The past 12 months brought a number of milestones and other reasons for readers to smile.

Bee Publishing Company celebrated its 145th anniversary in June. Staff members were joined by four generations of the Smith family — who has owned and published The Newtown Bee since 1881, four years after its creation — in late June, when a brief recognition ceremony took place. First Selectman Dan Rosenthal was among the special guests to thank longtime Publisher R. Scudder Smith and his staff for decades of providing news to generations of readers.

Around the same time, Donna Kern Ball was thanked by Smith and his wife Helen after the Hawleyville resident spent months returning The Bunny Garden at The Pleasance back to life. The Pleasance, at 1 Main Street, is privately owned and maintained by The Bee Publishing Company, yet open to the public. Ball led an effort — and did the majority of the work — to refurbish a special set of sculpture, a child-size building, and garden in the western side of the property.

Shannon Hicks’s “ABCs of Newtown” series continued this year, with readers learning about Newtown General Store, Mary Hawley, I-84, Ezra Johnson, and local connections between Kevin Bacon, Kirsten Dunst, and Katharine Hepburn.

Shannon and another Bee — Production Department employee Lynn Remson — took top honors in The 2022 Newtown Bee Peeps Diorama Contest. By a landslide, Lynn’s “Santa Peep” creation — which included Santa in a sleigh, driving reindeer Peeps (rein-Peeps?) led by Rudolph, complete with a red nose; and an oversize ornament filled with fun surprises — picked up the in-house honors. Lynn is now hosting our Peeps Diorama Contest trophy until next year’s competition. Shannon, meanwhile, who did “LiMu Emu & Peep,” based on the Liberty Mutual commercials, won the Peep-le’s Choice honor. She picked up that honorary title thanks to those who selected her work as the diorama of their choice on our Facebook page Good Friday morning.

Melia Hus became one of the earliest First Baby title winners in many years when it was announced in January that she had earned the 2022 First Baby of Newtown honors. The second child born to Megan and Jeremy Hus of Newtown, Melia was born just 18 minutes into the new year.

A small cache of artifacts and a unique painting discovered by family members of the late Newtown Savings Bank President Kenneth Adams were returned in March to bank officials with most of the items being slated for a new public display case in the Church Hill Road branch. Among the items was a 1940s-era mechanical children’s bank and a roughly four-foot long painting of local landmarks that served as a model for a huge mural first installed at NSB’s Main Street office in 1965.

In April, residents were introduced to Zorro, an adoptable dog with Danbury Animal Welfare Society (DAWS) who has spent the longest time out of all the animals there looking for his forever home. While DAWS’ shelter in Bethel is currently under a massive renovation, the nonprofit rescue is temporarily located in Newtown at Pleasant Paws Pet Center. Even now in December, Zorro is still hoping to be adopted. People interested in adopting Zorro should first complete the online application and e-mail the Dog Committee Chairperson at dogs@DAWS.org.

The Newtown Bee had a special opportunity to speak with author and illustrator Bruce Degen on April 29, prior to his much-anticipated presentation at C.H. Booth Library on May 19. Degen is a longtime Newtown resident and best known as the illustrator for The Magic School Bus, a nonfiction book series that has sold more than 93 million print copies worldwide. He talked about his collaboration with The Magic School Bus author Joanna Cole, who became his close friend and lived in town for quite some time, too. Their newest release, The Magic School Bus Explores Human Evolution, is the last book in the series as Cole passed away in 2020.

People of all ages and abilities gathered at Dickinson Memorial Park on June 4, celebrating the official ribbon cutting for a new inclusive playground that had been in the planning and development stages for more than two years. Leah Mangino, 10, whose dream was to see inclusive equipment in local playgrounds to accommodate her younger brother, was given the honor of cutting the ceremonial ribbon.

Edmond Town Hall hosted a national motion picture premier and benefit event in June, when the stars, producers and directors of The Wedding Pact 2: The Baby Pact all visited town. Newtown resident Marianne Grenier organized the premier as a fundraiser, which took place a few days after the film’s international debut at Cannes Film Festival.

Lathrop School of Dance also made news at 45 Main Street, presenting its 70th Stardust Revue over a weekend of performances.

The Edmond Town Hall Board of Managers surprised one of their biggest advertising supporters in November, when they turned the tables on Todd Ingersoll. The CEO at Ingersoll Automotive, the Newtown resident has a very successful business and has often said that if a person is “blessed with a little bit of luck along the way, you have a moral obligation to give back.” He is also known for his love of surprising people with good news, so the ETH Board of Managers surprised Ingersoll in November with a visit to his Danbury office and the presentation of a pair of plaques to thank him for a decade-plus of generous financial support of 45 Main Street.

Hundreds flocked to Castle Hill Farm on August 28 to enjoy the sights, sounds, and tastes of the 46th Annual Ukrainian Festival — while remembering and helping raise funds to support Ukraine immigrants affected by the Russian invasion of their country nearly seven months ago.

Despite threats of rain, the 2022 Newtown Labor Day Parade — the first since 2019 — stepped off on time Monday, September 5. Grand Marshals Margot and Bob Hall led this year’s celebration, which followed the theme “Celebrating Newtown’s Hidden Gems.”

A few weekends later, a cocktail party and concert by Amy Helm opened three days of the Tenth Newtown Arts Festival. Presented again on the large playing fields at Fairfield Hills, more than 60 artisans, ongoing performances, performers from all fields of the arts, myriad food and beverage offerings, and plenty of activities kept the thousands of guests happily occupied.

