The High Summit Honor Society (HSHS) provides a mechanism through which the Genesee Valley Chapter of ADK can honor its most dedicated long-term volunteers. Their contributions can be an extraordinary amount of time and energy spent on the chapter in general, or a discrete contribution that has been particularly noteworthy. Current or past members of the Genesee Valley Chapter who have had a minimum of ten years of active involvement in ADK may be nominated for induction into the HSHS.
Over the many years of our chapter’s existence, we have been fortunate to have a number of members whose efforts have gone above and beyond those of most others and exceed what is typically expected of a volunteer. These members have performed many different tasks, often without any recognition, often for many, many years. The first of these special people are those responsible for the formation of our chapter in the 1960’s.
At our monthly chapter meetings, please look for the plaque that lists all of the members of the High Summit Honor Society.
All Honorees
Click here for a list of all of the members of the High Summit Honor Society.
Most Recent Honorees
Our most recent honorees include:
Nancy Donny
Nancy came to the ADK Genesee Valley Chapter after discovering her first love, her canoe and soloing on Canadice Lake while living in Springwater, NY. After 3 years of “swampin’ fun,” searching for cool underwater rocks, and challenges like high wind waves and having bats zoom her on night time paddles, another boater on the lake said, “You are always alone — why don’t you get with that ADK group”?
That is when Nancy showed up at her first monthly meeting and was hooked. Discovering what she called, “Charlie’s Group”, she became very active in Waterways (WW). Not being able to keep up in her canoe, she purchased her second love, her kayaks, and the next 10 years where full of waterways adventures and challenges. She is very close to completing her Paddle Tour of the Finger Lakes (PTFL), earning her patch for circumnavigating all eleven Finger Lakes.
Don’t tell anyone but she already has a patch. Discovering that there was no actual patch when the first 4 folks earned their patches, she designed the current PTFL patch and had them made in time to honor the recipients. But she snuck one out of the package before getting them to Charlie.
Nancy wanted to bring more folks into the club to see what fun it was and how much one could learn from hanging with outdoor lovers so when the membership position opened up, she took her first jump onto the executive committee, using mailings and pot luck dinners to create excitement among members and drawing nonmembers to join.
Still remaining active while relocating to NH and DC temporarily took her away, Nancy continued contributing at EXPO with her yearly, “Why I Love My Boat” seminar on the beach, and as a safety boater. Returning to Rochester, she took the empty Education position and was back on the executive committee again and has also held positions of Programs, Vice Chair and Chair.
Active in Waterways, Nancy attends WW meetings, aids in planning paddling seasons, and has earned her leadership patch by leading and co-leading WW day trips and camping galas. Taking the Leadership Training Course, and as Education Chair, she realized how valuable that training and confidence was in order to gain future leaders, so she became active in the planning and conducting of the leadership training.
Nancy put together an ad-hoc Marketing Committee which was comprised of several enthusiastic and talented folks. The committee implemented the classified, regular, and EXPO advertisement program currently used in The Geneseean. They created and purchased the current poster boards used as backdrops at meetings, ADK sponsored events, and at ADK event tables. Powerpoint programs and displays were created to enhance ADK meetings and create excitement to grow attendance.
Nancy has taken a bit of a hiatus from active work in the GVC to learn the art of tap dance. She is currently part of a nonprofit dance troupe called the OASIS Tappers. The group of ladies and gents are between 59 and 99 years old and perform shows for the elderly in assisted living, senior care, and rehabilitation facilities.
— Nancy was a 2016 honoree
Read A. Kingsbury
Read Kingsbury worked at the Times-Union and Democrat and Chronicle newspapers, working his way up from suburban reporter to city editor, to special projects investigations editor, and finally to editor of the editorial page before moving to Block Island, where he continued his passion for conservation by becoming president of the Block Island Conservancy. He later became a member and chair of the Brewster Conservation Commission when he moved to Cape Cod in 2003. Fraser Lang of the Block Island Times stated that Read “treated people with respect and compassion, mentored reporters and was just a first-class human being.”
