By LAURA COX


Michelle and Rick Eastman have never liked the limelight.
They’ve operated Eastman Associates, general contractors headquartered on Railroad Avenue, where they work as a team with their 30 employees. They’ve managed their family and raised three children. They never sought recognition for how they spent their time and money.
But three weeks ago, Michelle and Rick received a phone call from St. Mary’s School asking both of them to come down to the school to chat. They had no inkling of what was about to transpire.
The St. Mary’s School marketing committee had voted them the 2010 Distinguished Partners in Education and will host a dinner to honor them on Saturday, March 20 at the school. Cocktail hour will start at 6:30 p.m. with a buffet dinner to follow at their “Evening in Paris.”
“Our first reaction was to turn it down,” said Rick. “But they said there was no way they would let us get away with that. We do things because it is the right thing to do, to help the community, the school, the kids; not to receive recognition.”
The Eastmans have been in the headlines recently when their company removed the old aluminum façade from the front of Bresee’s Department Store in November. Hundreds watched.
But it was their work on St. Mary’s School and continued friendship to the school that brought their names to the minds of the nominating committee, said St. Mary’s Principal Patty Bliss.
It was Eastman Associates that in 2000-2001 transformed the former Price Chopper building into the St. Mary’s School you see today. Accounts from school employees talk about the thought and consideration the Eastmans put into their work, and their willingness to talk about the new school and give tours to anyone interested.
“They took a special interest. It was not just a building to them, but a new home for the school, for the children, and they took extra care with what they did,” Bliss said. Though she was not principal at the time, she has heard many accounts from others at the school, and has seen firsthand their continued care for the building.
“They come to all of our events and support us in every way,” Bliss said, “Not just financially but through their interest and encouragement.”
Michelle and their three children, Nathan, 18, Candace, 23 and Jennifer, 27, are all members of the Catholic church.
Michelle and Rick have led their lives in the way they have to set examples of service to community for their children. While the girls do not live locally anymore, while growing up in Oneonta they both donated their time in the form of teaching Sunday school, as well as time helping out at Saturday’s Bread. Nathan has also been involved in many volunteer activities through the high school and is currently very involved with the S.A.D.D. club when he is not on the court playing basketball or on the field playing baseball for OHS.
“We like to encourage our kids to do something where you are not getting anything in return, without any recognition for it,” Michelle Eastman said.
The Eastmans have a personal connection to St. Mary’s school. Nathan attended grades K-4 there, and The Eastmans have found the teachers and staff wonderful.
“It’s a great school with wonderful teachers and a beautiful building. It’s really easy to help them,” Rick said.

By LAURA COX


It was once a Burger King.
For a short time last year, it was Country Buffet.
As of mid-May, the low-slung building on Main Street will be a showcase for Griff Gillette’s Polar Bear Ice Cream, introduced locally last summer.
A second location is due to open in June in Cooperstown.
Not only does Gillette aver his produce will be delicious, he vows to launch the “greenest” restaurant in Otsego County.
“We are going to be the first restaurant in Otsego County to be 100 percent eco-friendly,” he said, “using only renewable, sustainable products.”
Spoons, straws, napkins, toilet paper, cleaning products and uniforms will all be made from renewable resources that compost in 25-100 days, Gillette said.
The result: Zero impact.
All of his serving ware is made of sugar cane fibers, corn, potato starches, and plant based materials that are renewable and grow back within 100-250 days.
As introduced last summer during the city’s Fourth of July celebration, Gillette’s ice cream, all natural ingredients, is made in a single-batch freezer, five gallons at a time.
The ice cream is frozen to negative 40 degrees, then brought up to an 8-degree scooping temperature for the smoothest texture, he said.
Gillette, who lives in Otsego, has been in the food business all his life. (His mom is a Brooks of Brooks BBQ fame.) He ran a catering business for 16 years.
He devised a traveling ice-cream store -- again, premiered locally last Fourth of July at the corner Main and Grand -- and since has toured the country, distributing his icy wares.
The green emphasis grew out of his experience as an American Airlines pilot. He was furloughed last year, but not before the airlines adopted a policy whereby taxi-ing planes would run on one engine, to save fuel.
If a big company could be sensitive to such concerns, so could he, Gillette figured.
At a huge event in Florida earlier this year, he noticed the 25 large trash bins filled with used plastic utensils and paper plates, napkin and Styrofoam cups.
It takes 400 years for a styrofoam cup to break down. That bothered him.
So he launched another new business, Eco-Friendly Events, distributing eco-friendly products at athletic events, fairs, expos and the like across the country.
His goal: Get all outdoor events to use such products.
As a master distributor for eco-friendly products, he can also buy mass quantities and distribute them at relatively small events in Otsego and Delaware counties.
Back to Otsego County: Gillette estimates he will be employing 32 at his restaurants by mid-summer.
In addition to homemade ice cream, soft custard, fat free frozen yogurt, burgers, fries and hot dogs will be served.
In September, Gillette hopes to be marketing prints to SUNY Oneonta, then expand throughout the SUNY system.
If all goes as planned, the idea is to open an ice cream plant in Oneonta in three to five years and distribute Polar Bear Ice Cream pints nationwide.

