World Class Musicians in our Backyard

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The musicians for the Buzzards Bay Musicfest come from around the country and, indeed, around the world. They perform in the finest concert halls, opera houses and ballet theaters while continuing to collaborate with world-class artists that make their experiences unique and profound. From the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to the recording studios of Hollywood, the biographies of these players are remarkable and will astound you with their accomplishments and musical pedigree.

            Charles Stegeman, Concertmaster, Artistic Director, violin, is the co-founder of the Buzzards Bay Musicfest as well as the Sunflower Music Festival. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (accepted at the age of 14) and the Juilliard School, with a bachelor’s and master’s degree, respectively. Mr. Stegeman has performed for approximately five million people on four continents in a performance career that spans five decades, averaging approximately 70 concerts a year for the last 50 years, performing concerts nationally and internationally as soloist, concertmaster and chamber musician and is internationally sought after as a teacher and master clinician.

            Antony Walker, Guest Conductor, is Music Director of Pittsburgh Opera and Artistic Director of Washington Concert Opera in D.C. Since making his debut in Sydney, Australia in 1992, Maestro Walker has conducted over 100 operas, as well as large scale choral orchestra/symphonic works with companies and orchestras in Australia, the U.S., Asia, the UK, and Europe. He has led operatic performances for The Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, Opera Australia, Opera di Firenze, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Welsh National Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Santa Fe Opera, and New York City Opera, amongst others. Symphonic engagements include a recent debut with the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, as well as the Orchestre Colonne in Paris, Orchestra of the Antipodes, Sinfonia Australis, Melbourne Symphony, and Orchestra Victoria. Maestro Walker is also the founding Artistic Director and now Conductor Emeritus of the award-winning Pinchgut Opera in Sydney.

            The Buzzards Bay Musicfest is a series of five concerts, all free admission, from July 10 through July 14, in the Fireman Performing Arts Center on the campus of Tabor Academy, 245 Front St., Marion. For more detailed information, please visit: www.buzzardsbaymusicfest.com.

Mattapoisett Band

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Summer has arrived. Mattapoisett’s Town Band will begin concerts in Shipyard Park on July 3 at 7 pm. Concerts will continue on subsequent Wednesday nights through July and August. In the meantime, rehearsal will take place on June 26 from 7:00 to 8:30 pm for all members and new members are welcome.

Park Lane Extension Tabled

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            Coming before the Mattapoisett Planning Board on June 17 were property owner Andris Rieksts

and his representative David Davignon of Schneider, Davignon & Leone, Inc. In filing a Form J request, Rieksts sought to have one of several lots, part of a subdivision situated at the private end of Park Street now known as Park Lane Extension Estates, released for construction.

            Citing the amount of work completed thus far, the request before the board asked for the lot currently held as roadway surety to be released, giving the lot owner the opportunity to begin construction. But immediately following Davignon’s statements in support of the request, the board questioned the completeness of the project.

            Read into the minutes was a letter from town-hired, peer-review engineer Field Engineering in which retaining walls were described as eroded and in a dangerous state of disrepair. It was further noted that there is $45,000 of road work yet to be completed.

            Highway Surveyor Garrett Bauer confirmed that the walls were not stabilized, which is creating a public safety hazard. “The retaining walls and guard rails need to be constructed,” said Bauer.

            Board member John Mathieu said, “I don’t think this is far enough along, it’s not close to being done.” He concluded he could not support the request at this time. However, when he brought up other forms of surety to Rieksts, a solution seemed to evolve.

            Mathieu offered, “There are other forms of surety. One is lots, two is a bond, three is a letter of credit and four is cash.”

            Rieksts said he could come up with an acceptable surety other than lots. The request saw no affirmative or negative action by the board.

            In other business, a Form A, Approval Not Required (ANR) request for the adjustment of existing lot lines to give a small portion of an existing lot to an adjoining family member was approved. The applicant was Almeida Living Trust, Karen Almeida, Ocean Drive.

            Also submitting a Form A, ANR request was Jeffrey Dunn for the creation of four lots on Angelica Avenue, each measuring 30,000 square feet and meeting frontage requirements. The request was approved.

