Harold Miller brought together people who cared about the Hilltowns — about its history and its future.

“This is an activity about community,” says Perlee, a lawyer and Albany County legislator who describes himself as an amateur historian.

Donald Stauffer, Albany

ALBANY COUNTY — Jessica Serfilippi started her groundbreaking and myth-busting research on Alexander Hamilton the way she thinks any historian should — with an open mind, she says.

Patricia C. Bischof, as an adult, sat in a room in her mother’s house, crying, as she listened to the story of her mother’s life — a story she had never heard before.

Her mother, Ruth, was being filmed in the next room in an interview, which Bischof had set up, for the Shoah Foundation.

The proclamation event featured an array of honored guests, including State Senator Michelle Hinchey and Albany County legislators Jeff Perlee and Chris Smith.

The Guilderland School Board’s Feb. 15 resolution says the Cobblestone Schoolhouse property “is declared to be of no further use or value to the District and in fact, continued ownership of Property is fiscally detrimental to the District.” The resolution goes on to authorize listing the property for sale or auction.

Jill Franken Dugan, who teaches Spanish at Farnsworth Middle School in Guilderland, recently learned something by chance about her late father’s service in the United States Army. Her father, Hellmut Frankenberg, was a Ritchie Boy — a graduate of the the Army’s elite military intelligence training program at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. The Ritchie Boys were instrumental in helping the Allies win World War II.

The first event will be a proclamation on Feb. 28, the town’s official 200th anniversary, and it will be followed by various events through August, including a barbecue, pageant, and fireworks. 

Judy Kimes, New Scotland Historical Association