The Suffield Observer (https://thesuffieldobserver.com/2020/03/page/9/)
Recent events ranging from, among others, the problems with the Town Hall renovations, the development of Ffyler Place, the police department’s morale, and the stalled Bridge Street school/community center bring to a head the realization that complex problems face even a small town such as Suffield and that expertise in the area of public administration is needed.
At the risk of being overly dramatic, I must say that without a reverse in direction, I fear that our society and democracy are in trouble. Self-interest, greed, hypocrisy, and the desire to beat one’s opponent at any cost seem to carry the day while civility, fair play, and a willingness to compromise are on life support in the public arena. Not only in politics is this true, but it is bleeding into other areas as well. Well-heeled parents pay to have their children’s SAT scores altered or bribe athletic directors to get their kids into prestigious schools. The Astros and the Red Sox cheat to win baseball games and a World Series and are not stripped of the championship honor.
Aces High, Team 176, our local team in the FIRST Robotics Competition, has been a great competitor ever since they were organized at Windsor Locks High School in 1995. Suffield joined in 1998, and the team won the National Championship in Florida the following year. Last year Aces High became Connecticut champion again and finished second in New England. In the 2019 world championship in Detroit, they performed well and reached the quarter-finals but lost the third match in that two-out-of-three elimination. These achievements are shared, because the carefully designed FIRST program has individual teams competing in three-team alliances, a teaching strategy that encourages cooperation and what FIRST likes to call “gracious professionalism.”
Every year a new game is announced, so each team has to design and build a new robot with capabilities matched to new challenges.
The Suffield Observer will sponsor two scholarships to Suffield residents who will be entering an accredited two-or four-year college in September.
For one Suffield family, the first week in February was one they will never forget. On February 2, in London, native son Greg Butler, along with Guillaume Rocheron and Dominic Tuohy, won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for visual effects for their work on the WWI film 1917. A week later, Butler found himself on the red carpet in Los Angeles, waiting to see if good fortune would strike twice and he would win the Oscar for Visual Effects for the same film. Although he felt that his team had a good shot at the prize, “there is always a level of uncertainty when you’re up against four other films that are worthy of a nomination.”
Butler at SHS on March 5 Greg Butler, Academy Award winner for the movie 1917, will speak on Thursday, March 5 at 7 p.m. at Suffield High School. This event is sponsored by the Suffield Public Library Foundation.
The Academy consists of over 7,000 members – mostly actors – divided into 17 branches according to their specialty.