Sam Huang
Born: c. 1935
Died:
Married: Kitty
Children:
Sam Huang is an immigrant from China who came to Saranac Lake in his youth, attended Saranac Lake High School, and was found to have TB. He cured at Ray Brook and attended one of Historic Saranac Lake's TB reunions. He is an artist, one of whose paintings is a part of the high school collection of work by alumni. He lives in California. Despite the loss of one leg, he is noted for his tap-dancing.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, December 2, 1954
Sam Huang, of Camp Intermission, has been elected vice-president of the freshman class at the State University Teachers College at Pittsburgh. He is the son of General J.D. Huang. A 1954 graduate of the Saranac Lake High School, Sam was a member of the Glee Club, school newspaper and yearbook.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, November 19, 1959
Rotary Learns Service Pays
By JIM LOEB
Saranac Lake Rotarians have discovered once more that their motto of "service" is more than just a word, that it pays off in dividends to society and therefore to Rotary.
This time they learned it through a brief letter from Sam Huang, member of the Saranac Lake High School graduating class of 1954. Here is the story. . .
Sam Huang was injured some ten years ago when his family home on the Island of Formosa was bombed by the Communist forces. He came to Saranac Lake to recuperate and attended the high school here. When he was well, he wanted to continue school, and the school also wanted him to complete his work.
Sam got a few jobs around town but they were too strenuous for his physical condition. Finally, Bill and Ruth White took him in, giving him room and board. And so he graduated with the class in '54.
But he wanted more education. The Rotary Club made him a loan of $150 to help out. He went for a while to Plattsburgh State Teachers College and worked at the hospital in Plattsburgh as a medical technician. In fact, he had done some of that work here with Dr. Dorothy Stewart at the General Hospital.
But Sam had ambitions as an artist and to teach art to others. He went to an art school in Pawling, New York, and earned his way as a lab technician at a nearby hospital in Poughkeepsie. And then he graduated. Now he is teaching art in Smithtown, New York, on Long Island. And this is what he wrote the Rotarians: 'Four years ago your organization was kind enough to loan me $150 for college expenses. I am now teaching and I would like to pay $65 towards my loan. The remaining $85 will be sent next month. Thank you for your kind help. Sincerely, Sam Huang.'
The accompanying check for $65 was worth far more than that amount of cold cash. Its value can only be judged by whatever value you put on integrity, gratitude, persistence in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, moral courage.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, September 30 - October 1, 2000
Huang comes back to school with stories
By PETER CROWLEY
Enterprise Staff Writer
SARANAC LAKE - The art class at Saranac Lake High School had no idea one of Sam Huang's legs was fake until he took it off to tap dance.
He was telling the students about the value of art — any art, even tap dancing, he said. He then asked if he could tap dance for them. They assented, so he took off his leg and put a tap shoe on it. After putting one on his real foot, too, he put the leg back on and began to tap dance.
To say the students were, blown away is putting it mildly, said art teacher John Ward, who described the above scene to this reporter. They even gave him a standing ovation.
It should not come as surprising to anyone who has ever met the California artist/scientist that he is full of surprises. Consider the fact that Huang came to Saranac Lake in December 1950 from war-torn China, an amputee at 15 years old. After leaving a lasting impression on people here, he went on to a doctorate in biology and 40 years of university teaching and research, in which he melds art and science in a unique manner.
Huang returned to his old hometown of Saranac Lake Wednesday to share funny stories, talk, to students about art and science and donate a 52-by-58-inch painting of the village, to Saranac Lake High School's new permanent alumni art collection. He graduated from SLHS in 1954 after coming from China for the tuberculosis cure.
"Saranac Lake, My Home Town" now hangs in the foyer of the high school's new auditorium. The work is done with mixed media and considering the fact that Huang is colorblind, is surprisingly colorful. The image is Huang's compressed mental picture of Saranac Lake, constructed from old memories and new ones from a 1999 visit.
"It's really my history in Saranac Lake," he said at a luncheon in his honor Wednesday. The luncheon was at the Hotel Saranac, where Huang once worked as an elevator operator. He later worked as a butler at Camp Intermission (now Camp Colby), owned by theatrical agent William Morris.
Huang said that Saranac Lake has always remained in his memory as a haven, a place where kind people live. He mentioned that when tuberculosis was widespread, it was so contagious that most people were scared to associate with sufferers. This was not the case, he said, in Saranac Lake.
"Acceptance and tolerance were built into this town since the beginning," he said. "You go out and get knocked around in that world, and you'll remember Saranac Lake as one of the best places," he told science students Friday.
He spoke to Ward's art class on Thursday and to Lorraine Kelley's science class on Friday.
He has always had a way with young people, according to Manny Bernstein, at whose house Huang and his wife, Kitty, are staying this week.
"Kids were attracted to him like the Pied Piper," said Bernstein, who befriended him in the '50s. One time after Huang hung out with a group of kids, Bernstein said, they all returned to tell their parents that they, too, wanted wooden legs.
"Now that's inspiring," Bernstein said.
"Well, they, can't have mine," Huang responded with a laugh.
The permanent collection of alumni art is Ward's brainchild. "Saranac Lake, My Home Town" is its first entry. The second, by 1985 graduate Richard Roberts, also of California, will be presented Monday. Roberts is a television producer for Sony, Ward said, and has worked on such programs as "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune."
At Wednesday's luncheon, Shirley Jones, president of the Paint & Palette Art Association, donated $500 from the annual Paint & Palette art raffle to the permanent collection for framing costs. The Saranac Lake Young Arts Association, which raises money exclusively for SLHS art programs, paid about $400 for Huang's painting to be stretched and framed, and North Country Originals did the framing at cost.
For more, information on Sam Huang, including how to extract DNA using every-day kitchen items, check out his Web site, at [[1]] [apparently no longer active]. Extensive information on the Saranac Lake painting is listed under "Current Projects." Information about his emigration to the U.S. from China is under "Murals" and "The Flying Tigers."
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