It seems there are more members in The Boys Club of Newtown than we realized when we ran that feature and huge photo of the retired gentlemen in last week’s Newtown Bee. In comparing the membership list against everyone who turned up for January’s lunch meeting and group photo, we missed getting the names of four gentlemen into the article. Bob Gardner, Wes Gillingham, David Lias, and Dr Dick Salerno are in fact members in good standing, even if they weren’t standing in front of Les Burroughs’ truck for a recent photo.

Once you’ve read all the news that fits in print in The Bee, you might want to scoop up a copy of this weekend’s New York Times and take a look in the Connecticut section for Sandy Hook resident Joan Velush. As a participant in the Western Connecticut Home School Co-op in Washington Depot, Joan was caught in action last week teaching cooking to home school students by a reporter and photographer from The New York Times working on a story about the cooperative home school group. Anyone who knows Joan’s prowess in the culinary field will look forward to pictures of whatever she was whipping up with the class. Fish chowder, I hope.

The people who work at the police station gave a warm welcome to Carol Swigart, who returned to work this week as the police chief’s executive assistant following an extended absence. On her return, Carol greeted the many people who missed her while she was away. With Carol back in her post, the police station is a much cheerier place.

Looks like anyone who needs something to do early Sunday afternoon — whether they’re planning to watch the Super Bowl later that night or not — may want to consider stopping by Booth Library for a few hours. Three events will be going on that afternoon. Canine Advocates will host its latest fundraiser, a Valentine Boutique & More, which CAN president Virginia Jess has promised will have something “for humans, canines, and felines.” That event will be in the library’s lower meeting room from 1 to 4:30 pm.

Also happening in the meeting room, from 2 to 4 pm, will be the opening reception for “Serenity,” an exhibition of paintings by Newtown native Susan Warner. Mrs Warner, who now lives in New Milford with her husband and three children, will have a collection of 31 paintings on view until February 28.

Upstairs on the library’s main floor will be “Katrina Relief: Far From Finished,” a collection of photographs, mementos, journal entries, and other items from Shannon Hicks, who spent a week in Biloxi, Miss., last fall, and was part of a crew who started building a new home for a lady who had lost her more than a year earlier during Hurricane Katrina. One of the associate editors for The Bee, Shannon won’t have a formal opening for this collection but promises to have it in the three display cases near the main circulation desk by Sunday morning.

Former Newtown resident Chris Wagner, now living in Atlanta, has returned from a three-week trip to Cambodia, where she and Prof Jean Hatcherson from Sacred Heart University and students from Western Connecticut State University visited and worked at the day care center in Battambang, Cambodia. The day care center is sponsored by the Hearts and Hands for Cambodia Foundation whose main social service project is to assist Sobbhana Women’s Foundation by supporting its Day Care Center in Battambang. In a recent email to The Bee, Chris wrote that she is “very interested in getting some help from the schools in Newtown, the local Rotary, or if possible, talking with the town to see if Newtown might be interested in adopting the Day Care as a ‘sister’ village project. We are outgrowing my ability to fundraise and it looks like Hearts and Hands may be the sole supporter of the Day Care this year. It is so worthwhile and I would love to take a group with me to help out next year.” Chris can be contacted by interested organizations at crw520@comcast.net.

I’m happy to see that most people aren’t getting all that excited about the prognostications this year of that know-it-all marmot the Groundhog. Six more weeks of a winter like this is a cakewalk. So shadow or no, we’re all in pretty good shape. I’ll tell you one thing you can count on, however. Only one more week until you can…

Read me again.