Maple sugar operation in memory of Selleck

The Friends of Rogers are raising funds to create the new resource in the Colgate professor’s memory.

SHERBURNE » Friends and colleagues of the late Bruce Selleck are raising funds to memorialize the longtime Colgate professor and lifelong upstate New Yorker by creating a new educational resource — a working maple sugaring operation — at Rogers Environmental Education Center.

The 21-acre stand of maples that includes Rogers Center’s Cush Hill would become a living laboratory to teach visitors the science and craft of maple sugaring. Local entrepreneurs will provide operational expertise in return for half the proceeds from maple syrup sales. The other half will help sustain Friends of Rogers operations at Rogers Center. Visitors and volunteers will observe and even share in the sugaring process.

Selleck, who died unexpectedly at the age of 67 in July 2017, was a Friends of Rogers board member. A 1971 Colgate graduate, Selleck joined the college’s geology faculty in 1974. Inadditionto serving in a variety of faculty and administrative roles on campus, Selleck was well known for his work off campus in support of the environment, education, and economy of upstate New York. His tenure as director of Colgate’s Upstate Institute spanned both those roles.

The grouphas set a goal of raising $40,000 to launch the project, build a traveling evaporator that could be trucked to schools and

other venues to stage live demonstrations, and endow a fund to ensure that the project will continue to operate in perpetuity, educating generations of young upstate New Yorkers in the art and science of one of their great cultural legacies.

Contributions payable to Friends of Rogers and designated for the “Selleck Sugaring Project” may be mailed to Friends of Rogers, P.O. Box 932, Sherburne, N.Y. 13460. Donations can also be made online at www.FriendsofRogers.org

Rogers Center is operated by Friends of Rogers Environmental Education Center, Inc., a nonprofit organization that offers educational programs for people of all ages. Seasonal hours are from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

PHOTO COURTESY THE SELLECK FAMILY Friends and colleagues of the late Bruce Selleck, longtime Colgate professor, are raising funds to establish the Selleck Sugaring Project at Rogers Center. Selleck is pictured here with his grandson, Cooper James Murphy.