It’d be difficult to be an involved member of the Saratoga community and not know Leigh and Kim McConchie. That’s because, whatever the couple does, they do it to the max.
Take horse racing. Kim goes to the track every single day of the season, mid-July through Labor Day. She even has the GPS coordinates of Saratoga Race Course tattooed on her arm. Leigh joins her every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, days on which Kim plans their outfits to match. Leigh can’t go every day, because he’s busy being the owner of Stone’s Pharmacy in Lake Luzerne, as well as the incoming president of the Pharmacist Society of the State of New York.
Then there’s SPAC. Kim won’t miss a Live Nation show, though she’s most excited this year for Foreigner, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Guns N’ Roses. Leigh is usually with her, except on Fridays, when the dirt car racing team he owns races at Albany-Saratoga Speedway in Malta, or any other days the team is traveling throughout New York State or the east coast for a race.
While Leigh prefers racing cars on a dirt track, Kim’s auto passion is collecting classic cars (she has 17 right now, including a 1965 Ford Mustang Fastback, which she calls her “going-to-get-ice-cream car”). “Most people, they like Camaros, or they like Chevelles,” Leigh says. “She just likes cars. We were watching a car auction one night and she says, ‘Ooh, what is that?’ I said ‘That’s a Jeep Willys.’ And she goes, ‘I’d like one of those.’ I said, ‘You won’t find one of those.’ An hour later she goes, ‘Here’s one on eBay in Texas.’”
“We got it,” Kim says, smugly. “I won.”
“Yeah,” Leigh says. “She calls having the highest bid ‘winning.’”
That brings us to the McConchies’ next all-in hobby: Giving back to the Saratoga community. “Kim and Leigh purchased a silent auction package in which they were picked up at Saratoga airport and brought by helicopter to The White Party,” says Saratoga Bridges Development and Foundation Director Pam Polacsek. “Since then, we have become close friends.” The couple now serve as the chairs of the annual Saratoga Bridges soireé, and are involved in countless other charitable events put on by AIM Services, Saratoga Hospital, the Wesley Foundation and the American Cancer Society, among others.
“They’re as real as you get,” Polacsek says. “They understand what’s important in life: family, friends and creating opportunities in which they can be difference-makers.”
Speaking of friends, even if you don’t know the McConchies, they’ll act like you do. “I’ll talk to anybody about anything, anywhere,” says Kim, who’s known for calling people “doll,” “honey” or “sweetie.” “I love communicating and swapping stories. I know the servers at SPAC. I know the guy that picks up the garbage at the track. I know everybody because I talk to everybody.”
So, what’s the secret to both being everything, everywhere, all at once and being universally liked? “We’re just normal people,” Leigh says. “Saratoga has been good to us. Why not be good back?”
