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Willy Yahn, class of ‘14, speaks at the HVRHS Hall of Fame induction ceremony Sunday, Oct. 13.
Patrick L. Sullivan
FALLS VILLAGE — Ten athletes were inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in a ceremony Sunday, Oct. 13.
The members of the Hall of Fame Class of 2024 are:
Tim Hawley ‘71 (cross country, track); Julia Neilson ‘98 (soccer, basketball, softball); Joseph B. Nilsen ‘54 (football, track); Tina Paruta ‘87 (cross country, indoor and outdoor track); Brad Paulsen ‘79 (soccer, track); Paul Prindle ‘60 (football, track); Robert Ullram ‘66 (football, ice hockey, baseball); Maggie Yahn Umana ‘09 (soccer, basketball, track); Willy Yahn ‘14 (soccer, baseball); Denise Bergenty ‘73 (field hockey, basketball, softball).
Hawley recalled being an unathletic youth, wearing orthopedic shoes everywhere except gym class.
Thanks to encouragement from HVRHS coaches and classmates, he was able to become a championship athlete in high school and college.
“Housatonic has meant, for me, opportunity, support, scholarship and history.”
Paruta credited longtime track coach David Lindsay for keeping her on her toes. “He was like a motivational poster.”
Warren Prindle, accepting the award for his cousin Paul, said Paul became the strongest student at HVRHS by growing up on a farm. Athletics were “far less arduous than throwing bales of hay or shoveling manure.”
Yahn joked that the real reason he was chosen for the Hall of Fame was because he served as ball boy for his sister’s soccer team.
Yahn, who starred in baseball at HVRHS and the University of Connecticut and played six seasons in the minor leagues for the Baltimore Orioles organization, acknowledged he “came up a little short” on his goal of reaching the major leagues.
But, he added, “I wanted to be a part of great teams with great friends.
“I have absolutely no regrets on my athletic journey.”
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Letters to the Editor 10/17/24
Oct 16, 2024
Salisbury Fall Festival appreciation & thanks
The 67th Salisbury Fall Festival was a huge success with the town filled with adults, children, and dogs enjoying a hometown celebration. People strolled along Main Street, stopping to visit the many booths, book sales, quilt show, and pocketknife exhibit. Kids flocked to the library lawn for pumpkin painting, crafts, glitter tattoos, games, and popcorn. A magician entertained young and old. The White Hart lawn was filled with the tents of local artisans. Live music was provided by The Joint Chiefs, Salisbury Band, a jazz musician, and a percussion group. People enjoyed dance performances by the Blue Studio and Martha Graham dancers. Over 20 scarecrows decorated the lawns—and people got to vote for their favorites.
Tremendous thanks go to our local organizations, churches, schools, businesses, and individuals who sponsored and participated in this year’s Fall Festival. Merchants planned a Sip & Stroll for Friday night to start the festivities. Organizations sponsored a variety of events, from a book giveaway to bake sales to a repair-it cafe. Food offerings ranged from hot dogs, chili, and mac ‘n cheese to food trucks and Lakeville Hose’s prime rib dinner. Booths offered activities to do, information to gather, gifts to purchase, and apples and cider to enjoy. SWSA ended the weekend with their popular Brew-Ski Fest at the ski jumps. And the events were further enhanced by delightful autumn weather!
Jeanette Weber
Fall Festival Publicity
Salisbury Association
President
Affordable Housing
Great to read about public and private groups working together on affordable housing and celebrating successes. (‘Affordable housing advocates celebrate wins, share challenges’ by Debra A. Aleksinas, The Lakeville Journal, Oct 9, 2024) Challenges in affordable housing are national in scope, with great efforts locally that can be helped with Congressional support. There is a bill in the Senate to help increase housing in America. A renter tax credit is also proposed that would insure that people experiencing poverty would not pay over 30% of their income in rent. Both of these initiatives are more likely to move forward if those who represent us hear our support for these and other housing initiatives. A call, 202-224-3121, or email to our members of Congress encourages them to take action on these critical pieces of legislation, and could increase the successes locally at next years conference.
