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PENLAND, NC
PERMIT #1
PENLAND SCHOOL • PENLAND, NORTH CAROLINA 28765-0037'
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Penland has been getting good press including a 9-
page spread on the Iron Symposium in The Anvil's
Ring, a very nice article in the Leader, the magazine
of the Research Triangle and good coverage of
Hunter's appointment in the craft magazines.
We have some new neighbors to welcome. Michel
Toumadre and Sean Holden have brought the
Nyberg house. Both have already taken classes at
Penland! Skip and Bonnie Ledbetter, their son
Simon (a second grader at Deyton Elementary)
and their three-year old daughter Stacey are
renting Nancy Baron's house. That makes a trio of
three-year olds since Christoper and Alexander
Ellenbogen turned three last month.
The summer of 1989 in North Carolina was enclosed in parentheses of weather: The end of
spring brought tornados and the beginning of Fall brought Hurricane Hugo and in between
we had the rainiest summer in recent years. Other than occasional fallen branches or excep
tionally muddy paths, Penland was left unscathed by the force of nature, and students,
instructors and staff all managed the rainy weather with exceedingly good grace. For those
of us who live here, memories of recent droughts are so vivid that it becomes unseemly to
complain about rain!
We miss having Kathryn Gremley bop in every
day to check for mail and chat, but we hear she is
having a great time studying clothing design at the
Fashion Design Institute of Boston.
In July Verne Stanford was appointed as the managing director of the Maui Community
Arts and Cultural Center in Hawaii and left to take up those responsibilities. Joy stayed
behind to help with the Benefit Auction and to pack before joining Verne late in August.
The new center, which will be built next year in Maui Central Park, is a $22 mUlion complex
funded in approximately equal shares of state, county and private contributions. It will
have two theatres, a gallery, offices and classrooms.
In the last Penland Line we told you about our
massive earthworks project. It is now completed
and nature, with considerable help from the
contractors, can get on with the work of restoring
the meadow. We are still using paper plates while
the system is being tested but it should not be too
long until everything is back to normal on the on
the drainage front.
Hunter Kariher became Acting Director when Verne left and shortly after that he was
named Director by the Penland Board which approved the recommendation of the Search
Committee. The first item on the agenda for Hunter was really business as usual for the re
mainder of the summer sessions, with the Benefit Auction and the ACC Conference adding
to the always busy daily routines when Penland is in session.
Among the many visitors to Penland this fall we
have welcomed classes from Bowman Middle
School and Mitchell High. The Standby Program
continues to attract residents of Yancey, Mitchell
and Avery counties and we hope that local Pen-
land Line readers will keep the program in mind.
During the break between summer and fall sessions, however, all of the staff met for a
retreat to consider how best to organize ourselves for the next year or so. There are no
immediate plans to add a new Assistant Director to the staff which means in effect that
responsibilities formerly carried by Hunter and by Joy in her position as School Coordinator
need to be managed differently. The retreat actually spilled over into a second session
while we all made lists of tasks and tried to come up with new organization charts. Gradu
ally, Hunter will be realigning some administrative tasks and moving some people into dif
ferent offices. There are no plans to add any staff before spring but we'll be looking for a
data entry/clerical staff person along about March. Let us know if you are interested.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Pearl Grind-
staff who injured her hip. She is able to work part-
time and we are grateful for every minute she can
spend in Penland's kitchen. Good luck to Hazel
Alvarez on her new job at Big Lynn Lodge.
And finally, we’re happy to report that Cynthia
Bringle is out of her cast and into high-top shoes
but she'll be in an ankle brace for another month.
Cynthia broke an ankle bone mid-summer. The
doctor advised her to avoid stony ground for '
awhile. Small chance of that!