Housatonic student of the week

The Lakeville Journal congratulates the honorees of the student of the week program at Housatonic Valley Regional High School. This week’s student portrait was taken by HVRHS 11th-grader Caroline Sullivan. This was a thrilling and unprecedented season for our boys soccer team, and much of the reason for their success was the leadership of the upperclassmen. Their raw athleticism, however, would have gone to waste without good coaching, purposeful direction and smart decision-making on the part of the players. Matthew Matsudaira was a key component of that team’s leadership corps.Matthew, a forward on the team, is also first in his junior class, and the chess match that takes place on the soccer field draws on his intellectual abilities as well as his athletic prowess. Mathematics and numeracy come easily to him, and his logical, organized mind also enjoys the structure of military history, with its troop movements and strategizing.Not surprisingly, Matthew took to the trumpet quickly in seventh grade, and he has been playing it and the piano for some time, both in the school band and as a volunteer at his church in Litchfield. Spirituality is a significant part of Matthew’s life, and he will be participating in a leadership program through the Baptist Convention that will bring him to a Third World country during his February break to perform missionary work in that area.Although he has no particular designs on a career yet, Matthew is prepared to do “whatever is in God’s will,” and is taking the necessary steps to ready himself for that vocation. In addition to his physical, spiritual and academic development, Matthew attends to his responsibilities as one of six children, spread from his age of 16 to the youngest, age 4. He is eyeing West Point as a potential college choice, and with his impressive level of responsibility, we are certain he would be a fine cadet.

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Bobbie C. Palmer

LAKEVILLE ­— Bobbie C. Palmer, born in Lakeville on Jan. 13, 1948, passed away peacefully on March 4, 2024. He is survived by his loving wife, Marva J. Palmer, son Marc (Sandra) Palmer, daughter Erica (Fleming) Wilson, two grandchildren, Andrew Yost and Ciara Wilson, and two great grandchildren. He was predeceased by his parents Walter and Francis Palmer and four brothers; Henry Palmer, William Palmer, John Palmer and Walter Palmer Jr.

He leaves behind a legacy of love, kindness, and laughter that will be cherished by his family and those closest to him.

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Finding ‘The Right Stuff’ for a documentary

Tom Wolfe

Film still from “Radical Wolfe” courtesy of Kino Lorber

If you’ve ever wondered how retrospective documentaries are made, with their dazzling compilation of still images and rare footage spliced between contemporary interviews, The Moviehouse in Millerton, New York, offered a behind-the-scenes peek into how “the sausage is made” with a screening of director Richard Dewey’s biographical film “Radical Wolfe” on Saturday, March 2.

Coinciding with the late Tom Wolfe’s birthday, “Radical Wolfe,” now available to view on Netflix, is the first feature-length documentary to explore the life and career of the enigmatic Southern satirist, city-dwelling sartorial icon and pioneer of New Journalism — a subjective, lyrical style of long-form nonfiction that made Wolfe a celebrity in the pages of Esquire and vaulted him to the top of the best-seller lists with his drug-culture chronicle “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and his first novel, “The Bonfire of The Vanities.”

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Art on view this March

“Untitled” by Maureen Dougherty

New Risen

While there are area galleries that have closed for the season, waiting to emerge with programming when the spring truly springs up, there are still plenty of art exhibitions worth seeking out this March.

At Geary Contemporary in Millerton, founded by Jack Geary and Dolly Bross Geary, Will Hutnick’s “Satellite” is a collection of medium- and large-scale acrylic on canvas abstracts that introduce mixtures of wax pastel, sand and colored pencil to create topographical-like changes in texture. Silhouettes of leaves float across seismic vibration lines in the sand while a craterous moon emerges on the horizon, all like a desert planet seen through a glitching kaleidoscope. Hutnick, a resident of Sharon and director of artistic programming at The Wassaic Project in Amenia, New York, will discuss his work at Geary with New York Times art writer Laura van Straaten Saturday, March 9, at 5 p.m.

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Caught on Camera: Our wildlife neighbors

Clockwise from upper left: Wildlife more rarely caught by trail cameras at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies: great blue heron, river otters, a bull moose, presenter and wildlife biologist Michael Fargione, a moose cow, and a barred owl.

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

‘You don’t need to go to Africa or Yellowstone to see the real-life world of nature. There are life and death struggles in your wood lot and backyard,” said Michael Fargione, wildlife biologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, during his lecture “Caught on Camera: Our Wildlife Neighbors.”

He showed a video of two bucks recorded them displaying their antlers, then challenging each other with a clash of antlers, which ended with one buck running off. The victor stood and pawed the ground in victory.

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