Willie Dickerson
Snohomish, WA
Supporting Potter for affordable housing
During the decades I’ve lived in Sharon, I’ve regretted that so many who grew up in town cannot afford to live here anymore.
Since the lack of affordable housing is a huge problem in northwestern Connecticut, we are extremely fortunate that Justin Potter, president of Kent Affordable Housing, is running for the state senate on the Democratic ticket.
What’s interesting about his approach is that he doesn’t see a conflict between creating affordable housing units and violating our beloved open spaces.
He has proposed a way to create accessory apartments in existing houses and in multi-family homes. His idea is to create a Connecticut Housing Improvement and Production Program (CHIPP) to give owners of larger homes and smaller landlords state grants to create apartments on their properties in exchange for five-or-ten-year affordability commitments.
Such a program would enable property owners to renovate spaces, to offer reasonable rents, and to earn rental income.
And it would be a much quicker and less expensive way to go than creating large affordable apartment buildings under existing state and federal policies, Potter says.
Let’s vote for Justin Potter for the state senate from District 30!
Laurie Lisle
Sharon
Deciding how to vote this November
Voting should be about weighing policies and agendas, not about blind loyalty to parties or hatred of media-twisted personalities.
Ever since the unprepared and unserious Kamala Harris was unexpectedly thrust into the presidential race by her own Democratic party’s back-room strong-arming of their primary vote winner Joe Biden, Harris has been pretending, with the help of extensive media grooming, to be a centrist.
But she and Tim Walz are as far left as you can get. They are the Democrats’ Junior Varsity edition of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. They will pursue a far-left agenda on everything from open borders to unlimited genders.
Donald Trump, of course, is endlessly demonized by the press, but most of it is a lie. He did not align himself with neo-Nazis at Charlottesville. He cannot make himself a dictator. He cannot destroy democracy. If he talks to Putin, that’s better than silence. The only “existential threat” he presents is to the left’s agenda.
At least with Trump, you know where he stands. He doesn’t bother with the professional politician’s fake veneer. That’s one of the things that appeals to many people.
As for the VP candidates, JD Vance looks like a better leader than Walz. Vance has an excellent grasp of policy, a quick mind, a good memory and a willingness to see other points of view. Like Trump, he’s not the demon the liberal press makes him out to be.
The habitually red-faced and bug-eyed Walz always looks like he’s about to blow a fuse. He’s a “rah rah” cheerleader who laughs off his decades of lying about his military rank, his falsely claimed combat service and his Tiananmen Square appearances by claiming he’s just a “knucklehead” who gets caught up in his own rhetoric. That’s called lying, Tim.
Walz may be good at hyping Kamala’s newly minted “joy and opportunity” slogan, but the country needs real leaders, not cheerleaders, real policies, not bumper stickers. Vance looks ready. Walz looks as out of his depth as Harris.
With the election just weeks away, it still comes down to policies and agendas:
If you want open borders, vote Democrat.
If you want one party attacking the Supreme Court every time the court doesn’t rule its way, vote Democrat.
If you want 100 fake genders with transitioning among teenagers and children being pushed by the left, vote Democrat.
If you want fully intact biological males in female sports and locker rooms, vote Democrat.
If you want to pay the debts of the college-educated while the working class foots its own bills, vote Democrat.
If you want never-ending victimhood with divisive identity politics and authoritarian DEI mandates, vote Democrat.
If not, vote Republican.
Mark Godburn
Norfolk
Voting to support women’s rights
As Election Day approaches, it is crucial for voters to take a hard look at the values and policies of the candidates. Justin Potter is the candidate for Connecticut’s State Senate who truly respects the rights of women.
Justin Potter, a consistent supporter of reproductive freedom, has deservedly earned the endorsement of Planned Parenthood Votes! CT. Meanwhile, Stephen Harding voted against Connecticut’s Reproductive Freedom Defense Act of 2022, which safeguards the rights of Connecticut women, individuals traveling to Connecticut for medical care, and Connecticut clinicians providing legal abortions. Stephen Harding is out of touch with the values of our state.
