Halfpipe, snowboard park tribute to Kaelan Paton

CORNWALL — Snowboarders and skiers demonstrated impressive skills on a local hillside Saturday, braving the cold and wind under a bright sun as they flew from a ramp at the top to a quarter pipe at the bottom, or flipped and rolled high in the air. They sped downhill to ramps that propelled them onto narrow railings, where they balanced precariously before vaulting off into the air once more.

At this new private terrain park, the day would have been perfectly joyful but for the memory of one person who would have loved it but will never get a chance to use it.

Back when they were still in middle school, Brian Hurlburt and Kaelan Paton met at the regional school dances and quickly became best friends. They spent a lot of time hanging out at Brian’s Cornwall home and his family’s Hautboy Hill farm.

Among their common interests was snowboarding. A perfectly sloped hillside pasture across the road from the dairy barn provided a perfect and convenient spot. Early last year, the teens decided to bump it up with ramps and rails to make it a real winter terrain park.

“We wanted to do something really big. My dad had a lot of wood laying around that he let us use,� Brian said. “Kaelan did all the design work. He put so much effort and planning into it.�

As the weather warmed and the school year wound down, they began building. Other friends pitched in. Before they got far, 16-year-old Kaelan took a celebratory last-day-of-school swim in the Housatonic River, below the Great Falls. It had been raining heavily all month, and the water was deep and moving fast. One of the boys dove in and got caught by the current. Kaelan drowned after diving in and pushing the other boy out of the swollen river to safety.

For Brian, a day doesn’t go by that he doesn’t think of Kaelan.

“He’s just always there,� he said.

Grieving was helped by a summer spent hard at work on the park. Two other friends, Phillip Geyselaers and John Hare, were there every day. Other friends came by when they could. It became a monument to their lost friend.

It was almost finished when school started again. The project lagged. As winter approached, the teens made a final push.

“We finished one day in December. The next day, we got the first big snow of the winter,� Brian said.

They decided to make Jan. 6 the official opening, inviting friends and having a picnic at the bottom of the hill, despite the frigid cold. Being boys, they didn’t realize at the time that they had picked the date of Paton’s birthday.

The facility has been officially dubbed BibSentral Terrain Park. For some reason he doesn’t know, friends gave Brian the nickname Bibs. The park will available to those in whose ability Brian has confidence. The last thing he wants is for someone to get hurt, and he warns that since it is a cow pasture in the warmer months, it is protected by an electric fence.

He invites enthusiasts to find BibSentral on Facebook, where videos and photos will be posted, along with upcoming events.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less