Rene Prins directs the Oneonta Community Band in its “Good Old Summertime” concert Sunday, Sept. 21, at Foxcare.

By LAURA COX &
JIM KEVLIN

Joy has returned to O-ville.
Amid rounds of applause from 70 enthusiastic baseball boosters, Mayor Richard P. Miller, Jr., made it official Tuesday, Feb. 16: A new team with the unlikely name of the Outlaws – as in train robbers; the new owners plan to build on Oneonta’s railroad heritage – will be coming to town less than a month after the Oneonta Tigers gang rode off into the sunset.
The team owners are Keith Rogers and Dan Scaring, and the team is the former Saratoga Phillies, a New York Collegiate Baseball League franchise.
As it turns out, the two dozen local potential investors won’t be needed: The quality of Damaschke Field was sufficient to convince Rogers and Scaring that their team can be successful here.
Rogers joined Miller, NYCBL President Stan Lehman and state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, in the announcement/celebration at Stella Luna.
To pour oil on troubled waters – or scuffed infields –Miller has unveiled Seward Cup, aimed at promoting a friendly intra-county baseball rivalry.
The cup, named for the senator, would go to the Cooperstown Hawkeyes, the Oneonta Outlaws or Little Falls’ Mohawk Valley Diamond Dogs, whichever team has the best record in New York Collegiate Baseball League play next summer. (Seward’s district includes Little Falls.)
The reception culminated two weeks of rapid-fire and sometimes rancorous negotiations, as Oneonta’s new mayor sought to attract a NYCBL replacement for the New York-Penn League Oneonta Tigers, which had been lured away to Norwich, Conn., Jan. 28.
Another flashpoint came Saturday, Feb. 13, when NYCLB owners, by a split vote in a conference-call meeting, granted Oneonta the franchise over the objections of Tom Hickey, Fly Creek, owner of the fledgling Hawkeyes, which is due to play its first season at Doubleday Field this summer.
In a widely distributed e-mail, Brian Spagnola, owner of the Amsterdam Mohawks, gave an indication of the content of that conference call, accusing his fellow team owners of a “lack of professionalism,” and changing his vote on the Saratoga-Oneonta move from “abstain” to “no.”
The debate centered on a rule, adopted by NYCBL owners last May, granting teams exclusivity within a 25-mile radius. Damaschke’s home plate is 24.2 miles from Doubleday’s.
Reports had mentioned the possibility of a legal challenge, but Hickey said he has not yet decided whether to pursue that course or seek a settlement.
Miller’s first strategy, Hickey said, was to try to lure the Hawkeyes to Damaschke Field. “I refused to do that,” the owner said. “We have a commitment to Cooperstown.”
With the Tigers Single A franchise parting ways with Oneonta, it was their General Manager Andy Weber who first made contact with Rogers and Scaring through a common friend in Troy, Rogers said.
While the team owners decided to name the team themselves, without the help of the list of 85 names developed by Oneonta Elementary School students, Rogers said he would like to open up a competition for the elementary school students to name the new Outlaws’ mascot and develop a design for the mascot, with the winning school being awarded by the team.
The team members – 30 are already on the roster from colleges such as Pepperdine, University of Virginia, University of Washington, Oklahoma State and Vanderbilt – will become members of the community while in Oneonta for the summer, Rogers said.
Each will complete eight hours of community service to both familiarize themselves with the community and give back to it. They will be housed with local community members who will be given family season tickets and a $400 stipend for participating in the housing program. They plan to have the players host baseball camps for local Little Leaguers and in past the players have been known to stay for up to 30 minutes after the games to sign autographs for fans.
Scaring and Rogers were collegiate baseball players themselves which is where they met when they were playing ball in Schenectady. Rogers described the action of owning as team as his life coming full circle.
Meanwhile in Cooperstown, Hickey this week announced the Hawkeyes’ management team, including David Pearlman of Cooperstown, a well-known youth-sports coach, who will be assistant general manager.
The team will be coached by Jake Denstedt, who follows the franchise from its former home in Brockport, where he coached the Brockport Riverbats.
Jesse Coughlan, former SUNY Oneonta catcher, is director of public relations, and Schuyler Pindar of Edmeston will handle marketing and sales.
Hickey also released the team logo, the result of a national contest circulated online: An antique “C” adorned with two feathers.
“It is simple and it fits the historical reference in our name,” said Hickey. “It was just perfect.”

