- Tonight on WPBS Weekly Inside the stories.

40 years ago, the 10th Mountain Division arrived at Fort Drum.

We celebrate this important milestone with a look at how the division has become a treasured part of our community.

And we sit down with Advocate Drum executive director Michael McFadden, to learn about the positive impact Fort Drum has on the North Country.

Also, the New York State Fair opens.

Tomorrow we'll tell you what's new and how new York's farmers remain at the center of the Fair's mission.

Your story is your region coming up right now on WBBS Weekly.

Inside the stores, - WPBS weekly inside the stories is brought to you by - When you're unable to see your primary care provider.

The Carthage Walk-in Clinic is here for you, located off Route 26 across from Carthage Middle School, comfort and Healing close to home when you need it.

Most - North Country Orthopedic Group is there for your urgent ortho or sports related injuries.

With our onsite surgical center and same or next day appointments, we're ready to provide care for patients of all ages.

Your health matters to us North Country Orthopedic Group, keeping healthcare local.

- We are the North country.

We're protecting one another like family is who we are and where our tomorrow will always be worth defending.

Find out how we keep the North country Strong, at claxtonhepburn.org.

Today, - Select musical performances are made possible with funds from the statewide Community Regrant program, a REGRANT program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State legislator administered by the St. Lawrence County Arts Council.

- Good Tuesday evening everyone, and welcome to this edition of WPBS Weekly Inside the Stories, I'm Michael Riecke.

In 1985, Fort Drum became the new home of the newly reactivated 10th Mountain Division Light Infantry.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of this significant event in North Country history.

Since its activation, the 10th Mountain Division has become the most deployed unit in United States history.

The arrival of the division turned Fort Drum into an economic powerhouse that pumps nearly $2 billion into our local economy.

The story of Fort Drum and the 10th Mountain Division all started with a place known as Pine Plains.

- So what happens in the late 19th century is that the Army realizes they need more land for training soldiers.

And so they approach the Watertown Chamber of Commerce and they say, do you have a space somewhere in the county with more land where we could do larger military maneuvers?

We'd like to bring the cavalry, for instance, and that involves horses and men and big guns.

And actually the Chamber of Commerce says, do we have the place for you?

It's the Pine Plains.

And so you have this very, very sandy land form, which is essentially the ancient glacial sand deposits from the earlier iterations of Lake Ontario.

And it's not any good for farming.

There's even a great quote.

The only thing the Pine Plains are good for is raising hell in huckleberries.

- The area known as Pine Plains would eventually be changed to Pine Camp and then again to Camp Drum in 1951.

The name change was an honor of Lieutenant General Hugh Drum.

General Drum served as the first United States Army's chief of staff during World War I.

He was also commander of the first Army during the initial days of World War ii.

In 1974, the Army assigned a permanent garrison and Camp Drum was renamed Fort Drum.

On September 11th, 1984, the Army announced Fort Drum would become the new home of the 10th Mountain Light Infantry Division originally activated in 1943 as the 10th Light Division Alpine and renamed the 10th Mountain Division.

In 1944.

This group of hardy cold weather soldiers fought in the snow covered mountains of Italy and Austria.

They faced some of the roughest terrain in World War ii.

After the war, the division was deactivated only to be reactivated and re-designated as a 10th Infantry Division In 1948.

At first, the division mostly trained soldiers, but in 1954 it was converted to a full combat division.

The division was stationed in Germany until 1958, when it was once again deactivated.

27 years later, the 10th Infantry Division found a new home at Fort Drum, newly reactivated and newly renamed the 10th Mountain Division Soldiers officially began training at Fort Drum on February 13th, 1985, 40 years ago, - We'll simply put, it made Fort Drum, a global power projection platform.

So in February of 85, when the Army reactivated the 10th Mountain Division here, it was really about creating a new fighting force, a new type of formation for our army.

And you gotta think back to the context.

So this is coming out of the Vietnam War.

