ONEONTA — If you swim at Wilber Park's Briggs Pool, you probably know the Coe sisters, but this summer the three officially became pool employees together for the first time.
Veronica Coe, 16, and a rising junior at Oneonta High School, passed her lifeguard exams in the winter, allowing her to officially join sisters, Adell, 18, and Claire, 20.
"I went to high school here in Oneonta with their mom," said Stephanie Kozak, who is a head lifeguard at the pool, a title she shares with Claire. "I got to teach Veronica's class in February, actually the last class we were able to hold (before the coronavirus pandemic). So I texted her the other day, and said, 'isn't this great? We've finally got all three girls working up here.'"
The path to filling the chairs overlooking Briggs Pool began in 2014, when Claire started volunteering, helping with swim lessons. Within two years, she was on staff. It was a path repeated by Adell and Veronica, who also followed Claire onto the YMCA Orcas swim team and to Oneonta High's swim program.
"Our parents though this would be a good place to work," Claire said. "It's outdoors. We all love to swim."
A junior at King's College, Claire swims freestyle for the Division III school in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She is studying to be a physician assistant, and said she hopes to return home to work in the medical field after college.
Long before they were lifeguards, or even volunteer teachers, the girls swam at Briggs Pool, as did their mom, Allison.
"We used to come here all the time as a family, back when it was the city pool," Claire said.
The sisters all said they are thrilled to be working this summer — in a year when the pandemic has canceled so much else, including much of Adell's senior year at OHS.
"I was really excited, when I heard we were going to open," said Adell, who graduated from high school June 29, and said she plans to study dance at SUNY New Paltz.
"We're really lucky," Claire said. "So many kids don't have jobs this summer.
"Of course, with that, we obviously have a lot of new rules," she said.
The pool has a reservation system and it requires hourly cleaning breaks.
"We're the ones doing those," said Veronica, who also has a passion for tennis and works as a tennis instructor.
"It is mostly Adell and Veronica," said Claire, who as head lifeguard doesn't have as many cleaning chores.
"They're the ones up in the chair," she continued, "and so they each have their own station to clean."
Whatever the chores, though, the sisters have been happily pitching in, they said, and the pool staff is happy to have them working, Kozak said.
"It's great to have the family all working for us," she said, "and great to have all three of them here at the same time working together."
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