1959: THREE!! League Titles

The PTA Scholarship Fund was to benefit from a special evening of basketball that January. Players were the likes of Gardner Cullinan, Charley Ackley, Phil Sica, Bus Hedges, Harold Fairbanks and George Morse. Muriel Lufkin was to design the costumes, everything from Tarzan attire to "The White Swan Hotel" ballet.

A huge crowd turned out to watch the oldsters make fun of themselves at the PTA fun night. Alice Ashton and Anne Boeker led the "sparky flappers". Final scores included "Dungaree Dolls 17, Bloomer Girls 6; Cool Cats 17, Hot Shots 6", etc.

Carson Fuller announced skating every evening in back of the Hubbard Annex.

Led by the shooting of Bill Nygard, Dick Record and John Bell, CCS Indians downed Ft. Ann 54-39 to stretch their season record to 6-0.

CCS continued to roll, over Schuylerville 62-49.

The Cambridge Squaws continued their athletic activities, turning from summer softball to winter bowling.

League Hoop

Champions

CCS downed Greenwich 69-41, pushing their record to 9-0. Nygard and Bell led scoring. Then they decimated arch-rival Argy le 81-53 for no. 10.

CCS dropped a league game that wasn't reported in the WCP (typical), but went to 10-1 with a 77-34 defeat of Salem.

CCS took their 13th league win with a 78-30 rout of Hartford. They were on the brink of their second county championship in three seasons.

Fort Ann fell next, 61-34, for the 14th league win. Then came a 83-43 romp over Hoosick Falls. One more win and they were county champs. Bob Nygard had 30 points.

Next came Schuylerville, riding a seven game league streak and only one game back of second place Hoosic Valley.

The March 5 edition of the WCP included a banner headline: "Cambridge Indians Win Championship!" They did it with a 75-52 triumph over Schuylerville, who finished 12-5 in the league. Both would advance to Section II.

CCS was 16-1. Bill Nygard, 6' 2" junior, led scoring with; 278 pts., a 16.4 pt. per game average. John Bell, a senior forward, at 6 ft., had 195 pts. and an 11.5 average. Dick Record, the other senior forward, at 5' 10", ll.

The back court was Al Keiski and Ivan Purdy, both seniors. Joe O'Malley and Don Vitello played a lot, as did Dick Wulff, Jack Lylis, Chuck Cole and Dick McLenithan.

The team consisted of Nygard, Cole, Record, Keiski, McLenithan, Purdy, O'Malley, Donald Vitello, Lylis, Wulff, and Bell.

John Herbert was head coach and Merwin Nichols asst. James Lull was statistician and Cliff Phillips manager.

The boys had no trouble in the final game, swamping Greenwich 82-45, for one of the finest basketball records in the history of the School; probably the finest record by a boys team: 17-1.

Their only loss was to Hoosick Valley in the second of the two game series, 51-72. They had previously beaten Valley in the first game of the season 57-43. Valley finished second with a 15-3 record.

But their magnificent season ended dismally, a 75-53 loss to Ft. Edward at Mechanicville, despite a big turn-out of local fans.

Cambridge could only shoot 25 percent from the field. The Forts shot near 50 percent.

John Bell led local scorers with 15 pts. Nygard had 13.

Not to be outdone by The Holy Name Society laymen, who feted the successful football team, the Masons honored the basketball team with a dinner at McCarty's Log Cabin. Edward Donald, RPI Director of Athletics, was speaker.

Bus Hedges planned the affair, and was assisted by Gus Dering Sr., Fred Severson, John Briggs and John Sherman Sr.

A "dream" game between the two best CCS basketball teams in modern times was scheduled for April. The county champions of 1957 would meet the county champs of 1959.

The receipts from the very successful basketball season were, at the request of the players, put into a fund toward the purchase of glass backboards.

CCS launched its first track team in a decade, when Coach Carson Fuller turned out 20 candidates.

In the innitial meet, the CCS track team downed Stillwater 77-17. Dan Severson and Tommy Hunt piled up 13 points each. Hunt topped 9' 6" in the pole vault, won the l00 yd. dash and placed second in the broad jump. Severson was second in the 100, won the 220 and tossed the shot 43' 7".

Don Reed won the 440, Bob Nygard the 880 and Jim Kazimes the mile. Bill Nygard, Glen Davis and Chad Morse tied for the high jump.

Neal Laverty won the broad jump and Dick Wulff the discus.

Jerry Coon caught a three lb. trout on Mother's Day. It was 20 inches long.

CCS Grad Tom Buckley was varsity catcher for the Albany State baseball team.

Cambridge's own Kerry McKernon could be heard twice daily on the Saratoga Springs station of WSPN. He was class of '58.

Ralph Warren joined the Jerome E. Wright insurance agency. He had been in the business in Schenectady.

In a track loss to Schuylerville, Dan Severson again won the 220 and the shotput.

Ken McWhorter won the pole vault and the mile.

CCS Teams Take

Three League Titles!!!

Jim Lull moved up from statistician on John Herbert's basketball teams to writing by-lined sports stories on the school teams.

He reported that with the baseball team's 4-0 shut-out of Argyle, the Indians were a victory away from clinching a tie for the county championship with Schuylerville.

