Apr 27

Fonda couple leaves strong legacy

Gazette Reporter, April 27, 2008

Wemples set up scholarships

– This year’s high school graduation at the Fonda-Fultonville school district will mark the start of a unique legacy left by a village couple known for hard work and community service. About a dozen students unlikely to afford college on their will have opportunity to continue their studies with free tuition with a new scholarship named after its donors, William Barent Wemple and Elizabeth Ashley Burton Wemple. School officials have said the gift of $1.83 million is remarkable in its size alone.

W. Barent Wemple and Ashley Burton Wemple left a $1.8 million bequest for scholarships for Fonda-Fultonville school graduates. Copy photograph from his obituary dated Aug. 24,1978 from the Mohawk Valley Democrat.

W. Barent Wemple and Ashley Burton Wemple left a $1.8 million bequest for scholarships for Fonda-Fultonville school graduates. Copy photograph from his obituary dated Aug. 24,1978 from the Mohawk Valley Democrat.

The Wemples stipulated in their will that the scholarship would be active once their heirs were dead; school officials learned about it last fall following the death of the Wemples’ son, Frank Wemple, in 2006. But some who knew the prominent, upper-class family are not surprised that the donation, spelled out in the Wemples’ last will and testament, went unheralded for more than 30 years. “Today , people seem to be more interested in saying they did something,” said Rose Aversa, who grew up next door to the Wemples on Montgomery Terrace in Fonda. “The old way was you don’t talk about what you do. You just do it.”

Aversa, now 79, was one of many in the community who witnessed the generosity of Elizabeth Ashley Burton Wemple and the work ethic of her husband, W. Barent Wemple. She said W. Barent Wemple spent much of his time working, while his wife arranged household affairs and was constantly involved in community service work. Many of Ashley Wemple’s acts went unnoticed, Aversa said, except the fact that she allowed all the neighborhood children to play in their yard on Montgomery Terrace. “She was really gracious,” Aversa said.

community leader

According to his obituary, W. Barent Wemple, born on Nov. 30, 1895, was a descendant of one the earliest Dutch families in the Mohawk Valley. His ancestor Jan B. Wemple, who arrived in America in 1640, was one of 15 founders of Schenectady. His name is among those found on the bronze tablet in the First Dutch Reformed Church in Schenectady’s Stockade. W. Barent Wemple went to school at the Albany Boys Academy, lived in New York City, and moved to Fonda when his father, William Barent Wemple, bought the Fonda-based Mohawk Valley Democrat newspaper.

W. Barent Wemple graduated in the Fonda High School class of 1913, went to Union College and graduated in 1917, according to his obituary, published in the Mohawk Valley Democrat, the paper he ultimately took over as its publisher. He served as secretary of the Mohawk-Glen Development Corp., which succeeded in getting the Keymark Corp. to locate in the village. Keymark, which manufactures extruded aluminum products, remains in Fonda today and is one of Montgomery County’s largest employers.

When he was 41, W. Barent Wemple became a director of the former National Mohawk River Bank of Fonda and later, its president. The bank merged with Central National Bank of Canajoharie, where he served as a director, and chairman of its building committee, according to his obituary. He was a director of the former FJ & G Railroad and of the Fulton County Coal and Oil Co. He served as a trustee of the village of Fonda and a member of the former Fonda Planning Board. He was a member of the board of education and a member of the first Montgomery County Economic Development Committee.

She was born on the former McNab homestead on North McNab Avenue and West Fulton Street. That land was later donated to the city of Gloversville by her parents which now serves as the site of the McNab Elementary School, according to her obituary.

Ashley Burton Wemple studied in Gloversville schools and went to high school at The Willard School in Berlin, Germany, later studying at Smith College in Massachusetts and then at the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing, where she became a registered nurse.

Ashley Burton Wemple was a member of the Nathan Littauer Hospital’s board of trustees, commissioner of the Girl Scouts of Fulton County, president of the Alliance Francaise and the Every Monday Club of Gloversville, according to her obituary. Her activities, described as “innumerable” after she died, included membership on the boards of education of the Fonda School and later of the Fonda-Fultonville school districts once they consolidated. Her memberships included the PTA, the Caughnawaga Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Century Club of Amsterdam, and the Antlers Country Club. Ashley Burton Wemple also served as a trustee and secretary-treasurer of the Frothingham Free Library and as a member of the Mohawk Valley Library Association, according to her obituary.

married in 1930

Elizabeth Ashley Burton and W. Barent Wemple were married on July 26, 1930. They had two children; one, William Jr., was struck and killed at age 8 by a sand truck on Park Street in the village. He was on the way to third grade at the Fonda Elementary School, according to genealogical materials. Their son Frank, was born on Oct. 12, 1935, and attended Bard College and Columbia University. He worked with his father at the newspaper, according to his 2006 obituary.

