If your family has had any experiences involving outdoor education in New Paltz over the last 30 years, there’s a good chance that you’ve crossed paths with Jim Longbotham. He has been a longtime scoutmaster, takes folks on maple sugaring adventures on the Mohonk Preserve and built the first organic garden to be used as a “green classroom” at Lenape Elementary School, where he teaches. Most recently, he has been spearheading trailmaking, construction and renovation projects at Phillies Bridge Farm.
“Growing up, my family was always involved in volunteering,” he says. “It was instilled in me at a young age. I find it rewarding on a number of levels: aligning yourself with an organization that’s doing a lot of good in the world, helping move them forward, meeting interesting people.”
The Adirondacks were a nearby resource when Jim was growing up in Ballston Spa, Glens Falls and Lake George, where his stepfather built a house. He learned the construction trade early on, developing a hands-on skillset that would later make him a very practical asset to the not-for-profit organizations where he would volunteer. At Queensbury High School, he organized an Outing Club, and was drafted to be president of the Outing Club at SUNY New Paltz in his senior year. There he earned his degree in Elementary Education and Science, creating his own minor in Outdoor Education via the college’s Independent Study program.
By the time he graduated in the early 1990s, he was already employed during the summers at the Mohonk Preserve as a maintenance ranger, “living in the old Ski Patrol building,” he recalls. He also worked with local electricians Frank Ioanna, Sr. and Jr., honing his construction skills.
Through his association with Mohonk, Jim got to know environmental educators Ann Guenther and Ilka List. “Ever think about doing a kids’ camp?” they asked him when he was done with his schooling. And so it was that the Mohonk Preserve day camp program got launched, in 1993, with Jim running the Mountainside Adventures program for 10-to-13-year-olds while the women ran Camp Peregrine for seven-to-nine-year-olds. “We had a blast,” he says. “Every day we met at different trailheads.”
The program’s headquarters was in a shed near the Spring Farm trailhead, before the Slingerland Pavilion was built, and Jim and his wife Johanna – also an accomplished environmental educator – lived for decades in a house owned by the Preserve right nearby. They noticed a proliferation of sugar maple trees in the area and came up with the idea for the Kids’ Day in the Sugarbush program, which ran for 16 years.
This project was also inspired by a family tradition. “My grandmother grew up doing maple sugaring, in Neversink before it sank [due to reservoir construction]. She’d have to bring her father dinner in the sugar shack. She was one of ten children, and they all had to empty the buckets and put the spiles in the trees,” says Jim. “It’s a fond memory for me, being taken to the sugar shack.”
The Longbothams tended a sugarbush of 70 trees at Spring Farm, originally using the most low-tech of sap-gathering methods and cobbling together donated equipment, including “a restaurant pan with a pipe soldered to it” for the evaporator. On Kids’ Day they would lead families from station to station, letting them taste the sap and singing the “Maple Syrup” song by Jean Valla McAvoy of Betty and the Baby Boomers. “Johanna and I just loved going out in February, wearing snowshoes, tapping the trees, hearing the plink-plink-plink of the dripping sap,” Jim remembers.
Meanwhile, he was teaching – at Ellenville for one year, then 12 years of second grade at Duzine Elementary School, followed by 18 years of third grade at Lenape. He’s not ready to retire yet, he says. He was one of the teachers who initiated the Green Classroom program, and now both schools have their own organic gardens on-site. Jim also brings in the PIGLETS community service classes at New Paltz High School to run a Pumpkin Fest each autumn and either an Environmental or Health and Wellness Fair each spring at the Lenape School. “It’s a great multi-age experience – a real win/win, seeing kids at different levels working with each other.”
Jim and Johanna raised two sons, Sam and Abe; and when a friend got Sam interested in scouting, Jim stepped up to become the scoutmaster for BSA Troop 172. He stayed with it for another year after Sam completed his Eagle Scout project (creating a mountain biking trail in the Shawangunks), from 2009 to 2019. “It was fascinating, being involved in Scouts. We had as many as 48 kids in camp at one time. We went canoe camping, backpacking…” Summer camp outings went to Camp Ranachqua at Ten Mile River, Camp Tri-Mount in the Blackhead Range of the northern Catskills and, in Jim’s final year as a leader, the BSA High Adventure destination of Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico.
People like Jim Longbotham who get a lot of satisfaction from volunteering tend not to take breaks for long, it seems. When he moved on from scouting, his friendship with Dan and Ann Guenther led him to dive into a number of renovation projects in progress at Phillies Bridge Farm, “right before COVID.” Jim’s background in construction became “my saving grace at the time. They needed some direction regarding the infrastructure. I worked on some of the buildings, did a facilities study – used my skillset… I got involved with the renovation of the wash-and-pack station, and then building the high tunnels… We built two within three years.” Jim also laid out and constructed a Nature Trail on the property and operates heavy equipment for maintaining the landscape.
“It’s been amazing, working with all the board and staff members over the years,” says Jim, who’s currently serving as co-president with Isaac Solano. “We’ve created a new leadership model, where the role is shared. This is the first year that it’s been going on.” Phillies Bridge now has four full-time staff members, all of whom are “intimately involved in what’s really going on day-to-day on the farm.” Each staffer directs one area of operations – Food Justice, Education, Farm Operation and Administration – and coordinates planning with the board.
While Jim typically gets assigned to hands-on building projects, his enthusiasm really ignites when he’s talking about the Farm’s educational activities. “Our summer camp gets 30 kids a week. We host field trips for local schools, and there’s an afterschool program,” he notes. “With agricultural education, Phillies Bridge Farm is really at the forefront in the Hudson Valley. We do workshops both for kids and adults. We see a need to bring kids to a farm.”
Among the Farm’s most popular draws for youngsters is the flock of pygmy goats who spend part of the year in residence. “Recently, I’ve become interested in enrichment for animals, after talking to someone at the New England Aquarium. So, I built a seesaw for the goats. We had to show them how to use it, but now the goats really enjoy it. I’m still working on enrichment activities for the chickens.”
It seems that wherever Jim Longbotham goes, he’s coming up with new ways to enrich the outdoor experience. New Paltz is lucky to have him.
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