Photos: Sharing the pride
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Five-hundred signatures: Students and faculty at Voorheesville Elementary School each signed a piece of fabric earlier in the school year; that fabric became the back of a quilt commemorating its designation as a 2014 National Blue Ribbon School by the United States Department of Education. At an assembly last Thursday afternoon, Dawn Mancuso, left, a first-grade teacher, shows the students the quilt her mother, Jennie O’Brien, right, stitched together.
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Finished project: At last Thursday’s assembly at Voorheesville Elementary School, Dawn Mancuso, left, and her mother, Jennie O’Brien, display a quilt for the students honoring their Blue Ribbon School. It took an extra 24 hours to finish because Mrs. O’Brien misspelled “Voorheesville,” and then had to painstakingly remove the stitching to embroider the name again. The quilt will hang in the school.
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Blue Ribbon Business: Ella Parmenter, right, gives her father, Jerry Parmenter, owner of Elemental Landscapes, a blue ribbon sticker during a school assembly last Thursday at Voorheesville Elementary School shile Laurie Lynsenko, the school's psychologist, looks on. Recognized as a 2014 National Blue Ribbon School by the United States Department of Education, Voorheesville Elementary has in turn expressed its gratitude to local businesses that have helped students and staff, by designating them "Blue Ribbon Businesses." Elemental Landscapes was honored for its work in 2009, designing and creating the Blackbird Paradise Garden, a large community vegetable garden and hands-on classroom for the kids, and also for the sign and garden at the entrance to the secondary school and most recently the Community Bulletin Board. "My children are the fifth generation of my family to live in Voorheesville," said Parmenter. "I take great pride in giving back to the school district."
— Photo from Jerry Parmenter
To beautify the village, the Voorheesville trustees asked local landscaper Jerry Parmenter and his company, Elemental Landscapes, to create a low-maintenance design for the Community Bulletin Board at the entrance to the village near the Hannaford Plaza. There had never been any thought given to the design before, said Trustee Brett Hotaling. The village paid $1,500 for its labor, said Hotaling. Beneath the sign now stands a massive limestone boulder, 13 feet long and weighing 2.5 tons. The design was then softened, Parmenter said, with plantings of ninebark Coppertina, hydrangeas known as "Twist-n-Shout," and Siberian cypress shrubs. At work on the landscaping are Joe Corrigan, with his back to the camera, and Andrew Luyckx, raking.