Brown honors Light It Up co-chairs with bleacher plaques

Tue, 04/10/2018 - 9:30am

Larry Brown dipped into the past this week by organizing a brief ceremony to honor two community-minded men. As he has done before to honor local people, Brown had plaques made from the discarded wooden Boothbay Region High School bleachers to honor the co-chairs of the Light It Up committee, Pat Farrin and Tom Nickerson.

Farrin and Nickerson spearheaded a group which, in a relatively short period of time, raised over $100,000 to put lights on Sherman Field in 2002.

Brown organized the ceremony, which was held in the BRHS library Monday, April 9. Among the approximately 30 people in attendance, besides the honorees, were Farrin’s and Nickerson’s family members and friends, members of the Light It Up fundraising and work committees, the daughters of the late Ron Calhoun, for whom the project was dedicated – Karen, Jeanne and Judy – and four senior members of the 2017 BRHS football team, which won the Class E championship last November.

Nickerson, who headed up the fundraising for the lights, talked briefly about how the project got funded, especially after July 4, 2002 when only about $5,000 had been raised. A couple of large donations shortly after the holiday got the money rolling in, along with sales of banners, hat sales and other fundraising projects.

Farrin spoke about how the community came together on the project and the volunteers who came forward to help.

Brown, who was a member of the Light It Up committee, put together a display of the newspaper articles which followed the progress of the project, a project poster, one of the Light It Up hats, and he thanked the school cafeteria for making the cake which was served following the presentation. Brown also presented Farrin with a photo taken of the group gathered for the ground-breaking ceremony.