By JIM KEVLIN


Imagine a world with no property taxes.
That world could be the “new city” that would arise if the existing town and city of Oneonta could achieve consolidation, according to Barry P. Warren, the former director of SUNY Oneonta’s Center for Community & Economic Development.
Zero property taxes is a “rough estimate,” Warren acknowledged, but a perfectly realistic one.
Seated beside him in a conference room at the Morris Conference Center was Tim Hayes, Warren’s successor at the center; he nodded his head in agreement.
Warren was author of the 1996 “Final Report on Intergovernmental Relations Between the City and Town of Oneonta,” the first effort to explore how the two municipalities could cooperate.
The “M word” – merger – was avoided, he said.
At the time, Warren said, it was estimated that a merged Greater Oneonta could capture at least $2 million a year that was going from the Southside commercial strip to state and county coffers.
The $2 million was likewise a “rough estimate” back then, because Otsego County was unwilling to say how much sales tax was actually being generated in the Town of Oneonta.
Today, 15 years later, the combined property-tax levies for the town and city are in the $4.5 million range.
Conceivably, with the addition of Lowe’s, Home Depot, Hannaford’s, Wal-Mart, Office Max and similar outlets in the Southside, there’s enough sales tax being generated to erase the property-tax levies, Warren said.
In New York State, towns like Oneonta can only obtain sales tax revenues through their counties. Cities, however, can exercise the option of “preemption,” which allows local sales tax to go directly into city coffers.
Told of Warren’s conclusion, Oneonta Mayor Richard P. Miller, Jr., said he is not deterred by the Oneonta town board’s failure to support updating the 1996 study and intends to press ahead.
Miller had received the unanimous support of Common Council to pursue the update, which can be done without the town’s collaboration, although such collaboration would be helpful.
“Unless this is a win-win situation for city or town, why would anybody go forward with it?” the mayor asked. “I am disappointed by what the town did, but I’m not surprised.”
He called it “an obstacle to be overcome.”
For his part, Warren pointed out that, since the sales-tax money would come out of Otsego County’s share, pre-emption would be a political hot potato.
The 1990s push was begun by the League of Women Voters, with Peg Harrington leading the way. She and Gordon B. Roberts, the insurance executive and community leader, co-chaired the 27-member task force.
The task force included many people still active in the community today, from Huemac Garcia, now Catskill Hospice & Palliative Care director of development, to attorney Michael Getman, former president of the Fox Hospital board who ran for city judge in the last election.
Paul Adamo, Joe Bernier, Bob Harlem Jr., Hugh Henderson, Kay Stuligross and Bob Wood were among the other members.
At the time, the mayor was SUNY dean David W. Brenner, now retired, and Duncan Davie, now state Sen. Jim Seward’s chief of staff was town supervisor. Both were supportive, Warren said.
But when the study was complete, he said, it was presented to each municipality and “didn’t go anywhere.”
“A lot of times,” said Warren, “you don’t have any real change until you have a crisis.”

