Dublin School gets grant from KWCF

Dublin School gets lighting grant

By ABBE HAMILTON

Monadnock Ledger-Transcript

Trails at the Dublin School’s Nordic ski center will light up this year thanks to a grant from the Killington World Cup Foundation. According to the granters, the trail lighting project was funded because of Dublin School’s efforts in combining rigorous academics with competitive sports and spending time outdoors. The Foundation awarded the grants on June 15.

Brad Bates, Head of Dublin School, said the trail lighting would be used as needed, during the school team’s practices late in the fall, as well as for people who want to ski after work and before dinner, and for the community night race series. What had the team used before?

“ A lot of headlamps. Occasionally we'd put out construction lights. This is a lot safer,” he said on Tuesday.

Peter Imhoff, CFO for the school, said the low-voltage LED light posts stand about seven feet off the ground at the planning board meeting on Sept. 5. At that meeting, Planning Board member Caleb Niemala pointed out that the additional lumens on the trails would be minimal compared to existing campus lighting. It was also noted that the lights would be situated away from roads and neighbors.

Bates emphasized that the school was invested in minimizing light pollution, in part due to potential interference with the campus observatory. “They’re nothing like alpine lighting,” he said, “It's actually quite beautiful.” He likened the light’s effect to having a light at the end of a driveway, and said they would be spaced in 150 foot intervals down the trail. He said the school would attempt to install as many lights as they could before the upcoming Nordic season.

The Killington World Cup Foundation (formerly known as the Killington World Cup Committee) was established to support the women’s World Cup at Killington, Vermont, and benefit local and regional youth development programs that help young athletes thrive in the sport.