From Warwick to Monroe to Tuxedo to ...The diaspora of Greenwood Lake high school students

Greenwood Lake — For at least the last 80 years the Greenwood Lake School District, without a high school of its own, has sent high school students to other districts on a tuition basis. Greenwood Lake high school students currently attend George F. Baker High School in the Tuxedo School District. For the last year, however, the Greenwood Lake School District has been searching for alternative school districts to accept their high school students. Following the end of discussions with the Chester School District, the Greenwood Lake School Board began exploring a tuition agreement with the Warwick School District. Warwick has been much more receptive to the idea than Chester was, and the possibility of Greenwood Lake freshmen entering Warwick Valley High School this fall has caused a stir in southern Orange County. Greenwood Lake school officials say moving to Warwick would mean a $1 million annual savings to the district’s taxpayers and a greater variety of sports and other programs for the district’s high school students. In addition, the bus ride to Warwick would be three miles less per round trip. Voters in Warwick and Greenwood Lake would have to approve the switch - if it comes to that. But there’s already a trickle-down. Tuxedo School Superintendent Joseph Zanetti has said that some of Tuxedo’s high school teachers — because of the uncertainty created by the Greenwood Lake School District — have begun looking for positions in other districts. And Tuxedo Teachers Association President Stuart Worth has pointed out that Warwick Valley High School is much larger than Tuxedo’s, and cited research concluding that students who attend small schools are better connected to their teachers and to each other. While it may be months before the school boards make their decision, what follows is a look back at when Greenwood Lake students called Warwick, then Monroe, home for their high school education. The blue Greenwood Lake bus Yettie Eurich doesn’t know what all the fuss is about. She grew up in Warwick as Henrietta Blaikner and graduated from Warwick Valley High School in 1948. Greenwood Lake high school students had been attending Warwick High for decades by then and were being fazed into Monroe High School over the post-war years of 1946-1949. “We were all good friends — they were not different,” said Yettie of her Greenwood Lake classmates during a recent interview in Warwick. Her classmates from Greenwood Lake included Bob Detro, Skippy and Edna Hart, William Conrad and class treasurer Ruth Cosman — now Ruth Schmick. “We had our first reunion on the tenth anniversary of our high school graduation and have held reunions every five years since then,” said Yettie. “Next year will be our 60th, but I visit with classmates all the time — not just at our reunions.” Through the spring of 1946, the blue Greenwood Lake bus bringing students in grades 9 through 12, picked up the Bellvale students in grades 7 through 12 for the last two miles of the six-mile trip from Greenwood Lake to the old Junior-Senior High School on Park Avenue. Beginning in the fall of 1946, the Greenwood Lake School District bused high school students to Monroe only. Those students that began high school in Warwick could elect to complete high school there, but had to provide their own transportation. “Ruth always drove over and brought several others with her,” said Yettie. ‘Warwick’s greatest passer’ Another driver in those post-war years was Herb Penaluna, the last of a long line of Greenwood Lake football stars at Warwick High School. Penaluna played from 1945 through 1948 and was in the last Warwick graduating class to include students from Greenwood Lake — the class of 1949. Penaluna recounted his Warwick football career during a recent interview in Greenwood Lake. He was pressed into service in the opening game of 1945 (his freshman year), an 18-0 win over Franklin, and was a spark plug for his team throughout his four seasons. “Monroe didn’t have a football team, so I kept going to Warwick in the fall of 1946,” said Penaluna. “But there were no buses, and we had to drive over Mt. Peter to school.” Penaluna was the Warwick quarterback in 1947 and 1948, two outstanding years for him and for Warwick. Warwick won the Little Three Conference championship (Warwick, Walden and Goshen) in 1947, and Penaluna was referred to as “Warwick’s great passer” in an unidentified newspaper at the time. A photograph of the 1947 championship team now hangs over the bar at Murphy’s Tavern in Greenwood Lake. It was in 1948, however, that Penaluna set school passing marks that rank high even today in “The History of Warwick Football” by George St. Lawrence. Penaluna was the only member of the 1948 team from Greenwood Lake and he remembers his teammates from Warwick to this day. Without hesitation he cited his backfield mates — Fred Conklin, Bob Miller and Herm Hasbrouck — then the line of Ken Space, Turk Uzenski, Ray Krajewski, Bob Ganz, John Pietrazak, Vic Shuback and John Hawkins. Two Greenwood Lake notables who preceded Herb Penaluna to the Warwick gridiron were John Miller and Roy Thompson. Miller played from 1928 through 1931 and was the center on the 1931 team of “Iron Men” that won seven consecutive games, including a 61-0 rout over Walden. Thompson played during the war years of 1943-1945. Miller and Thompson are now deceased. ‘The Lakers’ come to Monroe For some reason the Greenwood Lake high school students left Warwick for Monroe; Dorothy Smith was waiting to greet them. Dorothy, now Monroe Town Assessor Dottie Post, is a member of Monroe High School’s class of 1949. “I was at Monroe High School when the Greenwood Lake students first came here, and my graduating class included several students from Greenwood Lake,” said Post, during a recent interview in Monroe. “They were great; in those days, we were all just plain folks.” Monroe Town Supervisor Sandy Leonard, in a recent telephone interview, agreed with Post. Sandy, then Sandy Re, and Ed Leonard, class president and Sandy’s future husband, both graduated in 1964 from what was by then Monroe-Woodbury High School, since the Monroe and Woodbury school districts were consolidated in 1952. “They were known as ‘The Lakers’ and were as much a part of our class as anyone,” said Sandy. “Ed and I went to our 40th high school reunion in 2004 and sat with our classmates from Greenwood Lake.” 1981: On to Tuxedo By 1981, the rapid increase of students within the Monroe-Woodbury School District left no room for the Greenwood Lake high school students. In that year they began attending George F. Baker High School in Tuxedo where they currently make up over 75 percent of that high school’s student body. Now, after over a quarter century in Tuxedo, Greenwood Lake’s high school students may be on the move again — back to Warwick. Although a 2005 change in New York State law eliminated the requirement for state legislation in order to build a high school, several state administrative requirements remain. Greenwood Lake School Board President Cathy Gilson and School Superintendent John Guarracino both confirmed in recent telephone interviews that the state has not granted the Greenwood Lake School District permission to build a high school or to grant high school diplomas. In the case of Greenwood Lake’s high school students, we may know in a few months if “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”