Per the Keene Sentinel. When the world closes in on Helen F. Giles-Gee, when the pressures facing a college president squeeze her gut, when the data and spreadsheets the former science professor leans on crunch her mind, she likes to get dirt under her fingernails.
Literally.
The ninth president of Keene State College lives on campus and her office on the second floor of the Hale Building is so tastefully decorated that even a hard hat worn in one of several building groundbreakings in her tenure doesn't look out of place on its shelf.
But it's the fixer-upper cottage she bought in the Mount Sunapee region that brings her peace. She's the architect, designer, part-time laborer. She lays stone, cuts trees, landscapes and paints. It's a retreat from the complex world of academia, where no one whispers spending cuts or pumpkin festival in her ear.
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