Tupper mayors, local officials welcome Sen. Chuck Schumer to Wild Center

The mayors of Tupper Lake- incoming Mayor Mary Fontana and outgoing Mayor Paul Maroun- presented Senator Schumer with a birthday cake during his visit here last week. Wild Center leader Hillary Dechene had the knife for the cutting.

by Dan McClelland”

Mayor Paul Maroun, his successor Mary Fontana and other community officials were on hand last week to welcome U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to the Wild Center.

Sen. Schumer, New York’s senior senator, makes it a point to visit every county in the state once a year, and over the Thanksgiving holiday he made a number of stops in this region, including in Lake Placid, here and others, the mayor explained this week of the informal visit.

“He loves the Wild Center...he and his family really do,” noted the mayor, who also serves on the board of directors of the natural history museum. The U.S. senator has made several visits to the facility in past years.

“He praised the work of the board chair, Karen Thomas, and her board for its direction” of this major tourism venue.

“I introduced Sen. Schumer to the group and told the guests there were three things I wanted to say about him.

“First, it’s always an honor to have a United States senator here, but Sen. Schumer is one of the three most powerful people in the nation as U.S. Senate leader.

“When he was younger, he and I and his kids would go to the Tail of the Pup and get all greasy. We’d go to Donnelly’s too because he loves ice cream.

“The second thing I said was that the Wild Center is always on the cutting edge of science and exploration. With Jen Kretser and the work of the people behind the Youth Climate Summits, we are the first official group to wish Senator Schumer a happy birthday.”

His birthday was on Thanksgiving Day.

“I told the story that when you enter the state assembly when you go in the main door, one of two guards opens the door for you.”

He said the time was when he worked in 1974 for Assemblyman Glenn Harris, Mr. Schumer had just been elected to that body of state government. “He was a freshman assemblyman that year.”

“That day there were no guards at the door and I was walking in to see Glenn about something. So this guy behind me opens the door, and we walk down the aisle together, chatting a bit about where we were each from.

“So I said to Glenn: who is that guy. He just opened the door for me. He was a nice young man.

“Glen told me he was the new guy from Brooklyn and his name was Chucky Schumer.”

“So I tell the story...it’s not about politics or religion. You can tell the quality of a person by their actions. It’s not about what’s written about them in the media or what they may have done one way or another.

“From the day on I always thought of Chuck Schumer as a friend and we became friends after that and we’ve been friends for more than 50 years.”

Mr. Schumer, who started as an assemblyman, was elected to Congress and finally was elected as a U.S. senator, after he defeated Republican incumbent Al D’Amato.

“The last thing I said in the introduction is that Senator Schumer is of the Jewish religion and from the New York City area. I said the mayor of Tupper Lake is Lebanese. If the two of us can be friends for 50 years, there’s hope for peace in the Middle East!”

“He thought that was a great comment and told me he was going to use that line in the future!” the mayor concluded.