CATEGORY: Event TYPE: News Article DESCRIPTION: Telegram & Gazette. Worcester, Mass.: Jun 23, 1994. pg. B.3 DATE: 23 Jun 1994 NOTE: Copyright New York Times Company Jun 23, 1994
Webster Town Administrator Mark S. Stankiewicz has combined a town map with an outline of Webster Lake and an aid to pronouncing the lake's long name, creating something different.
The flat representation of the town is on a wall in the administrator's Town Hall office. "How It Is Pronounced," lifted from a 1930s booklet, "Nature's Gift to New England," is pasted next to the map.
The long name is split into syllables for this purpose, but the name is spelled whole, with no hyphens. This has run in this column before, but somebody's always inquiring about the pronounciation, so another printing won't hurt. It goes:
Char-gogg
a-gogg
man-chaugg
a-gogg
chau-bun
a-gun
ga-maugg.
The accents come on the end of each line. The instruction reads: "Try them over slowly and the entire name will be quickly and easily pronounced."
Southbridge School Department was without music classes for about a year, but they've now got a top-rate program, says Webster's Joyce (Redlitz) Cozzens.
Cozzens was commenting after I wrote a piece about Bonnie L. Narcisi, director of choral music for the Webster school system. Narcisi, recently awarded an honorarium by the Webster School Committee, had worked in Southbridge and left in 1991 because music department activities were temporarily sidetracked.
Southbridge subsequently got financing for its music classes, said Cozzens, the wife of Robert Cozzens. Their daughter, Christine (Cozzens) Costello of Holland, has worked in the Southbridge system since October 1993. It may not apply during the summer, but Cozzens telephoned to let me know that the sound of music is back in the halls to schools in Southbridge, just like it is in Webster.
Costello attended Webster elementary schools, graduated from Marianapolis Preparatory School, and majored in music at Mount Holyoke College. Some of Webster's older residents may remember Costello's grandfather, the late Edmund Redlitz, a trumpet player with the Pulaski Brass Band for many years. He also was a church organist, accompanist for Webster Lodge of Masons, and a volunteer pianist at area nursing homes.
Friday's warm, hazy, humid weather didn't faze Genevieve Henault at all as she walked briskly along Webster's Main Street. A retired store clerk, Henault celebrated her 86th birthday in May, she said.
She has lived mostly in the East Main Street area, always walked to and from work, and to most social appointments - and always at an energetic gait. This was good for her health, she believes.
"I'm still going strong," she smiled. "I don't have to take any (medication) at all."
George W. Rosebrooks, who lives near Webster's Upper Gore Road, just over the line into Douglas, says a good-sized snake shed its skin Friday in a pebble-lined drain behind his dwelling. Judging from the remains, Rosebrooks said, "It must have been a good 6 feet long."
George Giroux, one of the Webster Town Hall custodians, says the downtown has a lazy pigeon population. They do a lot of eating and messing, Giroux said. "They don't do much flying. Just a lot of hanging around."
The ledges about the Town Hall are a mess. "You wouldn't believe it," he said. He wants to coat the ledges with "some sticky stuff they (pigeons) don't like because it gives them a hot foot."
Giroux said Fire Chief Gordon Dean Wentworth has promised to bring in a ladder truck to help out.