Director will keep hand in after retirement

When Nancy R. Conde officially retires Tuesday as the North Country Children's Clinic's director of school-based health, she won't necessarily be leaving her 22 years of service with the agency behind.

Mrs. Conde will lend a hand to make sure the school-based health center at the South Jefferson Central School District's Wilson Elementary School, Adams Center, opens this fall.

"I'll be hanging around," she said. "I wanted to be sure it was finished."

Mrs. Conde said what's kept her as director of school-based health for so long is knowing many north country children are receiving medical, mental and dental health care.

She started work at the Children's Clinic in 1987 as the school breakfast coordinator, persuading local school districts to have the free breakfast program, which eventually became mandated. By 1993, Mrs. Conde became the director of school-based health when the Children's Clinic's first center opened in Watertown City School District's North Elementary School.

The Wilson building site will be the sixth such center operated by the Children's Clinic, 238 Arsenal St.

Looking back on those first years when the Children's Clinic became involved with school-based health, Mrs. Conde said she wouldn't have been able to help the program blossom into what it is today without the help of the agency's executive director, Janice L. Charles. Mrs. Charles will retire the same day as Mrs. Conde.

"With the school-based health program, that entailed a lot of grant writing, and Janice guided me through it," Mrs. Conde said.

Mrs. Conde's role has made her the liaison between the Children's Clinic and school district staff, working to keep the state Health Department happy when it reviews the centers and helping to market school-based health centers in the community.

She credited the Northern New York Community Foundation with providing $10,000 to start up that first school-based clinic. The Community Foundation's most recent grant of $60,000 will help establish the Wilson building's center.

Mrs. Conde said the Children's Clinic has made a commitment to open a school-based health center in the Gen. Bruce C. Clarke building, Adams.

She will soon pack up her office, which she shares with Joey Marie Horton, the agency's community coordinator of school-based health. Mrs. Horton, who also is the co-executive director of the state Coalition for School-Based Health Centers, will absorb some of the duties Mrs. Conde had. The director of school-based health post will not be filled.

She will continue working with children when she spends the fall and winter months at her South Carolina home with her husband, William W. "Sandy" Conde. She also is already thinking about taking her Northern New York school-based health ideas there, and getting involved with the same kind of centers.

She also would like to catch up on leisurely activities when she retires, such as gardening, reading books, traveling and spending time with her grandchildren.

"I like to be busy," Mrs. Conde said.

Just because she's leaving her north country job doesn't mean she'll permanently leave the north country.

"We have a cottage in Henderson, so we'll always be here." she said. "This is home."