By BENJAMIN DEER


WEST ONEONTA

$3 million a year in new revenues?
The Oneonta Town Board doesn’t even want to explore that possibility.
Faced with 41 residents voicing objections Tuesday, Feb. 9, to the possibility of the town and city of Oneonta merging, no town board member would even second Supervisor Bob Wood’s motion to at least study the matter.
“The city just wants our money,” said resident Mark Greene, West Oneonta. “They should mind their own business is what I say. “We say ‘no.’ Period.”
Even Wood said: “There is not a single board member, including myself, who wants this merger to take place. This resolution calls for strictly a study.”
On the city side, Common Council Tuesday, Feb. 2, unanimously passed a resolution authorizing a study to update a 1996 report that recommended consolidation. Mayor Richard P. Miller, Jr., estimated that efficiencies could save the municipalities $250,000 a year, but the real benefit is the state’s policy of preemption.
Under preemption, only counties and cities receive direct payments of state-collected sales tax; towns do not. If the Oneontas became one larger city, it would gain access to an estimated $3 milllion in additional tax revenues a year from the Southside mega-retailers.
The city plans to continue the study, Wood said; the town would simply be a watchdog for the process. Ultimately, town residents would get the final vote.
Town board members were unswayed.
“I’ve never seen any government grow and save money,” said Councilman Scott Gravelin. “That’s why I will vote no. It’s just not realistic”, he said.
Councilman William Mirabito agreed: “I was originally open-minded to having the study conducted. But it’s a representative government and with the turnout tonight and what other residents have said, they clearly don’t want this to happen.”

By LAURA COX


Ten years of small steps are bringing results that seemed unattainable.
Over New Year’s, when Dr. Ashok Malhotra visited the school he founded a decade ago in Dundlod, India, he discovered 10 2009 graduates now are attending college.
That was among the achievements marked in the 10th anniversary celebration of the Indo-International School when Malhotra and his partner, Linda Drake, visited Oneonta’s Sister City in India’s Rajasthan state Dec. 31 to Jan. 4.
Malhotra, a SUNY Oneonta distinguished teaching professor, is founder and president of the Ninash Foundation, and in December 2000 convinced then-Mayor Kim Muller and Common Council creating the Sister City tie with Dundlod.
The proclamation established “diplomatic ties” to extend “the hand of friendship.”
In January 2001, then-SUNY Oneonta President Alan Donovan traveled with Malhotra to Dundlod and read the Common Council’s proclamation to the chairman of the village council there.
The Ninash Foundation now supports five schools and provides free education to approximately 1,050 impoverished children in remote villages in India, including two schools – an elementary and high school – in Dundlod hosting 550 students.
Since this declaration was made, Malhotra and Drake, Ninash Foundation treasurer and director of the SUNY Oneonta Center for Social Responsibility and Community, have been lucky enough to have the financial support of many local community members, elementary schools, and the two local colleges and their students.
It spurred the initiation of local fundraisers to help fund the Dundlod schools and promote literacy throughout the village as well as the addition of lessons on Indian culture to the third grade curriculum at local elementary schools, Malhotra said.
Over the past 10 years Riverside Elementary held repeated penny drives. Greater Plains Elementary’s “kiss the goat” fundraiser has bought 18 goats for the poorest of poor families in Dundlod and collected recyclables to buy school supplies. Center Street School children raised more than $700 for a teacher’s salary.
SUNY Oneonta sororities and fraternities have raised funds for a playground and books. Local Indian musicians have organized benefit concerts. Most recently, the Chi Upsilon Sigma National Latin Sorority planned a Walk for Literacy.

By JIM KEVLIN


The Bald Eagles? The Riverbeds? The Engines? The Trees? (After all, there are a lot of trees around here.)
Those were some of the names for Oneonta’s prospective New York Collegiate Baseball League team that were being tossed around by Brad Zee’s fifth graders at Riverside Elementary the other morning.
Mayor Richard P. Miller, Jr., who had asked local schools to come up with team names, had a list of 80 by Monday morning, Feb. 8, many on railroad themes, he said.
But before a name can be chosen, a team must be gotten, and loose ends were still being tied up at mid-week. The mayor was still optimistic that a deal could be put together by Friday, Feb. 12, the league’s deadline.
Clearly, there’s no lack of interest in a team to replace the Oneonta Tigers, who were swooped away by larger-market Norwich, Conn., two weeks ago.
Fifty people, some prospective investors, attended a meeting at Stella Luna Thursday, Feb. 4, called by Miller to discussed the future of baseball at Damaschke Field.
Bob Hanft, former chairman of the Hartwick College trustees who recently moved to Otsego County, agreed to try to pull together a team of investors from within and outside the group.
Miller expressed the hope that two or three dozen investors – “it’s more of a charitable contribution than an investment,” he cautioned – would come up with $5,000 apiece to put the team in place.
He estimated it would cost $100,000 – give or take $20,000 – to field a team this summer, but said the Tigers had grossed substantially more than that last summer and the effort would be solvent.
Cooperstown will also be fielding a NYCBL team this summer – the Hawkeyes – and the mayor expressed optimism that a cross-county rivalry (the teams would meet six times) would generate interest.

