AMENIA — With baseball season just around the corner, it won’t be long until players on the Webutuck Central School District’s (WCSD) baseball teams will have their moment to shine on the field. For the coming season, the Warriors will have the chance to play on their own field as well as the fields at Beekman Park (located at 5270 Route 22, Amenia), thanks to an agreement between Webutuck and the town.
When the district began work on its capital improvement plan this past summer, it started with the septic system; the baseball fields went under construction and therefore were inaccessible to the baseball teams for practice and games. The school district then reached out to the town of Amenia to request use of its baseball fields for all practices and scheduled home games for the 2021 season.
Though the septic system was installed this past fall and the fields at Webutuck are now ready for use, Superintendent of Schools Raymond Castellani said the WCSD will use both its baseball field and the fields at Beekman Park as it will allow Webutuck more opportunities for its students to play baseball at all levels.
At its meeting on Thursday, April 1, the Amenia Town Board granted the WCSD a revocable license agreement (RLA) for the Webutuck High School varsity baseball program to use the baseball field at Beekman Park. The RLA’s term officially began on Monday, April 19, and will continue through Friday, June 4.
Included in the RLA’s terms, Webutuck will be responsible for preparing the fields before and after every game and cleaning the field, dugouts, bleachers and all other areas of all garbage. In addition to providing all supervision, coaches and instructors and obtaining and hiring all umpires, the school district will also be responsible for any damages that may occur. Meanwhile, Amenia will be responsible for all maintenance and repairs of the field’s facilities and will be responsible for providing the bases, pitching mound, pitcher’s rubber and home plate.
“We’re extremely grateful to have a partner in our students’ well-being, education and athletics in the town of Amenia,” said Castellani. “They have been extremely gracious in allowing our students to use the fields and continue to use those fields as needed.”
“We are also really excited that after over a decade of not being able to use our high school field, with the completion of our capital improvement project, our students will be able to play on the home field at their school,” he added.
The Webutuck Warriors varsity baseball team is scheduled to compete against the Dover Dragons at Beekman Park at 4:15 p.m. on Monday, May 3. That same day, the Webutuck junior varsity baseball team will compete at Dover at Dover High School at 4:15 p.m.
An artfully displayed array of 17 gift baskets awaits visitors to the Amenia Free Library in connection with the annual Holiday Basket Raffle, now in its third year as a library fundraiser.
AMENIA — Now in its third year and growing in popularity, a holiday raffle to benefit the Amenia Free Library is drawing local interest. Between now and the library’s closing time on Wednesday, Dec. 17, library visitors can purchase raffle tickets in hopes of winning generous gift baskets donated by local businesses and library friends and board members.
Tickets are available for purchase at the library desk for $5 each. A tempting array of 17 large gift baskets are on display at the library. The drawing will be held after the library closes on Dec. 17. Winners will be contacted the next morning.
“We love offering our Holiday Basket Raffle each year,” said Library Director Victoria Herow, adding that it attracts new community members to the library as well as bringing regular patrons to visit.
“Patrons are already inquiring about participating in next year’s raffle,” Herow noted, anticipating that it will grow even stronger over time.
Each basket in the array builds on a theme, including chocolates and sweets, children’s books from Oblong Books, a cocktails basket, a “Relax at Home” basket, hot cocoa baskets, wine basket, and a basket of bathroom rugs and towels. A “Year of Kitchen Towels” basket adds to the fun and there is a donated basket with a gingerbread theme.
SALISBURY — Matthew Caulfield Schwab died unexpectedly on Nov. 11, 2025, while traveling abroad for work.
He was a man of quick wit and a big heart who read everything he could get his hands on. He never turned down a good argument and always had something delicious cooking in the kitchen.
His absence will be acutely felt by his family for the remainder of their lives.
SHARON — Silver Lake Camp and Retreat Center, a long-running summer camp affiliated with the United Church of Christ that has operated for 68 years, will be “winding down” programming after a final summer in 2026.
The Southern New England Conference of the UCC, the branch of the denomination that has overseen the camp since the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island conferences joined in 2020, announced on its website last month that the decision was due to financial strain.
