David Michael Patrick Kelly
POMFRET CENTER — David Michael Patrick Kelly died June 6, 2024. He was born in Jan. 14, 1942, in Putnam, to the late John Lawrence and Dorothy Kelly.
He was a graduate of Marianapolis Preparatory School in Thompson and went on to graduate from Hartford State Technical Institute with a degree in applied science.
David was employed by SNET and retired from AT&T as an engineer.
David was a true outdoorsman with a wide variety of interests.
 He was a downhill and cross-country skier, a small game and bird hunter, a fly fisherman who tied all his own flies and was an avid golfer.
He was a longtime member at Quinnatisset Golf Couse where he was a past champion. David and his wife enjoyed playing cards with their many friends.
David proudly served his country as a member of the Putnam National Guard and is a member of the American Legion, Post 13.
He was most proud of his home in Pomfret where he maintained a large vegetable garden and a “golf course quality lawn”.
He leaves his wife Anne Marie (St. Onge), ;on Bryan Kelly (Deanna Defocy) of Woodstock; daughter Brenda Ritzman (Bradley) of San Antonio; three stepchildren Lisa Grubb (Todd Richer) of Dudley, Barbara Smalarz of Thompson,  and Brian Maynard (Laure) of Putnam; sister Claire Planeta of Stoughton, Mass.; three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. David was predeceased by his wife Linda M. Kelly, his son Brant Kelly and his grandson Michael Dupont.
The Mass of Christian Burial was June 12 at Most Holy Trinity Church. Donations: Hospice and Palliative Care of Northeast CT; or to Tunnels to Towers Foundation. Gilman Funeral Home, 104 Church Street, Putnam.


Jean Ann Sergel
PUTNAM — Jean (Dalrymple) Sergel, 63, of Church Street, Putnam, died June 4, 2024, at home. She was the wife of the late Wayne Sergel. Born in Webster, she was the daughter of the late Colin and Nancy (Meagher) Dalrymple.
Jean worked as a graphic artist for various newspapers in the area including Stonebridge Press and Webster Times. In her spare time Jean loved to go camping, browsing yard sales, taking trips to the casino, trying new restaurants and new foods, and trips to Charlestown beach.
She leaves her daughter Amanda Casey (Paul) of Woodstock Valley; son Brian Sergel of Putnam; brother Glenn Dalrymple (Lisa) of Millbury, Mass.; sister Carol Kosth of Charlton; grandchildren Kolbie Iacuele and Kaydence Casey; and her nieces and nephews Matthew Dalrymple, Zachary Dalrymple, and Colin Kosth.
Gilman & Valade Funeral Homes and Crematory, 104 Church St. Putnam.

Wed.  June 12
Exhibit
PUTNAM --- "Natural Vision," photo exhibit by Janet McDonald, is showing in the Corridor Gallery at the Putnam Municipal Complex through June30. Visit www. PutnamCtArtsCouncil.com for gallery hours and more information.

Fri.  June 14
Dog Show/Trial
BROOKLYN --- "The Strawberry Classic" Dog Shows and Obedience Trial will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 14, 15 and 16, rain or shine, at the Brooklyn Fairgrounds.

Sat.  June 15
Rabies Clinic
DANIELSON --- Pet Pals Northeast will hold a low-cost rabies clinic from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Quinebaug Valley Veterinary Hospital on  Rt. 12, Danielson/Plainfield line. $15 cash per animal. Pre-registration and appointment required: 860-317-1720. No walk-ins. Last clinic until October.

Thur.  June 20
History Program
THOMPSON --- The Thompson Public Library will welcome presenter  Joe Iamartino with “What is It? 25 Photographs of Old Thompson Explained” from 6 to 7 p.m. No registration required. Brought to you by the Thompson Library and Thompson Historical Society. 860-923-9779.

Sat.  June 22
Arts and Crafts
PUTNAM --- The Putnam Arts Council announced it will be hosting its second annual Fine Arts and Crafts Festival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 22 and 23 on the grounds of the new Putnam Municipal Complex.