They did it the next week, on a perfect game, pitched by Bill Grady. A sophomore, Grady retired 21 men in a row, striking out 14 and gaining his 8th win of the season, against no defeats.

The Indians finished the season with a record of 8-1, good enough to be Washington County co-champions. Their lone loss was to Stillwater. According to League rules, there could be no play-off.

This was the first time in memory (perhaps in local sports history) that the CCS teams won the county crown in all three major sports: Football, basketball and baseball.

The teams on the year had a combined league record of 30 wins and two defeats, according to Statistician Lull.

Playing baseball for CCS were Ivan Purdy, Grady, Don Vitello, Al Keiski, Bill Wulff, Ublacker, Perry, Phillips, Dave Lee, Douglas and LeBarron.

Charles John Stevenson celebrated his 15th year with the widely-known "Chanticleer" program on Radio Station WGY. In 1945, Stevenson, then editor of the Washington County Post, co-founded the early morning radio foremat.

Beginning with only a 25 minute spot, the "Chanticleer" broadcasts lengthened until in 1959 they were on the air from 5:45 until 7:00 a.m. every weekday.

Stevenson became a regular radio personality in 1934, when he began to present 15 minute humorous sketches of rural comment, at first on WGLC in Glens Falls. When this tation removed to Albany, WTRY went on the air in 1940 and Stevenson did a weekly "Small Town Stuff" program for five years. In June of 1945 he switched to WGY and Chanticleer.

Back in 1942, WGY hired him to do a monthly, farm paper of the air feature. This he continued into 1959.

In 1947, WGY began featuring him in a 45 min. afternoon segment, entitled "The Jolly Judge". Background was provided by Stevenson's brief experience as police judge of Cambridge.

Since before WW II, Stevenson had been in steady demand as a speaker. At one point, the National Republican Committee sent him in a nation-wide speaking tour, on behalf of the Party.

That summer, 165 kids turned out for classes at Hedges Lake. Coach Fuller went looking for more qualified swimming instructors.

Civil Defense distributed booklets showing how to design fall-out shelters.

Burlingame Heads

SUNY Baseball

Robert Burlingame, a former Cambridge resident and recent three sport coach at St. Johnsonville Central, became varsity baseball coach at Albany State.

One of the grand ladies of Old Cambridge died in mid-August. Miss Elizabeth Allen Smart passed away in Washington DC. She was former owner of the Washington County Post and the national lobbyist for the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

The CCS athletic program had rebounded sharply under Principal Bowler and the rapid growth in enrollment. Eleven man footbal returned. Track was added. CCS acquired seven championship trophies three in baseball, two in basketball and two in football, in the five previous seasons.

School opened Wednesday, Sept. 9th. Reporting were 1,058 students.

The CCS football team, decimated by graduation, still had enough the fall of 1959 to defeat Stillwater 27-13.

Don Vitello was quarterback. As his father, John, did a generation before him, Dan Severson played fullback.

Tom Canzeri continued the tradition begun by his father, Nicholas, who played halfback on the immortal teams of the '20s.

Other players were Ken Stinner, Neil Laverty, Dave Lee, John Ublacker, Dick McLenithan, Bob Nygard, Butch Dering and Butch Wilkie.

CCS went to Whitehall for a non-league game and won 16-0.

Then the Indians swamped Hoosick Falls 49-7. Dan Severson and Tom Canzeri scored twice. Jack Douglas, Chad Morse, Bob Nygard and Don Vitello scored once each.

Robert Warren, 12, got his deer with bow and arrow when Vermont season opened.

Fort Edward cut down the high-flying Indians 18-6. It was the first defeat in county competition since CCS dropped out of the Saratoga league. The Forts were undefeated in eight games.

CCS bounced back from their defeat at Fort Edward to knock off St. Peters 26-0.

King's Bakery reopened at their new location near the railroad tracks on Main St. on Monday, Nov. 2, moving from the former Estramonte sweet shop on East Main.

The pin boy was a thing of the past. For the fall bowling season, Walter Gann installed the new AMF pin spotter equipment.

The second successive Saturday of pouring rain forced the postponement of the Greenwich-Cambridge football game.

CCS downed Salem 19-0. Then in the rain delayed game, they beat Greenwich 25-6.

The Holy Name Society honored the football team with a banquet at the Hotel Cambridge. The boys finished 6-1 in the county league.

Matt Meagher Sr. served as toastmaster.

CCS began the basketball season with a 65-40 win over Greenwich, then took a tough game from Fort Ann 48-37.

Cambridge stayed with Hoosick Valley and Salem atop the county league, posting a 51-34 win over Stillwater to go to 3-0. Bob Nygard, Bill Potvin and Don Vitello led scoring.

Then they dropped off the pace, losing a thriller, 63-61 to Hoosic Valley in double overtime. Bill Nygard scored 30 points before fouling out. That put CCS and Valley at 4-1 behind undefeated Salem.

Effective Jan. 1, 1960, Gardner Cullinan became proprietor of the Old WCP. Theretofore, he had leased the paper from Elizabeth Smart, who had died the fall of 1959.