Changing Times See the Joneses Keeping Up

by Mickey Smith

HYDE PARK – It’s not just in Dylan songs that “the times they are a changin’” – the Joneslan Farm in Hyde Park, like many farms around the country, have found themselves making major changes to keep up with technology and allowing the “Joneses” to keep up with everyone else.

Brothers Brian and Steven Jones are as apt to find themselves pouring over computer data as they are spreading manure these days on their family-run farm. While the new technology is costly and a lot of work to stay on top of, they have found it’s also a time saver and can pay for itself with the right implementation. The Jones Brothers latest and most grandiose upgrades to the farm include a new milking parlor, which they estimate is cutting milking time in half. Before using their new area, they estimated it took four to four and a half hours to milk their herd of 180 cows – with some of the herd “on hold” for over two hours. These days, elapsed time has been cut to about two hours, with no cows waiting more than an hour. And this process is repeated three times a day, so some cows were spending nearly a third of the day just waiting to be milked.

The lower wait time allows the cows to feed or lie down more, keeping them more relaxed, which in turn leads to better production. Clean up time for farmers has also been cut down, which gives them more time to spend with the traditional chores needed to be done around the barn.

“We’re milking more cows with less hired help than we did before,” said Jones.

Along with the new technology comes a brand new structure, as well. The two-story barn design came about from trips to western New York and Pennsylvania. It is believed to be the first barn in Vermont where the mechanisms for the milking machines are kept on the ground floor, rather than in a traditional basement. Along with the machinery, the bulk tank is also on the ground floor, which allows for less energy to be spent pumping the milk out to an awaiting truck.

One thing that has helped speed up the cleaning process isn’t that high tech at all. The new barn houses a washroom, complete with washer and drier to clean the cloth towels used on the cows – thus saving trips to and from the house.

The topography of the Jones’ land lent itself well to this design, as by building their new 42’x145’foot structure into the hillside, they have ground floor access to both stories of the barn. The structure was built last summer, starting in April and by September they were milking in it. Final touch ups were being done as this interview took place, prepping for next week’s open house.

The brothers estimated they looked at 30 or 40 different parlors to come up with a design they liked. Included in the design, something they saw in New York, is a garage door on the “second floor” end of the barn. Though the first step would be a doozy, if you were to use the door, it will offer easy and high volume fresh air in the summer months.

One piece of technology they both agree has greatly helped the farming process isn’t attached to the new barn, but attached directly to the cows. High tech collars with an activity monitor adorn the necks of the herd. These collars act similar to a pedometer and transmit the cows’ activities back to a computer every hour.

Cows very much like to stay on a routine, so this activity monitor let’s Steve and Brian know when a cow is abnormally active or inactive. It helps locate sick animals more quickly and especially helps with the breeding process; by making that more precise, they can be done with the guesswork of when, and for how long, a cow should be out of the milking cycle.

Brian and Steven are the fifth generation Jones to be farming on that plot of land. Brian said the farm dates back to 1872, when his great-great-grandfather tore down and moved a partially built house from Ober Hill to the current farm. He said they started out with 80 acres and have now expanded to nearly 500. Their father, Robert, still helps out from time to time especially driving tractor at crop time. But for the most part, it’s Brian and Steven and their families and one full-time employee. Three other part-timers also help out, mostly nights and weekends.

The new innovations help keep the next generation interested and ensure there will be another group of “Joneses” for everyone to be keeping up with!

Scramble for the Amy Wade Fund!

by Amy Kolb Noyes

MORRISVILLE – Copley Country Club’s annual Alexander Hamilton Copley Memorial Tournament has a new beneficiary. Henceforth, the scramble-style golf tournament will be known and the Alexander Hamilton Copley Memorial Tournament to Benefit the Amy Wade Trust. This year the event will be held on Saturday, May 19, at 2 p.m.

Organizer Brad Gregory is welcoming golfers of all ability, and even non-golfers, to participate in this fun event to benefit Morrisville’s village beautification trust fund.

“We would love to have any and all civic-minded people come and sign up,” said Gregory. He noted sign up is going on now at Copley Country Club. Gregory is encouraging folks to sign up as individuals, so the country club can create balanced teams. However, he added it is all right to include the name of someone with whom you hope to be teamed.

