Penguin Plunge brings out the brave and the bold

WINSTED — Eighty people took a dip into the icy waters of Highland Lake on Saturday, Feb. 4, in the ninth annual Penguin Plunge.The event raised money for Special Olympics Connecticut and is one of 10 Penguin Plunges the charity holds around the state.According to Sarah Bellerive, the special events coordinator for Special Olympics, the organization started the event 20 years ago and it is Special Olympics’ second largest fundraiser, behind the annual Law Enforcement Torch Run.Funds from the plunges go toward hiring trainers for the athletes who take part in Special Olympics events.This year was somewhat warmer than previous years, with temperatures reaching up to 40 degrees. Yet it was still cold enough to send participants running to the warming tent after they took the plunge.Participation was down from last year, when 119 people took part and raised $55,000. About $45,000 was raised this year, according to initial reports.However, people from all over the area appeared to have fun taking part, with many of them dressed in outlandish outfits.One group was dressed as characters from “The Wizard of Oz,” while another was dressed up as a football team with inflatable helmets.Town manager Dale Martin took the plunge in a psychedelic hippie-era outfit.“What’s my strategy? To get in and then get out!” Martin said.A similar strategy was taken by Maggie Hope, who came from Wappingers Falls, N.Y., just to take part in the event.“I’m just going to run in,” she said. “I have never done this before, but I’m doing this because I’m crazy.”

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less