Rogers Center celebrates 40 years

By Katherine Waters

Sun Staff Intern

SHERBURNE – Since the cost of traveling has increased, more and more people have been choosing to remain at home for their vacations this summer.

This does not mean, however, that the summer will be dull. In fact, it could be a time to explore the resources that can be found in Chenango County.

One such resource to explore is the Rogers Environmental Education Center in Sherburne that will be celebrating their 40th anniversary June 14. Marsha Guzewich, the Director of Rogers, invites everyone in the community to join in the festivities Saturday.

The anniversary celebrates the opening of the main environmental education building on June 10, 1968. The staff will be joined by the first Director John Weeks and members of the Friends of Rogers.

The festivities will begin with a presentation on “where we came from and where we are today,” said Guzewich. The staff will then invite the public to join in some fun activities including; canoeing, kayaking, aqua ecology and owl pellet dissection. There will also be locally produced refreshments available.

The Rogers Center began as a game farm, developed by Henry Rogers in 1909. The 600 acres that make up the Rogers Center was the first game farm in New York State. It was used as a picnic area, a place to spend time with family as well as for hunting pheasants.

Guzewich explained few people know the Rogers Center’s 600 acres are actually split into four separate parcels of land, each having its own unique purpose to the original game farm. In the late 1960s, the game farm was scheduled to close. However, the community felt that Rogers was far too important to be shut down. The Nature Center’s division of the National Audobon Nature Society was called to research the possibility of creating an educational center. The local Rotary Club was able to take the research and convince the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to keep the game farm land but develop it into what it is today.