            The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Planning Board is tentatively scheduled for Monday, July 1, at 7:00 pm.

Mattapoisett Planning Board

By Marilou Newell

George J. Edwards Jr.

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George J. Edwards Jr., 70, of Mattapoisett passed away on Tuesday June 18, 2024 after complications with cancer. Born September 2, 1953 in New Bedford, George was the son of George Sr. and Lorraine Edwards and brother to Douglas Edwards and the late Shawn Edwards. George is survived by his wife of 32 years, Carla Edwards; his children, Rory Edwards, Justine Racheotes, and Sarah Fuller; his granddaughters Miri, Laina, Lola, and Cleo, and his former wife Erica Nelson.


George is also survived by many great friends, including the Coucci family, the Hughes family, and the Wilbur family.


George enjoyed hunting, fishing, walking in the woods, taking drives around Mattapoisett to the dock and Town Landing, doing crosswords, antiquing, and watching classic movies with his wife. For many years George worked for Brownell Systems, where he met Carla, and retired from Brodeur Machine Company after more than 20 years.


The family will host visiting hours Monday June 24, 2024 from 4 – 8 pm at Saunders-Dwyer Mattapoisett Home For Funerals at 50 County Road in Mattapoisett. If you knew George, he didn’t like these things – he was a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy – so please come as you are. For directions and guestbook, visit www.saundersdwyer.com.

Old Hammondtown Hires New Principal

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Superintendent Michael S. Nelson is pleased to announce Stephanie Wells’s appointment as the new principal of the Old Hammondtown School. Wells will begin the position on July 1 and will replace retiring principal Kevin Tavares.

            Wells was selected following a comprehensive search and interview process that included input from multiple stakeholders, including Old Hammondtown School faculty and staff, parents, community members and administrators.

            “On behalf of the entire district, I would like to congratulate Stephanie Wells and welcome her to the Old Rochester Regional School District and MA Superintendency Union #55 community,” said Superintendent Nelson. “Stephanie has proven to be a dedicated and resourceful educational leader through her previous work experience, and I am confident in her ability to take on this role.”

            Wells, a Plymouth native, comes to Mattapoisett from Rockland Public Schools where she served as assistant principal since 2022. During her time as assistant principal, Wells collaborated with school administration to help open a new elementary school, combine three schools into one and implement the school’s new systems. In addition to these responsibilities, Wells maintained daily administrative operations of the elementary schools in the absence of elementary school principals.

            Prior to her role in Rockland, Wells served as assistant principal for Taunton Public Schools.

            In 1995, she began her career in education as a first-grade teacher at Scituate Public Schools before joining Plymouth Public Schools as a kindergarten teacher in 2007 and as a technology integration specialist in 2013.

            She holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University, a Master of Education in elementary education from Bridgewater State College and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study (CAGS) from the University of New England.

            “I am honored and excited to have been chosen as the next principal of Old Hammondtown School,” said Wells. “I am eager to meet and connect with staff, students and families in the coming months. Together, we will begin the process of getting to know one another and exploring how I can best support this incredible community that has such a strong commitment to student success.”

Mattapoisett Road Race Student Awards

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The Mattapoisett Road Race Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 college stipends. Since the first race in 1971, over $200, 000 has been awarded to college bound ORR student athletes.

            This year’s award recipients are John Butler, Sara Costa, Murray Callahan and Aubrey Heise of Mattapoisett, Sara Kroll of Marion, Hunter Bishop, Dylan Durgin and Nathaniel Bangs of Rochester, Kamryn Rodrigues of Fairhaven, Amber Engel of Acushnet and Alexia Gonsalves of Wareham. Receiving the Bob Gardner Award, named for the founding father of the Road Race, is Tyler Young of Marion. We congratulate these students and wish them well in their college studies.

            There’s still time to register online for the “4 on the 4th” Mattapoisett Road Race at runsignup.com/Race/MA/Mattapoisett/MattapoisettRoadRace. Registration is also available on July 3 from 4-6 pm and July 4 from 7:30-8:30. The fee for in-person registration is $35 (cash or check).