Elizabeth Ashley Burton Wemple died at age 69 in November of 1964, 14 years before her husband, who died in August of 1978 at age 82. Rose Aversa, who still lives in the home next door to the former Wemple home, said she recalls W. Barent Wemple living alone after his wife’s death. “After she died, he didn’t do much. He gave up the paper and he just kind of walked,” Aversa said. “He kept to himself. In fact, he kept the light on at night    he just kind of withdrew to himself.”

Though gone for decades, the Burtons will be memorialized through their gift to students, which, though surprising to residents when announced, doesn’t surprise people who knew them. The Fonda-Fultonville School District expects to distribute about 12 scholarships of $7,000, the cost of tuition at Fulton-Montgomery Community College. The family left a request that the scholarships be distributed equally among males and females and based on student financial need. The fund itself requires that at least 5 percent of its value go to Fonda-Fultonville graduates pursuing higher education and, depending on its management, could endure for decades, officials said.

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Nov 23

Three from Harvard receive American Rhodes Scholarships

The Harvard University Gazette, November 23, 2008

Two Harvard College students and a Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) doctoral student have received Rhodes Scholarships. Thirty-two Americans were chosen from among 800 applicants for the scholarships to the University of Oxford in England.

Kyle Q. Haddad-Fonda

Kyle Q. Haddad-Fonda, Issaquah, Wash., is a senior at Harvard College where he majors in history and near-Eastern languages and civilizations. Well-versed in Mandarin and Arabic, the Pforzheimer House resident conducted research in China and Egypt for his senior thesis on Sino-Arab relations. Haddad-Fonda was captain of the Harvard 2008 National College Bowl Championship team and plays the harp in the Mozart Society Orchestra. He plans to do a doctorate in Oriental studies at Oxford.

“I’m absolutely thrilled at the prospect of studying at Oxford next year,” he said, “and humbled by the caliber of the other students who went through the process as well.”

Haddad-Fonda said an early interest in geography and “the world and understanding other places” led him to his concentration. Current events, like the recent deal between Iraq and China in excess of $3 billion that will allow China to develop an oil field southeast of Baghdad, he noted, point to the increasing importance of Sino-Arab connections.

While at Oxford, he plans to continue his research and explore how this and other connections have developed in recent times.

“It’s a topic that is very current and very important. And it’s something that I want to understand and to understand in a historic perspective as well.” (…)

Elliot F. Gerson, American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, in a press release called the Rhodes Scholarships “the oldest and best-known award for international study, and arguably the most famous academic award available to American college graduates.” The scholarships were created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, British philanthropist and African colonial pioneer. The first class of American Rhodes Scholars entered Oxford in 1904; those chosen this weekend will enter Oxford in October 2009.

Gerson said 3,164 Americans have won Rhodes Scholarships, representing 309 colleges and universities. The number of Harvard College students who have won American Rhodes Scholarships is now 323, more than from any other college. That number does not include Rhodes Scholars who were Harvard students who were citizens of other countries, and also does not include scholars who were selected while attending Harvard’s graduate schools.

In addition to the 32 Americans, Rhodes Scholars will also be selected from Australia, Bermuda, Canada, the nations of the Commonwealth Caribbean, Germany, India, Jamaica, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, Southern Africa (South Africa, plus Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, and Swaziland), Zambia, and Zimbabwe. About 80 Rhodes Scholars are selected worldwide each year. Some countries have not yet announced their Rhodes Scholars.

The value of the Rhodes Scholarships varies depending on the academic field and the degree (B.A., master’s, doctoral) chosen. The Rhodes Trust pays all college and university fees, provides a stipend to cover necessary expenses while in residence in Oxford as well as during vacations, and transportation to and from England. Gerson estimates that the total value of the scholarship averages approximately $50,000 per year.

2 from region named Rhodes scholars

The Associated Press, by Dan Robrish, Monday, November 24, 2008

An Issaquah man who is studying history and Chinese and Arabic languages at Harvard University is among this year’s winners of the Rhodes Scholarship.

Kyle Q. Haddad-Fonda joins Mallory A. Dwinal, of Gig Harbor, and 30 other men and women from across the United States in winning the prestigious scholarships for study at England’s Oxford University.

The winners – announced publicly on Sunday – were picked from 769 applicants endorsed by 207 colleges and universities nationwide. The scholarships are the oldest of the international-study awards available to American students. They provide two or three years of study at Oxford University in England, commencing in October.

Haddad-Fonda, 22, grew up in Bellevue and graduated from Lakeside School in Seattle, where he studied Chinese and learned to play the harp. He plays in Harvard’s student orchestra and served as captain of the school’s College Bowl team, for the academic-oriented quiz competition along the lines of “Jeopardy!”

His senior thesis at Harvard focused on China-Arab relations in the 1950s. He plans to pursue the British equivalent of a doctorate in Asian studies. (…)

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Oct 15

Mind Games

The Harvard Crimson – October 15, 2008

When the Harvard Quiz Bowl team was winning national championships in the mid-1990s, its leader, an English graduate student named Jeffrey G. Johnson, was the stuff of legends. It was rumored that he had read 10,000 books, and that watching him take in a volume was like witnessing somebody leaf through a magazine.

