Category Archives: Lyme

Mosquitoes in East Lyme Test Positive for West Nile Virus

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EAST LYME, CT — On Sept. 27, Ledge Light Health District (LLHD) announced that mosquitoes collected in East Lyme and from a collection station on the Waterford/New London line on Sept.14 have tested positive for West Nile Virus (WNV), and that mosquitoes collected in Ledyard on Sept. 20 have tested positive for Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE). 

Previously LLHD announced that mosquitoes collected in Stonington on Sept. 11 tested positive for Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) and West Nile Virus (WNV), and that mosquitoes collected in Ledyard on Sept. 13 tested positive for West Nile Virus.

In all these Stonington and Ledyard cases, the positive mosquito was culiseta melanura, which is known to primarily bite birds but has been known to bite mammals.

Also, LLHD announced that mosquitoes collected in Lyme, Conn. on Sept. 6 tested positive for West Nile Virus (WNV). The positive mosquito was culex restuans, which is known to bite birds and mammals.

Previously this summer, mosquitoes from North Stonington (8/21) and Waterford (8/23) tested positive for WNV.

Positive EEE and WNV mosquitoes are normally expected during the summer months, and their presence serves as a reminder for residents to take standard precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

Precautions to avoid mosquito bites:

  • Minimize time outdoors at dusk and dawn.
  • Be sure door and window screens are tight fitting and in good repair.
  • While outdoors, wear shoes, socks, long pants, and long-sleeved shirts. Clothing material should be tightly woven.
  • Use mosquito netting when sleeping outdoors.
  • Consider using mosquito repellent when it is necessary to be outdoors and always use it according to label instructions. The most effective repellents contain DEET or Picaridin. Oil of lemon eucalyptus is also effective for brief periods of exposure.
  • When using DEET, use the lowest concentration effective for the time spent outdoors (for example, 6% lasts approximately 2 hours and 20% for 4 hours) and wash treated skin when returning indoors. Do not apply under clothing, to wounds or irritated skin, the hands of children, or to infants less than 2 months.

Measures to reduce mosquitoes around the home:

  • Dispose of water-holding containers, such as ceramic pots, used tires, and tire swings.
  • Drill holes in the bottom of containers such as those used for recycling.
  • Clean clogged roof gutters.
  • Turn over objects that may trap water when not in use such as wading pools and wheelbarrows.
  • Change water in bird baths on a weekly basis.
  • Clean and chlorinate swimming pools, and cover pools when not in use.
  • Use landscaping to eliminate areas where water can collect on your property.

Additional resources for information on West Nile virus and mosquito management can be found at this link.

If you need assistance or advice treating standing water on your property, a member of LLHD’s Environmental Health staff can help. An Environmental Technician will visit your property and provide education on how to prevent and eliminate mosquitoes. Contact Patti Myers at (860) 434-1605 ext. 214 for more information.

Editor’s Note: This article is based on press releases issued by Ledge Light Health District on various dates in September.

Old Lyme Rowing/Blood Street Sculls Members Qualify for 2024 Paris Olympics at World Rowing Championships

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Liam Corrigan (second from right), who was a member of the Lyme-Old Lyme High School Class of 2015, stroked the Men’s Four to a silver medal in the recent 2023 World Rowing Championships in Serbia.That position qualifies the boat for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Blood Streets Sculls Masters Rower Nobuhisa Ishizuka, right in photo, is President of US Rowing and was head of the US delegation at the Championships. All photos are by www.row2K.com and published with their permission.

BELGRADE, SERBIA — Numerous Old Lyme Rowing Association / Blood Street Sculls members represented the United States in the 2023 World Rowing Championships held Sept. 3-10 in Belgrade, Serbia.

Liam Corrigan, who graduated from Lyme-Old Lyme High School (LOLHS) in 2015, stroked the Men’s Four to a silver medal, qualifying the boat for the Paris Olympics in 2024.

After graduating from LOLHS, Corrigan attended Harvard University, where he was ultimately captain of the rowing team. He subsequently moved to California, where he continues his rowing career with the California Rowing Club. Corrigan’s parents, Brian Corrigan and Joan Rivington, live in Lyme having moved there in 2020 from Old Lyme, where they had lived for many years.