While in Rochester, Read joined the ADK-GVC in 1970 and became Vice Chair in December 1972, being responsible for monthly programs. Read was also active in chairing the publications committee in 1972 to publish trail guides and other ADK publications. He became Chapter Chair in November 1973. He was appointed in 1989 by Governor Mario Cuomo to a state advisory commission to plan the future of the Adirondack Park.
His major Adirondack interest, aside from wilderness preservation, was hiking. Read was a 46er, and, while climbing the High Peaks, he became aware of what all the traffic on those mountains was doing to them. “The success of the Adirondack Park Agency is essential to the interests of the Adirondack Mountain Club,” he said. “I hope as a club we can watchdog the work of the agency, encourage it where suitable and badger it when needed.” (The Geneseean: December 1973).
Read died in 2010 at the age of 84 at his home in Cape Cod. Even in his final years, he continued to support conservation efforts at local, state and federal levels. His love of camping, hiking and kayaking lives on in his three children, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His family still vacations every summer in the Adirondacks, enjoying the land that he worked so hard to protect.
— Read was a 2016 honoree
David Schott
HSHS recognition for David Schott David has done something special for an ADK Chapter that needs a new generation to carry on the work of ADK: he has brought a shot of youthful energy.
There are so many things that he has done for us: he took the Geneseean newsletter to a whole new level of content and professional presentation; he has run the Younger Members group, bringing in a cohort of enthusiastic members; he has organized big out-of-town doings like the Johns Brook Jamboree and the High Peaks Winter Weekend; he has served as a motivational force to the Club as a whole, which now looks to its Genesee Valley Chapter as a model of YM engagement; and has led numerous trips both in Trails and Waterways. What is more remarkable: he did this in only the few years he was with us. (He’s now moving on to Seattle.)
Most of our High Summit Honor Society honorees accomplish something similar over the course of a much longer association with the Chapter. So we have decided to forego our usual requirement for a membership of at least 10 years to thank him for all his work, his inspiration. We say thanks to David by awarding him inclusion in our High Summit Honor Society, our highest award. Thank you, David.
— David was a 2016 honoree
Paul Weld
Paul Weld, MD, was the Genesee Valley Chapter Chair in 1971. He was a three-time 46er, and a frequent trip leader at least into the mid-1980s, despite having contracted polio as a young man. Paul was a bird expert and long-time member of the Genesee Ornithological Society who shared his knowledge within GVC and ADK. He wrote articles for Adirondac magazine.
Professionally, Paul was an internist affiliated with Rochester General Hospital for 33 years, where he served as Director of Medical Education, Chief of Physical Medicine, and Director of the Division of Diagnostic Ultrasound. He also published multiple medical articles.
Paul Weld’s first Adirondack High Peak was Algonquin, climbed from Lake Colden during the summer of 1936 when he was twelve years old. He was “bitten” — his word — on this trip, or possibly before, by a love for Adirondack mountain climbing, that continued to be one of his ruling passions for the rest of his life. This first trip, like many after, began from his parents’ summer tutoring camp for boys located on the unsettled, west shore of Lake Clear. It was a very different time in the mountains, as evidenced by Paul’s memory that his older brother, the leader of this trip, drove the camp’s Model A flatbed truck into Marcy Dam via the South Meadow road where he parked, and the backpacking party disembarked.
In the childhood years following this first climb, Paul began making plans to complete the 46 High Peaks. Letters from Grace Hudowalski (46er #9) and Ed Harmes (46er #18) that Paul received when he was 17 years old, give detailed advice about routes up trail-less peaks, approaches, places to camp, etc. Both Grace and Ed urged Paul to climb Couchsacraga from “the Hermit’s camp” because, in Grace’s words “Mr. Rondeau is as genial a man as I ever met, an institution in himself, and…because he is my friend.” Paul regretted never meeting Noah John Rondeau.
