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caption, page 1:
Two young girls, faced painted, were mesmerized by the juggler from the Mohegan Sun. More photos on page 4. Additional photos on FB Putnam Town Crier & Northeast Ledger. Linda Lemmon photo.
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I don't need my jacket zipped up.
Right: The interactive Jewett City Savings Bank sculpture. Left: From left: Vivienne Molcan, 4; Elizabeth Herz, 4, and Hazel Herz, 1.
Interact Penguin
The Putnam Rotary Club’s Interact Club members left their mark at the Fire and Ice festival Feb. 12, turning a 40x20x10-inch block of ice into a penguin. Iayah Burke created the design for the penguin and Mikayla Walford helped. Because of the warm temperature, members Abigail Morin and Paige Owens carved the penguin in 2 hours so that shape would take hold before it began to melt. Member Abby Smith smoothed out the edges and help collect donations for the club’s Relay For Life Team. Interact advisor Roberta Rocchetti said visitors to the club’s ice block were generous — Interactors took in $376 in donations to the American Cancer Society. From left: Walford, Rocchetti and Smith.
Intent on carving at the Putnam Elks Antlers Club block.
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Love Potion
Warm & Cozy
Teapot
Coffee Can. Cake winners shown with Tayler Shea, chair of the Love is Brewing Cake Contest. Contributed photos.
Rapunzel
Batman
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
Call it the yin and yang of tropical weather at Fire & Ice Feb. 12: Good for a pent-up public that wanted to go somewhere on a nice day. Bad for ice. It was at or near 60 degrees.
Those carving the 23,000 pounds (that’s right 23 THOUSAND pounds) of ice were carving on the fly, adjusting as they went. Often they chose to change their original design to a more solid one with fewer delicate parts. The fewer skinny parts (prone to melt quickly), the better. The judges started their duties earlier, before massive melting really kicked in.
Sheila Frost, Putnam Business Association coordinator and co-chair of Fire & Ice, estimated that more than 20,000 people came for the nine hours of the fest.
“There’s always a large category of people who say ‘I don’t go out in the cold’ but Feb. 12 was a nice sunny warm day so they came.” She added, “The weather was not conducive to ice but it was to people.”
Folks having been cooped up inside by COVID and the cold were also looking for a “sense of normalcy” she said.
While Frost and co-chair Jenn Brytowski might have been the face of the fest, they were by no means the only “working parts”
Frost thanked the large group of volunteers who basically worked from sunup the day of the fest all the way through to the breakdown after the 9 p.m. end of the event. “The amount of effort and the clean-up is mind-boggling,” she said. “Keep in mind that pretty much all the work is done the day of the festival.”
She also thanked the mayor and all the town departments for their assistance. “It takes so many people to support this effort,” she said.
Frost added the game show and entertainment from Mohegan Sun was spectacular as was the entertainment from the Boston Circus Guild. She also noted the beer garden at Bear Hands Brewing Co. was excellent.
While there are a “few wrinkles we’d like to tweak for next year,” Frost said by and large, she is pleased with how it went.
Fire & Ice co-chair Brytowski listed the winners of the Ice Carving competition and the Love is Brewing cake contest.
The Ice winners included:
Amateur:
3rd Place – Lisa Kretchman – “Winter Fox” block sponsored by “Chubby Dog Coffee Co.
2nd Place – Marie Agresta – block sponsored by “Putnam Congregational Church”
1st Place - David Bates – “Heart” block sponsored by The Inn at Woodstock Hill
Group:
3rd Place – Joe Deery & son – “Snoopy” block sponsored by “Powerful Improvements”
2nd Place – Brittni Laquidara and Simone Germain – “Owl” block sponsored by Red Spider Tattoo
1st Place - Jon Conway & Ernie Delia – “Batman” block sponsored by Wonderland Comics
Professional:
3rd Place – Josh Deojay – “Dancing Bears around Heart” block sponsored by Bear Hands Brewing Co.
2nd Place – Arrik Kim – “Potter and Painter” block sponsored by Sawmill Pottery and Silver Circle Art Gallery
1st Place - Silvino Quengo – “Rapunzel’s Tower” – “Longmeadow Automotive”
Winners from the Cake Competition:
By the Judges:
Professional Category – Jonathan Salvas - “Love Potion”
Novice – Sarah Fritz “Coffee Can”
By Public Vote:
Professional - Kat Collen – “Tea Pot Cake”
Novice – Sarah Hirst “Warm and Cozy Winter”
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