Heritage school to open doors
PENN TWP— Ryan Stauffer pulled the straight strip of glowing steel from the coal forge and used a little mallet and a lot of noise to pound out the form of a blade.
First, he worked on forming a point at one end of the strip by slamming the steel against an anvil. Repeatedly dipping the steel back in the coals, he kept the tip fiery red until he had a symmetrical point.
His next step was to heat the mid point of the steel in a propane forge. Back on the anvil, he used another tool to chisel the steel to the correct length.
All the while, sparks hit the freshly poured cement floor and the clang of metal on metal reverberated in the aluminum building.
Halfway through the process, Stauffer scooped water from a tub with both hands to cool the coals.
"We don't even have a watering can yet, we'll have to make one of those,"he said.
While the trade is ancient and the surroundings historic, a lot of the facility at Butler County's Heritage School are new, from the cement under his feet to the forge at his hands.
Using coal mined from his property, Stauffer had the coal forge fired up for the first time Tuesday in a building that was a chicken coop when the land was a family estate.
The folk school plans to begin its first set of week-long classes June 11 at the Butler County Community College's Succop Conservancy on Airport Road. On Tuesday, the instructors met each other and gave demonstrations of their trades.
The Conservancy was turned over to the college's Education Foundation in 2001 with the purpose of preserving history and the environment.Following the wishes of the donators, Tom and Jo Ann Succop, the foundation went to work restoring some of the 19th century buildings and organizing a group of people to make a folk school possible.During the restoration process, the 50-acre estate was used as a site for weddings and small educational programs. In March, the college's board of directors named it the Heritage School at The Conservancy.The buildings on the grounds have unofficial names for now. The main house, which was the boyhood home of Tom Succop, has been called Marcraig.Susan Changnon, college spokeswoman, said that name came from a suggestion of the Succops, who combined the names of Tom Succop's parents, Margaret and A. Craig Succop. That generation of Succops bought the estate from Margaret Succop's father, T.W. Phillips Jr., and made it a working farm.When Tom Succop inherited the house from his parents, he and his wife moved back to the estate before they donated it with the word of the foundation that it would be preserved and used to promote environmental education.Nancy Lawry, the newly hired coordinator for the Conservancy, said it has been "intense" work in the past few months."We've got the school ready to open in June," she said.
The purpose of the school is to "preserve Western Pennsylvanian heritage," Lawry said."And I believe that will happen here," she said.The classes offered at the school are trades learned from experience and often from grandparents.Stauffer first went to blacksmithing workshops with his grandfather when he was just big enough to wield the tools. At age 11, he developed an interest in the trade.He studied history in college, developing a specialization in Norse artifacts and restoration."I've done a lot of demonstrations,"he said, "and it seems you always end up teaching something when you give a demonstration."This is the first time he'll be teaching smithing full-time — though he taught middle school for awhile — and he said he's thrilled.He was playing the bagpipes at a friend's Eagle Scout celebration party when a BC3 administrator heard he also knew his way around a forge, he said.Cynthia McCabe, director of adult and community education, asked Stauffer if he was interested in working at the folk school, he said."I really believe it was meant to be,"Lawry said. "(The instructors) have such gifts."Stauffer in turn recruited Carl Robertson, a woodworking expert, to work at the school.Robertson will teach classes from Introduction to Traditional Woodworking to Period Cradle Making.Zarah Blair recruited herself.She was interested in sharing her art, she said, so about a year ago she called McCabe to see if there was a class for her to teach."(McCabe) said 'I have a dream, call me back in a year,'" Blair said. A year later, she called McCabe and the folk school was forming. Blair, an author and illustrator, will teach "Sensible Shoes and Ruby Slippers."Students in the class are asked to bring a list of three personal experiences and one object to class. They will "write a pearl of personal history and illustrate it," according to the course catalog.Other teachers of classes such as Civil War quilt-making, poetry in nature, and Tea and Social Graces, already taught at the college or joined when they heard about the school forming.
The instructors will teach eight to 10 students in each week-long course, and there will be six classes at any one time.Classes begin at 8 a.m. with breakfast at the main house and a welcoming. Students will then go to the classroom, which might be a corner of a garage, a restored barn, or in Stauffer's class, a semi-hemisphere building fashioned into a shop. Lunch is prepared and served on the grounds at noon before classes resume until 3 p.m. Students are given until 4 p.m. each day to relax at the pond or walk the grounds while refreshments are served.Except the first week of July, the final week of August and the final week of September, weekly classes are scheduled through mid-November. The cost of classes ranges from $360 to $390, with an additional fee for materials. Registration began Tuesday.Angie D'Ambrosio, who will teach a variety of art classes, said she plans to incorporate the grounds into her classes. Students might take an easel outside for a reference for a landscape painting or use some of the greenery to make shadow boxes, she said.In the first season, Lawry said the first students will likely come from the region. Plans are, though, to make the school a vacation destination, she said."What better place to spend your vacation?" she said.Lawry said the school will eventually be marketed nationally as one of a dwindling number of places teaching trades.Robertson said he thinks it's important to preserve the skills such as woodworking because if it is forgotten, it is unlikely to be revived.Lawry said the school will work to do that."I see the treasures around here," she said.For information, call The Conservancy at 724-586-2591.
