The Suffield Observer (https://thesuffieldobserver.com/author/lester-smith/page/33/)
A Suffield entrepreneur who moved his family from one end of Halladay Avenue to the other recently is now planning to move his business from Southwick to a warehouse he will build on South Street. Jeff Wasilewski intends to move his third-party Amazon retailer business from Southwick, with eight employees now and plans for more.
The Observer reported last month that the Permanent Building Commission voted to reject all of the several proposals that had been submitted on April 18, as the lowest offered a contract price of $1.45 M for the necessary PCB remediation work. Facilities Manager Julie Oakes quickly changed the Request for Quotation, allowing a new choice of coating removal method, including grit blasting, and allowing the work start date to slip to the fall, when labor costs would likely be lower.
Every year Suffield Middle School gives its eighth-grade students the opportunity to hear about a wide variety of careers. Typically, the invited speakers are Suffield residents, many of them volunteered by their children or nieces and nephews.
In this year’s “Power Up” FIRST Robotics Championship, Team 176, Aces High, a Suffield-Windsor Locks cooperative, had an excellent season. Participating in five big tournaments on weekends from March to May against from 24 to 66 teams, they were finalists twice and overall winners twice, including the Waterbury District championship and the Connecticut State Championship.
In the six weeks allowed for designing and building, the Suffield/Windsor Locks High Schools’ team in the FIRST Robotics Competition created a sturdy, capable robot and developed good skill in operating it. Aces High did very well in their first three meets.
On March 28, Julie Oakes, Facilities Director of the Public Works Department, issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for remediating the PCB problem at the Kent Memorial Library. Under the direction of the Permanent Building Commission, the RFP had been prepared by their environmental consultant, Bob May of Fuss & O’Neil.
The gymnasts of Suffield Middle School presented their annual exhibition in the school gym on April 4, with applause for notable performances from the proud audience of family and friends. For an hour and a half, the 32 students participating, singly and occasionally in pairs and small squads, demonstrated almost everything from somersaults and cartwheels to graceful floor events on the big mat and impressive feats on the balance beam, the uneven bars, suspended rings and vaulting horses.
Wouldn’t it be great if every dysfunctional family could be harmonized by a magical visitor like Mary Poppins? That’s what Julie Andrews as Mary did for the Banks family in the 1964 film, and this reviewer remembers Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews well in that film and still occasionally sings the music to himself.
The young man who received his Eagle Scout Award on April 3, recognizing his advancement to the highest progress rank in the Boy Scout program, was the third generation in his family to achieve the Eagle rank. Sam Sikes’ grandfather, Eagle Scout Art Sikes, Jr., has been a Scout leader in Suffield for about 45 years, most of them as Assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 260.
Suffield Boy Scout John Cremins earned his Eagle Scout Award in January 2017 and was honored at Troop 260’s Eagle Award ceremony in March. He was happily surprised many months later, when he was named by the Matianuck District as the Emil Huyghebaert Eagle Scout of the Year for 2017.