The Suffield Observer (https://thesuffieldobserver.com/category/peoplebusiness/page/29/)
The Hartford Business Journal teamed up with the Best Companies Group of Harrisburg, Pa., to rank the state’s top 41 employers. Companies named Best Places to Work in Connecticut for 2020 were divided into 14 large companies and 27 small or medium companies by the number of people they employ in Connecticut.
I once thought about living in a dollhouse when as a child I curled up in a comfy armchair to read The Borrowers by Mary Norton. The “borrowers” were a tiny family, who would have loved the miniature rugs and tapestries designed by Phyllis Stafford, instead of the paper rugs and postage stamps which adorned their floors and walls.
Suffield resident Jamie Deenihan reads from her new book, When Grandpa Gives You a Toolbox, holding the interest of a large crowd of interested children at Kent Memorial Library.
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.
Co-proprietor Eric Mance of the Broad Brook Brewing Company is pictured on February 9 at the nearly complete bar of the brewery’s brew pub on South Street, which he said would take only a few weeks to complete.
After John Gloria retired from Hamilton Standard in 1999, he volunteered to work in the restoration crew at the New England Air Museum, where he encountered an old friend. It was a surprise reunion, one that probably hadn’t happened before at the museum. His old friend was a Grumman Albatross amphibian, a.k.a. Grumman HU-16E, the very one he had flown regularly in Alaska for the Coast Guard. The sturdy aircraft, one of a type first delivered for service in the USAF, but later flown by the Navy and Coast Guard as well, had been used by the Coast Guard for search and rescue over 20 years in several locations. John had flown it regularly, based in Kodiak, Alaska.
Upon walking into Harry Kozikowski’s house, the prettiest Victorian house on North Main Street, I smelled a deep rich aroma wafting from the kitchen. Beef stew, I thought as I waited for Harry. Harry’s mother, a Polish immigrant, was a domestic on the Phillips farm on East Street. His father, also from Poland, became a farmhand for the Phillips after he married Harry’s mother in 1922. They were married in Suffield’s first St.
Not all of Suffield, of course, but so many people in Suffield and from nearby towns have had the pleasure of going to Suffield Pizza to eat or order takeout.
Lou Sorrentino of East Windsor was wandering as a minstrel through Suffield on the Green last September, singing with his guitar just for the pleasure of the experience, when Caroline D’Otreppe, a member of Suffield’s 350th Anniversary Committee, saw him and had an inspiration. She found that he enjoys entertaining, both for hire and volunteering, and he also occasionally writes ballads on demand. After some discussion, Lou agreed to put something together about Suffield. This experienced, multi-talented volunteer (who is a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor often appearing in court as an expert witness) gets nice balance from his love of music. He set out to learn about Suffield, and his volunteer performance at the 350th Brew Fest included an evocative ballad full of references to elements of Suffield life over the years. It was a diverse compendium: eagles, cigars, farms, Graham crackers, canals, immigrants, and lots more.
Many folks of a certain age may have owned a Walkman, but probably not an ear bud or two and they no longer spend much time with their hi-fi’s (if any such survive), but they still enjoy music. And when the December holiday season comes around, they delight in the opportunities in town to be part of great music. The seasonal music started this year with the Christmas tree lighting on the Green at the end of November, missed by this reporter, but it certainly must have included a carol or two, and the a cappella group “Time Was” performed at the Kent Memorial Library. First Church joined Second Baptist on Sunday morning December 8 for their “Advent Breakfast and Carol Sing,” and that afternoon a small contingent of hardy folks gathered in the unheated First Baptist Church for the very traditional carol sing there, followed by hot cocoa by the stove in the anteroom. On December 12 following a school concert, the Middle School Elite Singers visited that school’s Christmas Boutique for an impromptu concert.