1-15-10
What better way to raise a family of five than the way Sam and Marjorie Dubben did on their farm along Cherry Valley Creek?
Morning and night, the Dubbens were together. Tim, Edward, Theresa (now Adams), Sherri (France) and Susan (Hugick) had morning chores with their parents, and came back from school for evening chores.
Dad, who excelled at basketball (and played baseball) at Cherry Valley High School, encouraged the kids to participate, too. And the family would come along to watch dad play with the town team.
It must have been a positive experience, since his grown kids all coach today.
“We shared a lot of laughter, and we shared tears,” Dubben recalled on a recent blizzardy day in the cozy kitchen of the home he and Marjorie built in the 1960s from wood harvested off their property.
Two of their 11 grandchildren, shy Amelia Dubben and not-so-shy Tori Elizabeth France were cheerily underfoot, the way their grandparents like it.
That sense of family, of working together, of getting along, is what Floyd Samuel Dubben, Jr., 65, hopes to bring to his new responsibilities as chairman of the Otsego County Board of Representatives.
The veteran Republican, raised on Dubbendale Farm at the start of Dubben Cross Road on the Middlefield-Roseboom town line, was elected to replace another dairyman, county Rep. Jim Powers, R-South New Berlin, at the reorganizational meeting Wednesday, Jan. 6.
“My goal,” he said, “is to bring a dialogue, not only between board members, but between department heads and employees. I want everyone to feel like they’re part of the picture.
“That doesn’t mean you, me and everybody has to agree. We just have to talk about it. Then, the solution will take care of itself.”
Dubben’s grandfather immigrated from England to Schenevus around the turn of the 20th Century. His father, Floyd Samuel Dubben, Sr., established Dubbendale Farm in the 1930s.
When the son came along, his family called him “Sam” to avoid confusion, and the name stuck. He had a sister, Ann Lennebacker, now a retired teacher.
The father set his son on the path to succeed him early on. By age 5, Sam had cattle of his own. At age 11, he sent his first shipment of milk – two cans – to the Dairylea creamery in Cherry Valley.
About that time, a signature event transpired: The Middlefield school closed and he was transferred to Cherry Valley.
Quarters were cramped and Sam’s new teacher asked the kids to push their desks together in a long row, to create more space.
“I pushed my desk over,” Dubben recalled. “And this young lady pushed her desk over, and I saw the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen in my life.”
He was immediately smitten with Marjorie Thompson; the two would marry right out of high school. “I’ve looked at those brown eyes every day now for 47 years.”
Dubben was already showing signs of the leader he would become. He was point guard on the Cherry Valley High School team that went 9-1 in the regular season in 1962.
Active in the Future Farmers of America, he competed his way to national Star Farmer of the Year, the FFA’s top honor, in 1965. (He credits Jim Rose, the vo-ag instructor at Cherry Valley for many years, with helping him get there.)
After graduation, the newly married Sam went on to SUNY Cobleskill, and by age 21 he had a degree, two children and a job with Farm Credit Services, (now Empire Farm Credit.) He continued to farm, and he got a real-estate license.
Life went on. More kids arrived and began to grow. When the old Board of Supervisors became the Board of Representatives, Dubben threw his hat in the ring, but nothing came of it. He was elected Middlefield town justice – justices also served on town boards then, duties he preferred to the “thankless job” of meting out justice.
One evening in 1990, he was walking up the driveway toward the house when Marjorie called out, “There’s a call for you.”
It was Dora Moore, the former county treasurer. County Rep. Joe Franzese had died recently, and there was a vacancy.
“How would you like to be county representative?” she asked.
“Can I think about this and call you back?” he replied.
“She was point blank,” Dubben recalled the other day: “’No.’”
“Dora, are you at a meeting right now?”
“Yes.”
So he accepted, and got his first introduction to partisanship. The county board had been split, eight Republicans, six Democrats. With Franzese’s passing, the Republicans lacked the eight votes necessary to install Dubben.
So he waited around for the next election, won a three-way race and finally took his seat during the waning years of the formidable Carl Higgins’ long-time tenure as board chairman. “I was probably known as the quiet one,” Dubben said.
He was assigned to the Meadows Committee, then chaired by Cy Lord of Unadilla – “I had the utmost respect for him.” The decision to build Otsego Manor had only just been made, and Dubben was soon elbows deep in the planning and construction decisions, something that he remembers with satisfaction.
“I’m totally in support of Otsego Manor,” he said. “It’s a wonderful place. It does wonderful things. It treats people the way people should be treated. And it’s a great place to work.”
No sooner was Otsego Manor complete, then the state began delaying the anticipated hike in reimbursement rates. Over the next few years, the county lost $18 million, spurring discussion – Dubben opposes the idea – of privatizing the facility.
Finally, three months ago, the higher rates came through, and Dubben expressed some satisfaction that $3 million has already been recouped.
Along the way, Dubben hit a bump in the political road. In 2005, Democrat Phil Durkin, the Milford Central School librarian from Cherry Valley, narrowly edged him out of his seat.
Two years later, Dubben – with Marjorie charting the course – stopped by all 1,400 homes in his district where voters lived, and he narrowly reclaimed his seat.
“I don’t like to be beaten,” he said, but added: “It didn’t hurt me to be off the board, either. You have to remember who put you there and why they did it. It was a reality check.”
