1962-05-30

              In This Issue
DESIGNATED AS AN OFFICIAL
NEWSPAPER BY THE
INCORPORATED VILLAGEOF
FARMINGDALE
SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 22
PLAINEDGE
SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 18
SERVING PLAINEDGE, BETH-PAGE
AND THE GREATER
FARMINGDALE AREA.
Dalers Win Baseball, and GoH Titles
server
Farmingdale's Most Complete Newspaper
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VOL. 3 N O . 26 Wednesday, May 30, 1962 Massapequa Park, L. I. 2nd Class Postage paid at Massapequa Park 10$
Expect Bud get Hearing Fire works
MacDougalls Move To Vermont
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Farmingdale lost one of its best known and distinguished couples
yesterday, when Mr. and Mrs. D. Robert MacDougall, residents of
the 263- year- old ten room, Thomas Powell home, moved to their new
home in Manchester Center, Vermont.
Both Mr. and Mrs. MacDougall were members of the staff of the
State University Agricultural and Technical Institute at Farmingdale
since 1924.
The Powell homestead was purchased by the MacDougalls in June,
1938, when it was in a neglected condition. They rented the old home­stead
until 1946 and since then until this week have lived there contin­uously.
Due to the unique talents of the MacDougalls, it was completely
restored and modern conveniences, were added, without destroying its
original Colonial charm. _
Mr. " Mac," as he is known
affectionally brought to the Thomas
Powell house his professional,
knowledge and experience in en­gineering,
electricity and plumb­ing.
He had headed the Rural En­gineering
Department of the State
University Long Island Agriculture
and Technical Institute at Farming-dale
since 1940. Since 1924, he had
taught at the University as well as
being in charge of discipline on the
campus and the dormitory system.
His colorful career goes back to
the days when as a lad of 20 he
was a master mechanic at the
quarriesin East Dorset, Vermont
His career included a stint in 1913
as a ' gunman' with the Al G.
Barnes show and circus, which
according to ' Mr. Mac' was a big­ger
and better show than Barnum
and Bailey, but was unknown in
the East since the show toured
only the West from the Artie Cir­cle
to the Mexican border and East
as far as the Mississippi. Today,
his interest in guns continues, as
Mr. Mac has collected, and re­stored
some of the most famous
guns in history including one car­ried
by Davy Crockett and many
from the Civil War.
' Mr. Mac' served with the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police, although
born in New York City and of
course a Scotsman, by ancestry.
' Mr. Mac' reported that he was
descended from General MacDou­gall,
one of George Washington's
best general during the retreat
across Long Island during the
American Revolutionary War. ' Mr.
Mac' said the life of a Royal
Canadian Mountie was rather bor­ing,
not at all as portrayed by
Nelson Eddy in ' Rosemarie'.
Mr. Mac became a fencing cham­pionship
in Canada, and then Served
as a Master Engineer' under Gen­eral
Pershing in the ' Mexican
Fracas' before World War I. ' Mr.
Mac' played an active roll in
World War I having served as a
Captain in the Corpo of Engineers
the First Engineers of the First
Division. He went through the bat­tles
of Ypres, San Micheil, the
first and second battle of the Meuse
Argonne and when ' buried' by shell
fire, lost the sight of one eye.
Although Mr. Mac is nearly totally
blind, he leads a very active life
today and is always cheerful and
optomistic.
Mr. MacDougall's knowledge of
rural engineering enabled him to
supervise and help with the work on
the Thomas Powell house such as
erecting steel supporting beams;
putting in new electrical, heating
and plumbing systems; insulating,
reroofing and reflooring the old
structure.
Mrs. MacDougall brought the
gift to the homestead of her ability
in interior decorating and land­scaping.
She repainted the interior
herself including the ceilings and
hung wall paper to all the rooms
( so intent on authenticity, she pur­chased
some of the wall paper in
( Continued on page 16)
Bethpage Roads
In For Improvement
Supervisor John J. Burns stated
that the Town Board has authorized
a contract with Radory Construc­tion
Co. for resurfacing of several
roads on the west side of Stewart
Avenue from Meade Avenue, north,
in Bethpage.
Construction will progress, in
the neighborhood where a major
storm water drainage project
is continuing from Meade Ave.
southerly to the Long Island Rail
Road grade crossing on Stewart
Avenue.
Both these improvements imple­ment
the Town's were advocated
on the Town Board by Councilmen
Louis A. Sisia and Edward J.
Poulos. Storm water drainage
has been installed in the area north
of Meade Ave.
Approximately 11,200 linear feet
of roadway are included in the new
project. The successful bidder was
Radory Construction of West
Hempstead whose bid price was
$ 27,890. The new surface will be
30 feet wide.
A Community Clock
To Be Or Not To Be?
A Public Hearing of the Board
of Appeals of The Incorporated
Village of Farmingdale will be
held on Wednesday, June 6 at 8
p. m. at Village Hall to consider
a variance on the application by
Sunrise Federal Savings and Loan
of 213 Conklin Street to erect a
free standing community clock.
The proposed clock is to be 22
feet and 9 inches, while the ordi­nance
would limit the clock to 15
feet.
Sunrise Federal would like to
erect the community clock on the
corner of their property on the
Southern side of Conklin and on the
West side of Parking Field
Entrance No. 2 ( for details See
Legal Notice).
We w Sanitation Co.