Six local Girl Scouts were celebrated on July 16 during a Gold Award Ceremony at Trinity Church. The Scouts all earned the most prestigious honor in Girl Scouting. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, three of the Scouts — two who earned their credentials last year, and one in 2020 — had their formal ceremonies postponed until this month. In July, however, Emma Bogursky, Audrey Christensen, Rebecca Filiato, Kimberly Johnson, Taegan Smith, and MJ Taylor were joined by family, friends, and special guests to be recognized.

A month earlier, Girl Scout Troop 50763 concluded work toward their Bronze Award, one of the highest awards a Girl Scout can earn.

Also in July, one year after her retirement as Editor of The Newtown Bee, Nancy K. Crevier celebrated her first debut book of poetry with her first public program. An hour-long program at Newtown Senior Center featured readings from Crevier’s The Peach Quartet and Other Poems.

Lines of motivated book buyers queued up for the 46th Annual Friends of C.H. Booth Library Book Sale at Reed Intermediate School one Friday morning in July. The largest annual fundraiser by the organization dedicated to providing financial and material support to the town’s library, the book sale continued its new tradition of opening with a preview day attended primarily by dealers and collectors, with a great response, according to organizers. By the end of the five-day event, the Friends were “confident, and proud, that we’ll start our new fiscal year able to support the library at the same level as we have in the past.”

The Friends this year also celebrated a move of its Little Book Store into new (to them), larger space within C.H. Booth Library. For nearly 50 years The Little Book Store has sold new and very gently used books and other items. The new space near the main circulation desk now allows for an average 3,000 books at any time.

Newtown Historical Society honored the late Town Historian Dan Cruson in late September with the formal unveiling of a red oak tree and a plaque situated near The Little Red Schoolhouse on Middle Gate Elementary School’s grounds.

Readers in 2022 were also introduced to Love Mom XOXO, a nonprofit organization founded to honor the memory of Lynn Nespoli Lewis, who died suddenly in December 2020. Lewis’s family created the family bereavement organization that focuses on surviving parents and their children. Fundraising efforts — a motorcycle ride, a wine tasting event with board games, Christmas caroling at a senior care facility — have been based on things Lewis herself would have enjoyed doing.

Readers this year were also introduced to Catherine Pendergast, a Newtown resident and one of four women to graduate in mid-June from the 11-week Eversource Lineworker Certificate course. It was the 20-year-old’s latest step toward becoming a certified lineworker.

Financial gifts from family and friends of the recently wed Adele Unger and Paul Shelley allowed the couple to fund the installation of a well in eastern Uganda. Ahead of their May wedding at Newtown Meeting House, Unger and Shelley had asked guests who wanted to celebrate their marriage with a gift to offer a donation to Call To Care Uganda. Within a month of their wedding a 70-meter deep well had been funded and by mid-August, The Shelley Well had been dug, certified, and celebrated.

A townwide bottle and can drive launched over two years ago to raise funds for local nonprofits saw a change in leadership ahead of its founder moving out of the area. When Betty Presnell and her family began planning for a move out of the area in the autumn, fellow Nunnawauk Meadows resident Andrea Farley stepped in to take over the very successful bottle and can drive that has raised over $15,000 for multiple nonprofit organizations. Farley lives about 240 yards from Presnell’s former address, so the collection continues with very little unchanged.

On the morning of October 8, the family of Sophia Grace Ramsey — her parents Katie and Tim Ramsey, her grandfather Don Ramsey, and her 5-month-old brother Brayden — gathered around her memorial garden at Castle Hill Farm in Newtown. Sophia was born with a rare genetic skin disorder called Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). Sophia died at just 13 months old on May 15, 2020. A garden in her honor came to be thanks to the close friendship of her grandfather with Diana Paproski, owner of Castle Hill Farm.

Thousands of costumed guests visited the homes on Main Street on Halloween, according to at least three homeowners who shared their stories with The Newtown Bee this year. Trick-or-treaters of all ages traveled the sidewalks that stretch along both sides of the main thoroughfare that Monday, beginning by late afternoon for some of the youngest.

One week earlier, Sandy Hook Organization for Prosperity hosted its annual Halloween Walk, encouraging families to spend time walking among the businesses in Sandy Hook Center. Good weather helped draw steady crowds for the annual event, which gives its attendees a chance to try their costumes before the big night of October 31.

Ahead of Halloween, the Michaud family spent many of their weekends at Castle Hill Farm, where they entertained guests with demonstrations of a Medieval-style trebuchet built 14 years ago. Alex, Marc and Pammi Michaud took turns operating the machine built by the family in 2008. Dozens of people paid $5 apiece to be thrilled by the sight of a pumpkin flying through the air at the Sugar Lane farm.

Earlier this month readers were introduced to Gardeners of Newtown when the group donated $1,100 to FAITH Food Pantry. Founded in 2018 and primarily an online group for Newtown residents interested in anything garden-related, Gardeners of Newtown celebrated its fourth anniversary by creating a logo for the club and then selling T-shirts featuring the design created with the Town of Newtown seal in mind. Proceeds from those sales, and an anonymous matching donation, were then donated to the food pantry.

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com. Reporter Alissa Silber can be reached at alissa@thebee.com.