In a scramble tournament, teams of four players tee off together, moving forward counting only the best shot at each hole. Gregory said it is a fun format and the folks at Copley Country Club hope it will be a successful fundraiser as well!

Amy Wade was secretary to Alexander Hamilton Copley, who provided her with a home in the Village of Morrisville for life. Upon her death in 1961, the house and property was turned over to the Village. The property was sold for $12,000 and the money was untouched until 1980, when Village voters established the Amy Wade Fund for the beautification of Morrisville streets and properties. By that time the investment had grown to $21,487.25. Voters authorized only the income from the fund be expended, maintaining the original investment as a minimum fund balance.

The fund was enhanced, in 2004, after Village voters authorized the sale of an .8 acre lot off Elmore Street. All $77,485 from the sale was invested in the Amy Wade Fund. The Country Club’s contribution will mark the first time an outside donation is made to the fund.

“The decision by the Copley Country Club to host a golf tournament each year to honor Mr. Alexander H. Copley and donate the proceeds to the Amy Wade Fund is very good for the community,” stated Morrisville Water & Light Superintendent Craig Myotte. “The Village and the Copley Country Club have worked closely together over the years. It is great to see the golf course hosting a tournament to honor the individual that donated the property to the Village in 1934 in addition to making a contribution to the Amy Wade Fund, of which interest from the fund is used for projects for the beautification of Village streets and properties.”

Annual Amy Wade funding requests are made to the Village Trustees by organizations, individuals and the Village itself. Requests made in writing by May 1 are considered by the trustees, who make annual funding decisions by June 1. Myotte said the trustees discussed three grant applications at their meeting this week. He expects final decisions on those applications will be made at the Monday, May 21 Village Trustee meeting.

Hyde Park Turns Down School Budget Increase

by Mickey Smith

HYDE PARK – A crowd of over 200 people gathered to discuss and, in the end, twice vote down the Hyde Park school budget on a sunny Saturday morning, May 5.

The sudden arrival of many of the voters shortly before the planned 9 a.m. start prompted town moderator Jim Mahoney to delay the start of the meeting about 15 minutes to ensure everyone was in the door and registered when discussion started.

After the Pledge of Allegiance and a brief discussion of ground rules by Mahoney, Hyde Park Elementary School Principal Ilene Levitt opened the meeting with a presentation of what is going on inside the doors of the school and how the school year is going.

Lamoille North business manager Marilyn Frederick was the next to speak. On behalf of the budget, she offered a presentation of how the budget was created and where the changes between the original budget and the version proposed at this meeting came from.

Toward the end of her discussion, the crowd grew restless and a call for the question was asked for from the audience.

The vote to call the question passed, and a paper ballot was requested to decide the fate of the proposed $2,948,307 budget – a bottom line up about $160,000 from what was voted down Town Meeting Day. By a vote of 96-125 the budget failed.

With an amended budget amount on his mind, Malcom Teale made a motion to reconsider the original budget (the legal way to restart the process without having to warn another meeting).

Teale proposed a budget of $2,548,307, citing “we’re spending more money than we can afford” as his reason for cutting the budget by $400,000.

A three-way debate ensued between those who have had enough with the tax system, those who agree money needs to be cut but not this drastically, and those who feel community support of the school is important.

There was a lot of talk from both sides about the unfunded mandates, and the effect they have on the entire education system. Much of the frustration centers around the constantly rising costs of special education, which are federally mandated services thus making them hard to cut. The point was made if the proposed $400,000 was cut from the budget, it would not be coming out of special education, but from direct services to the entire population. The amended budget failed, leaving the original budget still on the table and under consideration. There was an attempt to amend the number again, this time to the amount warned at Town Meeting, but an exact number could not be readily located so that amendment was withdrawn.

This resulted in another paper ballot again looking at the proposed budget amount which then failed for a second time that morning, by a nearly identical margin – 66-99.

What’s Next in HP and Eden

by Mickey Smith

A third school vote has been set in each of the local communities still looking to pass a school budget. Eden will be voting Saturday morning, June 2, at 9 a.m. and Hyde Park will have its third vote the following week, June 9, at 8:30 a.m.

