Date: Fri 08-Sep-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Hawley-High-School-44-45

Full Text:

Appreciation For Hawley High Is Still Keen After 50 Years

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Harry Doehne insists that if it hadn't been for the radio code and theory

class he took at Hawley High School, he wouldn't have wound up with a

doctorate from Michigan State.

"Carl LeGrow's class helped me get into radio school in the Merchant Marine

and made possible my education - a great influence in my life," he said. "Even

though we were a small class of only 13 students, we still had radio code and

theory, principles of aeronautics, mechanics and agriculture. I owe it all to

Hawley High School."

Harry Doehne, who was the senior class president, and his classmates from the

Hawley High School classes of 1944 and 1945 gathered with their spouses at the

Stony Hill Inn in Bethel Saturday night to celebrate their 50th reunion.

"We were such small classes that it made sense to celebrate together,"

explained Ray Person, a member of the Class of 1945 who helped to organize the

event.

Teacher Carl LeGrow died many years ago but another former Hawley teacher,

Andrew Lupi, 92, came to the reunion. Mr Lupi, who taught math at Hawley for

eight years, drove alone from his home in East Hartford to attend.

"I started teaching at Hawley in 1935 mostly because my family used to spend

the summers in Newtown," Mr Lupi said. "I left Hawley during the war to go

into the service. Afterwards, I got a job in East Hartford, where I later

became a principal and worked for 37 years. At that time you had to retire at

age 70, and that's what caught me."

Another teacher, Anna Rice Strain, planned to come from Killingsworth but had

to bow out at the end because of her husband's illness. And physical education

teacher Thornton Gibbs of Wareham, Mass., also couldn't come. Similar problems

also prevented some of former students from coming but a surprisingly large

number - 13 of the 20 members the Class of 1945 and 10 of the 13 members of

the Class of 1945 - attended. About half of the two classes still live in

Newtown including Dwight Carlson, Beatrice Morgan Behrmann, Robert "River"

Shannon, Marty Bennett, Dorothy Quinn Cavanaugh and Doris Siegert Tilson from

the Class of '44 and Eileen Dyer Jensen, Grete Hansen Dainiak, Harvey

Rasmussen, Josephine Retz Lucas, Clifford Walker, and Ray Person from the

Class of '45.

Others came from not far out of town, such as Raymond Burr, who lives in

Southbury; Stephen Kovacs, Danbury; Ruth Pully Summers, Harwinton. Some, like

Harry Doehne who lives in Lansing, Mich., traveled hundreds of miles to come

to the reunion. Bill Lovell, for instance, drove in from Virginia; Roland

Geiger, 1945 class president, came from South Carolina, Ivy Lattin Anderson

from Maine, Ray Burr and Miriam Rasmussen from Florida, and Virginia Wiser

Garcia from Georgia.

Barbara Bazter Dunn, who served in the Connecticut General Assembly and, as a

former commissioner of the State Department of Consumer Protection, was the

first woman to hold a state cabinet level position in Connecticut, said her

years at Hawley were important to her success.

"Small classes encouraged individual participation in courses and

extra-curricular activities," she said. "We learned to get along well

together, too. (It was a) great experience!"