Sat.  July 6
Fireworks
PUTNAM --- Fireworks will be held around the Putnam Rotary Park. Rain date is July 13.

Sat.  July 13
Garden Tour
WOODSTOCK --- Quiet Corner Gardens, a self-guided tour of eight gardens in Pomfret, Putnam and Woodstock from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 13, is by the Quiet Corner Garden Club. Tickets: purchase or pick up on the town green across from Roseland Cottage. $25 the day of the tour or $20 when purchased in advance at: quietcornergardenclub.com. Benefits scholarships and garden programs.

Sun.  Aug. 11
Pluck a Duck
PUTNAM --- The Putnam Business Association will present Pluck a Duck Aug. 11 and 12.

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caption, page 9:

Honored
From left: Julia Coyle, Joel Koleszar, Reegan Reynolds, Noah Sampson, Donny Sousa and Talia Tremblay were honored at the Senior Athletic Awards for participating in a sport in all 12 seasons during their time at Woodstock Academy. Photo by Sam Clark/Woodstock Academy.

captions, page 11:

Assistant boys’ hockey coach Bob Donahue, who has announced his retirement, was honored as the Woodstock Academy Coach of the Year. Photo by Sam Clark/Woodstock Academy

Julia Coyle, left, and Eric Mathewson received the Centaur Awards for their Academic Achievement, Athletic Participation, Leadership, Citizenship, & Sportsmanship. Photo by Sam Clark/Woodstock Academy.


Athletes of the Year
Reegan Reynolds, left, and Lucas Theriaque display the Senior Cup. They were named the Senior Athletes of the Year. Photo by Marc Allard/Woodstock Academy.


Golfers
Logan Rawson, left. Donny Sousa, above, took part in the State Open golf championship. Photos by Rich Garceau/Woodstock Academy.


