PRESCHOOL OPENINGS FOR THE FALL!

Are you thinking about enrolling your child in preschool this fall? Are you looking for a place where your child can make friends, learn in a program that encompasses all learning styles and abilities? Do you want your child to go to school at a place where children are allowed to express their normal curiosity while being stimulated and learning new skills? Now is the time to call and learn about The Center School!

The Center School in Northwood is currently accepting registrations for the 2014-2015 school year. There are openings in our Monday/Wednesday/Friday and Tuesday/Thursday classes. Or, if you are interested, your child could come all five mornings!

The Center School is a parent cooperative preschool located next to the town hall in Northwood.  It provides a developmental program for three, four, and five year-olds of Northwood and surrounding towns. Call or email us soon to find out about the school or to get an information packet! For information, please email at director Karen Andersen [email protected] or call her at the school at 942-7686. Check out our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TheCenterSchoolNorthwood .

Act quickly! School starts the first week of September.

HYMN SING IN NORTHWOOD

You are invited to join us at the Northwood Narrows Advent Christian Church at 113 School Street (Route 107) for a Hymn Sing.  It will be held on Sunday, August 24 , at 6 p.m.  Hymns we loved to sing are filled with great Biblical truths that have lifted us through the years.  It will be a nice way to close your day with worship in song to the God we love.  This Sunday, August 24, at 6 p.m., Northwood Advent Christian Church.  Your friends are invited to come with you.

Letter To The Editor

All Work, No Play

When I was a kid, camp meant all play and no work- but not so with CampYavneh in Northwood NH.  This summer Camp Yavneh has sent several work crews of campers to help me on my farm. I am a widow and have physical handicaps so it has been a great blessing, but not only because of all the many tasks they have taken on, but how they have taken them on as well. 4-12 campers arrive almost daily with a counselor or two with a can do attitude that a football coach can only dream of.  They take on any project without complaint or hesitation; they have mucked stalls, cleared pasture of rock and tree limbs, pulled up stumps, separated and stacked firewood and mowed the lawn. All this without one complaint, pout, nor a word of sarcasm, not even among themselves. I found the campers and the counselors to be refreshingly polite and engaging and not one cell phone among them. My farm has never looked so good. Thank you Camp Yavneh!

Theresa LaBrecque

The Fairy Farm

Harvey Lake Watershed Association to meet Aug. 23

A membership meeting of the Harvey Lake Watershed Association is  scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014, at 2 p.m., at the Northwood Town Hall,  Route 4, Northwood.

The association is a small group of volunteers consisting of lake residents  who were formed eleven years ago to protect the watershed of Harvey Lake, which consists of the 116-acre lake behind Coe Brown Academy and the immediate area of the lake. The association sponsors the annual Lake Host program for Harvey Lake and conducts water testing through the state’s Volunteer Lake Assessment Program. Volunteers also conduct an organized weed watching program to be on the lookout for invasive aquatic plants.

The annual meeting will be to hear reports and organize the association’s activities during the upcoming year.   All members and those interested in the continued vitality of the lake are welcome and urged to attend.

For more information, contact HLWA President Bob Charest at 892-3488 or by email at [email protected].

Letter To The Editor

On The Campaign Mail

One of the more interesting aspects of running for office in NH is the surveys that come in the mail.  Some are from organizations I’ve heard of: NRA, AFL-CIO, NARAL.  Others are more obscure: the National League of Taxpayers, the Campaign for Liberty.  Another, Americans for Prosperity, has become infamous because its funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, while claiming to have “more than 42,000 activists” in NH.  I haven’t met one yet.

But creating the appearance of a large group of members and supporters is a common feature of their names: League, Coalition, Alliance.  And Granite State Taxpayers claims to “represent the taxpayers of New Hampshire,” whether you or I want them to or not.

These quasi-organizations all want to find out how I will vote if elected: Am I with ’em or agin’ ’em?  But this focus on guns, abortion and taxes seems a little narrow to me.  These are not the only – nor even the main issues – facing this state.  And while it is very flattering when someone wants to know what I think, I have declined to fill out most of these surveys.  I prefer to state my own positions, as I did in my last letter about protecting lakes and water resources more broadly.

Also, I would go to Concord to represent ALL the citizens of Northwood, not just the gun owners (of which I’m one), the taxpayers (of which I’m one), or those who purport to cherish Liberty (I do.  Don’t you?)  

As for smaller government, I just hope that they don’t shut down the Center for Disease Control until we get a better handle on the Ebola virus.

Tom Chase

Northwood

Candidate for NH State Legislature – Rockingham District 1

Elmer D. Tasker

Elmer D. Tasker, ‘The Man with the Tin Hat’, 94, passed away on the 13th of August, 2014 at the Epsom Healthcare Center, after a period of failing health. Born September 29, 1919 and raised on a farm on Jenness Pond in Northwood, Elmer was one of seven children born to Clara and Elmer Tasker, Sr.  He attended Northwood schools, graduating from Coe’s Academy, now Coe-Brown Academy, in 1937.

