 after several years of dormancy, needs a new fiberglass lining to replace the current one, which dates to the 1990s and "is well past its useful life," said Price.

While the Recreation Department's operating budget has grown from $304,000 when Price was hired full time in 2014 (he started as a part-t...

District has four options to fill vacancies

Two Beacon school board members resigned this week, leaving the nine-member board with vacancies nearly a year before the next election.

Anthony White, the longest-tenured board member, and Kristan Flynn, who was serving her third full term, each said the Monday (Aug. 25) meeting was their last.

The Wallkill Central School District in Orange County announced in May that White, who was elected to the Beacon board in 2014 and was in the midst of his fourth 3-year term, will succeed Superintendent Kevin Castle, who is retiring in October. White has been the Wallkill district's assistant superintendent of educational services since 2021.

White said Monday that he hopes today's students will learn the value of volunteering. "I was always taught volunteerism gives back more than you give it, and it's true," he said. "I tried to give my all, but I got back 10 times fold."

Flynn, a market research executive, said that a new job she started last year has not left her with enough time to continue as a board member. "It's hard to feel half-in, half-out," she said. "I wanted to finish this term [which ends in May] but it's feeling like I'm stretched too thin."

In an email to the community on Tuesday, President Flora Stadler said the school board has four options, which it will discuss at its Sept. 8 meeting.

The board could leave the seats open until the election in May; make appointments to fill the seats until the election; ask Jodi DeLucia, the superintendent of the Dutchess Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), to make appointments until the election; or call a special election.

On Monday, Flynn, who was appointed in 2016 to fill a vacancy and elected for the first time in 2017, called the election process cleaner. "It sets you up for more success if someone is really interested in being on the board," she said. "They can come to meetings and get the feel for things and be a part of it before they're a part of it."

The board in 2020 was criticized by some community members who said it was not doing enough to diversify itself when appointing members to fill vacancies.

Appointing someone "becomes personal even if you don't want it to be personal," Flynn said. She noted that her appointment felt urgent at the time, but "everyone [on the board] is capable of bringing the work forward" now.

White was in his first term in 2016 when Barbara Walkley, the eighth superintendent to hold the job in 10 years, resigned. As a parent group, the Advocates for Beacon Schools, began organizing, White represented "a glimmer of hope that there was someone on the board who cared enough about kids and the impact on kids and teachers that gave our parent group the idea that we could actually make some change," said Meredith Heuer, the board's vice president.

Stadler also praised Flynn, who was a member of Advocates for Beacon Schools. In a time of uncertainty, "you brought clarity and data to the conversation, but you also had this insistence that things should and could be better," Stadler said. "We all know how much time and attention and emotional labor goes into doing this job. You've made this district better."

Superintendent Matt Landahl thanked White and Flynn, who were both board members (with White being the president) when he was hired in 2017.

"I would call Anthony about hiring stuff and budget stuff" during the transition, Landahl said, while he completed his duties in the Ithaca City School District. "But I would also be like, 'Who's your cable provider?' Because we weren't from here. That first president who you work with, you have a connection with because so much goes into that transition."

About Flynn, "the word that comes to my mind is the level of thoughtfulness that you bring," Landahl said. "When I say 'thoughtfulness,' I mean smart, deep thinking about every aspect of the community and the district and our kids and our staff. That was from Day 1 all the way to now."

If being born in Butterfield Hospital defines someone as a true local, Jim Myatt more than fits the bill.

Myatt, who turns 100 on Saturday (Aug. 30), was one of 21 babies born at the newly opened hospital in 1925.

A century later, and 32 years after the hospital closed, Myatt is going strong. He has lived in Nelsonville for a century.

Seventy years ago, Myatt built a home on Wood Avenue. He still resides there, along with his partner, Marie Gargano. They met about 10 years ago at the Philipstown senior center when it was in the American Legion on Cedar Street.

"He chased me all over town, and I was like, 'What does he want?' " recalls Gargano, 87, with a laugh. "Eventually he gave me his card and said, 'Call me when you're ready.' "

She called and they've been together for seven years. "He's kind, patient and never complains about anything," Gargano says. "He's just a great guy."

Although Myatt suffered a stroke in December and has less than perfect hearing and eyesight, he remains active, including tending to his lawn on a riding mower.

He makes breakfast every morning, a menu that usually includes coffee, V8 juice, scrambled eggs, hash browns and English muffins. He and Marie spend their weekday lunch hours at the Philipstown Friendship Center and on weekends they often enjoy watching NASCAR while sharing a single Miller High Life. Up until a few years ago they liked to drive go-karts at an indoor Poughkeepsie track that has since closed.

They were also regular moviegoers until recently. One of Myatt's favorites is the 1980 comedy Hog Wild, and he loves pretty much any Western. The couple doesn't care for most of the latest Hollywood offerings.

As a boy, Myatt loved hunting and fishing more than sports. He was a member of the Coon Hollow Bowmen, an archery club that had a course in the woods and trails near Breakneck Ridge. He also belonged to the Philipstown Rod & Gun Club and has fond memories of swimming in the Hudson River.

When he was 14, he and a friend answered a Macy's ad that would be unusual today. "They were selling day-old baby chicks," Myatt said. "My friend bought 15 and I bought 25." He remembers his first car fondly, a used 1932 Chevy.

Myatt was unable to serve during World War II because he suffered from asthma. "I had quite a few jobs working for town folks during the war," he said. He worked for the Allen Coal Co. in winter, drove a truck for the Percacciolo Co. in the summer and also worked for the local highway department.

In 1945, Myatt married Jeanette Maddox. They had three children: Jackie, Jamie and Joan, 11 grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. They divorced in 1972. Myatt married twice more, to Velma "Teddy" in 1975 and Ruthie in 1996. He has outlived all three wives.

Myatt has always been involved in village life. He helped build the Nelsonville firehouse in the early 1950s and served as fire chief in the early 1960s. The fire company was disbanded in 2001, and the building now serves as a substation for the Putnam County Sheriff's Office.

He ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Nelsonville Village Board in 1958. Beginning in the late 1960s, he was an officer with the Nelsonville Police Department for 10 years; the department disbanded in 1984.

For the past 50 years, Myatt has been a member of Masonic Lodge No. 236, which occupies the former Hickory Grove Academy where Myatt attended school. He was also a founding member of the Cold Spring Boat Club when it was established in 1955.

"In the 1960s, we had a cabin cruiser, and we'd go anywhere from the end of Long Island all the way up to Lake Champlain," his daughter, Jackie, recalls. "We were out on the river all summer long."

Myatt worked at IBM for 35 years, retiring in 1987 as a senior model toolmaker. He still enjoys tinkering with the metal lathe and drill press in his garage. "He can still pull a car engine apart and put it back together," Jackie says.

On Thursday (Aug. 28), the Philipstown Friendsh...