***

Now that the town has approved the teachers’ contract, the Board of Education will be going to the Board of Finance to ask it to approve a special appropriation in the amount of $152,654 to cover the cost of the teacher salary and increment increases for 1974-75.

***

Contrary to rumor that the State Department of Transportation has settled on a corridor for the proposed relocation of Route 25, DOT is still looking at two possible alternate routes, and is seeking to meet with the Planning and Zoning Commission and Conservation Commission to pin down the town’s preference. After these commissions have indicated their choice, “we would expect the town would be backing us up,” said Lembit Vahur, assistant director of transportation of the DOT Bureau of Planning and Research, presumably referring to a future corridor hearing in Newtown.

***

The skies were bright and so were the faces of 296 Newtown High School graduates as they received their diplomas at commencement exercises at the high school on Saturday evening, June 21. It was a perfect evening for an outdoor graduation, and proud parents, relatives, and friends filled the football stadium to see the members of the Class of 1975 bid farewell to the Newtown school system.

***

Lyndon Thomas was officially recognized as Jaycee of the Year at the Newtown Jaycees’ last annual membership meeting on June 18. Lyndon’s brief tenure as a Newtown Jaycee has produced an almost unbelieveable amount of community involvement. He was chairman of the Easter egg hunt, also serving as chairman of the outstanding young man of the year booklet ads, and the Town Players refreshment stand. He filled in as secretary of the organization from January through May and was recently elected to fill the post of internal vice president in this year’s Jaycee administration. Lyndon is the owner of the Smoke Shop on Church Hill Road, Newtown.

***

To the calm light of the full moon on Friday night, June 20, was added the garish glow of a brightly shining pillar of smoke ascending up out of the Botsford area and visible as far away as Westport. The cause was a blaze in a 12-foot-high stack of magnesium scrap in a storage area behind the Charles Batchelder Company aluminum smelting operation on Swamp Road. The fire started around 7:30 that evening and was under control about an hour after the firemen from the Botsford, Newtown, and Sandy Hook fire departments arrived.

***

A Fly-Up Ceremony and Court of Awards took place June 17 on Junior Leader Mrs Pat Denlinger’s lawn. Members of Brownie Troop 55 received membership stars and Coleen Walsh, Evamarie Richter, Marcy Maciolek, Jackie Obre, Stacey Dirga, and Carolyn Hall were given their Wings and welcomed into Junior Troop 233.

***

A member-member draw tournament was played at Newtown Country Club on June 22 with the over-all winners for the day being the team of Jim Delohery, III, and Bill Cerveniski.

JUNE 30, 1950

With four years of academic studies and association ending, the 31 members of the Newtown High School class of 1950, 18 girls and 13 boys, marched slowly down the aisle at the Edmond Town Hall theater last Thursday night to receive their diplomas and bid farewell to their alma mater in the school’s annual commencement exercises.

***

The young people of the Newtown Country Club, under the general chairmanship of Miss Judith Brewer, held a very successful dance at the club on last Saturday evening. Thirty couples were present at the semi-formal affair, in addition to Mr and Mrs W. Cranston Brewer and Mr and Mrs Edmund Neary who served as chaperones. Decorations were in charge of a committee composed of Joseph F. Hellauer, Jr, chairman, the Misses Dolores Suarez, Ann McGraw, Jean Taylor, and Sarah Marin, and Henry Taylor. On the refreshment committee were Curtis Brewer, chairman, the Misses Carolyn Paulis, Vicki Boyle, and Sheila Steck, and George McLachlan. Donald McCain was in charge of securing the orchestra.

***

Fire Chief John Qubick has issued a timely warning regarding the use of fireworks over the Fourth. Chief Qubick asks all children to use the utmost care at all times while setting off fireworks and, under no condition, should children be allowed the use of fireworks around any buildings or dry materials.

***

Announcement of the appointment of Carl A. LeGrow as superintendent of schools for Newtown was made by the local Board of Education after its special meeting on Monday night of this week when the decision was reached. The action followed several such meetings, necessitated by the dissolution of Regional High School District No. 3 under which Newtown schools have operated. The Newtown board has as yet taken no action to replace Mr LeGrow as principal in the local schools, a post he has held since 1929, but according to Raymond L. Hall, board secretary, the point will be considered at the next board meeting on July 21.

***

Plans for the second annual fireworks display sponsored by Troop 70 of the Boy Scouts of America have been completed. The activities, to be held at Taylor Field, behind Hawley High School, are scheduled to begin at 7 pm on Tuesday, the Fourth of July, and it promises to be bigger and more colorful than last year. Donations received from the event will help to send scouts to Camp Pomperaug on Lake Candlewood and support the annual Canadian trip from July 9 to the 22nd sponsored by the Rev Paul Cullens.

***

The Newtown Grade School track and field meet ran off smoothly Friday afternoon, June 16, on Taylor Field, and a good number of athletes wore shiny ribbons home on the buses indicating their athletic prowess. James Kelly topped the sixth grade Giants by winning four ribbons, two firsts and two seconds. He won the high jump and the baseball throw for distance, took second in the dash, and cleared 12 feet in the running broad jump.

***

Two Netherlands war victims, Mrs Marie C. Arnoldus and her eight-year-old son, Jacoby Arnoldus, will arrive in Newtown this weekend where they will make their home with Mrs Gertrude Kelly who operates the Gertrude Kelly Nursing Home on Mile Hill Road. Assigned to Mrs Kelly under the Foster-Mother plan, the refugees arrived in Hoboken, N.J., on Wednesday morning.

JUNE 26, 1925

Rev Anthony T. Gesner of Waterbury, who spoke before the Men’s Club last week, showed a large number of Indian relics, including a magnificent calumet or peace pipe which had been sent to him as a gift from the Sioux Indians of the congregation of the Chapel of the Messiah, Prairie Island, Minn.

***

Miss Francesca Verrase of Ansonia, driving a Ford sedan, was run into on Lyon Hill, and overturned on Monday. The party who struck her car ran away while Miss Verrase was prostrate on the ground. Dr E.L. Kingman was summoned and took Miss Verrase to the Danbury Hospital where it was necessary to amputate the little finger on one hand. It is a great pity the coward who caused the accident was not arrested.

***

Peter Horzig has opened a lunch cart at Hawleyville on the corner of Upham Avenue.

JUNE 29, 1900

The June meeting of the Men’s Club was held on Wednesday night at the residence of Rev O.W. Barker. The literary program included a symposium on James Russell Lowell in charge of Rev George T. Linsley and was greatly enjoyed.

***

At the annual school meeting in Taunton district Edwin B. Camp was elected committee, J.B. Fairchild clerk, Hobart Camp treasurer, and David Evans collector.