Catching up with David Kaufman
David Kaufman can surprise people. A 2007 graduate of Huntington High School, he has a terrific sense of humor and a keen intellect. As a junior at the University of Connecticut he is majoring in landscape architecture and thoroughly enjoying the experience.
“I really like my classes and it is fun being in a small major because we've all become very close,” Mr. Kaufman said last week. “It does require a lot of time in the drawing studio but the work is enjoyable so that makes up for it. I have always liked plants and being outdoors and different kinds of design so landscape architecture was a good way to combine my interests. We also go on field trips to places like Hartford and Boston to look at examples of work and will probably go on a trip abroad this summer.”
He recently received the Horace F. and Gladys K. Murphey Plant Science Scholarship for the fall semester from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Radcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture at the University of Connecticut.
Never a Dull Moment
At Huntington, Mr. Kaufman was involved in a number of activities, from the tennis team to various after school clubs. He’s continuing such extracurricular activities in college. For example, the Huntington grad is building and fundraising with Habitat for Humanity and in the two years he’s been involved with the local chapter it’s been able to sponsor construction of a house.
“I do organic farming with the EcoGarden club and play with the UConn table tennis team,” Mr. Kaufman said. During warmer weather he plays tennis every weekend “and I'm probably better than I ever was when I was on the [Huntington] high school tennis team,” he joked.
Mr. Kaufman said it’s “nice” that four other students from Huntington are on the UConn campus. He also “loves” taking in UConn basketball and football games saying the college’s sports teams “are definitely very exciting.”
During high school, Mr. Kaufman was a member of the National Honor Society as well as the English, art and foreign language honor societies. He was presented with a Spanish Award at the senior academic awards ceremony.
Helped Create Trail Guide
Some people might be surprised with Mr. Kaufman’s summer activities with the Town of Huntington’s Dept. of Planning and Environment. “Interestingly, I heard about this internship from the HUFSD web site in the spring of 2008,” he said. This past summer was his second with the town and was quite productive, indeed. He worked closely with fellow intern Elana Israel to create a stunning document.
“At the beginning of this summer, I heard people in my office talking about creating a trail guide for the town and I told them that I would be interested in working on it,” recounted Mr. Kaufman. “After that I started going out to about 25 different trails with the other intern to take pictures and map the trails using GPS devices. We started laying out the guide shortly after, combining the park information from old park files, the images of the parks, and the maps and GPS data.”
State Environmental Award
The work wasn’t easy and was obviously tedious at times, but the results were more than satisfying. It was so outstanding it earned the New York State Association of Conservation Commissions’ Environmental Project Education Award.
“It was a really great project for me because I got to use a lot of the design techniques I have been learning in school and I have always really enjoyed photography,” Mr. Kaufman said. “I also learned a lot about the town because I got to see parks that I never knew were there. People are surprised that we have the twenty trails in the guide, but really the Town of Huntington has over 150 parks. After living in this town my whole life it's nice to be able to give something back to the community.”
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