Around Town

New Canaan High School Grad Marks 20 Years as Weatherman at NBC Affiliate

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Rich Caniglia has always been fascinated by the weather. 

At five or six years old, the 1993 New Canaan High School graduate recalled, he would run from window to window in his family’s home whenever it snowed. Cable television arrived when Caniglia was around seven, and while other children watched cartoons and sports, he remembered watching the weather channel all day. “Well, I’d watch the Yankees games,” he admitted. Caniglia recently celebrated his 20th anniversary as the morning weatherman for the WHEC news network in Rochester, N.Y.

It wasn’t until he went to Cornell University to study atmospheric physics that Caniglia met other people as interested in weather as him. “I don’t know if it’s something people are born with—an infatuation with the weather,” he said.

Around Town

Waveny Summer Concerts a Success Despite ‘Weather Roulette’; Wednesday’s Show Postponed to Thursday

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Despite unpredictable weather—including a poor forecast that postponed Wednesday’s installment to Thursday—the town’s annual Waveny Summer Concert Series has once again been a great success this year, according to Recreation Director Steve Benko. Held on the lawn out back of Waveny House, the event is “a fun family night out,” Benko said. 

“A lot of people will get together with friends…they have a conversation, listen to the music, and have a nice time under the stars,” he added. The series has been running in some form for nearly 40 years, Benko said. It started out as a collaboration with Manhattan-based Music Performance Trust Fund, and has since evolved into a 12-concert summer series featuring a variety of local and area musicians. Sponsors this year include Rand Insurance Co., Hobbs Inc., Kaster Moving Company, the New Canaan Board of Realtors and Karl Chevrolet.

Eileen Pickering

‘It’s Bittersweet’: Career New Canaan Firefighter Jim Pickering Retiring

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Town native Jim Pickering, a 1980 New Canaan High School graduate, recalls the exact day he started as a New Canaan firefighter. 

It was July 3, 1989, and Pickering was 27. “The fire department is a brotherhood,” Pickering told NewCanaanite.com Monday. “I have made some great friendships over the years.” At the end of this month, Pickering will retire as a firefighter after 30 years of service with the New Canaan Fire Department—an agency he was inspired by his own family members to join. “My dad was a volunteer, and my uncle—my dad’s brother—was a career firefighter for the town of New Canaan,” he said.

Around Town

NCHS Senior Interns Continue in Town Hall Positions After Graduation

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Before starting his New Canaan High School Senior Internship in the Department of Public Works, Kevin O’Brien Brunner said he never thought about how the town ran. “I just assumed that things happened,” Brunner said on a sunny afternoon last week. “Being able to actually work here, I not only get to see what’s behind the curtain—how it actually runs—but I also get to meet the real people with real lives who are making it run,” he said. The NCHS Senior Internship Program has grown in its nine years that nearly all seniors participate in it. What’s more rare is for those college-bound teens to work the summer after graduating NCHS at their internship sites.

Around Town

‘A Safe Place To Nest’: Local Teen’s Project Aims To Help New Canaan Bats

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A local teen’s Girl Scout Gold Award project has seen the creation and installation of nesting habitats in three New Canaan parks for a largely misunderstood and threatened mammal. Celia Sokolowski, a 2019 graduate from New Canaan High School has hung five bat houses in trees at Kiwanis, Mead and Waveny Parks. 

A Girl Scout since the first grade, Sokolowski completed the project for her Gold Award, the highest achievement possible in the organization. To receive a Gold Award, candidates must complete 80 hours of service, Sokolowski said. She added that the project must be sustainable, and it must educate the public on an issue the candidate is passionate about. Sokolowski, who is headed to Indiana University in the fall to study business, had the idea to hang the bat houses after taking an AP environmental science class during her senior year at NCHS.