Each town is spending many of the next few Monday nights looking over their budgets to see what cuts can be made. The two towns are broadening their scope and are in the preliminary stages of seeing if there are any places the two schools can combine services to save money.

Eden Board Chair Patrick Cray said he was contacted by Hyde Park Board member Kalee Roberts, over the weekend, about seeing what options are out there for saving money at the two schools. Cray said the towns appear to want “out of the box” thinking to come up with solutions. He said the options could be as big as putting kindergarten through third grade at one school, and fourth through sixth at the other.

One of the major issues at both schools is classroom size. Schools often wind up with too many kids for one room, but not enough to warrant a second classroom. By combining some grades the schools could eliminate some classrooms overall.

Cray stressed these talks were very preliminary, and more about asking “is there something we can look at” rather than being definite answers and proposals for voters.

Hyde Park School Board member John Bauer said his board agrees there could be areas where the two schools could come together to save both communities money and said these talks will be continuing.

In the meantime, both schools are looking at options to make cuts inside the current school plan. Cray said Eden has hired Ray Proulx, a retired superintendent, to conduct an independent look at the staffing at the school to see if there are any areas where cuts could be made.

Bauer said Hyde Park is also looking to see where cuts could be made. He said because of mandates for special education, any significant cuts would most likely be coming from the “meat of the program,” (i.e. the classroom side) so they are asking the question, what is expendable. He did point out they will also be looking at special education.

Hyde Park will be holding a special school board meeting Monday, May 14, at 7 p.m. and Eden will be getting together again Monday night, May 21, also at 7 p.m. to look again at the budget.

Lamoille County Church Women United Hold Final Meeting

by Amy Kolb Noyes

ELMORE – Women from churches around Lamoille County have been gathering together for nearly half a century. Saturday, May 5, the Lamoille County Church Women United held its final gathering at the Elmore United Methodist Church.

“It’s just a handful of us left,” commented Acting President Lorraine McGown, of Johnson. She explained most of the long-time members of the group are no longer with us, and younger women just aren’t joining the organization.

“So many women are working,” said McGown. “They don’t have time for this.”

The earliest minutes the local group has in its files date back to 1958. Back then the organization was called the Lamoille County Church Women United Council. The national organization was formed in 1941.

McGown said the women’s groups organized around the country during World War II and after to do charity work on a local, and even national level. Recently, the women have come together three times a year at various churches around the county on the World Day of Prayer, in March; May Friendship Day; and World Community Day, in November.

This May, McGown, Secretary Viola Behrends, of Morrisville; Treasurer Marion Taylor, of Johnson; and event organizer Audrey Stiles, of Morrisville, met with about 15 other members and guest speaker State President Jennifer Geary. Together, on this Friendship Day, they said goodbye to a tradition of helping begun by “the greatest generation.”

Things Look This Way to Me

Editorial by J.B. McKinley 5/10/07

Our Unseen Rural

Public Transportation System

What the heck is that guy talking about? What unseen, or maybe a better adjective would be “unrecognized,” rural transportation system already exists? It’s simple. The school bus system.

Why can’t we combine our need to get our kids to school with a greater role for the existing system to provide mass transportation to the general public with pre-set routes and schedules?

Isn’t it true that school buses are bought and used only a fraction of the day? Isn’t it more efficient to use such a machine more hours of the day and carrying fuller loads? If school buses ran their school routes and then switched to regular bus routes on main thoroughfares mightn’t it be possible to buy nicer buses, run on biodiesel, maybe hire full time drivers. It might be necessary to hire a second adult to ride in each school bus and police the back of the bus, keeping the adults separate from the schoolchildren.

Still, I ask, though everyone will see immediate problems with the idea, aren’t those problems capable of solution?

There has to be grant money out there for this kind of efficient solution to rural transportation woes.

Just think of all those ranks of school buses that sit unused most of every day and night. Statewide, I’d wager they represent millions of dollars of underutilized assets. I’m also sure the fleet could be made better, newer and safer if they all produced more income.

The way it looks to me is if we could only make the switch in our minds to thinking of school buses as simply buses, we might be able to think rationally of the possibility of a wide-ranging rural public transportation system. Connections could be made at school district boundaries and geographically the system would be universal.