To Begin Service
A new garbage collection con­tractor
will take' over the collec­tion
of garbage and refuse with­in
the Incorporated Village of
Farmingdale beginning, Friday,
J une 1, it was announced by Vil­lage
Clerk, William Wesche.
The new company is the Mon-bro
Sanitation Service Inc. of 1345
Newbridge Road, North Bellmore.
Mr. Wesche said, " It might take
a few weeks for the new concern
to become familiar with the vari­ous
collection districts". He asked
that the residents of the Vil­lage
be " patient if any refuse is
put out and not collected." Should
this happen, Mr. Wesche said,
" telephone the office of the Vil­lage
Clerk at CHapel 9- 0093 and
the oversight will be corrected.
Veterans Present
Carillon Bells
The $ 25,000 Carillon Bells,
which had been purchased by con­tributions
of individuals in Nas­sau
and Suffolk county veterans'
organizations, were presented on
Sunday at the Long Island National
Cemetery Pinelawn to the Quar­termaster
General's Office of the
United States Army.
Attacks on the District # 22 school budget by former
Board President Louis Jacobs, brought into focus for
School Board members and the administration the im­portance
of the Budget Hearing on Monday June 4th
to be held at 8: 30 p. m. at the Farmingdale Senior High
School, Lincoln Avenue, South Farmingdale. Taxpayers
will have an opportunity to have their voices heard
and acted upon, because the adoption of the final budget
by the Board of Education will not be until after the
hearing, the next evening on Tuesday, June 5.
Mr. Jacobs had exhorted the
Board to cut the budget even more
and suggested that the District
" de- emphasize music and physical
education" and put such services
as the Health Department under
the County rather than the school
district.
On Monday of this week the
Board of Education mailed to all
District 22 residents a special
two- page newsletter explaining
that a revised school budget, ten­tatively
reduced by $ 128,550 ( with
a tax rate 17£ below that of the
original, defeated budget), would
be voted on Saturday, June 23, at
the Weldon E. Howitt Junior High
School.
In response to the suggestion
that Music be " de- emphasized"
in the Farmingdale public schools,
die Supervisor of Music, Herbert
Alper told THE OBSERVER,
" Music has indeed been de- em­phasized
in staff, time in curricu­lum,
and expense in the past sev­eral
years. In spite of this, the
quality of the music program has
gone up considerably and is gen­erally
conceded to be one of the
finest programs in the area/[
At present, the State Depart­ment
recommendations for music
is 100 minutes per week in the
elementary schools.
In the last three years, the
Music Supervisor, has recom­mended
certain changes in policy,
which die Superintendent and Board
of Education have adopted, and
which have cut down die purchase
of new instruments from $ 18,000
in a year to $ 2000 or less in a
year. This is a lower instrument
budget than perhaps many others
districts of proportionate size
have. Last year, for example the
$ 3000 purchase of uniforms for the
Mill Lane Jr. High School Band
was not a part of the budget, but
New Legion Commander
Commander Robert Trnka ( left) of the Young Memorial Post # 1803
American Legion of East Farmingdale was sworn in by Commander Al
Schaum ( right) of the Talbonard Post last week. Outgoing Commander
Walter Levey ( center) looks on. Mrs. Robert B. Munden, of the Women's
Auxiliary presented a gift to outgoing Commander Levey.
Photo by Don Kuntz.
was purchased with savings from
die purchase of musical instru­ments.
The District # 22 Board
adopted the policy, on the recom­mendation
of the Supervisor that a
pupil in the district who plays one
of the smaller instruments now
purchases his own instrument after
two years of using the school-owned
instrument, and this has cut
our budget down by $ 16,000 this
year alone.
Music instructors have worked
on many Saturdays, holidays, even­ings,
and late afternoons WITHOUT
PAY in order to raise the stand­ards
of musical quality in the
Farmingdale schools.
A course will be introduced
next year on Music Appreciation
in the high school so that students
who are taking scholarship exam­inations
will not lose out in ans­wering
cultural questions which are
always included in these tests.
According to District Director of
Music Herbert Alper, " Money,
personnel and time is down - only
the quality is up," in answer to
music cost in the district."
According to a spokesman in the
Physical Education Department,
the state regulation requires that
120 minutes of physical education
classes be held every week in the
elementary schools. The Farm­ingdale
elementary schools re­ceive
less than the state minimum
requirement, it was learned. In
fact, no grade receives more than
80 minutes per week, it was r e ­ported.
It was also learned, that the
state requires 300 minutes a week
for high school students - but that
only a maximum of 112 minutes per
week is now being offered District
22 high school students.
" The school has the obligation
to help each child to learn at his
highest potential. The child should
not only be " fit to learn", but
should be educated to acquire heal­thy
habits and attitudes to be able
to make intelligent decisions in
unforeseen situations. Otherwise
we educate children to become
computers", said Albert M. Mey-erstein,
MD District Physician.
An annual health inspection of
all pupils is required by law. Due
to our special effort, almost 50%
of our enrollment are examined
by tiieir private physicians. This
still leaves more than 6,000 child­ren
to be examined by the school
physician.
The Doctor stated, " Fur­thermore,
about 200" custodians and
all the bus drivers and kitchen
workers and one- third of almost
700 teachers and clerks have to
be examined annually."
" The school nurse- teachers or­ganize
these examinations and also
the annual chest x- ray survey.
They also assist the school phy-
( continued on page 13)