20 VOICESPerspectives on Twenty Years of The Wild Center
This is 20 Voices.
Betsy Lowe
Co-Founder of The Wild Center
"Boy, I should do more with this."
That was the thought. Betsy Lowe was making simple exhibits about the storms that battered the Adirondacks — the 1995 fires, the windstorm that tore through half a million acres, the 1998 ice storm that cut power for weeks. People kept showing up to see them.
So she started holding meetings across the park. A fact sheet. A sketch of a museum that didn't exist yet. And everywhere she went, the crowds came.
Twenty years later, she looks at what that idea became and says, "Golly, it's come a long way." So have we. 20 Voices starts with the one who started it all.
Dean Lefebvre
Wild Center Founding Board Member and Retired Town Supervisor“It takes people. It takes organization.”Before there was a building, there was a grassroots campaign — town by town, letter by letter. Nellie Staves, an Adirondack outdoorswoman, called on organizations across the park she’d known for years. They passed resolutions. Those resolutions went to Albany, to representatives, to the governor.Dean Lefebvre watched it happen from the board table, alongside Betsy Lowe, John Kopp, Nancy Howard, Nellie Staves, and others who put in the hours to make an idea real.Twenty years on, he sees an organization still climbing — more programs, more reasons to visit, trails strung with Christmas lights in the winter. “The whole place is upbeat,” he says.It still takes people. 20 Voices continues with one who helped build the foundation.
Kendall Davison
Kindergartner in 2004
She was five years old, standing in a dirt hole, hoping for a water slide.
Kendall Davison was a kindergartner in 2004 when her class visited the site that would become The Wild Center — back when it was nothing but bare ground and a big idea. She didn't get her water slide. She got a pond and a bridge instead. "Just as cool," she says.
Years later, as a student, she'd read about photosynthesis in a textbook, then walk through the Wild Center's doors and watch a flower bloom in time-lapse. The rocks she played on, the sticks she built forts with — suddenly they were something to study, not just play with.
"Go out and play" is easy to say. The Wild Center gave her a reason to actually do it — and understand it.
20 Voices continues with the kindergartner who grew up alongside it.
Rick Dattola
Owner of Tupper Lake Supply Co and Town of Tupper Lake Supervisor
"You guys got this beautiful Wild Center. What's it all about — saving wildlife, not cutting trees?"
That's what friends from college, now living in Colorado and Florida, ask Rick Dattola when they hear about home. His answer is always the same: "No. It's the opposite of that. It's how we can take nature and work together and have fun with it."
For Rick, The Wild Center proves something bigger than a museum — that a town can grow, people can make a living, and the natural world can still be taken care of. Not one instead of the other. Both, together.
"That's an asset," he says. "Just having that here is an asset."
20 Voices continues with a local proving that economic development and conservation aren't opposites.
Heidi Ellis
Teacher at L.P. Quinn Elementary School
Before it was The Wild Center, it was the school's backyard.
Heidi Ellis has taught at L.P. Quinn Elementary for 26 years, right next door. When the ground broke on the property — land that originally belonged to the school — her students were there to help.
Two decades later, that land is still just steps away, and Heidi's classroom has never really had four walls. Science isn't confined to a textbook when The Wild Center is in your backyard — it's a place to explore, write, and engage, any time she needs it.
"We're very lucky," she says. For her students, a love of science doesn't start with a lesson plan. It starts right outside the door.
20 Voices continues with the teacher whose classroom never really ended at the door.
Jon Kopp
Retired Wildlife Technician, DEC and Wild Center Founding Board Member
"It's almost like you're living a fairy tale, when you look back at it. You think, 'Wow, we did this.'"
There was no money at first — just what Jon Kopp calls a hare-brained idea and a small group determined to raise the funds themselves. More people joined. They brought Obie Clifford in and sold him on it too. Still, Jon says there was never a moment he doubted they'd build the museum.
Opening day was exciting, and something else, too — a relief. A long journey, finally finished. And ahead of them, a whole future still unwritten.
"It was a great thing for Tupper Lake," he says. "I always consider it one of the best things I ever did in my life."
20 Voices continues with a founding board member who helped turn a hare-brained idea into a museum.