Bylaws on Town Meeting Timeline

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Rochester’s Personnel Board Tuesday began reviewing its bylaw language revisions under wage ranges, categories and steps within the FY25 Classification and Compensation Plan that was approved by the May 13 Annual Town Meeting.

            Chairman Kristine Nash said the goal is to have all of the board’s revisions to the new Classification and Compensation Plan ready to be voted on at the fall Special Town Meeting set for October 21. None of their revisions will be formally approved until then, she said.

            The main revision the board agreed to on June 18 was wording clarifying that as of July 1, Step pay increases will no longer be linked to the periodic evaluations of an employee’s job performance. Rather, they will be based on that person’s work experience.

            Nash said this needs to be the new rule because the board has learned that departments in the past have inconsistently conducted these evaluations. Some have not been conducting employee evaluations at all, she said, “or just phoned them in,” she said. “And that’s a problem because evaluations used to be the basis for step increases.”

            In a related issue, Nash said she will bring to the board’s next (July 1) meeting a draft memorandum updating department heads on the board’s changes to the town’s personnel bylaws. She said she has learned that within the past two years since the board began its work in October of 2022, town departments have not been kept informed as to the new bylaw regulation they will need to be following.

            “None of this has been communicated to town departments,” Nash said. “It’s time to do that.” She said this memorandum will include the FY25 Classification and Compensation Plan that was approved by the May 13 Annual Town Meeting as an attachment.

            The board also approved its revised job description for the position of Executive Assistant to the Select Board and the Town Administrator, and it said it will be reviewing the final candidate for that position at its July 1 meeting. This move follows upon Executive Assistant Amanda Baptiste’s resignation announcement, effective Friday, June 21.

            The board’s timeline for its bylaw revisions is as follows: It will complete final review of the bylaw language by the end of July and send these revisions to the town attorney for review. It will review the attorney’s edits in August and bring the revisions to a vote at the fall Special Town Meeting.

            The Personnel Board’s next meeting will be held on Monday, July 1, at 6:30 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.

Rochester Personnel Board

By Michael J. DeCicco

Raj Receives Warm Welcome, Encouraging News

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            Happy, blessed and grateful were words repeated on Saturday at a homecoming for Rajesh Shahi, who came back to Boston recently to check on his back after so many have banded together for him over the last three decades to relieve him of a back deformity.

            People in Mattapoisett, Marion and the Boston area gathered at the Quaker Friends Meeting House to welcome Shahi and celebrate his medical and personal successes in life.

            Shahi, in the early 1990s, was destined for a life of poverty as a beggar with a hunchback – until a special village in Massachusetts came to the rescue.

            He had a spinal curvature issue – kyphoscoliosis – that made his back resemble a turtle shell, and with no access to proper medical care in Kathmandu, Nepal.

            Thanks to the community in Mattapoisett and medical staff in Boston, Shahi, now approaching 44, is a successful director of a school in Nepal, where he now pays it forward by helping children in need.

            Shahi returned to the area in 2009 for a recheck. In recent years, he had been feeling back pain, so Johanna Duponte-Williams, who took Shahi into her home in the 1990s, helped to raise money for him to return to Massachusetts and have a computer tomography (CT) scan conducted on his back, which is held in place by a steel rod.

            It turns out that Shahi’s back is doing well, and the back pain comes from his riding around in a scooter through the bumpy roads of Kathmandu. The medical team recommended some regular stretching exercises, and it does not appear that he will need surgery.

            “It helped me to relieve myself (of fear) and go back to my family and children and school,” Shahi said on Saturday.

            “Raj is really a special person. He has been put on this earth to do work for children of Kathmandu,” Duponte-Williams said.

            Duponte-Williams and others raised well over $6,000 for Shahi’s return and recheck at New England Baptist Hospital.

            Peter Anas, a doctor who helped lead Shahi’s medical team over the years – including his first eight-hour procedure in 1993 – was at Shahi’s celebration on Saturday.

            “This is a poor boy from the street,” Anas said of Shahi when he first came to the area in the early 1990s. “Now he is an administrator at the school, and he has his kids of his own. … He is one of our most rewarding patients.”

