Thea Burgess • President
Stories resonate with me as does an understanding of how people connect to the places where they live and make their lives. Historic Red Hook has both and more. I grew up in Wells Bridge, New York, in Otsego County, and the names of places around me there—Susquehanna, Unadilla, Otego, Oneonta—pointed to the history of the indigenous people on whose lands we lived. I was cognizant of that and of the links to the past via the names of streams and roads and hills and mountains, usually christened by or for the people who had settled there at some point. I majored in writing at Houghton College and worked as a weekly newspaper reporter in Wappingers Falls and an editorial assistant at Bard College. Something was missing, so I shifted gears and followed my mother’s path into education. There I could merge my love of reading, writing, and narratives, by teaching high school English first at Hudson High School and then at Red Hook High School until retiring in 2020. During my teaching days, I became part of Historic Red Hook through the Bicentennial celebration when my ninth graders researched the history of locations meaningful to them in the town. Since then, I have served as a trustee, secretary and second vice president of Historic Red Hook. Its stories and places have a hold on me, but most important are the people of Red Hook, who inhabit both. Historic Red Hook is the center of that for me.
Thea Burgess is the Chair of the Communications Committee and a member of the Programs and Executive Committees. She can be contacted at president@historicredhook.org.