Excitement brewed on Allen Street as an African drumline opened of State College’s sixth annual Juneteenth celebration with an art exhibition at the Woksob Family Gallery. 

The drumline led the small crowd that set foot into the gallery, which was curated by Dr. Grace Hampton on Friday evening. 

Some attendees dressed in colorful dashiki dresses and semi-formal attire. A snack table with desserts, crackers and cheese greeted patrons before they entered the art exhibition, which followed the theme “Juneteenth: Our Fight, Our Freedom, Our Future.” 

The evening began with a drum song that had art-seekers dancing along, before Hampton stood at the microphone in front of the featured piece and delivered a welcome speech. 

The night’s featured artist was Nathan Addley, who had several pieces highlighted toward the front of the exhibit. 

Tayana Rich said she went to support friends who contributed pieces to the showing, and that she loved those featured and her friend’s piece shown in the exhibition.

“I grew up in Florida, so (Juneteenth) wasn’t a big thing we celebrated in school,” Rich, a doctoral student studying social data analytics, said. “It’s nice to celebrate it now, and even my family embraces it more.” 

Rich said Juneteenth and African American history have begun to mean more to her now as she’s matured and taken more time to learn about not just Black history, but the entire country’s history. 

“It means a lot to me,” Rich said. “I think that I’ve learned so much and have gotten a solidified identity.”

Bryana McClinton also said she came to support a friend whose work appeared in the exhibition, and mentioned the importance of holding events like the art gallery. 

“I think this is a great way to bring the community together while preserving history and teaching people about the past, so we don’t repeat their mistakes,” McClinton, a fourth-year studying criminology, said. “Plus, I loved the refreshments.”

The pieces featured in the exhibition ranged from stylized portraits to historical anecdotes and tributes. 

One artist, Kennedy Ferguson, is also a member of a committee that contributed to planning State College’s Juneteenth weekend. 

“I’m all about Juneteenth,” Ferguson said in an interview. “Especially now with everything that’s going on.” 

Her piece, “Justin,” is part of a larger series of stylized portraits of her friends and family, as a celebration of Black joy. 

Ferguson said Juneteenth means reconnecting with her heritage, and honoring her ancestors by retelling their stories. 

More speakers talked about the importance of celebrating the entirety of American history all year long, regardless of the race it involves. 

Janet Irons said she loves everything about Juneteenth, from the art to the community-fostering it provides. 

During a musical performance with a local community member singing, the internet connection disconnected during their song, but the rest of the room filled with voices to finish the tune. 

Irons, a community member who attended the event, said it was a testament to the strength of the State College community. 

“You don’t find that kind of thing everywhere,” Irons said.

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The 2023-24 athletic season was a special one for Amherst’s Rich Ferro. His two sons, Skyler and Sawyer, were teammates for the first time ever on the Hurricanes’ ice hockey and boys lacrosse teams.

Skyler, a senior, and Sawyer, a freshman, had never starred on the same team before due to the four-year age difference and Rich had a front row seat to the new experience as an assistant coach with the hockey team and head coach of the lacrosse team.

Initially, Rich had some reservations as to whether taking over the reigns as the lacrosse head coach in 2024 would be a good idea with his two sons in the mix, but a conversation with a trusted friend helped Rich come to a decision.

It proved to be the right one.

“This guy was sort of my teaching mentor and he retired from [Amherst Middle School] a few years ago. His name is Norm Price and he was like, ‘are you kidding me? They’re both OK with you coaching them?’ And I’m like, ‘Absolutely.’ He’s like, ‘then you’d be crazy not to… you don’t get that kind of opportunity very often.’ And then it happened and I had both of them on the hockey team and the lacrosse team, and having them both on the same ice and the same field at the same time, working together toward the same goal was just awesome,” Rich Ferro said.  “You get to be there with them while one of them makes passes to the other one for a goal, and that happened several times in lacrosse last year when they were both playing attack together. That was incredible.”

On the ice, the ‘Canes put together a 12-win campaign, however they didn’t have the same level of success in lacrosse, finishing with six victories. Still, Rich looks back on that season fondly. He had the best of both worlds in terms on maintaining the father-son relationship, as well as the coaching responsibilities for the rest of the team, since he always wound up specializing in positions his two sons did not play.

“I generally coach the forwards and Coach [Mike] Russo coaches the defense [in hockey],” Rich said. “Both my boys have played defense, so in practices, when it’s time to split offense and defense, they’re with Coach Russo and so it’s sort of worked out in hockey that I’m not… yes, I’m their coach, but I’m not directly coaching them as individuals.

“When I took over for Charlie Edwards [as the Amherst boys lacrosse head coach], who’s now at Northampton, my best friend Henry Wilson, he took the offense, and I was like, ‘I’ll take the defense,’” Rich added. “That’s something that was new to me. But again, both my sons, they’re attackmen and [midfielders] and so they would work with Henry when they’re doing team offense and defensive work, and I’m with the defense. So I think that’s an adjustment that has naturally kind of worked in both hockey and lacrosse, where I’m not on their case for all of practice. In hockey, they’re at the other end of the bench, not that we don’t interact by any means, but I think that’s been something that’s helped in that regard.”

Rich was a former lacrosse player himself for Amherst in the 1990s and loved the physical nature of the sport. Both Skyler and Sawyer followed in their father’s footsteps as players who welcome contact, sometimes a bit too much, according to Rich.

“I think that’s one of the things that led all of us to sports like hockey and lacrosse, is just the physical nature of it,” Rich said. “That is something that we really like and that gene is there. That part of that is really natural to coach with them. It wasn’t something that I really needed to push. In fact, it’s probably the opposite where I have needed to emphasize other parts of the game, beyond the physical side of things with them.”

Once Skyler graduated in 2024, he returned this spring to help coach Rich in lacrosse, adding another interesting wrinkle to the Ferro family connection within Amherst athletics. The Hurricanes’ most memorable moment of the season came last month during its 9-6 win over Northampton for their first Western Massachusetts Class B championship in more than 20 years.

Now a rising sophomore at Amherst College, Skyler’s departure from high school athletics signaled that Sawyer isn’t too far behind from graduating either. While the younger Ferro still has two more years before that day comes, Rich will have another decision to make, as far as whether or not he wants to continue to coach high school sports once his kids are no longer there.

“That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot,” Rich said. “I don’t know that I will continue to coach two sports after he’s done.”

Rich mentioned due to the hockey team’s shrinking numbers, he’s unsure what the state of the program will look like next year and the year after, making it difficult for him to make a decision until then. Although, when it comes to lacrosse, Rich sounded more confident in his future decision with that program.

“I would like to stick with lacrosse for as long as I’m a teacher, or whatever it happens to be that I’m doing in this district over the next several years,” Rich said. “There’s really good numbers and a lot of excitement around lacrosse in Amherst right now and so knowing that feeder system is coming through, is exciting. I think we could, I don’t know that we’ll push the top teams as much as I’d like, the Agawams and West Springfields, Longmeadows and whatnot, but I think we can get to that place where we start being able to be competitive with those teams again, like we used to be.”

With Father’s Day falling within the pocket of the year in the Ferro’s schedule where they get a respite from sports practices and games, the holiday offers Rich a chance to rest, reflect and not have to worry about drawing up plays or thinking what to say to motivate his teams.

“We’re all just ready to take a deep breath and relax a little bit,” Rich said. “We don’t do a lot of sitting still in our family, but to be able to take some time to do things around the house and just spend time, I think, with each other as a family [is the plan].”

On Sunday, Rich can just be ‘dad’ and he’s quite alright with that.