Did You Hear - NewCanaanite.com

Did You Hear … ?
New Canaan Police on Monday investigated a residential,
daytime burglary on Birchwood Avenue. Police Chief Leon
Krolikowski said that force was used to enter the house, no
alarm was set and it’s not yet clear if anything was taken.
New
Canaan
Police Chief
Leon
Krolikowski
On Tuesday, police began investigating a similar burglary on
Old Stamford Road. The incidents are promoting Krolikowski to
urge residents to always set their home and vehicle alarms,
lock up, secure all valuables and report suspicious people and
vehicles to the police via 9-1-1. Here’s a full list of ways
to “Beat the Burglars,” from the chief.
***
We’re hearing that a woman became enraged and began berating
workers at a Main Street business on Saturday when she
suspected they somehow had coerced her son into leaving a
$2.03 tip on a $7.97 purchase.
Main Street in happier days,
during the 1960s (don’t say
’50s). Syd Greenberg photo,
courtesy of the New Canaan
Historical Society
The boy entered the shop on his own with a $10 bill and put
the change into a tip jar. Shortly after returning to his
mother, the woman came storming into the shop and demanded the
change back. The confused workers promptly complied—the woman
left the three cents, telling the employees that’s what they
deserved.
***
The NCPD Animal Control section at 6:59 a.m. on Nov. 24
responded to a report of a decapitated wild rabbit on Scofield
Lane. Officer Allyson Halm said: “Owls and hawks love brains,
so they usually take the head first.”
Enter for your chance to win a
free
safe
ash
disposal
container, courtesy of the New
Canaan
Fire
Contributed
Department.
***
Reminder: the New Canaan Fire Department is holding a free
drawing for three metal ash disposal buckets, courtesy of New
Canaan Firefighters and Weed & Duryea. Entry forms can be
obtained at Weed & Duryea, at New Canaan Fire Headquarters or
by sending your name and address to the New Canaan
Firefighters at [email protected]. New Canaan
residents only. The drawing for the ash cans will be Dec. 12.
Rendering of Saxe Middle School
auditorium post-renovation.
***
Town resident Michael Nowacki said he intends to garner 50
signatures from registered voters and property owners to meet
an anticipated Dec. 10 deadline for an intent to file
referendum petition on the $18.6 million Saxe Middle School
building project allocation. Nowacki said he likely will then
need to garner some 650 signatures by Jan. 2 in order to
prompt the referendum vote itself.
***
Selectman Nick Williams had to hurry up and catch a train into
New York City just before the Board of Selectmen meeting on
Tuesday was wrapping up. Before bolting, he told his
colleagues—Firs Selectman Rob Mallozzi, a fellow Republican,
and Selectman Beth Jones, a Democrat—that he was scheduled to
have “lunch with President Clinton.” Jones quipped with a
smile: “Well, aren’t you open-minded.”
The DEANE’s team raised over a
thousand dollars for the
Movember project in support of
men’s health. Contributed
***
Things got hairy over at Deane during the month of November.
The Deane team raised over $1,000 for the ‘Movember’ project
in support of men’s health. There is still time to donate to
this great cause: http://moteam.co/deane-inc. A shout-out of
thanks to all those who donated and to G Albert on Elm for the
end-of-program shaves.
From the 2015 NCHS Boys Alumni
Soccer Game. Photo by Al Morano
(who started the event some 15
years ago)
***
The annual NCHS Boys’ Alumni Soccer Game was held last
Wednesday night at Dunning Stadium. The “old guys” won 5-3,
with all the scoring done in the second half.
Pictured left to right are: PJ
Morano 06′, Matthias Hunkeler
’06, Patrick Randall ’06. From
the 2015 New Canaan High School
Alumni Soccer Game. Contributed
We’re hearing that Steven Valente ’13 and Max Potter ’15 each
scored a pair of goals for the alumni, and that Connor Ashley
and Andrew Gibbons had goals for the varsity side.
We also hear that “there were a few injuries amongst the
senior citizens.”
***
It’s a Halloween tradition for many students to have a class
party, where they make crafts and enjoy the treats of the
season.
Standing, 5th graders L-R: A.J.
Woldman, Adam Parrino, Ned
Ravanesi, Janie Slocum, Trey
Hartnett, Laura Martins, Bear
Morris,
Alexa
Alexander,
Charlie Harrison. Seated, NC
Inn residents, L-R: Betty
DeAraujo, Jane Corcoran, and
Virginia Lamborn. Contributed
However, this year, Mrs. Devine’s and Mrs. Line’s 5th graders
at Saxe Middle School chose instead to do a community outreach
project. The residents of the New Canaan Inn were the
recipients of fleece scarves, hand-made by the students. The
“special delivery,” was made November 6th, where the students
were surprised by treats after all: homemade cookies from the
residents. Friends and memories were made by all. As student
Trey Hartnett said, “If felt good to see them actually wearing
the scarves, and to talk to them about their lives. The
cookies were really good too.”
