Letters to the Editor
May 30, 2008
Thank you, Kristy Rudel, for your contribution to Girl Scouts
Helen Jonsen Watkins
Ainsley, Hayley & Clare Watkins
Turf field proposal: Isn’t our children’s health already at risk?
Jackie O’Brien
Letter to the Editor: Thank you, Kristy Rudel, for your contribution to Girl Scouts
Dear Editors,
I was really pleased to see Kristy Rudel’s column about the Girl Scout Gold Award and the current group of Gold Award recipients who Kristy has led or helped lead since they were little girls. (See “Seven Senior Chappaqua Girl Scouts earn highest honor in Girl Scouting,” NewCastleNOW.org, May 23, 2008.)
What Kristy’s modesty prevented her from revealing is that Kristy herself is from a multi-generational family of Girl Scout award recipients. The highest award in Girl Scouts was not always called “The Girl Scout Gold Award,” but even under its prior labels it set the bar very high for girls who wished to learn the importance of service to the community. Kristy’s mother accomplished this, so did Kristy, and as of this year, both her daughters.
Those of us who have been involved in Chappaqua Girl Scouts look up to Kristy for many reasons, primary amongst them, her unflappable ability as a leader of leaders. Kristy is about to “retire” from her role as Community Director during which time she has increased Girl Scout involvement in Chappaqua by close to 100 percent and has shepherded a program which saw the first Gold Awardee just eight years ago grow to a total of 24. Currently almost one of every four girls in New Castle is a Girl Scout. At the same time, Kristy has also increased involvement among adult leaders, pushing it to 100 during her tenure.
This year, at the ceremony honoring her daughter, Susannah, and other wonderful girls scouts, Kristy will step down as Community Director. It will take a handful of women to fill the role she has filled alone in an incomparable fashion. From all the women and families involved in Girl Scouting and from the rest of the Chappaqua community, which has benefited from this vibrant organization, we want to say thank you, Kristy, for time well spent, and for all the camping gear, the outdoor training, the laughs, the tears, the sardonic wit, the reams of information and streams of emails, and most of all your unflagging friendship, always true to the Girl Scout Promise, which says, “Be a sister to every Girl Scout.” And thanks to Tony for sharing their home and family time with all of us as well.
Helen Jonsen Watkins
Ainsley, Hayley & Clare Watkins
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Letter to the Editor: Turf field proposal: Isn’t our children’s health already at risk?
Dear Editor,
Before taking a proposal for an artificial turf field another inch (See “Grass v. turf: Recreation Commission and town board kick around a few field ideas,” NewCastleNOW.org, May 23, 2008), I hope that our environmentally-minded town supervisor will thoroughly research what science is now saying about artificial turf. In particular, the town board should explore the health impact from contact with the turf (MERSA and other staph infections) and exposure to the turf’s contents (leaching toxins).
New Castle residents should know that a study on the health impact of turf found “when rubber granules were heated in a laboratory at temperatures consistent with exposure to the sun, they emitted four organic chemicals that could irritate the eyes, skin and
respiratory system. One of the chemicals is believed to be a carcinogen.”
(“The New York Times,” Oct. 28, 2007).
Jackie O’Brien
Editor’s note: In our article of May 23, 2008, reporting on the discussion concerning Precision Sports Complex’s proposal to supply an artificial turf field for upper Gedney, we neglected to mention that at the May 20 work session the town board and the Recreation Commission did discuss the health concerns surrounding turf fields. Both Rec Department members and town board members noted that the subject would need further exploration.
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