(l to r) Adam N. Hallowell, John D. Lesieutre, Meryl Federman and Kyle Haddad-Fonda

By contrast, Harvard’s current up-and-coming star, a skinny 6 foot 4 inch freshman called Dallas R. Simons, is calibrated to deflect such self-aggrandizing talk. The former captain of a Martin Luther King High School team that finished second in the nation his junior year, the soft-spoken Nashville native consistently ducks self-promotion. (…)

I first witnessed the Harvard team at practice in mid-September, in a small classroom above Annenberg. The buzz of eager freshmen going about their dinner resonates on the stairs as I make my way up.

Inside, around a long rectangular table, sit several Quiz Bowl luminaries: Kyle Haddad-Fonda ’09, the former president of the club; Meryl Federman ’11, who last summer won $75,000 on Jeopardy!; and Adam N. Hallowell ’09 and John D. Lesieutre ’09, both of whom were on the Harvard team that won a national championship last spring. The fourth member of that team, Julia Schlozman ’09 is absent.

The current standing of the Harvard team-ranked anywhere between fourth and tenth in the nation-owes much to the efforts of Haddad-Fonda, who arrived in Cambridge representing one-third of possibly the greatest recruiting class any college has ever had in Quiz Bowl (the Class of 2009 included the captains of the top three high school teams in the nation). By his sophomore year, Haddad-Fonda had taken the reins and arranged for the initial staging of the Harvard Fall Tournament, a high school event that last year drew 32 teams and countless potential recruits.

The club’s current president, Andrew Watkins ’11, has brought to Harvard an even more bullish style. Where the enterprising Haddad-Fonda is soft-spoken and retiring, Watkins is forceful and assertive. Rarely sleeping more than three hours a night and regularly taking runs that stretch as far as seven or eight miles, the new president has channeled his energy into an ambitious plan to supplement the Harvard Fall Tournament with two others this year. But this same energy also tends to manifest itself in less desirable ways.

“Andy, I would say, plays differently than I do,” Haddad-Fonda says. “He takes it very seriously, he beats himself up physically while he plays, and he gets quite angry when things don’t go well. That works for him most of the time. That’s not how I play.” (…)

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Sep 02

Atlantic Energy Solutions Exceeds Expectations for Fonda-Fultonville Schools

Ascribe News – September 02, 2008

Minneapolis, MN – Atlantic Energy Solutions announced that its guaranteed savings projections for the Fonda-Fultonville School District have been exceeded by over 25 percent.

Energy Efficiency Excellence

The Co-Generation project was the first off-grid Co-Generation plant approved by the New York State Education Department and built by an Energy Services Company (ESCO) in New York State. In addition, Atlantic Energy Solutions was able to help provide the school district with a grant of over $500,000 from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the company said.

Tim Brock, CEO, of Atlantic Energy Solutions, said, “As a result of the sharp increase in utility rates over the last several years, businesses have been aggressively searching for new ways to become energy efficient. Co-generation plants have emerged as a cost-effective alternative, resulting in thousands of dollars in savings”. Brock went on to say, “The most gratifying part for my job is to see such huge savings realized for each and every one of our customers.”

In the Fonda-Fultonville project, the company said, Atlantic Energy Solutions installed four 330KW gas driven generators that produce 100 percent of the school’s electrical needs. This enables the school to produce 100 percent its own electricity and frees them from being connected to the local utility electric grid. The heat that is generated from the units is recycled into the facility’s heating and cooling systems, resulting in an additional 55 percent savings on its total energy budget.

The Co-Gen units, manufactured by Cummins and the control system, manufactured by Invensys, produce electricity from natural gas while simultaneously providing heating and cooling for the buildings as well as heating the pool year around, saving the district thousands of dollars annually, the company said.

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Aug 23

Senate Passes Legislation to Change Political Science Academic Policy

The New Paltz Oracle – March 27, 2008

Legislation recently passed by the student senate might help political science students double majoring in an outside department gain dual credits for shared electives in two majors.

SUNY New Paltz Student Government

On March 4 Sen. Jeff Fonda proposed Resolution 3 at the student senate meeting that could reverse the political science department’s policy of not allowing elective classes to be counted twice for two different majors.  “A lot of students weren’t aware of the policy until I brought it to their attention,” Fonda said.

“Students should be rewarded for putting in the extra work to have dual majors. Sometimes it’s not possible to have dual majors without having overlap unless they want to spend extra time and money in college.”  The legislation says that the political science department is the only department to have a policy listed on its Web site that, “Courses used to meet the requirements of any other major or minor may not be used to meet the requirements of this major.”

It is unclear whether or not this policy is unique within the university. The only defined college-wide policy can be found in the Student Advising Handbook, stating that in all departments there must be a 15 credit difference between the first and second major.  (…)

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