The 2021 Tokyo Olympics saw Corrigan along with Old Lyme native and 2010 LOLHS graduate Austin Hack row in the US Men’s Eight boat, which ultimately just missed out on a medal coming in a photo-finish fourth in the final.

This year’s World Championships also acted as the first qualifying event for countries for the 2024 Paris Olympics. In total, the U.S. won seven medals and qualified 10 boats for Paris (eight Olympic and two Paralympic) over the eight-day regatta.

The U.S. finished fourth in total medals.

The U.S. won silver in the women’s eight, PR3 mixed double sculls, PR3 mixed four with coxswain, lightweight women’s double sculls, and men’s four, as well as bronze in the women’s double sculls and lightweight women’s single sculls. PR3 is a one of three classes of para-rowing in which the athletes have physical impairments, visual impairment and/or intellectual disabilities. The PR3 sport class is for rowers, who have the use of their legs, trunk and arms and can use the sliding seat. 

The U.S. qualified the women’s single sculls, women’s double sculls, lightweight women’s double sculls, women’s pair, men’s pair, men’s four, women’s four, and women’s eight for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, as well as the PR3 mixed double sculls and the PR3 mixed four with coxswain for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Former Blood Street Sculls member Ben Washburne of Madison, CT (second from right in photo) won silver in the PR3 Mixed Coxed Four , thus qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Ben Washburne of Madison, Conn., and former Blood Street Sculls member (second from right in photo) also won silver in the PR3 Mixed Coxed Four qualifying for Paris.

Another former Blood Street Sculls rower Dominique Williams, also of Madison, Conn., and his crew finished 9th in the Men’s Quadruple Sculls and will have a chance to qualify next spring at the final Olympic qualification regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland. Williams’s US boat is pictured at right in photo below.

Another former Blood Street Sculls member, Dominique Williams of Madison, Conn., and his crew finished 9th in the Men’s Quadruple Sculls. They will have a chance to qualify next spring in Lucerne, Switzerland, for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Blood Street Sculls was also represented in the 2023 World Rowing Championships by Nobuhisa Ishizuka, who lives in Madison, Conn., and is a Blood Streets Sculls Masters Rower.

Ishizuka joined the US Rowing Board of Directors in 2018 and serves as President of US Rowing. He was in attendance at the 2023 World Rowing Championships as the head of the US delegation.

Seeking Memories of Lee Dadalt– Art Teacher in Lyme-Old Lyme Schools for Over 30 Years — for Upcoming Retrospective of His Work

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Lee Dadlalt in 1990. All photos submitted by Mr. Dadalt’s family.

OLD LYME — During a lifetime of creating artworks across a variety of media, Lee Francis Dadalt always remained true to his philosophy that art – both in the creative process and the completed works – should be fun. An art teacher in the Lyme-Old Lyme school district for more than 30 years, he looked forward to inspiring and encouraging young artists as he lived his classroom philosophy and led by example.

Dadalt’s family is now seeking some of these former students, especially those who went on to have their own art careers.

Dadalt painted “Mailbox #155” in watercolor, 21″x15 “, in 2007.

Dadalt found endless inspiration for his artwork in the shoreline scenery of southeastern Connecticut, where he lived and worked throughout his life, creating works ranging from luminescent landscapes to color-drenched still lifes. In addition, he also completed a wide variety of whimsical works.

This whimsical “Flower Cat” 18″ x12″ print was created by Dadalt in 1985.

While his favorite medium was watercolor, he also created brilliant and inviting pieces in a vast spectrum of media ranging from pencil and acrylic to oil and tempera wash, the latter of which he called “a dying, lost art.” He also composed and completed etchings, woodcuts, sculptures. posters, pottery, screen prints and lithographs.

One reason he created art across this wide spectrum of media is because he wanted to show his students a myriad of ways they could find their own artistic voices.

As a teacher, Dadalt was playful and fun in the classroom. He did not like to discipline students or give them poor grades – even if they earned those grades – because he did not want to discourage them from their creative pursuits. He instead strove to inspire and encourage their budding talents. 