We're in the buildup in the 1980s, and it was a bipolar world between the Soviet Union and the forces of the West United States leading that.

And you needed to have a formation that could go anywhere in the world at a moment's notice without being encumbered by a bunch of equipment.

And that was the genesis of the 10th Mountain Division.

Light Infantry built for speed and strategic flexibility to go anywhere in the world.

- Unlike other military installations, the Army intentionally designed Fort Drum and the 10th Mountain Division to fit into the local community seamlessly.

- So 40 years ago, when the Army reactivated the 10th Mountain Division here, they really made a conscious decision to be completely integrated and dependent on this wonderful North country community.

So nearly $1.93 billion of economic impact into the North country community and Fort Drum.

When you think about the number of soldiers that live here, the families that live here, the civilians that are employed here, and the retirees who because of this wonderful environment decide to stay here and make it their home.

There's nearly 65,000 people who stay in the area and continue to contribute to the economy and the wellbeing of the north country.

And that's shown in respect from the community back to the Fort Drum soldiers and our entire division and units here.

This is just a great place to live.

- The Division's mission is to train to rapidly deploy by Air, sea, and land anywhere in the world and be prepared to fight upon arrival and win.

- We'll simply put, when our nation calls, we must be ready to answer and believe it.

We are ready to go.

We are the most deployed division in the United States Army at this moment in time.

We're serving all over the globe.

That won't change and it's because it's incredible installation.

The incredible community that our war fighting skills are honed, that our families are taken care of.

And again, when the nation calls, we will be ready to answer.

- Having four drum in your backyard also comes with significant economic and cultural benefits.

Organizations like Advocate Drum have helped drive job creation, invest in infrastructure, and strengthen community partnerships, playing a vital role in the future of the North country.

WPBS producer Luke Smith, sat down with Advocate Drum executive director Michael McFadden to find out what's happening now and what's ahead for the organization.

- Thank you Michael.

And folks, I am super excited about who we have in the studio here today.

Folks, this is Mike McFadden.

Michael, you, first of all, thank you for coming to the studio today.

It's a pleasure having you here.

- I appreciate you having me.

- And you know, I was looking at, I was, when I read, read into you, you have quite the resume.

You are a 32 year veteran, 10 assignments on Fort Drum.

In 1990, you were a flight medic and you had a bunch of operations in Afghanistan.

And today you're here to talk about Advocate Drum.

- Yes, sir.

- So what is that?

I've, I I, this is new to me.

- Yeah.

So Advocate Drum is a nonprofit membership organization.

We're a community group type of organization.

And our mission is to protect, enhance Fort Drum's military value, and sustain and leverage it's economic and cultural significance and foster effective communications between the installation and the community.

- And with your background in military service, you know, about what the military provides to the communities that they inhabit.

So educate me a little bit, what is, what's, what does Fort Drum bring to this local North country community?

- Sure.

Fort Drum is a very unique military installation, and having moved 22 different times with the Army, I've seen a lot of different military installations.

Uniqueness of Fort Drum is, there's no hospital on Fort Drum, so it relies on our local community for any major medical care.

It also, there's no educational facility.

So all of our military children who reside on Fort Drum and off of Fort Drum, who are military associated attend local schools.

And so with that, Fort Drum brings almost $2.6 billion in economic impact Wow.

To our local area, $39 million in educational aid to our schools, and about $140 million is infused into our healthcare system each year.

- That is huge.

And I just, and you know, I, I gotta know what made you want to be, you've been a, you've been the executive director now for just about a year, and I just wanna know what made you want to, what made you want to sign onto this organization?

- So I, I retired in Savannah, Georgia, and after my wife and I traveled the country for about a year, looking for that perfect place to live.

And we realized that our time at Fort Drum was our best time in the military.

My wife happens to be from Lowville New York, and so her mother still resides here.

So we decided to come back this way and I wanted to do something that I could fully ingrained myself into the community.