After serving in World War II from 1940 to 1945, Elmer and his brother Murray founded Tasker’s Well. Elmer met his wife Edith (Taylor) at the age of 30 and they were married in December of 1949.  While Edith raised their children and kept the company books, Elmer expanded the company and became an icon in the well drilling industry. 

After being nominated by Governor John Sununu in 1983, Elmer served for 11 years as the Well Driller Member of the NH Water Well Board. Elmer was recognized in 1996 by the NH Water Well Association for his dedication and devotion to the water well industry. The Northwood Chamber of Commerce honored Elmer by naming him the 1996-97 Citizen of the Year.  

Elmer created the unique company motto “We need your business, our business is going in the hole.” Over the years, Elmer and the company have been featured in numerous articles in national trade magazines and state-wide newspapers. The most exciting and probably Elmer’s favorites were for the company’s 50th anniversary in 1997. These articles, as well as numerous photos of Elmer over the years, can be seen on the company’s website at taskerswell.com. 

As head of Tasker’s Well Company for its first 40 years, some of Elmer’s many roles included well driller, mechanic and salesman. He witnessed the old cable tool ‘pounders’ evolve into today’s high-tech rotary drill rigs. Many of the workers he trained over the years went on to establish their own companies.  During his retirement Elmer continued to have an interest in the company, now in its 67th year of business.  He relentlessly called his sons Dan and Jeff, current owners, at the end of the day to see how things went on the job site. Elmer enjoyed politics, watching the news, and being known famously throughout the state as ‘The Man with the Tin Hat.’

Elmer was predeceased by his loving wife Edith, who died on December 12, 2008 and his stepdaughter Martha Hossain, who died earlier this year. He is survived by his three sons, Daniel and his wife Melinda, Jeffrey and his wife Diane, and Kevin, all of Northwood; step-daughter Lana Thomas and her husband Ted of Sanford, FL; 12 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren; 1 great great-grandchild; nieces June Leone and Pat Sweisthal and her husband Hank, both of Northwood; plus many nieces and nephews.

Services in memory of Elmer’s life will be held at Purdy Memorial Chapel, 2 Concord Road, Lee, NH on Friday, August 22, 2014.  There will be a calling hour at 10:00 a.m. followed by a memorial service at 11:00.   

In lieu of flowers, please make donations in Elmer’s memory to the Advent Christian Church, c/o Treasurer, PO Box 115, Northwood, NH 03261 or the Northwood Food Pantry, c/o Gayle Robbins-Monteith, Treasurer, 734 1st NH Tpk, Northwood, NH 03261. To sign our online guestbook, please go to www.purdyfuneralservice.com

Phyllis L. Reese

Phyllis L. Reese passed peacefully on August 12 in her home on the shore of Pleasant Lake, where she spent her summers until 1972 when she had the good fortune of becoming one of the lake community’s few year-round residents.

Phyllis was born July 22, 1925, in Lynn, Mass., the daughter of Joseph and Celia (Thomson) Knox. She graduated from Lynn English High School in 1943. She attended Salem State Teaching School.

In 1947 she married George E. Reese, and they moved to Northwood where she and “Ted” raised three children. Active in the community, at various points she served on the Northwood zoning and planning boards, as a Supervisor of the Checklist, and with the Northwood Public Kindergarten. She also worked as an aide and substitute teacher at Coe Brown Northwood Academy.  Phyllis was a past director of the Pleasant Lake Association.

She and Ted loved to travel and spend time with family and friends, be it on a vacation in Rangeley, Maine, golfing trips on Cape Cod, or on their dream trip to Alaska and to visit relatives in British Columbia. Their home on Pleasant Lake was also a favorite gathering spot for family and friends.

She is survived by her son Charles and his wife Nancy of Deerfield, her daughter-in-law Karen of Epsom, and six grandchildren: Joel Dail and his wife Meggin of Epsom; Brett Gagnon and her husband Jason of Dover; Ian Reese and his wife Kiera of Epsom; Sean Reese of Epsom; and Tyler and Cooper Reese of Deerfield. Also, four great-grandchildren: Earnhardt and Carson Dail of Epsom, and Brannock and Elyas Gagnon of Dover. She is also survived by her sister, Josephine “Avis” Parks of Uxbridge, Mass., and her brother Joseph Knox and his wife Marion of Northwood, as well as many nephews and nieces. 

She was predeceased by her husband George E Reese Sr., her daughter Roberta Mongeon, her son George E. Reese Jr. and her brother George Alward Knox.

At Phyllis’s request there will be no calling hours or services. In lieu of flowers donations may be made in her memory to the Pleasant Lake Preservation Association or your local County VNA & Hospice.