Alison Benusis, Miss Teen Connecticut 1990
Firefighters from Ridgefield and neighboring towns worked for three hours 25 years ago to extinguish a blaze that caused a half-million dollars in damage to a Main Street mansion, the Nov. 29, 1990, Press reported.
Workers accidentally set the fire while using a propane torch to seal joints on a new slate roof being installed at the house on the corner of Main and King Lane, the old “King Homestead.”
“In the past year or so, it’s the biggest fire we’ve had,” said fire Chief Richard Nagle.
Projecting a need for 12 more elementary classrooms in the next five years, a school board committee suggested four options worth more study: reopening Branchville School, then used for school board offices; buying back and reopening Barlow Mountain School, then empty and under foreclosure as the former Ridgefield Family Y; reorganizing the school system’s grade structure; and building additions on the schools currently in use.
Alison Benusis was crowned Miss Connecticut Teen USA at the annual pageant in New Haven and was to compete in the national pageant in August 1991, televised on CBS. A year earlier, Alison was named Connecticut’s Miss Teen All American. Her sister, Jennifer, represented Connecticut in the Miss USA Pageant in Florida in 1986.
A proposed town ordinance would fine people $50 for a third offense of failing to recycle trash, and $100 for each time after that. A hearing was set for early December.
Charles Creamer was re-elected chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals, a post he’d held since 1972. “Does anybody want it?” Mr. Creamer asked before calling for a vote. His query was met with silence.
Describing itself in a big advertisement as “Ridgefield’s largest and newest self-serve gasoline station,” Kovacs Quality Gasoline was scheduled to open the next week at the junction of routes 7 and 35. The 24/7 station would offer regular unleaded at $1.39 a gallon, cash. “Coming soon: Kovacs Quality Automobiles, 100% guaranteed used cars.”
Citytrust bank was offering one-year CDs at 8.50%.
“The deer has not been programmed by nature to hurt, steal, maim, or abuse,” said Maureen Glaser of Indian Cave Road in a letter to The Press, opposing hunting. “Let’s not credit him with the mental prowess to make a decision to destroy a garden. We all know it is true, however, that we are overdeveloping the land and forcing the animals ever closer to what we think is our property. Or could it be that we are coming ever closer to theirs?”
Anonymous donors gave $1,000 to Farmingville School “in appreciation of the outstanding dedication to the teaching profession consistently demonstrated by Ms. Karla Zmuda.” The honored teacher, who had to decide how the money would be best spent, told the board she would buy “manipulatives” used to teach math to third graders.
“I haven’t had a glass of water in 60 years,” said Tom Clark, who was marking his 86th birthday. “I use lots of butter, eat meat with plenty of fat and use plenty of salt and pepper.”
Rabbi Jon Haddon of Temple Shearith Israel was scheduled to sing songs from the Hebrew liturgy at St. Stephen’s Church’s next Tuesday noonday concert.
In a letter to the state, the Board of Selectmen said the proposed new Super 7 expressway between Danbury and Norwalk would “create noise, eliminate some wetlands, decrease deeded open space, establish an undeniably visible presence, and lower property values.”
Subway opened its first Ridgefield shop at 416 Main Street that week, under the management of Kevin Kerrigan of West Lane, co-owner with attorney Richard Fricke.
Lynelle Faircloth of Indian Cave Road was the new owner of the Ridgefield General Store and Cafe at Copps Hill Common.
50 years ago
Henry Luce, subject of derogatory signs in 1965.
Engineers from the state highway department revealed their plans for three interchanges in the Ridgefield-Redding portion of the proposed new Route 7, the Dec. 2, 1965, Press reported. One would be in Branchville at Route 102, another on existing Route 7 just south of Florida Hill Road in Ridgefield, and a third at the Redding-Danbury town line, with a lead road coming from Ridgefield.
Three out-of-state young men, including two 17-year-olds, were arrested for breach of the peace after they erected threatening signs at the Great Hill Road home of Henry Luce, the founder of Time-Life Inc. The anti-Vietnam war signs said, “Kill Luce,” “We’re Going to Get Him,” and “Our Country Is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.” Time supported the U.S. policy in Vietnam.
Paul Hampden resigned as the new secretary of the Planning and Zoning Commission, saying the commission needed the services of a “full-time executive officer,” such as a town planner.
Morganti Inc. was the low bidder on a project to convert the largely vacant second story of the town hall into offices. The firm was headed by Paul J. Morganti, who also happened to be a selectman. He absented himself from the bid opening, attended by the other two selectmen.
Ridgefield Supply was selling a Proven reversible electric screwdriver for $29.95 ($222 in today’s dollars) and a Proven sabre saw for $24.95.
“To Kill with Love” was the name of a new group, formed that week by Mrs. Paul Rasmussen of Stony Hill Road, to combat communism in Vietnam and elsewhere in the world. Starting with a handful of her neighbors, she planned to ask for donations of clothing, shoes, books, old sheets for bandages, toys, and more to send to civilians in Vietnam. “She would also like to have cheerful letters, comic drawings of happenings here, and fruitcake and other well-traveling foods to send to American soldiers fighting in Vietnam,” the story said.
Christopher Occhuizzo, son of Mr. and Mrs. James Occhuizzo of Mallory Hill Road, was a sophomore at Lake Forest (Ill.) College, majoring in biology.
Robert Wilder was elected president of the Ridgefield Board of Realtors.—J.S.
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