And I saw this opportunity and I said, what a better opportunity than to support both for Drum.

And I'm a combat veteran of the 10th Mountain Division, as well as the local community where I live.

- It's so great to hear you coming back to the community and giving back.

Now, you know, I wanted to ask you, what is, what is Advocate Drum doing this year?

I know you guys are on your 40th anniversary of Advocate Drum.

What are you guys doing this year to commemorate that?

- So again, 40 years we've been around since the division where we stood up.

Right.

The organization back then realized both the community and the division realized that needed an organization to help 'em with the significant challenges.

The population of Watertown was about 17,000 in 1985.

And here we were gonna activate a division of about 15,000 soldiers.

So you can imagine the significant challenges that comes over that whe whether it's housing or healthcare and all the infrastructure issues.

So we're really proud to still be around 40 years later, still advocating for the installation.

Our major initiative this year is a initiative called Next Move, New York.

- Ooh.

- And that's a state initiative, a $10 million state initiative.

And we're partners with the, the North Country or Dan De Development Authority of the North country as well as JCC.

And the mission of Next Move New York is to encourage those soldiers who are adding, ending their military service at Fort Drum to stay in the local area.

As we know there's a significant work workforce gap here in the north country, and we want to entice those soldiers to stay in the local community, be part of our community, and, and fill that workforce gap.

- And do you see those military veterans coming back to volunteer for organizations like Advocate Drum?

- We do.

We have quite a few who are veterans that volunteer within our organization.

We're about a member organization of about 250, and we have multiple retired service members or former service members that sit on our board or volunteer in our different committees.

- What about for non-veterans?

For people who wanna just, who are, who are watching this right now and wanna get involved somehow, but don't know where to get started, can they get involved?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Advocate drum.com or fdr load.org are all places that they can go to.

And again, we have multiple opportunities for different committees, whether it's our membership committee or spousal employment committee.

We have multiple committees that they can volunteer their time to help one, support our mission, ensure that Fort Drum remains a viable in insulation, not only for Fort Drum, but for the community.

- You've been the executive director for just about a year at this point.

I wanna look back a little bit.

What's it been like this past year seeing, helping with Advocate Drum, being the executive director and giving back to the community?

- It's been exciting.

It's been, it's been eye-opening again, get getting to learn the organization.

We have a very diverse board of directors that come from a lot of different disciplines throughout the community.

Former and current CEOs of organizations, non-profit for-profit organizations, educational institutions, the leaders of those.

So it's been exciting getting to learn the personalities of our board of directors as well as learning, learning how to advocate both with our state, local, and federal - Representatives.

You mentioned earlier in the interview that you came back to the North country.

What does, what does the North Country mean to you altogether?

- Well, I think one, it it's a tremendous sense of community.

So, you know, the, the North Country is a military defense community, and Fort Drum provides us that opportunity where the people and the insulation are, are really cohesive based on the uniqueness of Fort Drum and the services that we provide as a community to Fort Drum.

But there's a lot of pride in the community, there's a lot of opportunity.

We have phenomenal educational system, we have great healthcare system, and we have beautiful recreational activities, especially if you like the outdoors.

We're a four season community, so you can enjoy all four seasons and plenty to do through each one of those seasons.

- Looking ahead, going into 2025 and 2026, is there anything you're looking forward to for Advocate Drum or things, big goals that you would like to achieve this year?

- Sure.

I would love to see us expand our membership.

Our membership really is our strength.

So when I sit down with our federally elected representatives or our state elected representatives, and I talk about issues that impact Fort Drum, our membership shows them that the community is invested in the organization, they're invested within their own community, they're invested in the future of Fort Drum and ensuring that that installation remains a viable partner within the community.

- The big thing I'm curious about is why should more people know about Advocate Drum if they don't know about it already?

- Well, one, I think that the Advocate Drum gives them an opportunity to support the mission of ensuring that Fort Drum remains a viable military installation and remains a viable economic powerhouse, not only for the North country, but for the entire state of New York.

