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

‘I Couldn’t Feel The Joy, But I Do Now’: New Canaan’s Annette Ross Writes Her Love Story

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Life changed unexpectedly and irrevocably for Annette Ross in January of 2000. Just before the birth of her second child, Ross experienced a catastrophic spinal cord injury while receiving an epidural. The injury inhibited the use of her lower body and confined her to a wheelchair. A dream life that she shared with her husband Bill, living in New Canaan, appeared to have been shattered. In the nearly 17 years that followed, Ross’s life has taken twists and turns, many of which are shared in her new book, Where Fairy Tales Go: A Love Story.

Ex-Canaanites

‘Something Really Beautiful and Energizing’: NCHS ’09 Grad Valk Hitting All the Right Notes

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On the evening of Nov. 7, 2014, Laura Valk took to Stage One of the Rockwood Music Hall, a venue located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, to perform with her band Skout. And to perform music from her debut EP, set for a worldwide release the very next day, titled ‘Again Anew,’ to a live audience for the first time. A musician typically would have days—if not weeks—to prepare with her bandmates for such a pivotal moment. Yet as a result of crazy, hectic schedules, Valk only got to rehearse with them the night before. So with just one night’s practice and the band playing on a corner stage so small that its drummer had to play off to the side, Valk walked up to the mic, looked out at the about 70 people who filled the intimate, standing-room-only venue to capacity, and played the first note of her musical career.

Ex-Canaanites

’69 NCHS Grad Jeff Caldwell on Coach Sikorski, Lenny Pags and New Canaan of Old

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Here’s what NCHS ’73 grad Brian Sikorski—standout NCHS Rams football player and son of legendary New Canaan High School varsity coach Joe Sikorski—told me about a player just a few years older than he. Though Brian Sikorski never played with Jeff Caldwell, he went to all of his dad’s games and loved watching the hard-hitting safety and linebacker. “Jeff Caldwell was an assassin,” Brian Sikorski said. “Jeff Caldwell used to lead with his head and was one of the hardest-hitting players who ever played at New Canaan High School. Jeff Caldwell was the real deal.

Ex-Canaanites

Video Tributes Pour In for New Canaan High School’s Ray Parry

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It’s been about five weeks since Tim Parry put out a call for happy birthday video tributes to his dad, Ray—a New Canaan High School science teacher from 1959 to 1990 (and for stretches assistant football coach, equipment manager and head of ticket operations) who’s grown increasingly isolated these past four years after losing a child, grandchild and wife. What came back (full video below) were 27 tributes from former students and colleagues—some funny, some touching, and at least one highly revealing. In her video, fellow New Canaan High School 1987 grad Emily Jordhamo—daughter of retired NCHS teacher Tony Jordhamo—recalls that Ray let her use his own son (Tim’s) car to pass her driver’s test way back when. “I never knew that this happened, and as god is my witness, that is probably the closest I have ever come to having a girl in my car when I was in high school,” Parry told NewCanaanite.com. Here’s the video, story continues below:
Ray Parry’s 85th birthday tribute (full video)
 

Videos include clips from Rams head football coach Lou Marinelli, New Canaan fixture Mark “2-5-0” Rearick, and students from the 1960s through the ‘80s.