Belated birthday wishes to New Year’s babies Judit DeStefano and Sherry Paisley, who each celebrated their latest trip around the sun last Wednesday.

Best wishes for a quick and easy recovery to Steve Bowers, who opened the new year on crutches. The longtime employee of the full-service Citgo station on Church Hill Road dislocated one of his knees Christmas Day. That’s not an easy injury to overcome when your job includes a lot of walking.

NHS Class of 2013 graduate Taylor Varga sang the national anthem in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The photo shared here and heads up about Taylor’s appearance last week were sent our by way of Regina Fojas, a friend of Taylor’s and the senior vice president and chief of staff of Times Square Alliance. Taylor has been working with TSA (not that TSA!) for more than seven years. He is currently the director of production and operations for the organization that works to improve and promote Times Square including one of its best-known annual events. Taylor was the 2013 winner of the Connecticut High School Musical Theater Awards and the National High School Musical Theater Awards in Times Square that same year. His performance on December 31 was the first time the national anthem has been sung to kick off New Year’s Eve in Times Square. If you’d like to watch it, search for Ryan Lam’s YouTube channel (@ryanlam9989) and click on his video for 6 Hours to 2025 in Times Square! Taylor’s wonderful performance is at the beginning of that.

The first Good Egg Award of 2025 is being presented this week to Chris O’Connor after Bee Sports Editor Andy Hutchison’s day was made by a good egg in town last weekend. Andy took photos of pond skaters while with his children at Ram Pasture and his hockey skates were left behind on December 27. The photos were featured in last week’s print edition and on our website. Luckily for Andy, Chris spotted the skates, saved them and — through a series of messages on Facebook and help from some kind residents in town — reunited Andy with his skates. Chris, a personable and funny individual, sent Andy the following message when the two first connected: “My wife and I want to hold them for ransom, our demands — a picture of the red squirrel.” The return of Andy’s skates was the second good deed to come out of Chris’s visit to Hawley Pond a few weeks ago. A handyman who can be called upon for various projects when he is not rescuing skates, Andy had already — with help from his son — distributed hand warmers to people at Hawley Pond that afternoon. It was after returning to clean up dropped wrappers that he noticed Andy’s skates and picked them up in the hopes to find their owner. The rest is history and the stuff that continues to make Newtown a nice place to live, work and play.

The Stop & Shop Community Bag Program has opened 2025 by sharing proceeds from this month’s sales with Newtown Youth & Family Services. For each $2.50 Give Back bag purchased before the end of this month at Sand Hill Plaza, $1 will go to the Sandy Hook-based nonprofit youth service bureau and mental health clinic.

The announcement this week that stock photo giants Shutterstock and Getty Images will merge, creating “a premier visual content company at closing,” according to one announcement, got me to thinking. Maybe this is a good time to remind readers that you can shop local when it comes to photo reprints … or photos on mugs, T-shirts, blankets, pillows, tote bags and so much more. Photos by Bee staff members can be purchased, did you know? It’s true! We have a large collection of albums created weekly and hosted by SmugMug. If you’d like to explore our growing collection of archive photos, visit photos.newtownbee.com. If you ever forget or lose that address, you can return to the online photos archive by visiting our website and then clicking on the Home icon near the upper left corner of the page, then on Photo Reprints.

There are many ways to support your hometown newspaper. Paid ads and subscriptions are the most common, but the opportunity to purchase photos has long been available as well. As one series of television PSAs used to conclude with, “the more you know.” You’re welcome.

Add that to the list of things you already knew, and it isn’t surprising to learn that according to recent research Connecticut is the second smartest state in the country. We came out second only to Massachusetts after the Web3 platform Freename compared 29 metrics, which were organized into six categories: business and professional indicators, educational attainment and achievement, IQ, lifelong learning and intellectual engagement, standardized test performance, and STEM focus and innovation.

The Constitution State finished with an average IQ of 103.1, the second highest in the nation, and Grade 8 NAEP scores above the national average for both reading (263.81) and math (276.49). Connecticut also ranks fifth in business indicators, reflecting its strength in skilled fields such as finance and healthcare, and ninth in STEM focus, underscoring its commitment to technical education.

Massachusetts boasts the highest average IQ (104.3), ranked second in STEM focus, and sixth in business indicators, among other points. Rounding out the top ten were, in descending order, Washington, Vermont, Virginia, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maryland, Colorado and Minnesota.

You know me. I’m doing to descend into a nap now. I’ll emerge in time to share my next round of nuggets, which you can enjoy next week when you come back and … read me again.