Fort Drum is the largest single site employer in the state of New York, and our goal is to ensure that it remains that.

- Can you remind me where people can go and to learn more about Advocate Drum aside from this interview?

- Sure.

Advocate drum.com is our website and, and they can get information there about how to volunteer for the - Organization, how can other organizations even get involved?

- Sure.

They, they can contact Advocate Drum to help champion issues that we think are important to the community in Fort Drum.

- Well Michael, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for coming here.

And thank you for your service.

I, I mean, I, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to overstate your service to the community, but you know, for your service to the community, your service to the military and this and this great country, we couldn't be more grateful.

So thank you so much for your time, both in the military and taking the time to come to WPBS to talk to us today.

It was certainly a pleasure.

- I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

- For more information, visit advocatedrum.com Well, when you think about county fairs, fried food and carnival rides probably come to mind, but at the heart of those events is an effort to showcase the hard work and innovation of the North country's farmers.

The New York State Fair is no exception.

It's the largest exhibition of them all and it starts tomorrow.

Fair Director Julie LaFave joins us from the fairgrounds in Syracuse with a preview of what to expect.

Julie, thank you for joining us.

Now, between the rides, the food, the concerts, I think some people might forget that the fair is really about showing off New York State agriculture.

So if you would please tell us about the role the Fair continues to play in supporting and showcasing New York's farmers.

- So I think the greatest thing that you can see this year with your own eyes is we're gonna do a ribbon cutting on two new horse barns and a brand new sheep and wool center.

So what better way to bring in and welcome these animals with brand new stables, bar brand new barns, additionally agriculture or the crops and what you can make with that.

So there's gonna be a brand new expansion of the Taste New York area inside the horticulture building.

We're also expanding on what the horticulture building really means.

Horticulture means growing, it means products, it means everything that's grown and produced in New York.

So you're gonna see more and more of that.

You're gonna see more people producing you their own maple syrup or their own honey or making their own beer.

And that's gonna be all on display inside the horticulture building.

And that's really just the beginning of what's to come over the next few years.

We have some more capital projects that are focused on agriculture that we haven't announced just yet, but are gonna bring equal excitement in future years.

- What's new at the New York State Fair this year that visitors might not expect?

- Last year we had our sensory room and that was very well received because not everybody who comes to the fair is prepared for the sight, the sounds, everything that could be just overstimulating or, or just too much for them.

So this year, because the fairgrounds are 375 acres, it didn't really make sense for there to be only one sensory space.

So we actually are adding a second one on the other side of the fairgrounds.

We are continuing to add to our music series.

We have two 9:00 PM shows at Chevy court, so that's new.

Everything we do, we try to listen to the feedback to see what can be new and what can bring excitement in the door.

- Okay.

For our viewers tuning in from the north country and across the border in Ontario, what would you say makes the Fair worth the drive?

- Oh, it's different for every single person, right?

I think that no two days could be the same here.

Honestly, no.

13 days could be the same here.

So that the reason to come here is that you can have a thousand different experiences.

If you come a thousand different times, you're not gonna come back to back days and do the exact same thing.

You may go see the the Llama jumping competition one day and come back the next day and focus completely on the music that's here.

And then the next day you may focus and say, this is the day I'm going to eat my way through the fairgrounds.

No two minutes of the same.

At any point in time, there's about 15 things or more happening, so you're never gonna get bored.

- For me, a trip to the fair is all about nostalgia.

It was always summer's capstone.

So how do you foster those traditions so many of us love while also meeting the expectation of a new generation of fair guests?

- Well, I think that there's those experiences and those memories that we never wanna touch, right?

I don't think we ever wanna see the corn milk go away.

25 cent milk people come here and that's very much a memory.

They even save the tokens from year to year.

So those are things that we don't ever wanna touch.

We may wanna improve on them, you know, maybe there's a better way to deliver that milk, but we don't wanna change that.