It was a busy couple of weeks for the seniors at Woodstock Academy leading up to Saturday’s graduation ceremonies.
One of the activities was the annual Senior Athletic Awards Night.
The highlight of the event was the announcement of the 2024 Outstanding Senior Athletes of the Year.
Lucas Theriaque and Reegan Reynolds were the recipients of the Senior Cup significant of being Athlete of the Year.
“It’s so special to me,” Reynolds said. “Coming into Woodstock Academy, I knew I wanted to do athletics but I didn’t realize how deeply I would get into it. It’s my family. Everybody on my teams, I really loved.” Reynolds participated in volleyball, basketball and outdoor track.
Theriaque was a football player, wrestler and a member of the lacrosse team.
“I’m so happy that I was able to have an impact on Woodstock Academy in my senior year and over my four years of playing sports,” Theriaque said.
Theriaque was a team captain for the football team where he was also the leading receiver with 29 catches for 504 yards and six touchdowns. He was second on the team in scoring with 40 points and made 34 tackles, forced three fumbles and intercepted a pass defensively. He was named an ECC Div. I All-Star.
Theriaque was a key to bringing back the wrestling team after a five-year hiatus.
He then put the exclamation point on it when he finished second in the 165-pound weight class at the Class M state championship.
He went on to add 18 goals and 4 assists including five goals in a key win over Norwich Free Academy that vaulted the boy’ lacrosse team into the Class M state tournament.
“Probably my favorite season was football,” Theriaque said. “That’s what I’m going to do after high school. I’m going to play at Putnam Science Academy for a post-grad year and see where it takes me after that.”
Reynolds contributed 113 kills, 17 blocks, 74 digs and 39 aces for a volleyball team that advanced to the Class L quarterfinals last season.
She was also a captain and mentor for a youthful Centaurs’ basketball team and, in the spring, was the ECC Div. I and II champion in the triple jump, was a member of the 4x400m relay team that placed second and was fourth in the long jump.
She also placed sixth in the Class MM state championship meet.
“Being named captain of the basketball and track teams,” Reynolds said when asked what her highlight was. “That means a lot to me and I’m grateful for the opportunity to lead others and being an example to the younger kids on the team.”
Reynolds will be headed to UConn in the fall.
A man who is stepping back from the sidelines was named Woodstock Academy’s Coach of the Year for 2024. Boys’ hockey assistant coach Bob Donahue was honored as such.
“Speechless and for me, that’s unusual,” Donahue said when asked for his reaction after receiving the award. “It was a total surprise and I have been very honored to be a part of this program. I’ve done this for 45 years and doing this for the last 11 with this athletic department and the school has just been tremendous.”
Will he miss coaching? “Very much,” Donahue said. “But I told them they can’t get rid of me and I told (Coach Mark) Smolak that if he needs me – I will be there,” Donahue said.
Award winners:
Class of 2024 Senior Athletes of the Year: Reegan Reynolds, Lucas Theriaque; Centaur Awards: Eric Mathewson, Julia Coyle; Coach of the Year Award: Bob Donahue; Assistant Coach of the Year Award: Todd D’Alessandro; Centaur Nation Person of the Year Award: Cahan Quinn; Unified Sports Awards: Unified Athlete-Christopher Kirkconnell; Unified Partner- Tim O’Sullivan; Bertrand Golf Awards: Isabella Siwko, Blake Hudock; Clifford Spelman Tennis Sportsmanship Award: Ethan Staples; Alfred Warren Soccer Sportsmanship Awards: Addison Tyimok, Rebecca Nazer; 12-season Athletes: Julia Coyle, Joel Koleszar, Reegan Reynolds, Noah Sampson, Donny Sousa, Talia Tremblay; National Federation of State High School Associations Award of Excellence: Noah Sampson, Talia Tremblay; Connecticut High School Coaches Association Scholar-Athlete Awards: Jared Nielsen, Emma Massey; Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Scholar-Athlete Awards: Hunter Larson, Julia Coyle; Hannah Green Memorial Award: Leah Danis; Marvin M. Sherman Award: Donny Sousa; Evelyn and Arthur Weinmann Awards: Gavin Grant, Aiden Finch; John Suleski Jr. Most Improved Senior Golfer: Nick Sivertsen; John Suleski Jr. Most Valuable Senior Golfer: Donny Sousa; Athletic Department Awards: Delaney Anderson, Riley O’Brien, Lilly Verraneault, Peyton Bentley
Boys’ Golf
It was good to get there. The experience will pay dividends in the future.
Postseason golf is just not easy.
All of those rang true for the boys’ golf team this past week as not only did the team as a whole qualify for the Div. I state championship tournament but two of its members, senior Donny Sousa and junior Logan Rawson, became the first ever from the program to qualify, individually, for the State Open championship which was held on Friday.
 “It was fantastic, a really great experience for both Donny and Logan,” coach Rich Garceau said. “Maybe they didn’t score as well as they wanted to and I get that but they learned a lot from the experience.”
Garceau was proud of Rawson who had set a goal for himself at the beginning of the season to qualify for the State Open.
“It was something he really wanted and he worked hard, spent extra time at the golf course practicing, going to the range, working on his putting and it paid off. It’s great to see a young man set a goal and achieve it,” Garceau said.
