News

PHOTOS: New Canaan High School Junior Pre-Prom 2014 at Mead Park

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About 50 Junior Prom-bound New Canaan teens gathered for photos, a bite to eat and a pre-prom mixer at the Mead Park colonnade Friday evening. Parents armed with cameras had the high school students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, pose for group, couple and individual photos on a clear, cool evening just hours after town officials had planted a new sycamore by Mead Pond about 25 yards away to mark Arbor Day in New Canaan. For this photo gallery, hover over a photo for caption information or to pause the slideshow (article continues below):

[acx_slideshow name=”Pre NCHS Junior Prom 2014 at Mead Park”]

 

For junior Julia Diaz, the prom itself is old hat—she’d been to Junior Prom as a freshman and Senior Prom as a sophomore—though this was her first pre-prom gathering. “There are so many people I don’t know. It’s kind of awkward,” she said with a laugh.

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.

News

Heroin and New Canaan, Part 1 of 3: Tracing and Defining a Problem

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Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a three-part series. The final two parts can be found here:

Heroin and New Canaan, Part 2 of 3: Parenting
Heroin and New Canaan, Part 3 of 3: ‘Reach Out to a Person’

 

No one died from a heroin overdose in town in 2013, data from state officials tells us, yet the drug for many reasons has become increasingly prevalent in recent years—in New Canaan and most everywhere else around here, officials say. Rising with an epidemic in prescription drug abuse that’s largely rooted in a critical change in how the medical field started viewing and treating pain—in fact, heroin pharmacologically is identical to legal, prescribed opioids, physicians say—the drug’s availability and use has become one area of focus for professionals here who deal with all aspects of substance abuse. Though heroin overdoses in New Canaan thankfully haven’t been fatal in the past year, use and even overdoses are occurring, said Jacqueline D’Louhy, assistant director of youth services with the town’s Department of Human Services, an employee in the municipal agency for about nine years. Asked to characterize what she’s seen in local heroin use, D’Louhy said: “New Canaan does not have a death from heroin per se, but we have gotten close.

Local People

Honoring a New Canaan Teacher: A Tribute to Mr. Parry

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Tim Parry, 44, began to see his father differently—through the eyes of his schoolmates—after arriving at New Canaan High School as a freshman in the late-1980s. By then his dad, Ray Parry, was approaching 30 years teaching science at the high school, including stints as an assistant football coach and equipment manager there. “I came to see a whole different world,” Tim recalled on a recent afternoon. “A world of people that he had done things for. I started to hear, ‘Your dad meant this and that to me,’ ‘I wouldn’t have got into college if not for your dad,’ ‘He pulled me aside and gave me something to read and it changed my life.’ ”

The elder Parry will turn 85 on April 12 and Tim has a special plan to mark the day: Gather videos from former students and colleagues telling his dad what he’s meant to them, and combine the clips in a digital tribute reel (instructions on how to participate can be found at end of this article).

News

Letter from NCHS Principal: ‘Technology for Learning’

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[Editor’s Note: The following letter was submitted on behalf of Bryan Luizzi, Ed.D, Principal, New Canaan High School.]

Without question, we have entered into a technological age that has changed the way we live, work, and learn. Thanks to the rapid explosion of personal, mobile devices and the seeming ubiquity of wireless coverage, we are now a part of an interconnected world – with its benefits and banes – no matter where we go. The rapidity of this infusion of mobile technology into our lives is unprecedented. Consider, for instance, that it took 75 years for the telephone to reach 50 million users; 38 years for Radio; television took just 13 years; and, remarkably, it took only 3 years for Apple to sell 67 million iPhones (MIT Technology Review, 2012). And that’s just the hardware!