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In the Beginning ...
In 1966, Jack Wills and John Brennan, Biology professors at Corning Community College, began building some nature trails out behind Corning Community College. They called it the Spencer Crest Wildlife Refuge -- it was to serve as an outdoor classroom. Lacking broad-based support, it went into one of nature's hibernations.
Early  in 1975, Paul Lang, responding to Corning Rotary's search for a major new project, proposed that the Rotary sponsor a community nature center of lasting significance. A site search soon discovered Wills and Brennan's sleeping dream. Joining forces, they persuaded Corning Glass Works [CGW] to donate 100 adjoining acres, secured a long-term lease for the use of the land from the Corning-Painted Post School District, and created a not-for-profit corporation named Spencer Crest Nature Center, Inc. Startup funding and support became a Bicentennial Project of Rotary and the College.
Discovering the 200 Acres
John Weeks, a nature center professional, appraised the site and confirmed the excellent potential of Spencer Crest. With funds from the CGW Foundation, the landscape engineering firm Hueber Hares and Glavin prepared a Master Plan in 1976. The 200 acres includes two ponds, a stream, and two distinct forest zones. This area provided college students, Camp Monterey, and the Youth Conservation corps exceptional opportunities to build bridges, an adirondack lean-to, a boardwalk, and several resting spots along 7 miles of trails.
Early Programming 1975-1979
Providing tour guides for groups began in 1976. College  students were trained each year, receiving college credit. The guides received a fee for tour guiding, but no charge is required of the general public group being toured. A peak year had have over 2000 trail walkers and over 4000 elementary school students receive formal nature education.
A Fall Spencer Crest weekend became a regular feature. Ron Rood, author of children's nature books, spoke at the initial 1976 event. Then David Sellers, the architect that designed Spencer Crest, talked on energy-efficient architecture, followed by nature illustrator Chuck Ripper and the Lumberjacks. After adopting the Screech Owl as Spencer Crest's emblem it was an easy step to select "Screeches" for the newsletter.
The site was attractive to a wide variety of programs including cross-country skiing, BSA Jamboree, landscaping techniques, a school "Lunch Enrichment Program", and illustrated lectures.
An Interpretive Center - When?
The goal of a building in which to meet, teach and display traces back to the original proposal to Corning Rotary, confirmed by John Weeks.
Architect David Sellers was selected in 1978, funded in part by a CGW Foundation grant, and presented his Interpretive Center idea that fall. It met all our basic needs, adding a new and larger dimension - man's relationship to nature - and featured alternate energy systems.
Winning a  1979 DOE grant triggered organizing a much larger fund drive to build Phase I of Sellers' design. A CGW Foundation challenge grant led to Corning Rotary, as their 75th anniversary project, taking on and managing a most successful community fund drive.
Phase I was sufficiently complete for its dedication in October 1981. John Denver was the featured guest, receiving the Spencer Crest Award and a Steuben bowl.
An Expanding Program - The 1980's
The building and grounds improve year by year aided by special gifts, various memorial funds, and a solid group of volunteers. The first Clivus Multrum (an organic environmentally friendly toilet) is installed, water is collected in a cistern, a north European masonry stove provides building heat along with passive solar energy, and the development of a sensitivity trail for the physically challenged has begun.
Programming is more varied with a building to complement the 250 acres. A national art show, photography by Audobon's Steve Kress, Everett Kilmer on nut culture, and field trips to Montezuma and the Cornell hawk barn just barely suggest the range of programs that are now offered.
Providing a year-round Interpretive-Naturalist was the next big goal. In the summer of 1982, the Volunteer Clearing House sent us Jackie Horsfall to get us started. A Finger Lakes Parks Commission grant funded another nine months of part-time professionals: Jennifer Hayworth, followed by Linda Dean. The benefits included scheduled open hours and a trained Interpretive-Naturalist, still central to Spencer Crest's growth.
1990 - Present
Spencer Cre st has continued to grow dramatically. The center is currently visited by about 11,000 people and trail walkers annually. Within any academic year, about 8000 students gain environmental education with the assistance of Spencer Crest staff, volunteers, and college professors.
Interpretive displays in the building are updated to fit the needs of the school curriculums and currently include dinosaurs, rock and minerals of New York State, birds and bird nests, animal tracks, mammals, sea shells, insects, butterflies, edible plants, a "young investigators table", snakes, weeds in winter, and a living bee apiary! As Spencer Crest has become a regular part of the Corning-Painted School District Science curriculum, these displays get plenty of use.
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