The Beckett House nursing home is on the hill in the background. When it is not covered in snow, a smooth asphalt path leads down from the nursing home to the handicapped accessible dock, and also loops around the "lake." East Muskingum Junior High is off to the right hand of the picture, beyond the trees.
Lake Sturtevant more rightly deserves to be called a pond than a lake. It is named after Dave Sturtevant, a longtime professor of Asian History who was a native of Zanesville, and a veteran of WWII. After returning from the Pacific theatre, he joined many other returning soldiers who took advantage of the GI Bill to get an education. After completing his B.A. at Muskingum, he went on to earn a Ph.D at Stanford University in Asian History, with a special focus on the Phillipines. Then he returned to Muskingum to teach, and taught here for about forty years. When I arrived at Muskingum College in the Fall of 1997, Dave was retired, but still around, and he kept an office in the History department suite. Once a year he taught a class on the Pacific theater during WWII. Because he had been retired for several years, few students knew him, so the class drew small enrollments, but all of the students who took Dr. Sturtevant's Pacific War class raved about it. They were especially enthralled by his retelling of his own war stories.
During his forty years at Muskingum, Dave had been a leader of the faculty, but had a reputation as a firebrand and a hell-raiser. But when I got to know Dave, he was devoting most of his energy to making New Concord a better place. He spearheaded an organization called ReNew which worked to enhance the village in many ways. They restored the S-bridge on the outskirts of town, worked for the revitalization of main street by pushing through stricter regulations on signs, buried most of the powerlines, and raised money from private donors to install old fashioned street lights.
During my first few summers at Muskingum College I spent many days in my office working on a variety of projects, and most days it was just Dave and I in the office. Dave was a bit crusty, and it took him a little while to warm up to the new kid. But he spent his days pouring over maps and spreadsheets, and working the phones, trying to sell his vision for a better New Concord to assorted constituencies. ReNew had come up with a plan for additional enhancements to the village, including a network of walking paths and the construction of a new pond and park north of the village. Occassionally he'd pop his head into my office to tell me an off-color joke, or invite me into his office to show off his map, which outlined his vision for New Concord. Dave's gruff exterior melted away when he was showing this off. Suddenly he was a delighted little kid. And he was pretty darn good at getting other people excited about his vision, too. The first phase of trails, the new pond and park, all came together because of Dave's ability to get the Village, the School District, the College, and the Beckett House nursing home to kick in. Some residents of Beckett House can see the pond from their own rooms. In the warmer months, residents of Beckett House are often wheeled down to the lake to enjoy the view. The pond also abuts the school campuses, so science classes of all levels are able to use the pond as a learning laboratory. And a trail through the Hollow connects it to the campus and mainstreet, making it a nice destination for an evening walk or jog.
Dave died shortly after the completion of the pond, and the village decided to name it Lake Sturtevant in his honor. A plaque along the trail which circles it offers a brief biography. I try to make a trip around Sturtevant lake a part of my evening runs at least once a week, and every time I jog by the plaque, I say out loud "Good evening, Dave." I consider Dave Sturtevant to be New Concord's George Bailey. When Dave left this earth, he left behind a better New Concord than the one he first arrived in almost a half century earlier. I never told Dave he reminded me of George Bailey. I suspect he would have responded with a groan or a harumph. He certainly didn't sound or look like George Bailey. He had too much of the gruff old soldier in him for that. But he'll always be New Concord's George Bailey to me.
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