South Pole rescuers encourage children in Canaan

CANAAN – It was a day of rescuers and heroes at Lindbergh Crate Day at Larry Ross’ house on Friday. But if you asked the children and adults who participate each year, they might very well name Ross among the heroes of the day.

For 10 years, Ross has invited local schoolchildren to the tiny museum behind his house for a day of outdoor activities, and to meet inspiring people from around the world.

“I feel I have a golden opportunity to get people to do these things,” he said of the crate-museum that allows him to talk to people. “When I tell them I have this little museum in my backyard that was the crate used to ship the Spirit of St. Louis home, they say ‘what?’ And I get to tell them my story and what I do.”

Ross took the wooden crate and made a museum honoring Charles Lindbergh and his flight over the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis.

The first cross Atlantic flight, 74 years ago, is celebrated each year in Canaan and held up as a model for children to believe in their dreams. Creating the museum was a dream fulfilled for Ross and the basis for his volunteer work with school children. Crate Day is an extension of his efforts to inspire children.

This year’s visitors included Majors Kim Terpening and George McAllister, the flight nurse and pilot of the LC-130 aircraft that flew a daring mission to Antarctica in October 1999 to rescue Dr. Jerri Neilsen. The doctor was diagnosed with breast cancer and trapped at the South Pole without the necessary treatment to save her life.

“It was an amazing mission,” Terpening said of the lifesaving flight. “I didn’t understand the magnitude of it at the time. My focus was on caring for Dr. Neilsen.

“But this is pretty amazing, too,” she said waving her arm at the activities at Ross’s hillside home. “It’s no small feat to get a Blackhawk helicopter here, to arrange a flyby with a C-5 Galaxy or a C-130.”

Terpening said if there is a message to take from her experience or the activities that Ross undertakes it is “anything is possible.”

Crate Day gets more inspiring every year, according to Bonnie Ross, Larry Ross’ sister-in-law.

“He knows how to use his energy,” she said. “This is pretty phenomenal. He has opened a lot of doors for a lot of kids.”

Betty Wing, a teacher from the Canaan Elementary School, said Ross makes the event better every year.

“We keep thinking he will burn out,” Wing said. “He makes children think beyond the classroom – the sky is the limit. And dreams aren’t foolish. He gives them a can-do spirit.”

In addition to the Antarctic flight crew, children participating this year met Marion Stoddart, who championed the cleanup of the Nashua River in Massachusetts beginning in the early 1960s. Stoddart is the subject of a children’s book by Lynne Cherry, “A River Ran Wild.” Maine Marine Patrol Officer Alan Lear also was a guest. Lear was named New England Conservation Officer of the Year. He was one of two rescuers who saved a young girl after a near-drowning off the coast of Maine in 1997.

Other guests were Deborah Palman, the first woman in the Maine Warden Service; Frank D’Allessandro, a member of the Jubilee Network that works to eliminate debt of Third World countries; Ed Patenaude, a Maine lumberman who helped Sebasticook Farms sawmill in St. Albans stay in business and provide jobs for adults with mental retardation; and Senior Master Sgt. Paul Terpening, a specialist in barren land [winter] survival with the Air National Guard.

Despite the contributions and inspiration of the special guests, the younger guests and even Ross himself, were quickly thrilled with the flyovers of C-5, LC-130 and especially the 104th Fighter Wing A-10 Warthogs, jetfighter aircraft from Long Island, N.Y.

Peter Clark, 15, and Cody Faloon, 13, of Canaan, were thrilled to have the experience of retracing some of Lindbergh’s travels with Ross last year, but Friday their eyes were on the A-10 Warthogs.

“That was cool,” they both agreed.

“Yeah,” Ross exclaimed as he gave a kick in the air when the jets made repeated passes. “I live in a great country. It is so great to me the number of people willing to go out of their way to make this happen for strangers.”