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Topsfield Town Hall Ribbon Cutting Ceremony, Saturday, October 20th, 2018 Remarks by Mark Lyons

Page history last edited by Topsfield Town Library 3 years, 11 months ago

Topsfield Town Hall Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Saturday, October 20th, 2018

 

On behalf of your Board of Selectman, a welcome to all and a most sincere thank you to every person who has contributed in their own way to this remarkable accomplishment - to this Town-wide achievement. I will defer to the esteemed Speaker who follows to further detail those thanks, but please allow me to emphasize that our appreciation is heartfelt and intended for all.

 

I have, however, been allowed to specifically extend particular appreciation to those who have served on one or more incarnation of our Town Hall Building Committees. If I omit anyone it is certainly inadvertent. 

 

One score and several years ago, your Selectmen formed the Town Hall Evaluation Study Committee.

 

Read all prior Town Hall Building Committees starting with oldest. See attached.

           

It must be noted that Ben Nutter not only has devoted his entire adult life to Town Hall, but if you are not aware, clearly placed that life at risk, by personally scaling the heights of the structure to place our traditional weathervane. The True embodiment of the Topsfield spirit.

 

 It has been a long and winding road that brings us to this historic day in our Town. I must pause for a moment or two with an historical perspective.  As many of you are aware, your Town Hall was born in 1873, not long after the conclusion of the American Civil War.  Ulysses S. Grant was serving as President. After searching for a memorable Grant quote, I quickly saw, he was not really our most quotable President. Reading such inspiring remarks as “It will be all right if it turns out all right”, and “I know only two tunes: one is Yankee Doodle, and the other isn’t”, I turned in another direction.  Realizing that Samuel Clemens was a renowned political commentator back in that day, I offer his relevant advice: “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow”, Necessity is the mother of taking chances”, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started”, and “Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest”. Bringing us to somewhat more recent times, the words of President John Kennedy come to mind: “Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.  Let us not seek to fix blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

 

Please share in our vision that your accessible Town Hall will become the home for expanded programming for our older residents, enhanced service delivery to our Veterans, cultural performances in our recaptured Public Hall, creative multi-generational events of the COA and the neighboring Proctor School community. 

 

This has been from the beginning, and continues to be, as our former Selectman Joe Iarocci often said, Topsfield Working Together.

 

Thank you for coming.  Thank you for contributing to this project in whatever way you have chosen.

 


 References / Further Reading

 

Lyons, Mark. 2018 October 20. Topsfield Town Hall Ribbon Cutting Ceremony (speech). Topsfield Town Hall Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. Topsfield, MA. [Used by permission of the author. A printed copy may be found in the Topsfield Town Library Vertical File.]

 

 


Contents

Topsfield Times: A Community and Local History Resource

WKT

 

 

 

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