News Progress

Photo by Ellen Ferrera
Librarian Sally Ascenzo next to class picture file of the first Bethany High School class of 1889

•January 4, 2017•

By Ellen Ferrera
for the News Progress

When I was growing up in Bethany, the library was a dingy, musky storefront in a block of buildings that isn’t even there anymore. Imagine this librarian’s surprise when I entered the new Marrowbone Public Library with its bank of computers, community room and comfy chairs for casual reading. What a joy to find such a library in a small community such as Bethany.

The head librarian, Sally Ascenzo, ushered me into a side room, and there on a large stand was a collection of all the high school senior class pictures from the first class in 1889 to 1993. The class pictures forward are in a scrapbook nearby.

This collection was originally housed in storage in the high school and was beginning to deteriorate badly.

It was also unavailable to the public. Glenn Austin, Jim McLaughlin and Virginia Weakly rescued the collection and lovingly restored it before giving it to the library for permanent display Ascenzo told me. “There are some pictures in the scrapbook with unidentified students, and we are hopeful that someone will come in and help us identify these classmates,” she said. Word on the street is that every time Glenn Austin comes in, he flips the pictures to his class and leaves it there. I flipped it to my class. Read More

Photo by Ellen Ferrera
A Little Time is all it Takes
SES Mentoring Program Poppy Graham (l) and mentor, Janet Pasley.

Extending A Helping Hand

By Ellen Ferrera
for the News Progress

My assignment today is to interview Poppy Graham, social worker with Sullivan Elementary School. As she ushers me into her tiny office I notice that her door is covered with children’s drawings-almost all of them expressing love for Mrs. Graham.

Don’t we all remember the first teacher with whom we fell in love?

She offers me a seat and affectionately begins to describe her mentoring program which has 24 children in grades K through 5.

“These are children who need extra love, support both emotionally and academically, and someone to help facilitate their personal growth,” Graham said. “They are identified by either me or their teacher, and we then ask permission from the parents to pair them with a mentor.”

The program was actually begun by two other teachers, and Graham has been with it for six years.

The mentors are usually retired teachers or other people in the community who meet once a week with their wards during PE or music classes so they don’t miss regular classroom work.  Read More

Photo by Mike Brothers
Paul Feist has decorated his home southeast of Sullivan since 1959. Above he puts the finishing touches to the display that may be seen from the city limits.

•December 21, 2016•

A beacon shines southeast of Sullivan city limits just as it has since 1959.

That’s when Paul Feist decided to decorate three Christmas trees at the corner of his property south of Mason Point.

“Those trees were 15 feet tall when I started decorating,” Feist recalled, noting those three original white pine trees are now 100 feet tall.

“This year Herb Flannell brought his 100 ft. lift truck out, and we still needed a pole to get the lights to the top,” Feist said of the three cornerstone trees that mark the entrance to the former cut yourself tree farm.

After more than 40 hours working in the cold weather, Feist threw the switch December 14 to illuminate his yard just as he has every holiday season since 1959.

At a rate of about $12 per day for electricity the display stays on until the first of the year. Read More

•December 21, 2016•

By Stu D. Baker
for the News Progress

An editorial in the News Gazette has stirred up some people in Sullivan, and I can’t help but wonder why.

The piece was the paper’s opinion on public servants accepting retirement from one job while doing another.

Specifically cited was the city of Sullivan’s recent hiring of retiring judge Dan L. Flannell as city administrator.

First of all, those who follow the News Progress know this search has been going on for some time. The city has tried over the past two years to get someone to oversee the various departments while watching budgets. Read More