The Fonda Blog

AC Fonda – Charleston Stop

Anthony Cornelius Fonda (1818-1893) was the 6th of 10 children born to Cornelius Isaac and Alida VanVranken Fonda of Albany, New York.  He was baptized at the Boght Becker Reformed Dutch Church in Colonie, NY.  AC came from a family of farmers, but he took an interest in education.  In 1839 he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Latin Salutatory from Union College in Schenectady.  He may have completed graduate work as well, as he practiced law in the area for a few years.  For unknown reasons,  AC headed south to teach in Natchez, stopping in Charleston, MS overnight… and he never left.  He married Mary Kernes Worley in 1842, in Charleston and had two children; after her death, he married Delilah Catherine Howard in 1854, in Charleston and had nine children. He taught school in the Rocky Branch community; in 1853 he was appointed surveyor for Tallahatchie County. He enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862, joining Company I (Ballentine’s Regiment) of the 2nd Partisan Rangers of MS serving as SGT. In 1882 he became the first Superintendent of Education in the county. He had an active role in organizing three Presbyterian churches in Charleston, Pine Hill and New Hope.  He died May 20 1893, near Charleston, MS and is buried in Rowland Cemetery, Tallahatchie, MS.  AC Fonda had 11 children, 31 grandchildren and 123 great grandchildren.  There is a family reunion each year in Charleston, MS.

Photos courtesy Greg Stewart.

written by admin \\ tags: Education, New York

Library bears brunt of wreck

Judy Smith, Deborah Kenyon and Mary Fonda survey the damage to the library children's section after a car accident Monday afternoon.

The Clay County Progress, Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Throwing the book at someone has a new meaning after a single car accident sent shelves and books flying at the Moss Memorial Library.

About 4:30 p.m. law enforcement officers responded to reports that a car had crashed through the library wall on the Main Street side of the building. No one was injured, but the library will remain closed until structural repairs are completed, librarian Mary Fonda said.

Fred Ogden, 80, of Waynesville, told the North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper that his foot slipped off of the brake while he and his wife were parking. Fonda said. His foot became lodged between the brake and the gas and the car crashed through the exterior wall, buckled the interior wall and crunched the white metal shelf support.

No citations were issued.

written by admin \\ tags: Education, News

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. (…)

written by admin \\ tags: America, Education, Events, History, International, News, Schools, SouthEast

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.” (…)

written by admin \\ tags: Achievements, Education

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.

written by admin \\ tags: Buildings, Education, New York, News, Schools