Don Lowe First Selectman Column 06/17/24
Last Friday, in front of a wonderful turnout in Charter Hall, we held a ceremony for Carol Havens, our Town Clerk, for whom we recognized for her 49 years of service to Sherman. When her term is up next fall it will be 50 years as our Town Clerk! (This, by the way, was not a retirement party as some thought it was.) We named the road in front of Mallory Town Hall for Carol and when you drive up you’ll see a sign identifying it as “Carol Havens Way”.
One more significant aspect to this road dedication: part of the perfect synergy of naming the road for Carol is that her husband, Addison Havens, a fine carpenter and now deceased for six years, built that splendid cupola on the Sherman Playhouse. So now Addison’s exceptional craftsmanship forever looks out across Carol’s roadway.
We are entering our first summer heatwave, and summer isn’t even officially here until Friday. We will open a cooling station at the Senior Center for anyone who needs cooling relief. If you or someone you know is suffering from the heat, please contact either my office or Sherman social services and let them know. We will help.
The Park and Recreation’s Summer Camp opens up on Monday, June 24 and lasts for the next six weeks. Participation in that camp has been burgeoning over the last few years and this year looks like no exception. Along with the lakeside day-to-day camp activities, there are also special day trips to fun places.
Our regularly scheduled Board of Selectmen meeting will be held this Thursday, June 20 at 7pm in Mallory Town Hall. We have now purchased all of the machinery we need to broadcast these meetings via ZOOM; however, I don’t think we will quite ready to do that until July’s monthly meeting. Our ZOOM meetings, when we get everything lined up, will, at least initially, not be interactive for the public. They will simply be broadcasted on ZOOM wherein you can watch them from whatever location you are in. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better.
Last week I helped the Sherman Higher Education Fund (SHEF) Board of which I’m a board member, give out the awards that our organization sponsors. One of those is the Rose Bouton Award which is given to one sixth grader, one seventh grader, and two eighth graders in honor of Rose who was a longstanding member of SHEF. The award recipient exemplifies Rose’s lovely qualities of being kind, caring, and helpful. I felt bad because one of the recipients, sixth-grader Sophie Garcia, was not notified that she was, indeed, a recipient of the Rose Bouton Award. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that she wasn’t notified, just an honest mistake. But in light of her not getting to walk up the podium to receive her award, I will mention it here: HUGE CONGRATS Sophie Garcia for winning the Rose Bouton Award! SHEF is very proud of you!
As I noted in a previous column, I will be out-of-town to my home state of North Dakota from June 21 until July 2. Naturally, I will be checking – in between the fish I’m catching – texts and emails. I will return the messages as fast as I can. If I am unable to reel in your concerns, I’ll know who can. And, of course, if your concerns can wait a few days, well, there’s nothing wrong with that either.
With the summer solstice upon us, we move into the “long days” of summer. Please be safe in your activities and take some time to appreciate your loved ones, your friends, and the many blessings around us. As the prolific writer Henry James once said, “Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me, those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
