COOPERSTOWN – Richard deRosa has been elected to the board of the Otsego County Conservation Association by the organization’s current board of directors. DeRosa replaces Edward Wesnofske, who resigned from the board last year after nine years of service. Originally from New York City, deRosa moved to the area in 1974. He has lived in Cherry Valley, Cooperstown, and, most recently, the town of Middlefield, where he and his wife, Sandy, tend a daylily farm. DeRosa is a retired high school English teacher, having taught for 30 years, the last 18 of which were at Fort Plain High School. He now teaches part-time at Hartwick College in Oneonta. He also writes essays appearing in the Freeman’s Journal under the byline of Hawthorn Hill Journal. DeRosa had been invited to join the OCCA board several years ago but declined until his retirement. “Now that I am retired, I have the time to pour energy into those things that I feel most strongly about,” he said. In recent years, he has provided backup support to his wife’s steady participation in an OCCA run container recycling program for the village of Cooperstown. “My devotion to environmental and conservation issues goes way back to time spent on an upstate farm on school vacations,” deRosa said. “I have also been influenced by my reading of Aldo Leopold, Henry David Thoreau, Sigurd Olsen, and John Muir. For as long as I can remember, I have gardened organically and have been committed to earth appreciation and preservation.” DeRosa, who is currently getting up to speed on OCCA’s history, current projects, and organizational structures, brings a county wide perspective to the board. “While all of OCCA’s endeavors are of prime importance, I do feel that it is essential to increase the membership to reflect a broader spectrum of people throughout the entire community and that as a county organization, we must focus on conservation efforts of a varied nature throughout the entire county,” he said. His areas of environmental interest are many. “I am concerned with clean air and water issues, recycling and waste management, promoting the use of alternative energy methods, enhancing in any way possible the integrity of local communities, both economically and politically, pursuing sustainability at all levels of our lives, and doing everything possible to protect the natural environment with a view to promoting a healthy and self-sustaining bio-diversity,” he said. His aspirations are broad-based, but deRosa remains confident of their feasibility. “We live on a beautiful planet with finite resources we must respect and protect. We can do it; it is just a question of will,” he said.
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