            While Shahi expressed his own gratitude, many gathered to express their own thanks of how Shahi has helped bring a piece of Nepal to Massachusetts and how he has touched so many lives here.

            Peter Fortin, a former principal at Old Post Road School in Walpole, said that when Shahi returned in 2009, he spoke to several classes about his life in Nepal. Fortin said that Old Post Road School became a sister school with Shahi’s, and money was raised to support Shahi’s school.

            Robin Motyka, a liaison to Shahi’s medical team, couldn’t say enough about how much Shahi touched the lives of her family and those around him in Massachusetts. Motyka’s son convinced his school to allow him in 2008 to do a project on Nepal, a country that is not often featured for that social studies capstone project.

            Shahi stepped in by sending books, conducting interviews with Motyka’s son and even sending him traditional clothing. Motyka said the project raised so much awareness, and Shahi’s time here was a learning experience.

            Shahi stayed in Motyka’s home during his 2009 visit and woke up in the middle of the night when he heard the crashing of a garbage truck. Motyka said that Shahi had never seen one – serving as a reminder of how poor Nepal is and how sanitation practices are substandard.

            Motyka also treated Shahi to trips to Fenway Park, Gillette’s Stadium and TD Garden, where he saw an ice rink for the first time.

            Shahi has always found ways to express his gratitude and spent the afternoon shaking hands, giving hugs and even reuniting with classmates that he met 30 years ago at Old Hammondtown Elementary School in Mattapoisett.

            On Saturday, he helped culminate his happy homecoming with a Buddhist prayer of thanks.

By Jeffrey D. Wagner

UCT Student Brings IT Training to Marion

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Marion Town Administrator Geoff Gorman shares that Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School senior Adam Ouellette assisted Town Hall staff this school year through the school’s Co-Op Information Technology program.

            Ouellette started in September 2023 on the IT Help Desk. His daily responsibilities included checking with staff members to make sure their devices were working appropriately. Ouellette would assist anyone experiencing small or large technology issues during the workday, such as fixing a printer to larger issues of configuration and installation of a new PC.

            Ouellette was the Town Hall staff’s point of contact for certain IT challenges.

            “Adam is a vital part of our IT Department and is the first line of defense for trouble calls, hardware and software updates and proactive monitoring of our systems,” said Town Administrator Gorman. “He is also our liaison with a third-party escalation team that assists with complex issues.”

            “I enjoy every second of working at the Help Desk,” said Ouellette. “Every day I learn something new, and that’s not just in the IT side of things – there is something rewarding about this sense of responsibility and being able to own up to it and being relied on. Everyone here is so nice and welcoming that it took me almost no time at all to get acclimated. All in all, my short time here at the Town Hall has been eye opener into what can wait for me outside of high school.”

            Ouellette added, “My aspiration in life is to create something for all to enjoy. When I say that I refer to something that can have a positive impact on someone, something that is able to put a smile on a face.”

            After graduation, Ouellette plans to attend college and study Computer Sciences to hone his programming skills.

St. Philip’s Begins 140th Season

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Since 1884 St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, next to the Town Beach in Mattapoisett, has been hosting visiting clergy each week through the summer season staring June 30 and ending September 1.

            All are welcome to attend the 8:00 am and 10:00 am services which use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

June 30 – The Rev. Robert Malm, Interim Rector St. Peter’s on the Canal, Buzzards Bay, MA

July 7 – The Rev. Benjamin Strayley, Rector St. Stephen’s Church, Providence, RI

July 14 – The Rev. William Locke, Assisting Priest St. Stephen’s Church, Providence, RI

July 21 – The Rev. Nathan Humphrey, St. Thomas’s Church, Toronto, Canada

July 28 – The Rev. Marc Eames, Priest-in-Charge St. John’s Church, Vernon, CT

August 4 – The Rev. Robert Malm, Interim Rector

August 11 – The Rev. Benjamin Strayley

August 25 – The Rev. Jeffrey Paull Cave, Retired Diocese of Atlanta, GA

Sept. 1 – The Rev. Jeffrey Paull Cave

Sept 1 – Hymn Sing Evening