Dancing with the Queen, Marching with King by Sam Aldrich

Author:Sam Aldrich [Aldrich, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Memoir, Political, Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States
ISBN: 9781438439891
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2011-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Stern area of Strider under canvas cover, Will and Sarah settling down for the night in Green Harbor, Vinalhaven, Me. I took the picture June, 1983.

I asked Nelson for his support, and he suggested getting the legislature involved to match the private funds and turn the estate into a historic site and state park. With the publication of a spectacular photographic spread in Life magazine, which appeared on each legislator's desk the morning of the key vote, the bill passed easily, with the matching funds included, and Olana became state property. I had become well known in the valley, particularly in the congressional district.

I also made it my business to interview various community leaders, including the presidents of a number of local colleges. One of these was the head of the community college in Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County. He gave me the inspiring information that his school was reaching its maximum capacity; within the next two years it would no longer be able to enroll any more students from Columbia or Greene counties.

I went dashing back to Hudson, called a meeting of my closest friends, and we cooked up a plan. We had just preserved Olana, and now we decided to embark on another campaign to get the supervisors of the two counties to create a new community college, and to locate it on the grounds of Olana.

Lou Pierro, who had been my field rep in the Youth Division for that region, and who was now my Columbia County campaign manager, was galvanized into action. He spoke to every member of both county boards individually about the desperate need for immediate action. The Greene County board then called a meeting at Catskill, followed by a similar meeting in Columbia County, at Hudson. I attended both, and got both groups to appoint a joint committee to manage the creation of the college. They also asked me to serve as a member of the founding committee. By the next meetings of both boards, both of them adopted the positive recommendations of the joint committee, and a new community college was launched.

In 1990, at the grand age of 62, I proudly attended the celebration of the twenty-fifth birthday of the Columbia-Greene Community College. I seemed to be the youngest person there.

Today, the college is thriving, with 1,770 students enrolled in a two year academic program offering associates degrees in liberal arts, humanities, business management, criminal justice, computer science and other disciplines; it also boasts a strong athletic program, with intercollegiate men's baseball, men's and women's soccer and women's softball; and a variety of minor intramural sports.

Having saved Olana and having worked to found a community college, I decided to resign as Nelson's executive assistant, give up my state car, and declare my candidacy for Congress. There was one other candidate, Hamilton Fish, Jr. from Dutchess County. Ham was the son of the famous congressman of the same name, whose hatred of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s and '40s had earned him the lasting support of the conservative wing of Republicans throughout the country.

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