WATCH: Bayport-Blue Point Administrators Accept ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

(Info/photo courtesy of Bayport-Blue Point Schools)

Over the summer months, people around the world participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to bring awareness to the disease and donate toward finding a cure. The challenge requires the participant to have a bucket of ice water dumped on themselves, and then nominate several others to also take the challenge and donate.

When the challenge made its way to Bayport last week, Superintendent Dr. Vincent Butera and fellow administrators accepted. On Aug. 29, Butera, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Tim Hearney, Administrator for Pupil Personnel Services Natalie Doyle, Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Michael Cipriani and Athletic Director Tim Mullins, completed the challenge.

Butera and fellow administrators also nominated 5 BBP principals, one Board of Education trustee, NYSED Commissioner Dr. John King, Dr. Walter Schartner, the Sayville superintendent of schools, and Dr. Julie Lutz of ES BOCES. A donation was made to ALS research.

ALS is personal to BBP, as Bill Hutchinson, an earth science teacher who began his career at BBP during the 1960s, passed away from the disease in the 1990s. Hutchinson, known as “Hutch,” was a beloved wrestling and football coach and is credited with elevating the district’s wrestling program to elite status. He was memorialized by the creation of a scholarship, the Hutch Fund Grant, awarded annually by the Bayport-Blue Point Foundation.

The video of the administration’s ice bucket challenge (which can be viewed below) was shared at the close of Butera’s welcome back speech at Superintendent’s Conference Day.