Paul continued climbing every summer as he completed college and medical school. By the end of the summer of 1954, he was a medical resident in Buffalo, and had climbed 39 of the 46 Adirondack High Peaks. Then he contracted polio. Both legs were affected by the disease, and, due to their weakness, challenging climbs were beyond Paul’s capacity for several years. When he was able to return to the High Peaks, his appetite for climbing undiminished, his pace was much slower than during his pre-polio years. One of consequences of his physical limitations was that peak bagging with its long stretches of ridge travel was out. Post-polio trip planning was careful and deliberate, and Paul Weld developed a renewed appreciation for backpacking and trail-less climbing as he approached many peaks singly by unorthodox routes. He climbed Donaldson, by itself, from Calkins Brook, Emmons, by itself, from Ouluska and Emmons brooks, Nye from Wanika Falls, Couchsacraga from Cold River and Panther Brook. The Emmons trip from Ouluska Pass lean-to in 1966 completed his first round of climbing the 46 peaks that he’d set his sights on in the early 1940s.
During the 1960s, the High Peaks were becoming well-traveled, and a network of “herd” paths were beginning to be established on the peaks that did not have maintained trails. Paul Weld’s trail-less experiences led to his embrace of a fervently felt wilderness ethic that promoted the preservation of the trail-less experience for ADK hikers. Two Adirondac articles, “Nye Mountain in May” (November-December 1965), and “Couchsacraga: Vanishing Wilderness” (March-April 1966) describe both his hopes and worries about changes in the mountains brought on by their increased popularity. In the second article, he advocated that 46ers engage in “trail obliteration” (the deliberate destruction of “herd” paths), and the adoption of brook routes and map and compass to summit trail-less peaks. He saved a letter from George Marshall that responded to these articles with sympathy and understanding.
As Paul aged, this radical perspective softened, but his love of Adirondack climbing remained. A 1973 ADK Mountain Club Genesee Valley Chapter Outing Schedule listed him as the “Immediate Past Chairman” and had him co-leading trips to West Street, Marshall, and Seward and Seymour. His last High Peak was Hough, climbed by itself, in the late 1980s, part of his unsuccessful attempt to complete a fourth round of the 46. He continued to climb Baxter, Owl’s Head, and the Crows until post-polio syndrome made extended walking impossible. Paul Weld died in 2007. The last book he read, one of his favorites, was Friendly Adirondack Peaks by Robert S. Wickham, an account of a several weeks’ backpack through the Adirondack Mountains in the 1920s. (Thanks to Charles Weld, Paul’s son, for much of the information in this article)
— Paul was a 2016 honoree.
All Members of the High Summit Honor Society
| Name | Year |
|---|---|
| Don Baird | 2004 |
| James A. Bird | 2006 |
| Barb Brenner | 2005 |
| Donald Burness | 2003 |
| Alan Bushnell | 2007 |
| Deni Charpentier | 2011 |
| Bill Crowe | 2008 |
| Warren De Land | 2003 |
| Bill Deans | 2012 |
| Gary DeWitt | 2010 |
| Donna Dinse | 2012 |
| Michael Dobner | 2007 |
| Nancy Donny | 2016 |
| Sue Dougherty | 2015 |
| William Endicott | 2003 |
| Jack Freeman | 2003 |
| Bob Goodwin | 2005 |
| Kenneth Harbison | 2015 |
| Jerry Hargrave | 2005 |
| Dave Harrison | 2009 |
| Charlie Helman | 2013 |
| Dr. Henry Staehle | 2005 |
| John Holtz | 2005 |
| Judy Immesoete | 2009 |
| Read Kingsbury | 2016 |
| Bob Krenzer | 2014 |
| Karen Malecki | 2007 |
| Joanne Mitchell | 2006 |
| Dave Mundie | 2004 |
| David Newman | 2007 |
| Lawrence G. Newman | 2006 |
| Ken Reek | 2013 |
| Margaret Reek | 2009 |
| David Schott | 2016 |
| Rich Sensenbach | 2008 |
| Doug Smith | 2004 |
| Dick Spade | 2004 |
| Ellsworth Stein | 2003 |
| Larry Telle | 2014 |
| Jackson E. Thomas | 2006 |
| Karin Töpfer | 2011 |
| Edgar W. Trainer | 2007 |
| Steven Tryon | 2010 |
| Doug Wall | 2004 |
| Mary Warchocki | 2010 |
| Paul Weld | 2016 |
| Dan Wilson | 2008 |
| Daan Zwick | 2006 |