Rawson will, hopefully, have another opportunity of playing in it again next season.
For Sousa, it was the last hurrah.
He carded an 86 in his final tournament in a Centaur uniform on the day before graduation on Friday.
“The score that he put up was very respectful and I think he had a feeling of accomplishment. He identifies himself as a hockey player, everyone knows that, and we do spend a couple of weeks early in the season trying to take the hockey out of his golf swing. He worked hard to get there and for a kid who sees himself not as a golfer, still to reach a high level of achievement, make it to the Open and he and Logan led the team to the state tournament – I have to take my hat off to him,” Garceau said.
The team, admittedly, was hoping for better at the CIAC Div. I golf championship just two days before the Open.
The Centaurs, who were seeded 10th, finished 14th in the field.
“Fairview Farms is a hard course especially if you haven’t played it,” Garceau said.
It was for that reason that Sousa and Rawson went out to Harwinton and played a practice round.
“It was really eye-opening to them and, to some degree, may have backfired on them. They realized it was a difficult course, one of the hardest they had played as Donny told me and they might have been a little more nervous than they should have been and some of the younger guys who had not been on the course, got those vibes,” Garceau added.
Rawson finished with an 81.
 “His putting has been decent. His lag putts have been giving him reasonable chances at par or birdie, his wedges had been suspect over the season. He was getting on the greens fine (at the championship) but with his putter, he was leaving it short or catching the lip (of the hole), had some putts dropped for him, he could have been in the mid-70’s,” Garceau said.
Sousa finished nine strokes back of Rawson with a 90 while Aidan O’Connor and Brady O’Brien both finished one stroke back of Sousa as the Centaurs totaled a 353.
“I did kind of sense the nervousness, anxiety when we got to the course and it played itself out on the course. But, the good thing, other than Donny (who is a senior); I asked ‘What did you learn in these tournaments on tough course?’ It wasn’t the skill part that was fine. It was the mental part because golf is a mental game when you are out there for four and five hours. I think the guys got a lot out of it from a psychological point of view and will take it into next season,” Garceau said.
Outdoor Track
Three members of the track program had top-10 finishes at the State Open Track Championship early last week.
Lilly Morgis led the way as she finished with a personal best throw of 113-feet, 2-inches to take seventh place in the discus.
“She’s gaining a lot of consistency there,” said girls’ track coach Josh Welch. “I know that in practice, she felt she was on the verge of a breakthrough. I think it’s coming still and, hopefully, in Nationals is where we will see it happen. She’s on the verge of something big.”
Juliet Allard placed ninth in the 300-meter hurdles and Christian Menounos was 10th in the boys’ 800m race.
Avery Plouffe finished in 11th place in the shotput.
“We’re struggling with keeping our focus into the long postseason stuff. There are more of us going to the Nationals and I’m trying to build some momentum around that. All in all, we got a slight personal best out of the 4x800m relay team (at the State Open), not bad. We were hoping for a breakout day in javelin but I think (the team) was fired up for (the ECC) championship and it takes a while to regroup. We didn’t keep the momentum up,” Welch said.
But the season is far from over.
In-state competition continues on Monday when the CIAC decathlon and pentathlon championships.
Eli Manning will compete in the decathlon and Jillian Edwards in the pentathlon.
Early this week, Kathryn Dobosz, Avery Plouffe, Chandler Folkerts, Michael Susi and Cayden Menor competed in the hammer throw championships.
On Tuesday, Colton Sallum, Sam Greene, Joel Koleszar and Harrison Durand competed in the CIAC Steeplechase championship.
Both events ended too late for this edition.
“I’m hoping we have some nice performances in steeplechase from Koleszar and Sallum, they could do well there and have a fun experience,” Welch said.
Thirteen athletes will then be flying out to Eugene, Ore., in the middle of the week for the National High School Championships.
Those competing in the Championship division include the 4x400m co-ed relay team of Talia Tremblay, Christian Menounos, Charlie Caggiano and Juliet Allard.
“I think they have a shot at All-American based on what entries are. It’s not a super-popular event but it’s a cool one,” Welch said.
Allard will also compete in the 400m hurdles with Plouffe in the championship division for the hammer.
The 4x400m team of Talia Tremblay, Reegan Reynolds, Juliet Allard and Emma Weitknecht will compete in the Emerging Elite Division.
“I think we’re going to break the school’s 4x400m relay record which will be great,” Welch said.
Also competing in the Emerging Elite will be Weitknecht, Allard, Elise Coyle and Ella Lidonde in the 4x100m relay; Tremblay, Julia Coyle, Isabel D’Alleva-Bochain and Olivia Tracy in the 4x800m relay; D’Alleva-Bochain in the javelin and Morgis in the discus.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy

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