A June 2025 report by consulting firm Kaleidoscope Inc. states that the camp has run sizable deficits in the past three years: $272,676 in 2022; $129,482 in 2023; and $355,018 in 2024.
The Southern New England Conference’s statement points to declining enrollment alongside rising costs as a cause for the challenges. “In recent times, as church attendance has declined, so has the number of families sending their children to overnight Christian camps,” it reads. “Ten years ago, there were 950 summer campers; in 2024, there were 250. Simultaneously, costs – in particular insurance for such a sprawling, waterfront site – have skyrocketed.”
Keeping the camp open for one more summer will be costly, the announcement said, but it will allow for what Southern New England Conference Board Chair Persephone Hall called a “tender transition.”
The Kaleidoscope report did not recommend an all-out closure, but rather that the camp pivot towards conferences and retreats and operate at a deficit in the interim to try and close the financial gaps.
The directors and UCC officials, though, felt that the shift in focus would not fit within the facility’s mission and opted to end operations, instead directing funding and energy towards other youth ministry programming.
For Silver Lake’s final summer hosting campers, Tim Hughes, who has held many roles at the camp over the past five decades including co-directing alongside his wife Anne from 2003 to 2015, will return to take over leadership. The current director, Rev. David Camphouse, will leave the post this month.
As for what’s next for the lakefront property off Low Road, the Southern New England Conference indicated that it would review purchase offers, prioritizing those from entities with a connection to the camp.
Rev. Chris Davies, Executive Minister for Programs and Initiatives for the Conference, said in the November announcement: “We don’t yet know what the future will hold, but we are committed to exploring faithful possibilities aligned with our missional impact and theological commitments.”
After the closure announcement, concerned alumni and affiliates of the camp formed an independent nonprofit called Friends of Silver Lake. According to its website, the mission of the organization is “uniting the dispersed community that values Silver Lake, and working toward a vision of future ministry in line with its historic mission.”
On Sunday, Dec. 7, more than 50 former campers joined a virtual meeting hosted by the nonprofit on Zoom. In a recap post on the organization’s Facebook page Sunday night, Co-Chair Brian Lapis is quoted: “Tonight’s gathering shows how profoundly Silver Lake has shaped the lives of those who have experienced it and how important outdoor ministry is to faith formation, personal growth, leadership development, and just making better humans. These ‘thin places’ between us and the holy that are experienced in outdoor ministry are for real!”
MILLERTON — Arthur John Heck, 89, a lifelong area resident died Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at Sharon Center for Health and Rehabilitation in Sharon, Connecticut. Mr. Heck worked in the maintenance department and drove a school bus at Webutuck Central School District in Amenia for over thirty-years, prior to his retirement on Jan. 31, 1998.
Born Sept. 3, 1936, in the Bronx, New York, he was the only son of the late Arthur K. and Dorothy (Deusenberry) Heck. Art graduated in 1954 with the last class at Millerton High School in Millerton. He served our country in the United States Naval Reserves from 1955 to 1962 when he received his honorable discharge as a “SR”/Seaman Recruit. On April 10, 1999, in Millerton, he married Donna Duncan. Mrs. Heck survives at home in Millerton.In his spare time, he was an avid train enthusiast and collector. In his younger years he was a parishioner of the North East Baptist Church. He will be dearly missed by his loving family and many friends.
In addition to his wife of nearly twenty-seven years, he is also survived by two sons,John Heck and his wife Cindy of Millerton and Wayne Heck and his wife Debbie of Hudson, New York; two step-daughters, Tammy Nadeau of Winsted, Connecticut, and Rebecca Korot of Torrington, Connecticut; six grandchildren and three great grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.
A private graveside service and burial with standard United States Naval Honors will take place on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, at 11 a.m. at Irondale Cemetery in Millerton. Pastor William Mayhew will officiate. Arrangements have been entrusted to the Scott D. Conklin Funeral Home, 37 Park Avenue, Millerton, NY 12546.
To send an online condolence to the family, flowers to the service or to plant a tree in Art’s memory, please visit www.conklinfuneralhome.com