By LAURA COX


Teaching wasn’t Coleen Lewis’ first choice.
A 1986 OHS grad, she studied hotel and restaurant managment at SUNY Delhi for two years, then business administration for another two.
Then, in 1993, she was teaching Sunday school at St. Mary’s and realized how much she enjoyed teaching children.
“Go back,” a colleague, Sue Nesbitt, told her.
She did, graduating from SUNY Oneonta in 1995 with her bachelor’s in elementary education, knowing from the start she wanted to work her way up the profession, perhaps to building principal.
She earned a master’s in library science from SUNY Albany in 2001, and a certificate in school administration at SUNY Cortland in 2008.
“My goal never changed,” said Lewis, who Wednesday, Jan. 27, was appointed principal of Center Street School by the Oneonta City School Board, effective July 1.
Lewis has worked in the Oneonta district for 14 years, from student teacher at Riverside Elementary, to licensed teaching assistant, to sixth-grade teacher at Valleyview, to library media specialist at Greater Plains.
As district’s curriculum coordinator, she had been acting library media specialist at Valleyview this year and discovered “I missed being with kids.”
“Kids keep you young, it’s so rewarding. It’s the most rewarding job I’ve ever had,” she said.
So when John Cook, longtime principal at Center Street School, announced his retirement in December, Lewis – she was then district curriculum coordinator – went straight to Superintendent Mike Shea and expressed her interest in the job.
The new principal feels lucky to have gotten the job, succeeding a man she considers a legend in Oneonta schools.
“I know I can’t fill Mr. Cook’s shoes, I would never try,” she said, adding, “I am honored to have the time with him to transition.”
Lewis plans to immerse herself in the Center Street community and its culture, getting to know the teachers, and the students and their families.
“It is a family oriented school and I want to get to know everybody and how things work,” she said. “I want to support the teachers and set goals as a staff – it’s a team effort.”
She plans to be visible and approachable, so people feel comfortable walking in her door to talk to her.
Superintendent of Schools Mike Shea expressed satisfaction that what might have been a difficult transition is going so smoothly.
“There’s no one is like John,” said his boss. “But I know that Coleen’s objective is to just listen and learn and get to know folks, so I don’t see any drastic change there.”

By LAURA COX


OHS’ French Club was selling Hershey Kisses and sending the proceeds to Haiti.
Sapphira Koerner, an adoptee from Haiti, was briefing her classmates at Greater Plains Elementary about her homeland.
And Valleyview Elementary pupils were posting “Hearts For Haiti” on the school’s wall to dramatize their solidarity with suffering youngsters on that Caribbean isle, where the death toll in the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12 may reach a quarter-million.
The tragedy spoke to students, as they read news reports in classes and watched the news. And school groups sprung to action to help raise money to for Haitian relief. Quickly, the efforts had raised $2,000, and they were just getting started.
At Greater Plains, the U.N. Ambassadors – each sixth grader learns about and represents a different country – headed up a school-wide fundraiser which launched just after the earthquake hit Haiti.
“We decided we wanted to make a difference,” said Michael Kleszczsewski, one of social-studies teacher Maria McMullen’s students.
“We went around to the classrooms and told them about what happened in Haiti and left a jar in each room. At the end of the week we collect the change and count it,” said Sapphira Koerner.
The goal was $500, but first-week collections topped $1,000.
By Monday, Jan. 25, the tally was $1,876.77, so the kids raised their goal to $2,000. The drive was due to end Friday, Jan. 29, and the money donated to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund.
“They know we are doing something special,” McMullen said. “My goal is to teach them that the single most important thing is to help someone in need.”
At Oneonta High, “En bissou pour Haiti” – or “ A kiss for Haiti” – was collecting $1 per Hershey Kiss, and a paper Hershey Kiss would go up on the wall outside the auditorium to mark the progress.
The other day, $200 had been raised toward a $650 goal, one dollar for every student, said French Club advisor Janis Labroo. The fundraiser will continue into February.
At Valleyview Elementary , the “Hearts for Haiti” had similarities to the OHS drive. As money is donated, sixth-grade Safety Patrol members hang hearts on bulletin boards and in the library windows.
On their first day, Monday, Jan. 25 they had already raised $200, said Principal Walt Baskin.

