Design with the environment in mind has been the key element architect Richard P. Donohoe has been concerned with in the first multiple housing facility which is likely to become a reality in Newtown. Mr Donohoe and his associate, Charles Reppenhagen, are the architects retained to design a 40-unit apartment facility for elderly persons by Newtown Housing for the Elderly Inc. The architects’ planning, the result of many meetings with NHE, is for a portion of Fairfield Hills hospital land off Nunnawauk Road which the state will deed to the non-profit group soon. In designing this facility, unique to Newtown, which will someday house 72 persons, the architects have drawn upon an old idea for a new concept for the Connecticut community. “The design and orientation of the project was done with an emphasis on sunlight,” related Mr Donohoe. “Especially now, with our consciousness of the need for energy conservation, we have designed to maximize the benefit of winter sunlight and summer breezes.”

***

An arbitration session on the new contract for Newtown teachers was conducted on Monday, February 3. The teachers have been working under the terms of their old contract, which expired on August 31, since the beginning of the new school year. Prior to arbitration, the negotiators for the Board of Education and the Newtown Federation of Teachers had many long negotiating sessions. After an impasse was reached on several items in the contract, negotiations went to mediation and out of that came the determination to go to arbitration.

***

The Highway Department union signed its first contract with the town at Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting after more than half a year of negotiations. Steward Jack Robins and union president Jack Butler put their signatures on the 11-page contract, while First Selectman Frank DeLucia signed for the selectmen. At the same meeting two grievances, filed according to procedures laid out in the newly-approved contract, were presented to the Board of Selectmen, protesting decisions made by Highway Superintendent Ed Napier about two employees. The B of S upheld Mr Napier’s decision. The union has the right now to take the matter to the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration.

***

When motor vehicle accidents occur which require that victims be extricated from tangled wrecks, speed and efficiency of the rescuers’ operations can play a very important part, and last week Newtown Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 received a new instrument which will help them immeasurably. It’s called a Hurst tool, and though it’s not very big, the powerful hydraulic tool has the power necessary to tear open a car in a matter of seconds.

***

It must have been startling indeed for Bruce Jenner, former Newtown High track star and Olympic competitor, to hear a familiar voice thousands of miles away from his home state, but that’s exactly what happened recently in New Zealand. William Schierloh, son of Mr and Mrs William Schierloh of Hanover Road, is a teacher at an Australian school, and recently came across Bruce, who was competing in the New Zealand Games with the American team. Bill, a 1969 NHS graduate, has been teaching history at Bunburry High School, located in Western Australia, since May, 1974. Recently he paid a visit to New Zealand to see, besides the millions of sheep which are raised there, the games. He recounted his meeting with Bruce, who finished 10th in the decathalon at the ’72 Olympics in Munich, in a recent letter to his parents.

***

Thursday, February 6 was designated as Scout Day in Edmond Town Hall, with two Scouts from each of Newtown’s Boy Scout troops participating. The boys were to draw for official positions in town government for the first half of the day, and redraw in the afternoon so each boy would become conversant with more than one position. Scout Commissioner Stan Karpacz announced the troop 70 participants would be Bill Downing and George Fahrenholz; Troop 270, Paul Fleming and Drew Karpacz; Troop 370, Mark Rees and Jim Argonnes; Troop 470, Chuck Nanavaty and John Horn; and Troop 770, Peter Niedermeyer and David Misiura.

***

The Conservation Commission will answer questions about the proposed purchase of the Ram’s Pasture during a public hearing at the beginning of the Selectmen’s meeting on Tuesday, March 4. Mrs Julia Wasserman reported that the open space plan which the conservationists have commissioned with David Portman of Fredrick Clark Associates of Rye, N.Y. is far toward completion.

FEBRUARY 10, 1950

Lightning, high winds and time have taken their toll on Newtown’s famous flagpoles, but in each instance repairs have been made, the poles themselves replaced, so that the new all-steel shaft to be dedicated this Sunday afternoon, February 12, at 2 o’clock, is the fourth in a series of landmarks to stand in the same spot since 1876. Pole number two that blew down in a high wind the first day of March, 1912, was not immediatley replaced, although subscriptions started coming in at once, townspeople donating sums of one to ten dollars apiece.

***

The flag which will be unfurled in the flag-raising ceremony this Sunday afternoon is one presented to the Town of Newtown by Mrs Antoinette Lawson, formerly of the Palestine Road, Newtown, and now of New York City. She is the widow of Captain Peter R. Lawson, U.S.M.C., one of the early volunteers from Newtown at the beginning of World War II, and the war’s first casualty from the town. He was killed at sea on the way to Guadacanal, and the flag was sent to Mrs Lawson by the U.S. Government.

***

The United Fire Company of Botsford broke ground this Tuesday morning for the new firehouse to be erected on Route 25 in the Botsford district. The work of excavating is being done by Nagy Brothers of Monroe, using a bulldozer and back-hoe. According to Alvin B. Coger, Fire Company president, plans for the new building are for a structure 30 by 50 feet in size and two stories high. The ground floor will be available for two pieces of apparatus and the upper floor for meetings and recreation. The present excavation is for the footings. Foundations will be built as soon as weather permits, Mr Coger says.

***

Coach Harold S. DeGroat is the author of an article, “Keeping Tabs on Hitters,” which appears in the February issue of the Athletic Journal. The article points to the advisability of keeping a running set of figures on the batting performances of the members of a baseball team during the season, in order to determine the best batting order.

***

At a special meeting of the Newtown Board of Education on Wednesday evening, February 8, Russell von Beren, architect of New Haven, submitted two proposals for a Newtown high school. This was the second meeting the board has held with Mr von Beren, both meetings being devoted to discussion of plans which the board would hope to have ready for consideration in the event that the April 8th referendum vote should be to dissolve the Regional High School District.

***

Generously responding to last week’s appeal in the Infantile Paralysis drive, Newtown residents jumped total receipts to date to $1,150. Judge Paul V. Cavanaugh, Newtown chairman, expressed delight at the receipt of more than $300 during the week, but stated that the amount has not yet equaled the 1949 quota and that the actual needs are for double the amount this year. There are still remaining more than 900 March of Dimes coin cards in the hands of residents, and further donations are looked for, with an added $300 as the immediate goal.

***

At a meeting held on Thursday, February 2, the faculty of Hawley School voted to become an affiliate of the Connecticut Education Association.

 

FEBRUARY 6, 1925

There is general indignation on behalf of Newtown citizens against the New York and New Haven railroad for putting the mail car off from the south-bound train in the morning and the 5 o’clock north-bound train at night. Now, only closed pouches are received. No regular mail can be sent south in the morning or north at night.

***

The citizens of the town were given a most happy surprise Saturday when the news of the great and splendid gift of Miss Mary E. Hawley to the town was made public. She has deposited with The Travelers Bank & Trust Company of Hartford $100,000 in bonds, the income therefrom to be paid the town of Newtown quarterly for the maintenance of the Hawley School property.

FEBRUARY 9, 1900

Invitations are out for a social dance given by members of the Grange at the Town Hall, Friday, February 16. The committee consists of S.J. Botsford, F.H. Mitchell, H.I. Mason, E.F. Northrop, Walter H. Glover and C.W. Beach, with several working members to help them on.

***

Sunday night’s freshet on the Pootatuck River sent the muskrats out of their hiding places, and they were even running about the streets in Sandy Hook. One was killed in the yard of Mrs Tucker.