In 1963, my local newspaper announced the intentions of “New York philanthropist” Arthur A. Houghton to establish the Wye Institute, a forward thinking organization with a primary mandate to promote the “progress of the Eastern Shore.”

Arthur Houghton, the president of Steuben Glass, was also, among his many civic accomplishments, chairman of both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Philharmonic, and he helped create Lincoln Center, the internationally renown home of not only the philharmonic, but also the New York Opera and the New York Ballet.

Houghton constructed The Wye Institute on his 750 acre estate, Wye River Plantation, which was once the home of one of Maryland’s signers of the Declaration of Independence, and the third governor of Maryland, William Paca.

Houghton enlarged the property to 1,100 acres by purchasing an adjacent tract of land, and in 1979, he donated the entire enterprise to the Aspen Institute, an international public policy study organization, and a “nonpartisan forum for value-based leadership and the exchange of ideas.”

https://www.aspeninstitute.org/

Occasionally, the institute’s Wye River campus makes worldwide news, as in 1995, when the Conference Center was the site for negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Authority, which resulted in the Wye River Memorandum, and in 2000, when Elian Gonzalez, the young Cuban citizen brought to America by his mother, stayed there during the intense custody battle that stoked controversy and anger between the two countries involved.

 

Of a more local concern, in November, 1965, a belly dancer, Princess Nadja, a refugee “from the communists” came to town.

Also, in a presumably unrelated story, the Livestock Show opened that next Saturday.

In November, 1969,  The Kent Island Elementary School PTA hosted a fashion show:

Howard Coyle has all the attitude of a New York model while he escorts Micki, not Nickie, Roser across the stage.

Vaughn is getting ready to get it on. Get it on, Vaughn, get it on.

Wendy says, “Follow me, brother. I got this.”

In November, 1972, posses were still a thing on the Eastern Shore:

And an ad in the December, 1967 issue of Yachting Magazine, which came out that November, asked readers, and buyers of yacht insurance –

DO YOU KNOW THIS HARBOR?

I do.

It’s Kent Island, Maryland.

Gateway to the Land of Pleasant Living.

And sometimes posses.