For those who believe in protecting a woman’s right to choose and ensuring access to safe, legal reproductive healthcare, Justin Potter is the right choice for the Connecticut State Senate in District 30.
Athenaide Dallett
Kent
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A brash letter and a boycott
Oct 16, 2024
In the minds of the delegates to the first Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia in October 1774, there was a separation between the British Parliament and King George III. While they presumed the king’s fairness and benevolence, the legislation of the past few years forced them to conclude that Parliament was wholly against them. So they brashly undertook to write directly to the king, bypassing Parliament, in “a Declaration of Rights and Grievances” from “his majesty’s loyal subjects,” warning that unless the king effected the repeal of the Intolerable Acts by December 1, 1774, a colonial boycott of British goods would commence.
The second task of the Congress was to arrange that boycott.
Past colonial attempts at boycotts had had middling success, but the failures had also served as instruction. This time, instead of each colony setting its own rules, there would be uniformity of rules among the colonies, and explicit provision made for enforcement of the rules. Further, non-importation would be accompanied by non-exportation — the latter meaning that nothing from the American colonies would go to Great Britain or its other colonies. Delegate radicals Sam Adams and Christopher Gadsden, whose earlier advocacy for revolution had been rebuffed by the Congress, wanted non-export to be really punishing, for lumber, livestock, and grains not to go to the British Caribbean, nor flaxseed to Ireland — they imagined idling 30,000 Irish spinners, and the havoc that would wreak.
But Virginia’s delegates argued that tobacco should not be on the list of non-exports because that would wreck Virginia’s economy, a New Hampshire delegate asked for an exception for lumber, a New Yorker for fish, and the entire South Carolina delegation walked out in protest over the prospect of losing sales of rice and indigo.
So they compromised. Non-importation would start December 1, 1774 (before they were likely to get word back from George III), but non-exportation would be put off a year, in the hope that Parliament and king would come to their senses.
As historian T.H. Breen puts it, non-importation was “a brilliantly original strategy of consumer resistance to political oppression.” It proved incredibly effective: over the next year, British imports by the American colonies declined from £2.8 million to £200,000.
Some 7,000 locally elected officials of the boycott were chosen. This was more officials than had ever served in colonial legislatures, and a significant percentage of the 2.5 million Americans, of whom about half were slaves. Also, because the number of boycott officials was so large, they could not come only from the wealthiest class (of the sort of people then attending the Continental Congress) but were mostly men of modest income. Furthermore, the boycott worked especially well because colonial women, in charge of their families’ households, eagerly embraced it and policed what their neighbors were buying. Alongside the boycotting officials, militia groups formed and trained. Boycott enforcement and militia training were later judged as being very good ways to have readied the colonists for an impending war — although at the time, very few expected war.
“Imagine 400,000 people [in Massachusetts] without Government or Law,” John Adams wrote to a friend, “forming themselves in Companies for various Purposes, of Justice, Policy, and War! You must allow for a great deal of the Ridiculous … and Some of the Marvellous.” As Benjamin Franklin had once pleaded for Americans to do, they were learning to “hang together” so they would not “hang separately.”
British General Thomas Gage, army chief and governor of Massachusetts, had been very active, summoning troops from New York and elsewhere to Boston to have enough on hand to quell any uprising, and ordering the seizure of colonists’ gunpowder from a Somerville magazine. That seizure brought out the Sons of Liberty and a mobilization of thousands of militiamen who marched toward Cambridge.
Gage averted the potential clash for the moment, but wrote home to his superiors, “If force is to be used at length, it must be a considerable one … for to begin with small numbers will encourage resistance … and will in the end cost more blood and treasure.”
Next time: While awaiting the King’s answer.
Salisbury resident Tom Shachtman has written many books, including three about the Revolutionary Era.
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