Donations are being accepted in the office throughout the day and the fundraiser will continue through the month of February, with the donations being given to the Salvation Army periodically as they are collected.
According to the Oneonta City School District website, students at Center Street School are also participating in the “Hearts for Haiti.”
Milford Central School’s annual Winterfest has been dedicated in part to Haiti relief efforts this year. The day long festival at the school features, a pancake breakfast, a chili cook off, rummage sale, entertainment, and badminton and volleyball tournament among other events. Part of their proceeds from the tournament entry fees will go to Haiti.
In addition to the Winterfest funds, the CIA/Interact student group which organizes the festival has organized a “Hats for Haiti” event.
Group advisor Jane O’Bryan explained how the fundraiser works, “Students and faculty are invited to wear a hat to school on Friday, Jan. 29, after making a one dollar donation to aid earthquake victims in Haiti.”
The funds raised from both Milford events will go to the American Red Cross.

Preki Radosavljevic, Major League Soccer’s only two-time MVP, and Thomas Dooley, the 1993 U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year, have been elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame Class of 2010 on the Player ballot. It hasn’t been determined where the induction will be this year.

Common Council has decided not to seek an independent investigation into the Oneonta Police Department after three officers departed under a cloud. The individuals are being investigated by the Delaware County D.A.

A bus is leaving from Oneonta Monday, Jan. 25, for the 10:30 a.m. “Stop Toxic Gas Drilling Rally” at the state Capitol. Register at www.actionotsego.org.

The SUNY Oneonta College Council meets at 1:30 p.m Friday, Jan. 22, . in the Morris Conference Center.

The UCCCA is seeking contestants in the sixth annual Chili Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 7. Anyone interested in chili-cooking competition, call 432-2070.

By LAURA COX


Oneonta’s Sandy McKane first saw an example of a knitted helmet liner in a yarn store in Rutland, Vt., last summer. When she got home, she was immediately knitted one herself.
When soldiers are issued helmets, they are often unlined, knitters at Rutland’s Green Mountain Fibers & Yarns told her. If they are lined, it’s with only a thin layer of silk. So the wool helmet liners help keep GIs warm during winter and on cold desert nights.
Once one soldier gets a wool liner, the knitters said, everyone else in the company wants one too.
McKane was moved by this notion to give a little home-sent care to each local soldier overseas.
When she completed her first liner, she started asking around after a local soldier to give it to.
First she found Oneonta Patrolman Joe Tiemann, who is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan in February with the New York State Army National Guard’s 827th Engineer Company.
“At first he wasn’t sure how to put it on,” said McKane, “but once I explained it and he slipped it on, he broke out in a huge smile.”
Then she found Sgt. Stephen Keown, another member of 827th. He too was very grateful.
The two soldiers told McKane 180 soldiers will be part of the 827th deployment. They come from 42 of New York’s 62 counties, including Otsego and Delaware.
So she decided to knit 180 helmet liners, but found she can only do about one a week.
She needs help, and is appealing to local knitters to help her. The company is departing Feb. 15, so time is short.
McKane’s daughter, Charlotte, 14, is helping out.
The wool yarn in black, charcoal, brown, tan and gray is available at Knitting It All Together, 175 Main St. These are the only colors the Armed Forces allows. The yarn can be any soft, worsted (100 grams/3.5 ounces) wool yarn that will knit to gauge, such as Cascade 220 or equivalent.
Only yarn comprised of 100 percent wool will be accepted because the ground forces are not allowed to wear synthetic fibers.
“Wool is inherently non-flammable and won’t melt against the skin in the event of an accident and is warm even when wet,” explained McKane, reading from the pattern she uses.
A skein of the wool yarn costs only $6, and all that is needed otherwise is a size 8, 16-inch circular needle, size 8 double-point needles, and size 6, 16-inch circular needles for the ribbings.
A similar project for people who do not knit but can sew is to help with sewing neck coolers for each of the soldiers.
McKane is in contact with the company’s commanding executive commanding officer 1st Lt. Kevin O’Reilly to get the helmet liners to each solider.
In an interview by phone, Lieutenant O’Reilly described the area of Afghanistan the unit will be deployed to as somewhat high in altitude, where they will likely experience “cold, snow and high winds.” He had only seen a picture of the wool liners but said he thought they looked like they would be useful.
For a copy of the pattern, or to contribute to the drive, contact Sandy McKane at sandymckane@gmail.com or call her at 437-0586.

