Antrim boarding school may bring athletic fields to town

The Maharishi Academy of Total Knowledge, located on the old Hawthorn campus on Old North Branch Road, is slowly making progress toward opening its doors.Alan and Martha Colby will be settling into life in Antrim: (Michael Pon photo) A new headmaster has arrived and with him negotiations with the town over construction of a baseball diamond and a soccer field appear to have more substance.

The Academy will be a boarding school for high school age boys, and will employ Transcendental Meditation practices, Vedic architectural practices and a vegetarian diet to enhance education, just as its sister campus in Iowa.

Alan Colby and his wife, Martha, will soon be settling into their new home on campus. Whether they open the doors of the school to students in September 2008 or September 2009, is still up in the air. Colby said the minimum population of students they would begin with would be ten, a scanty number on a large campus.

However, Colby feels confident that developing the school grounds with 251,000 square feet of new dormitories and halls and filling them with students is totally possible.

Colby is returning to New England from Fairfield, Iowa, where he has been the principal of the Maharishi School of Enlightenment for 16 years. In its beginnings, the Iowa school was also a nearly empty campus with little funding. Colby intends to bring the Antrim school up from those same conditions to the level of Iowa school over the coming years.

One ingredient for attracting students to the fledgling campus is athletic fields, which Antrim is in need of. The campus does have a level area where two baseball diamonds and a soccer field may be developed, but the organization does not have the funds to support the costs. Therefore, Dan Wasielewski, the Academy’s Director of Facilities Development, a position much like Clerk of the Works, approached the town with a proposition.

“Dan contacted us and asked if we would be interested in doing a joint venture, putting up some money for a ball field in exchange for its use,” said Antrim selectman Gordon Webber. “They have the land, we have the money. This is in the preliminary stages of exploration. Nothing has been decided.”

“We want to make it as comfortable for Antrim as possible, and as comfortable as possible for us,” said Wasielewski.

Antrim passed a warrant article a couple of years ago to fund the acquisition and construction of athletic fields, but so far has not found any suitable sites. Although the Academy’s site is suitable, it is not entirely convenient because it is five mile from downtown, making it impossible for kids in the neighborhood to walk to. Parents would have to shuttle kids to the Academy’s fields if the deal was struck.

Gordon said the town has somewhere between $250,000 and $300,000 to invest in athletic fields.

“They’ve looked at various pieces of land around town for the past six years,” said Webber. “Either the deals have fallen through, and one failed at a town meeting several years ago.”

Another more ambitious plan the Academy has is to build an ice-skating rink, which could be very profitable and popular, not only to the townspeople but to area residents.

“A lot of guys play hockey Wednesday at 3:30 in the morning in Manchester and Nashua,” said Webber, who knows of one person in Hillsborough who does so. “There is clearly a need for it. I would encourage the school to build the ice rink and get their money back by running ice time 24/7. The rinks are pretty popular.”

However, seed money for an ice skating rink may be hard to come by anytime soon for the Academy, and the Academy would have to pitch in to create a level surface for the town to build the fields on.

“We would then come in to put drainage, irrigation, sod, equipment shed dugouts,” said Gordon, who also pointed out the town’s “need is for a little league field, which doesn’t really help the Academy because they are going to be a high school.”

Gordon, sharing a personal opinion, said, “If we throw out $250,000 to build a field, then we would be in need of some return for our investment. Maybe use of the field for 20 to 50 years. Those are just numbers we’ve thrown out to work with at the present.”

The town may also save some money on the North Branch Bridge, which is need of costly repairs, because the Academy is interested in developing River Road as an access to the campus.

“A River Road access would negate the need for repairing the North Branch Bridge,’ Gordon pointed out. “They are having engineering plans done on River Road, a dirt road alongside the River. . . . The Academy wanted to do that anyway for a good impressive entrance. . . . The town may find it cheaper to upgrade the road than fix the bridge.”

But because the State requires two modes of egress, the bridge may have to be fixed up anyway, unless the Academy upgrades Stacey Hill Road. In that case, the town would not be obliged to repair the bridge.

Meanwhile Alan and Martha Colby will be returning to his New England roots to develop all these plans and more. Aside from possibly providing needed athletic fields for the town, the Academy may well broaden the tax base – in time. Webber says no offers have been made to the Academy for a tax break, although negotiations are ongoing.

Originally from Amherst, Massachusetts, Colby’s father was from Plainfield, New Hamsphire and his mother was from New England. His grandfather was in politics and according to Colby, was “instrumental” in the Windsor Bridge crossing the Connecticut River between Vermont and New Hampshire. His stepgrandmother, Sue Lewin, was the primary model for the artist Maxfield Parish.

“You will accomplish much more if you are happy and you can be, just by meditating twice a day,” Colby said of the Academy’s philosophy. “It’s really just a very deep rest.”

To get to know more about the campus that intends to have all its buildings face east and construct them otherwise according to long-standing methods that enhance the educational environment, go to www.MaharishiAcademy.org