fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Submit Your Event
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Send Letter to the Editor
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Pine Hill Petunia

by Paul Smart
August 6, 2020
in Village Voices
0
Pine Hill Petunia

Sharon Cherven, local journalist and early Woodstock Times contributor, passed away in her fifties in the early 1990s. Sharon was and wrote as a local. She ended up at the Daily Freeman, covering local news as a beat reporter. Her specialty was catching the inner workings of the area as it started shifting from a place unto itself into something different from that.

She was born in Connelly, near where the river and the Rondout Creek met. She and husband Ken, also a reporter, lived in Chincoteague, Virginia, and then in Pine Hill for a while. They ended up in the Bearsville Flats. Their daughter moved to Athens, in Greene County. There was a grandson.

The woman could make a friend of anyone. She was tight with the hangabouts at Duey’s on Mill Hill Road, as well as the tryharders who had moved here from more urban places. She knew the old families throughout Ulster, who dated who when, and who drank a bit too much or just plain couldn’t be trusted. She wasn’t afraid of mixing in the down-home info with her coverage of meetings and politics.

For a while, she had a column as Pine Hill Petunia, in which she lovingly elbowed her community’s ribs. Yes, she was pretty much run out of town. But that didn’t dissuade her, or change her ways.

Sharon was a mountain of a woman, with a raucous laugh to match her broad sense of humor. But she was also well-read and able to cut to the quick of what was going on around her.

She’d have had little patience for all that’s been happening to the region, nation and world in the last four years. But she wouldn’t have shied from using the times to add depth to her depictions of a life that’s still here after several centuries.

Too bad her writing was ephemeral, gone by the next week. But she touched the area and its people. Sharon Cherven’s deep love for these hills and mountains, curmudgeons and jokesters, survives.


Read more installments of Village Voices by Paul Smart.

Tags: Paul Smart Village Voices
Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Paul Smart

Related Posts

Village Voices are on hold
Village Voices

Village Voices are on hold

November 17, 2020
A liberal education
Village Voices

Keeping it all together

August 24, 2020
Writing about oneself
Village Voices

I need a day off

August 24, 2020
Saugerties initiative combating addiction and suicide adds more events
Village Voices

Time travel

August 24, 2020
Where to buy face masks locally
Village Voices

A story of three states

September 2, 2020
The kids talk politics
Village Voices

Stories on the ballot

August 23, 2020
Next Post
I’m missing my dad

Out of the blue

Weather

Kingston, NY
77°
Clear
5:26 am8:35 pm EDT
Feels like: 77°F
Wind: 4mph S
Humidity: 63%
Pressure: 29.97"Hg
UV index: 0
MonTueWed
86°F / 72°F
88°F / 68°F
88°F / 68°F
powered by Weather Atlas

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Art
    • Books
    • Kids
    • Lifestyle & Wellness
    • Food & Drink
    • Music
    • Nature
    • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review

© 2022 Ulster Publishing