By PAULA ANN MITCHELL
Freeman staff
pmitchell@freemanonline.com; twitter.com/anchoratfreeman

HURLEY, N.Y. — He was apparently hungry for a school lunch.

A black bear weighing about 150 pounds was discovered Monday at about 2 p.m. eating from a trash bin at Ernest C. Myer Elementary School.

School officials were notified about the bear by a man who was dropping papers off at the school, said Jean Mertine, the school office manager.

“I guess it was having quite a good time in our Dumpster, and, thank goodness for the man who notified us. I guess the bear poked its head out as he was driving by,” she said.

School officials contacted state police, and a car was sent to the area near Russell Road, police confirmed Monday afternon.

Because of the bear’s presence near the building, school officials were to release 225 students at the porch exit, directly across from the front office, Mertine said. The students are usually dismissed at the exit near the trash bin, she said.

School officials have also notified administrators at J. Watson Bailey Middle School  in Kingston, Mertine said, because some of the buses drop students off on a nearby road.

School officials Monday afternoon were in the process of contacting parents of students who walk home from school.



Buses usually arrive at 2:50 p.m. daily, and students are released at about 2:57 p.m. Mertine said most of the buses are gone by 3:10 p.m. Continued...

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Mertine said police were intending to deal with the bear once students had left for the day.

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