Morelli is only 24, but her list of achievements in Lake Placid runs deep: an adjunct English professor at Paul Smith’s College, a boat steward for the Adirondack Watershed Institute, a published poet, a playwright, a former varsity tennis and volleyball player, a former Lake Placid Middle-High School Student Council vice president and LPHS Winter Carnival queen. Her interests seem boundless.

Morelli says her new position with the historical society is “a little bit out of my wheelhouse,” but as someone who has a master’s degree in education from SUNY Potsdam, her own history shows that she’s equally adept at learning new things as she is teaching. While Morelli said that her relationship with history in general hasn’t been at the forefront of her academic career, the history of Lake Placid has always interested her.

“Definitely, growing up here led me to just always have an inherent interest in the history of Lake Placid,” she said.

Morelli the third generation of women in her family who have made their home in Lake Placid and graduated from LPHS. She’s been learning about the history of the area her entire life, shuffling through her own family archives that have photos of her grandmother who sat on the LPHS Winter Carnival court two generations before her. Those Nordic sweaters, like a uniform for the carnival court, were worn by both women.

“It’s really cool seeing how strong tradition runs in this town,” she said.

In the three weeks since she started her full-time job with the historical society on Jan. 3, Morelli’s learned a lot more about Lake Placid.

While the museum is closed for the winter, she’s working with former Director and Collections Manager Courtney Bastian on some administrative work, like getting the society’s newsletter together, sending out thank you letters, sending emails and updates, and coordinating the society’s winter lecture series. Morelli said she’s also learning how to detail and store artifacts. She said a lot of people who live or have lived in Lake Placid send their old photos and other items to the society for archiving.

“I think it’s really neat that there’s a central place for people to kind of send things from their past lives and know that it will be kept safe,” Morelli said.

She gets some unexpected phone calls from people looking for newspaper articles from 40 years ago, historical photographs and obituaries. On Monday, Jan. 24, Morelli received a couple of old photographs in the mail from someone who was cleaning out their house. She said it’s interesting to make those connections and be in the hub of where people want to find and archive history in Lake Placid.

Once the society’s museum on Station Street opens this summer, Morelli said her job will be like a “whole different position.” She’ll shift her office at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts Annex to the museum, where she’ll be working on a new exhibit about the Northville-Placid Trail centennial that will feature some photos and a history of the trail. Her enthusiasm for the work was visible in her smile.

“I’m just excited,” she said.

On Monday she was preparing for the society’s first talk of its winter lecture series that night. The series features a different speaker who gives a talk about local history once a month through May. In the first lecture, Clarence Jefferson Hall discussed his book about incarceration in the North Country. For now the series is streamed on Zoom due to pandemic-related precautions, but Morelli hopes that the last couple of speakers can give their talks in person.

Morelli’s new position has brought her own history full circle in a way. As she sat in her office at the LPCA and music flowed in from a class outside her door, she said she’s spent her whole life doing theater in that building. She keeps in touch with those roots, too, often volunteering with the LPHS theater program.

Morelli said that once she settles into her new position, she might consider teaching some night classes, but for now she’s enjoying weekends free from lesson planning and filled with reading books by the fireplace.