By JIM KEVLIN


The first 20-some years, “I was living in Nirvana.”
Dick Miller was raised in George Eastman’s golden Rochester, where Kodak’s 65,000 jobs were so good some people would routinely buy a new car every year when bonuses were issued.
His father, Richard P. Miller, Sr., was chief executive of the Community Chest – precursor of the United Way – and it was the nation’s most successful, distributing the most money per capita at the lowest cost.
The family lived in Pittsford, which, if not quite rural, was pre-surburban.

By LAURA COXJan. 1, the Oneonta Community Christian School entered its 25th year.
And after a quarter-century, Principal & Administrator Jane Cook says with confidence, “We are a safe, loving environment that desires to put God first, support families and provide solid academics.”
The school grew out of a conversation between a dozen pastors and parents who wanted an option other than public school for their children, where they could receive spiritual guidance in addition to an education. Today, it’s grown into a Pre-K through 12th grade program.
The founders first located the school in the Main Street Baptist Church. It later moved to the West Oneonta Baptist Church, then to the 3200 Chestnut Street Plaza. Ten years ago, the school relocated in the building on River Street where it is today.
“Financially, our faith carries us through the difficult times,” said Cook. “It truly is amazing to see God’s provision. This has been the case, I am told, the entire 25 years.”
The school is a member of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) and permanently registered with the State of New York, allowing graduates to receive a New York State high school diploma.
With 50 students from 28 families, the school is a tight-knit community. Parents volunteer to do maintenance work, shovel driveways, help in the classroom and do office work. If one family is going through a difficult time, the others rally around and pray for them and help them.
“We are a praying school,” said Cook.
Every day before school, the staff gathers to pray for their students. Each class begins with a prayer. Students take Bible courses. And they look at each subject through a Biblical world view.
But there’s also fun. Students bake cookies in the school kitchen. And they’re enjoying a new technology center, courtesy of a large donation of computers.
The new semester – it started Monday, Jan. 4 – brings a national program, “Read to a Dog,” which encourages children to read to a “nonjudgmental listener” like a pet to build confidence in their reading abilities.
Also new this year, teacher Barb Field, a professional clown and mime, is forming a creative-arts ministry, where interested students in Grades 4-12 will “learn to communicate effectively through drama, mime, puppetry, and/ or clowning.”
And there’s community service: wrapping Christmas presents at the Salvation Army, sending packages to soldiers overseas, helping neighbors with yard work.
Marcia and Eric Wilson of Unadilla were convinced to send their children to Oneonta Community Christian School when they saw how well friends’ children were doing there.
“Austin” – their oldest of four – “ will graduate this year and he has been there since Day One. We couldn’t be more pleased,” said Marcia.
Nancy and Richard Meyers of Morris have also sent their four children to the school; their youngest, Jennifer, will graduate with Austin.
“The three oldest graduated from eighth grade at St. Mary’s. We wanted them to continue with Christian education and at that time we were introduced to OCCS and it has been exceptional,” said Nancy.
The Meyers found the Christian school’s small classes and dedicated teachers are particularly tuned in to the needs and abilities of individual pupils.
When one son wanted to enlist in the Marines and graduate early to go to boot camp, his teachers helped. Their other son learned to etch glass for a book report.
“This is most definitely God’s school, and it is a total privilege to be a part of His mission,” said Cook, who invites the public to stop in and take a look. “Once you’re inside, you’ll see that His work is wonderful.”