Dadalt was born in Stonington Borough in 1948. He grew up in Mystic, after his family moved to Ocean View Ave. when he was just five-years-old. He attended local Groton schools and graduated from Fitch Senior High School. He studied at Mitchell College in New London before heading to the University of Hartford’s Hartford Art School, where he completed a bachelor’s of fine arts degree in 1972.

In 1978, he earned a master’s degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown. 

He began teaching art in 1973 in the Lyme-Old Lyme Public Schools, where he remained for his entire teaching career. He taught high school students until 1978, then was a middle school art teacher in the system until he retired in 2003.

Dadalt painted “Flowers in Striped Vase”, 17″ x 23″ , in 1987 using tempera resist.

He was intensely proud of the many students he helped inspire to further their art educations and pursue careers in the arts.

Dadalt retired from teaching after 31 years in 2003. He died in 2007 at his home in Mystic, surrounded by the scenes that inspired him professionally throughout his lifetime. 

Dadalt’s family is seeking to speak to any of Dadalt’s former students. The family is preparing for an exhibition of his work scheduled for May and June 2024 at the LaGrua Center in Stonington and hopes to add these former students’ voices to promotional materials in the months leading up to the exhibition, as well as at the exhibition itself.

Insights gained from former students, especially those who were inspired by Dadalt to pursue their own careers in art, would help show a more complete picture of Dadalt and his life as an artist and teacher.

Former students are encouraged to reach out to Dadalt’s brother-in-law Steve McGuire at mystic06355@gmail.com with their memories and thoughts about how Dadalt inspired them.

Lyme Congregational Church Continues 2023 ‘Sacred Music’ Season, Thursdays

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LYME — 9/10 UPDATED WITH CONCERT TIMES: On Thursdays through the fall from 5 to 6 p.m., Rolf Wolfswinkel will introduce and play CD selections of meditative and contemplative music, from Gregorian chants to Rachmaninoff vespers.

All are welcome. Entry is free but donations would be appreciated.

The church is located at the corner of Rte .156 and Sterling City Rd. in Hamburg, Lyme.

Lyme Public Hall Hosts Screenwriting Seminar Series with Janet Roach

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Lyme Public Hall hosts a Screenwriting Seminar starting in October. Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash.

LYME — Are you a writer who has always wanted to see your work come to life on the big screen? Do you have a movie or series idea inside you just burning to get out? Then Lyme Public Hall (LPH) is here to help you …

The Lyme Public Hall and Local History Archives Board of Directors hosts Oscar-nominated screenwriter Janet Roach (Prizzi’s Honor, directed by John Huston) who will present a screenwriting seminar in October and November.

The seminar will comprise a series of six, two-hour sessions on screenwriting at the hall, starting Oct. 16, and meeting weekly on Mondays from 6 to 8 p.m. through Nov. 20. 

Emphasis will be on participants’ work and involve weekly writing assignments with personal feedback. Newcomers to screenwriting will be welcome as well as others who have been writing for some time, produced or not. 

Enrollment will be limited to 12 students. The cost for the program is $100 for LPH members and $125 for non-members.

This seminar was offered last spring and was completely booked with a waiting list; Roach has agreed to offer a second session for those, who were unable to attend the first session.

Reviews from participants in the previous session included: 

The sessions were great fun as well as impactful … Janet’s approach to teaching was inspiring and her tales of Hollywood, its structure and its inhabitants, were priceless. – R.E. 

Thank you again for the excellent writing classes. I was awed by [Janet’s] encyclopedic and analytic knowledge of movies … My big takeaways were (1) use action in place of verbal exposition (2) create protagonists who keep things moving (3) maintain conflict. I learned that conflict and associated antagonists need not be just bad guys – J.F.

Roach, who was profiled recently in New London’s The Day, grew up in Old Lyme and started her writing career in journalism. She was a producer/writer at 60 Minutes and worked with Bill Moyers at CBS News and for Public Television before morphing into a screenwriter. 

She also taught screenwriting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts for nearly 20 years. She now lives in Lyme, writes for Estuary Magazine and is working on a memoir as well as new film project. 

The Lyme Public Hall is located at 249 Hamburg Rd. (Rte. 156), Lyme.

To enroll in this class, contact info@lymepublichall.org