Same thing with the dollar potato.

I mean that's very much the nostalgia of coming to the New York State Fair or eating a corn dog or honestly watching the fireworks at night when we have them.

But there's always a lot of new things happening out in the fair world.

So it's really finding the balance.

We can't get rid too much of the nostalgia, but we can't be stagnant.

We have to always be looking to see what our other fair partners are doing and say, what can we do to bring more people here?

- In your expert opinion, what is the one thing a first time fair goer should not miss - The, can I give a tip instead?

So the one thing your first time Fair Goer needs to do is prepare.

You should not wait until the moment you're walking onto the fairgrounds to see what is interesting to you.

You should have already downloaded our app and you should have already said, I wanna go see Hillby, or I really wanna go see the Bunny Hopping Agility competition.

You should have already pinpointed a few things that you wanna do.

If you don't plan, you're just not gonna be able to see as much as you wanna see.

- How closely do you and your team watch the forecast?

And if it is a rainy day, is the fair still worth a visit?

- Yes, you, it could rain all day long, not that I want it to, nor do we want it happen that way and we are prepared for it.

But if it rains all day, you can go in the Center of Progress Science and Industry Dairy Product, the Eatery Horse Barns, Wolf Wolf Center.

You can go anywhere and you will stay dry and still have hours of entertainment.

- Arguably no one spends more time at the fair than you, Julie.

So what is your favorite part of the fair?

- The best part of the fair is walking around and seeing that we got to create this experience.

One of my favorite memories from the fair last year, and you know, day one blends into day seven into day 12, and you, you're at a point as an employee that you don't even know what's happening anymore.

You don't even know what day it is and you get tired.

And there was this moment last year where I was just walking through the fairgrounds and this little girl kind of just cut me off in front of me and she stopped and she ran and she looked at her dad and she screamed that this was the greatest day of her life.

And that's a moment that will stay with me forever because that is the best part about the fair to me that we get to create that memory.

- Well, we know you and your team are busy, but we want to thank you for your time and of course we'll see you at the fair.

- Thank you.

- The state fair just west of Syracuse runs August 20th through Labor Day.

Kids under 12 and adults 65 and older get into the fair for free for everyone else.

Daily admission is $8.

You'll find details including a full fair schedule, at nysfair.ny.gov.

Well that does it for this Tuesday night.

Join us next time for a fresh look inside the stories from Queens to upstate New York.

Sean Hennessy joins Johnny Spezzano in the kitchen to make some traditional wood-fired bagels with a north country twist.

And Laura Tiberiu is back her review of the book, homecoming By Yaa Gyazi, Might just convinced you it's your next must read.

Meantime, if you have a story idea you'd like us to explore, we would love to learn more.

All you need to do is send us an email at wpbs weekly@wpbstv.org and let's share it with the region.

That's it for tonight.

Everyone have a safe evening.

We'll see you next time.

Until then, take care.

- WPBS Weekly Inside the stories is brought to you by - When you're unable to see your primary care provider.

The Carthage Walk-in Clinic is here for you, located off Route 26 across from Carthage Middle School, comfort and Healing close to home when you need it most - North Country Orthopedic Group is there for your urgent ortho or sports related injuries.

With our onsite surgical center and same or next day appointments, we're ready to provide care for patients of all ages.

Your health matters to us.

North Country Orthopedic Group, keeping healthcare local.

- We are the north country.

We're protecting one another like family is who we are and where our tomorrow will always be worth defending.

Find out how we keep the north country Strong at claxtonhepburn.org.

Today, - Select musical performances are made possible with funds from the statewide Community Regrant Program, a REGRANT program of the New York State Council on the Arts.

With the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State legislator administered by the St. Lawrence County Arts Council.

- We could do larger military maneuvers.

We'd like to bring the cavalry, for instance, and that involves horses and men and big guns.

And actually the Chamber of Commerce says, do we have the place for you?

It's the Pine Plains.