CERT members helped in the VFW
Post 653 effort to place
wreaths on the gravestones of
veterans buried in Lakeview and
other New Canaan cemeteries on
Saturday, Nov. 28. Pictured:
Diane
Palmento,
Jaclyn
Cerretani, Faith Shepard, Nancy
Upton, Beth Reifers, Michael
Bruneau, The Pavlov Family,
Lauren
Cerretani,
Harold
Schwartz,
and
Anthony
Cerretani. Not pictured are
Jinx Aliprandi, Irene Swanson
and Cindy Ziegler. Contributed
***
Individual volunteers joined groups that include CERT, New
Canaan Fire, Boy Scouts and other service organizations in
supporting VFW Post 653’s effort to place wreaths on the
graves of every veteran buried in New Canaan. Firefighters
handled 13 different cemeteries in town, with veterans from
the Revolutionary War to Vietnam interred there. Here’s a
photo album from New Canaan firefighter Sveinn Bragason.
An envelope that was sent to
the New Canaan Parking Bureau
with payment for a fine.
***
At right is an envelope recently received by the Parking
Bureau that included payment for a fine.
***
Rob Perkin presented Sgt. Aaron LaTourette and Officer Bryan
Connolly with awards for the Police Department’s annual shoot,
sponsored by the Perkin family. Connolly earned the Perkin
Shoot Trophy with a score of 396, LaTourette the
Commissioner’s Shoot Award with a score of 399.
Rob Perkin (L) and New Canaan
Police Sgt. Aaron LaTourette at
the Nov. 18, 2015 Police
Commission meeting.
Michael Dinan
Credit:
“I salute you all for what you are doing. And on behalf of my
family, I would like to wish you all a very happy
Thanksgiving,” Perkin said at the Nov. 18 Police Commission
meeting. “My father would be very proud of all that is being
done at Police headquarters for the community of New Canaan.”
Graham (L) and Lilly Butler (R)
with Betsy and Snaffles Jesup
at Handwright Gallery on Main
Street. Contributed
***
The New Canaan Chamber of Commerce Holiday Stroll kicks off at
5 p.m. Friday, and one highlight will be the gingerbread
houses decorated by local kids and families, placed in the
windows of storefronts downtown. Berkshire Hathaway and Ashley
Howell Petraska invite the public to visit their office at 98
Park St. during the Holiday Stroll on December 4 from.
Petraska, recently promoted to Director of Business
Development and Sales, plans to welcome guests to warm up by
the courtyard fire pit, roast marshmallows, and sip on hot
cider or cocktails as they enjoy holiday music and appetizers.
Author and former Paris Bureau
Chief to the New York Times
Elaine Sciolino greets locals
at
“Find:
The
Lifestyle
Collection” at 107 Cherry St.
Contributed
***
New Canaan’s Krista Fox hosted an event last week at her
interior design and retail shop at 107 Cherry St. with author
and former Paris Bureau Chief to the New York Times Elaine
Sciolino. We’ hearing the studio was packed and that
participants had a wonderful discussion. Guests from New
Canaan and surrounding towns asked about Sciolino’s new book
the “Only Street in Paris” and to hear her thoughts on recent
Paris and world events.
Marianne
Director,
Kay,
Preschool
Meredith Ahlberg,
Preschool teacher & Anna
Zielinski, Assistant Preschool
Director & teacher. Contributed
***
The New Canaan Nature Center Preschool recently received an
Outstanding Organization of the Year Award from the
Connecticut Outdoor & Environmental Education Association. The
preschool was recognized for exceptional work in, or support
of, the field of outdoor and environmental education, plus its
dedication to using the outdoors and natural world as a
catalyst to expand environmental appreciation in the children
and adults of Connecticut.
Well-Loved New Canaanites
Recalled at Peter M. Deane
Fitness Center Rededication
New Canaan resident Pete Deane, Jr. remembers a saying his
late father had: “You make a living by what you earn. You make
a life by what you give.”
As his friends and family recall, the late Peter Deane—a 1959
New Canaan High School graduate and standout athlete who long
oversaw the family business, Kitchens by Deane, and died
suddenly in 1990—gave back to the community in scores of ways,
by connecting with and helping people from all backgrounds,
through nonprofit organizations and a gregarious natural
instinct.
Peter Deane’s family was on
hand for the June 7, 2014
rededication of the Peter M.
Deane Fitness Center at New
Canaan High School. L-R, front
row: Peter Corcoran, Griffin
Deane, Chris Corcoran; back
row: Carrie (Deane) Corcoran,
Ingrid Deane, Pete Deane Jr.
and Brooke Deane. Credit:
Michael Dinan
On Saturday morning, Deane’s family gathered with a handful of
his closest friends and fellow NCHS ’59 grads and their
families, for the rededication of the NCHS fitness center
named for him.
