Recreation & Youth

The kids of Children’s School will participate in various activities related to the “Wild, Wild West” this week. Children will be making all kinds of western-themed crafts, “Wanted” posters, hobbyhorses, sheriff badges and cowboy hats. They also will be learning square dances and a hoedown.

SLIDESHOW: At 2 p.m. Wednesday, rows of Boys’ and Girls’ Club campers lined the shore behind Beeson Youth Center. Dressed in swimwear and wrapped in beach towels, the kids eagerly awaited instructions from Chuck Bauer, Club’s aquatic director, who stood on the dock in front of them, megaphone in hand.

The Chautauqua Golf Club regularly hosts a variety of charity events, most notably the Office Depot Pro-Am Tournament and the Sports for Kids Golf Tournament. Last Friday, both frequent and occasional golfers gathered at the Golf Club to support local hospital care in the Westfield Memorial Hospital Foundation 19th Annual Golf Tournament.

At the end of Week Two, three Boys’ and Girls’ Club counselors were decorated with Club’s top honors: the “Counselors of the Week” award. Gabby Salva, 18, from Napa, Calif., Libby Goodell, 19, from Bronxville, N.Y., and Suzie Tuthill, 17, from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, took home the award last Friday.

“I am the Pablo bird, bird of a single feather, I fly in the clear shadows and the confused light.” These are the words of Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. A writer with a strong political opinion, Neruda was originally Neftalí Reyes but changed his name to save his father the embarrassment of having a poet for a son.

SLIDESHOW: Scenes during the Firemen's Picnic on Sunday, July 10, 2011.

Singer and guitarist Kev Rowe returns to the College Club at 9 p.m. tonight for an evening of original acoustic folk music. Rowe, a native of Jamestown, N.Y., has been playing at the College Club for more than 10 years. He said he finds the energy at Chautauqua inspiring.

Down at the edge of the Institution’s grounds, in the shadow of the grand Athenaeum Hotel, canopied by a few tall trees, sits a quaint little house — Chautauqua Sports Club. Green shuffleboard courts lie to the left. A few picnic tables with chess and checkerboards on top decorate the front lawn. The lake rests behind the house, with paddleboats, canoes and kayaks bobbing in the water near the dock.

Fishing. It has inspired some great minds, such as Washington Irving: “There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind.”

Amidst the chaos of lunchtime at the Youth Activities Center, two Boys’ and Girls’ Club counselors stood out as recipients of the prestigious “Counselors of the Week” award. Emily Horak, a nature counselor from Jamestown, N.Y., and Kurt Wissing, a music counselor from Buffalo, N.Y., were Week One’s winners.

Two springs ago, Jack Voelker attended a recreation professionals conference to present on reconnecting children with nature. At the same conference, a spokesman for the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program presented on enhancing the natural areas of golf courses. Voelker, general manager of the Chautauqua Golf Club, met with the spokesman to talk business and discovered that he was quite familiar with Chautauqua.

For Children’s School administrators, a major goal for several years has been to incorporate more outdoor learning for the kids who attend the program. This year, after five years of planning, designing and building, their goal has finally been reached. The final product: the new “sensory garden” in the backyard of the Children’s School, which allows children to experience nature in a whole new way.

In the south of Switzerland, they speak Italian. So the first time Sharon Creech visited Switzerland in 1982, she made sure to learn Italian. But when the Newbery Award-winning author of Walk Two Moons returned to the country in 2007, she found that hopping between English and Italian was much more difficult than it used to be.

Jackson Rohm, a Jamestown, N.Y., native, returns to the College Club for a free evening of acoustic country, rock and pop at 9 p.m. tonight. Rohm visited Chautauqua many times in his youth. Now, he tours across the eastern states with his music but returns to Chautauqua County every summer. Rohm has been entertaining audiences at the College Club for more than ten years.

SLIDESHOW: Last week, the Arthritics topped the Fashionable Gentlemen, the MOMS took down the Chautauqua Lakers and the Boomerangs beat the Belles. That could only mean one thing: Softball season at Chautauqua has begun.

SLIDESHOW & VIDEO: Scenes from Friday morning's Children's School's Independence Day Parade