News stories tagged with "newcomb"

(05/24/12) The Adirondack Interpretive Center in Newcomb will try a new twist on the "rubber duck race" on Saturday, using rubber loons instead. The event is part of the center's celebration of its first anniversary under the leadership of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Proceeds will support educational programs at the center.

The event will focus on the two most iconic symbols of human and natural history in the Adirondacks: logs and loons. Some 500 black-and-white rubber loons will be dropped into the Rich Lake outlet for a 425-yard floating race. Prizes will be awarded for those who sponsored the winners. Visitor's center program coordinator Paul Hai told Todd Moe that a California company, CelebriDucks, manufactured the rubber loons for the race.

(07/20/11) The Newcomb United Methodist Church will host an afternoon of words and music this Sunday at 3:30 pm. California storyteller Tzipporah Marks-Barnett is one of the presenters who will share her love of telling tales. She's an ordained Jewish storyteller, who joins a long tradition of sharing stories, many with messages and life lessons.

Here, she tells a Hassidic tale of love titled, A Generous Wife. Todd Moe spoke with Marks-Barnett and asked about her journey to becoming an ordained storyteller.

(05/31/11) The Adirondack Park's visitor interpretive centers are open again this summer, despite the APA's decision last year to eliminate their funding. Keeping the two centers open, at Paul Smiths and in Newcomb, required complicated negotiations through the winter and new partnerships.

Now the two projects have emerged with very different approaches and goals. Yesterday, Nora Flaherty reported on the private effort to revitalize the VIC at Paul Smiths. This morning, Brian Mann has the story of the VIC in Newcomb, where the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry hopes to use the facility as a new meeting ground for education and conversation.

(11/24/10) Public schools in the North Country have been closing one-by-one for decades. It's a heartbreaking event for small towns.

But dwindling populations and rising costs have forced districts to consolidate and bus their kids long distances to bigger schools.

Incoming Governor Andrew Cuomo has indicated that he wants more districts to merge, and the state has already cut education funding.

The entire Newcomb school district has fewer than a hundred kids.

But as Brian Mann reports, the community is fighting for survival by trying to attract international students to fill its empty classrooms. more

(06/25/10) One of two visitor centers in the Adirondacks that Gov. David Paterson had targeted for closure earlier this year will remain open, under new ownership. The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry has reached an agreement with the Adirondack Park Agency to take over the agency's Visitor Interpretive Center in Newcomb. The APA will transfer ownership of the facility to SUNY-ESF on July 1, six months before it was scheduled to be shut down, along with Paul Smiths VIC. As Chris Knight reports, officials say the mission of the Newcomb visitor center will continue under SUNY ESF.

(05/04/10) Getting kids to play outside does more than just letting them burn excess energy. Experts say it also helps a child's psychological and mental well-being. Todd Moe talks with Paul Hai, program coordinator for the Northern Forest Institute and co-founder of Children in Nature New York, about the "Get Out and Play" conference in Newcomb on May 15th.

(01/20/10) The Adirondack Park Agency's Visitor Interpretive Centers in Paul Smiths and Newcomb would be closed under Gov. David Paterson's proposed 2010-11 budget.

The proposal says closing the two facilities will save the state $129,000 in the next fiscal year and $583,000 each year thereafter.
The VICs provide environmental education programs to school children and adults, and offer miles of trails for hikers, skiers and snowshoers.
As Chris Knight reports, supporters are shaking their heads.

(01/19/10) In his State-of-the-State address two weeks ago, Gov. David Paterson predicted this would be "a winter of reckoning."

This morning, he and his budget director began to fill in the details. For the North Country, they include closure of three prisons--in Ogdensburg, Lyon Mountain and Moriah--as well as both Adirondack Park Visitors Interpretive centers, at Paul Smiths and Newcomb. Roughly 480 high-paying government jobs are at stake.

State Sen. Betty Little's spokesman Dan Mac Entee told North Country Public Radio the prisons will close in 2011, "Obviously the Senator is very concerned. It's not altogether surprising that upstate facilities are once again targeted for closure. Given the concentration of power downstate it's hard to fight back against something like that."

The governor said New York's budget is caught between rising fixed costs and an addiction to overspending. It's crashed, he said, and the state can't put off a remedy. Paterson said the state is facing a $7.4 billion deficit in the coming year.

The $134 billion budget the governor proposed today closes that gap, and lays out a four-year plan for recovery. The governor is asking for a 5% cut in school aid--$1 billion overall--as well as $1 billion in new taxes and fees. In addition to the billion-dollar cut in school aid, Paterson wants a $1 billion cut in health care spending, much of which goes to hospitals and nursing homes.

He said: "This is not a budget of choice, this is a budget of necessity."

We'll have more during All Before Five this afternoon, and The Eight O'Clock Hour tomorrow morning.

(05/19/09) Two Lake Placid students are taking their senior project to a historic waterway this month. Ian McMullen and Nick Kulina will paddle kayaks down the Hudson River from the Adirondacks to Manhattan. They've done their homework. Planning began last fall for the two-week trek. It's a personal challenge and a way to promote kayaking. Ian McMullen told Todd Moe he'd like to inspire more teens to enjoy outdoor recreation.

(10/17/08) School officials in a small town in the Adirondacks are pushing for a change in federal law that could help to stem the tide of declining student enrollment. The Newcomb Central School district, with an enrollment of about 70 students, wants to bring in international students for longer periods of time than the current one year allowed under federal law. The district is asking the New York State School Boards Association to support a change in federal law that would give public schools the same right to international students as private schools. As Chris Knight reports, several school districts in the North Country are backing the proposal.