Created in Deane’s memory through donations to our All Sports
Booster Club (est. 1976)—mostly recently with a generous gift
from the Dauk family of New Canaan—the center ranks among the
very best in the state. Since the high school’s major capital
project in 2005, the plaque commemorating the fitness center
had been in storage.
During ceremonies led Saturday by New Canaan Athletic Director
Jay Egan—who noted that New Canaan High School maintenance
worker John Hannigan had spent two days touching up the newly
re-installed plaque—Deane himself was recalled for the many
lives he touched.
This plaque now is installed
outside the fitness center at
New Canaan High School. With
funds raised in Peter Deane’s
memory and overseen by the high
school’s only All Sports
Booster Club, the fitness
center is known as one of the
finest in Connecticut. New
Canaan Athletic Director Jay
Egan said during a June 7, 2014
ceremony: “The Booster Club has
continued to refurbish and
resupply the equipment and when
we go inside you can see that
it is probably safe to say that
it is still the best high
school fitness center in the
state, and the feedback we get
from most of our athletes is
even when they go off to
college sometimes, the facility
that they have there is not
quite what they had in high
school, so we’re very proud to
have it and we’re very proud to
have this plaque back up here
so that everyone knows the
story.” Credit: Michael Dinan
“He excelled in football, basketball, baseball and track,”
Egan said, reading from a dedicatory statement that will be
mounted on the wall beside the plaque itself (full text
below). “For many years he held the record for the longest
touchdown run from scrimmage for the varsity Rams football
team and was a member of the state champion basketball team.”
“Following graduation, Peter married local beauty Ingrid
Girard and began a career in the kitchen design and
construction business. He eventually started his own company
in that field and was soon recognized as the standard against
which all others were measured. Pete and Ingrid produced
daughter Carrie and son Peter, Jr. who went on to impressive
athletic accomplishments of their own at NCHS and beyond. As
he achieved success and recognition in his chosen profession,
Pete found numerous avenues for public service and contributed
to the town of New Canaan in many ways.”
The Dauk family is a generous
supporter of the Peter M. Deane
Fitness Center at New Canaan
High School, including through
an All Sports Booster Club
donation that led to five new
elliptical machines at the
facility. Pictured here are
Peter Dauk’s (class of 1954)
widow Nancy Dauk and his son,
John. Credit: Michael Dinan
As Deane’s survivors and friends recalled, the honored man’s
best friend in high school was Paul Dauk. Part of the ceremony
included acceptance and recognition to the memory of Paul’s
older brother, Peter Dauk, whose family again through the All
Sports Booster Club purchased new fitness equipment for the
center. Peter Dauk, Egan said, was a 1954 New Canaan High
School graduate and president of his class who played football
under coach Joe Sikorski. He was New Canaan’s “first all-state
player in his senior year, when they won the state
championship,” Egan said, and was also a baseball standout and
in basketball was the league’s leading scorer who set several
longstanding records.
Classmates of Deane’s who were on hand for the ceremony, with
their families, included Dave Elders, Mike Hobbs, Carlton
“Skip” Raymond, Joe Rucci and Walter Stewart.
Asked for memories of the old gang, Hobbs said with a smile
and perhaps a hint of pride: “This was not the MENSA group
that you’re seeing here.”
Friends (including several 1959
NCHS grads) and family gathered
at the Peter M. Deane Fitness
Center at New Canaan High
School on June 7, 2014 for a
rededication ceremony, L-R:
Walter Stewart, John Dauk (son
of Peter Dauk and nephew of
Paul Dauk, Deane’s best friend
at NCHS), Ingrid Deane, Joe
Rucci, Dave Elders, Skip
Raymond and Mike Hobbs. Credit:
Michael Dinan
“We had a good time. Everybody that you see here was an
athlete,” he said, adding that Elders was the best hockey
player in the class.
“Peter knew everybody and was a tremendous contributor to the
town,” Hobbs said. “It’s an unusual thing for a group to have
been together as long as this group was together with Pete,
and I think it’s a tribute kind of to who he was that
everybody wanted to try and find a way so that he didn’t just
go away.”
It’s an effort that Deane’s widow, Ingrid (Girard) Deane, said
touches her deeply.
“I was taken aback that they were going to rededicate, once
more, and it just fills my heart with such happiness because
so many young people are enjoying this fitness center, and
number two, and it’s so wonderful today, so many more students
are taking care of themselves better with sports, exercising
the right way,” she said.
