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SPORTS
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Boys soccer shapes up for another solid year
IN THIS ISSUE
ON THE WATER
AdventureSail celebrates 25 years
‘Keeping the soul of it’ Page 13
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MARBLEHEAD, MA PERMIT NO. 25
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August 30, 2023
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VOLUME 1, ISSUE NO. 38
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MARBLEHEADCURRENT.ORG
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ON SOCIAL @MHDCURRENT
SCHOOL NEWS
Committee sets interim super search dates BY LEIGH BLANDER After a soggy summer, school begins again on Tuesday, Sept. 5, for students in grades 1-12. Kindergarteners and pre-K students get a reprieve until Thursday, Sept. 7. Teachers were back in class preparing on Aug. 29. There are changes this fall, including free lunch for all
students thanks to funding in the state budget. Also, students at the Veterans School can expect bigger classes after a jump in enrollment there.
Search for interim superintendent Another change is at the very top of the district. Former superintendent John Buckey left on Aug. 2 after a controversial
agreement with the School Committee. In addition to the nearly $175,000 given to Buckey to leave, a public records request by the Current shows that attorney fees for the district in July alone totalled more than $7,700. That does not include the final two days of negotiations (Aug. 1 and 2), or the two-and-a-halfhour public meeting in August,
attended by an attorney for the district. The position of interim superintendent has been posted to several education job sites, including SchoolSpring. At an Aug. 24 meeting, School Committee Chair Sarah Fox announced several deadlines in the search for an interim superintendent. The first is September 4 by when parents
COP CAMP
K-9s a big hit at CSI summer program for kids
and teachers need to submit letters of interest if they want to serve on the screening committee that will recommend final candidates to the full School Committee. Parents should email letters of interest to Chair Sarah Fox at Fox.Sarah@marbleheadschools. org. One parent will be chosen to SCHOOLS, P. A5
Ex-Pleon Yacht Club director faces child porn charge BY WILLIAM J. DOWD Pleon Yacht Club, a Marblehead nonprofit that runs summer sailing programs for kids and teenagers, said in a Friday morning email that a former program director was arrested last week in Virginia on a child pornography charge dating to November 2022. Kieran O’Connell, who oversaw Pleon’s summer programs in 2020 and 2021, was arrested Sunday in Saluda, Virginia, and charged with one count of possession of child pornography, Pleon’s Board members David Romagnoli and Celia Dressel wrote in a statement. “We have been in contact with the appropriate sheriff’s office in Virginia,” Dressel and Romagnoli wrote. “The sheriff’s investigator has informed us that, while their CHARGES, P. A4
PLUGGING IN CURRENT PHOTO / LEIGH BLANDER
Essex County Sheriff’s Department K-9 Ryder sniffs out fake drugs in Marblehead Police Chief Dennis King’s pocket.
BY LEIGH BLANDER Imagine your camp counselor is the town’s police chief and you spend your summer days cracking cases and watching K-9s sniff out contraband. Sounds like a movie, right? But that’s what last week was like for kids in the Crime Scene Investigation camp run by Rec & Parks and Marblehead Police. “I loved learning about fingerprinting and seeing the K-9 unit,” said camper Hazell Wright, 12. “I learned lots of new things, like that
officers can adopt their dogs for $1 when the dogs retire.” (Most police dogs serve for five to 10 years.) Jasper Gold, 11, liked seeing what’s on a police officer’s belt. “It has a baton, a taser, a firearm and pepper spray,” he explained. Everyone enjoyed watching tasers in action when School Resource Officer Sean Sweeney tased a tree. “I learned that the taser can shoot 25 feet away and shocks you for five seconds,” said Quinn Nevins, 10. “And you’re only allowed to shoot it three times in a row.”
The K-9s were the biggest hit, though, captivating campers’ attention when they pulled up in sheriff’s vans. Alvin, a two-year-old Belgian malinois, stood attentively by the side of Deputy Sheriff Kyle Kidger. Kidger explained that police dogs and their human partners go through 15 weeks of training before hitting the streets. Dogs’ sense of smell is about 10,000-80,000 times stronger than humans’, Deputy Sheriff Todd Nestor CAMP, P. A4
Charging into the future How is Marblehead preparing for the electric-vehicle boom? BY WILLIAM J. DOWD As electric vehicles (EVs) gain traction in Marblehead, the town’s officials are taking proactive measures to ensure the local power grid can accommodate the growing demand. Across Massachusetts, communities face a state mandate to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Widespread EV adoption is a ELECTRIC, P. A12
VICTORIAN AGE
Historic Marblehead springs to life in photo exhibit Fred W. Litchman’s lens captured intimate, candid moments BY WILLIAM J. DOWD A new exhibit at the Marblehead Museum immerses visitors in historic Marblehead through the photographs of prolific local photographer Fred W. Litchman. “Marblehead Snapshots: The World of Fred Litchman” showcases 55 photographs Litchman took between the 1890s and World War I. The images provide an intimate,
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candid look at daily life during this period, drawn from the museum’s collection of over 3,000 Litchman photos. “We wanted to give people a sense of what it was like at a time when having visual memories of your daily life was a novel idea,” said Marblehead Museum Associate Director Jarrett Zeman, who spent nearly 12 months curating the exhibition. The photographs highlight Litchman’s focus on capturing
Marblehead residents going about their daily business, whether walking down the street, working or relaxing. “He loved documenting people in their daily lives,” Zeman explained. “You see folks working, playing, spending time with family and friends.” This approach produced photographs that feel surprisingly modern to our Instagram-accustomed eyes. A shot of two young girls making silly faces at the camera could easily be a casual smartphone EXHIBIT, P. A3
CURRENT / WILLIAM J. DOWD
Associate Director of the Marblehead Museum Jarrett Zeman stands in the first floor gallery space where the exhibition that he curated — ‘Marblehead Snapshots: The World of Fred Litchman’ — hangs until late December. The project took Zeman about 12 months to pull together.