Cortland Standard .net

By SARAH VABER
Staff Reporter
svaber@cortlandstandard.net
DERUYTER — It was the welcoming attitude of the village displayed by a kindly bank officer that first drew former Mayor Nancy Parkhurst to DeRuyter. After32 years, Parkhurst retired April 6 at the end of her term as mayor of the village she still views as a welcoming family.
“Even though the faces have changed, that’s the way it still is,” Parkhurst said. “DeRuyter has always been a family community. When someone hurts, the whole village hurts.”
Mayor Travis Marshall said that while he was growing up, Parkhurst was always the village mayor.
Parkhurst is a selfless person who is a great asset to the village, said Marshall, a DeRuyter Fire Department volunteer and a career firefighter for the Cortland Fire Department.
“She would do anything for anybody,” he said.
Parkhurst and her husband, Clark Parkhurst, were driving from Cortland to their home in New Woodstock, Madison County, when they spotted a house for sale in the village.
Nancy Parkhurst stopped at the village’s Key Bank and asked bank manager Charlie Moseley for financing.
Moseley’s only question was if she had an account at the bank, Parkhurst said.
Answering honestly, Park-hurst said she had opened one just five minutes earlier. It was a savings account with $10 in it.
“And he said, ‘Welcome to DeRuyter,’” Parkhurst said.
Other gestures that were small, but meaningful — such as the flat tire a gas station attendant changed for free — helped make Parkhurst feel at home after her move, too.
But even after six years as a village trustee and 32 years as the village mayor, Parkhurst said she is still considered a “newbie” to the community.
“I’m an outsider, I didn’t get here until 1969,” Parkhurst said, noting that most people live in DeRuyter their entire lives. “And the neat part is, I live in the ‘Burdick House.’ I’m not sure when it becomes the ‘Parkhurst House.’”
In 1977, Parkhurst was elected as a trustee to the village board.
As a native of the hamlet of New Woodstock, Parkhurst said she learned how to pitch in as a member of a small community.
“I guess I learned from my folks, you need to be involved, you need to be a part of something,” she said.
Never did Parkhurst imagine she would be a part of the village board for 38 years.
In 1983, Parkhurst ran for village mayor and won. Mayor John O’Mara did not seek reelection that year, she said.
Parkhurst said she ran because the village was not doing enough long-term planning.
“My strange philosophy was do something once and right, and move on,” she said.
And in her more than three decades as mayor, Parkhurst has put the philosophy to the test more than once.
In 2003, the village built a new fire station to accommodate the larger, modern fire trucks, Parkhurst said.
More than a decade earlier, the village approached a developer about building senior housing and a two-story,22-unit apartment complex was built for DeRuyter’s aging residents, she said.
“We had a lot of senior citizens home alone,” Parkhurst said, noting residents tend to stay in the village throughout their lives.
The apartments filled up quickly and are 90 percent full, she said. “It’s their own little community up there,” Parkhurst said.
Another major village accomplishment was convincing the state Department of Transportation to replace the village’s original water mains with new pipes when it repaired Route 13, the village’s main roadway, in 1989, she said.
Eugene Burdick, the village’s water and street superintendent, suggested he take a road trip with Parkhurst to visit the state DOT’s office in Utica. Together they convinced the agency to pay for and install the pipes while the road was torn up.
“I’m still amazed,” Parkhurst said. “(It) saved thousands of dollars. It was huge.”
Parkhurst said one of the best things a person can do as a mayor is communicate with others all the time.
“There is absolutely no way you can over communicate,” she said. “When you communicate, the other half of that is you got to listen.”
Another high priority is populating the board and village employee positions with good, dedicated people whenever possible, she said. Parkhurst counted Patricia Winters, who worked as village clerk and treasurer for most of the32 years Parkhurst was mayor, as well as current village clerk and treasurer Ardene Tiffany, as two such employees.
When budgeting, long-range plans and a revolving schedule for equipment replacement are important, Parkhurst said.
Parkhurst said she would not buy all new fire trucks in one year, just as she would not buy all new appliances for her home in one year, because then they would all need to be replaced in the same year.
“You got to like people. And you got to be willing to look at everything half full, otherwise you go crazy,” she said.
Going crazy is something Parkhurst does not do, said Chuck Walter, the DeRuyter superintendent of schools and a village resident.
The school district and the village work together closely in times of crisis, such as the August 2013 flash flood that displaced families in DeRuyter, Walter said. Throughout the trial, Parkhurst was calm and collected as she made sure the villagers’ needs were being met, he said.
“Nancy, as mayor, was an incredible leader,” Walters said. “The community was always the center of her focus.”
If something needed to be done in the village, Parkhurst would often go out and do it herself, Marshall said. Last summer, Parkhurst conducted traffic control at a dangerous intersection that a summer recreation bus had to take to get to DeRuyter Lake for the children’s swimming lessons, he said.
Parkhurst is a person full of heart and caring, said Village Clerk and Treasurer Ardene Tiffany.
“And I know she’s not going to stop making the community the best it can be,” Tiffany said.
Between church and fire auxiliary activities, as well as time with family, Parkhurst said she expects to stay busy during her retirement.
“I’ll not be laying under any rocks,” Parkhurst said.
The village is holding a reception to honor Parkhurst, as well as Winters, who retired last year, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday in the community room at the DeRuyter Fire Station, 1663 Cortland St.