“It’s terrific and I was just delighted when I heard about the
Dauk family, whom I knew, Peter Dauk’s family, who dedicated
money for the machines this morning, his brother Paul was my
husband Peter’s best friend in high school. All of these
friends. It’s terrific. I just can’t believe that, number one,
it has grown so, and then listening to Jay this morning say
this is probably the best in the state, if not the country. I
am totally taken aback by it and so proud. And so proud of
Peter’s wonderful friends, first of all, that got together
after he died and all the wonderful work they did to make this
a possibility. Talk about good friends. And doers. I love them
all.”
That includes Joe Rucci, who recalls his time for about two
decades with Deane in the Rotary Club of New Canaan, and about
how his friend “was always helping people.”
“He was always outgoing,” Rucci recalled. “I had a lot of fun
with Peter, whether it was the time we took his mother’s
convertible and tooled around and then he backed it into the
fence in the yard, or the time he had a brand-new
Mercedes”—(here Rucci pointed to his pal Hobbs and said, “Mike
remembers”)—“he had a brand-new Mercedes, I took the hubcap
off it and auctioned it at the Rotary Club meeting. I mean we
just had a lot of fun. What comes to mind when I think of Pete
is helping other people. As a Rotarian, whether it was selling
lobster tickets or selling charcoal, he would always be in
there 100 percent.”
He was also an absolutely exceptional, gifted athlete,
recalled Raymond, who played quarterback for the Rams while
Deane played fullback (and whose own father, Pete Raymond, a
1933 NCHS grad, played basketball with the 1933 and state
champion team).
“We didn’t beat Darien in the four years that I played,”
Raymond recalled with a wistful look, moments before the
rededication. “Peter was a very good basketball player. And
then he did track and baseball. So Peter was really a fourletter athlete. Unfortunately he had a heart attack and died
too damn early.”
His son, Pete Jr., said he was very touched when he heard from
Egan about the planned rededication ceremony.
“I give a lot of credit to Jay for putting this together and
getting us all together, because when we get together like
this it brings back a lot of great memories and to be here
with my dad’s friends is really special,” he said.
Here is the full text of the dedication for the Peter M. Deane
Fitness Center at NCHS:
Peter moved with his family from Darien to New Canaan when he
was in elementary school. As he progressed through the public
school system, he developed into an exceptional athlete. He
excelled in football, basketball, baseball and track. For many
years he held the record for the longest touchdown run from
scrimmage for the varsity Rams football team and was a member
of the state champion basketball team.
Following graduation, Peter married local beauty Ingrid Girard
and began a career in the kitchen design and construction
business. He eventually started his own company in that field
and was soon recognized as the standard against which all
others were measured. Pete and Ingrid produced daughter Carrie
and son Peter, Jr. who went on to impressive athletic
accomplishments of their own at NCHS and beyond. As he
achieved success and recognition in his chosen profession,
Pete found numerous avenues for public service and contributed
to the town of New Canaan in many ways. He had a large number
of friends and from every segment of the town’s population, he
was a much admired citizen.
On July 28, 1991 Pete suffered a massive heart attack with no
warning and died immediately. The shock of his death was felt
most deeply by his family, but did not spare his friends and
acquaintances. The line outside Hoyt’s Funeral Home was one of
the longest in memory as the townspeople tried to digest this
tragic and untimely loss. A group of Peter’s friends started
to meet informally to explore a worthy memorial to this
exceptional man. After several unsuccessful ideas, Paul Dauk,
Dave Elders, Mike Hobbs, Skip Raymond, Joe Rucci and Brock
Saxe, classmates since third grade, met with NCHS Athletic
Director Vinnie Iovino and agreed that a state-of-the-art
fitness facility available to all students at New Canaan High
School would be an appropriate and fitting memorial to Pete’s
life.
As the group moved into fundraising mode, they quickly
discovered that the mention of Peter’s name and a description
of the proposed fitness center produced a large number of
enthusiastic donors and the substantial cost of the project
was quickly raised. There were several large contributions,
but the most gratifying part of the effort was the sheer
number of people who wanted to honor Pete. Vinnie oversaw the
construction and equipping of the facility, which was
dedicated with Ingrid, Carrie and Peter, Jr. standing proudly
at the entrance on Nov. 21, 1992. At the time it was the
finest high school fitness center in the state, setting a
standard for other schools to follow.
The center was decommissioned during the major reconstruction
of the High School building in 2005, but rose again, new and
improved in a new location, with the same mission and still in
memory of one of New Canaan’s finest athletes and citizens,
Peter M. Deane.
Jay: Booster Club has continued to refurbish and resupply the
equipment and when we go inside you can see that it is
probably safe to say that it is still the best high school
fitness center in the state, and the feedback we get from most
of our athletes is even when they go off to college sometimes,
the facility that they have there is not quite what they had
in high school, so we’re very proud to have it and we’re very
proud to have this plaque back up here so that everyone knows
the story.