OLD LYME—It was a great Halloween night on Lyme Street yesterday. The weather cooperated and smiling, sometimes scary, faces were everywhere. Community spirit filled the air and all the tension and tribulations of next Tuesday’s election were left at home.
Enjoy our photo essay of the evening. Huge thanks to our in-town photographer Michele Dickey for being there on the street to capture the fun.
We will add more of her terrific photos later today.
OLD LYME–On Saturday, Nov. 8, big orange gourds will be flying at the second annual Lyme Old Lyme Food Share Garden (LOLFSG) Pumpkin Toss.
The event will run from 9 to 11 a.m. at Town Woods Park, 30 Town Woods Road.
The event offers families a fun venue to recycle their Halloween pumpkins for a good cause, according to an LOLFSG press release.
Building on the popular pumpkin chunkin’ phenomenon, garden volunteers will deploy a trebuchet to toss the pumpkins into the compost pile.
The group said pumpkins from last year’s toss broke down through the composting process into nutrient-rich soil, which helped the Foodshare garden grow over three tons of produce for donation to the Gemma Moran United Way food distribution program and the Shoreline Soup Kitchen and Pantries.
Only unpainted pumpkins will be accepted.
OLD LYME–The Florence Griswold Museum today announced Executive Director Joshua Campbell Torrance will step down on Nov. 26 of this year to move to a new position in Cooperstown, NY.
Torrance, who led the museum since February 2023 and oversaw the planning stages for a $17.8 million renovation and expansion project announced last month, has accepted a leadership role at Fenimore Art Museum and Fenimore Farm and Country Village.
The Florence Griswold Museum in a Thursday press release said its Board of Trustees has named Peter Steere, the current director of administration, as interim director. Steere held the position since 2024, following his retirement as chief operating officer for Yale Health.
Steere brings 40 years of senior executive experience in strategic planning, human resources management, and major expansion projects.
Board Chairwoman Barbara Harms identified Steere as a seasoned project manager.
“Our staff is exceptional, and devoted to the museum and its future,” she said. “There will be no interruption to our expansion plans.”
Torrance will serve as senior vice president overseeing the two Fenimore museum sites before taking over as president and CEO with the retirement of Dr. Paul S. D’Ambrosio.
Harms lauded Torrance for his role in the Florence Griswold Museum’s planned expansion, which she said included multiple in-depth studies, revised vision and mission statements, and an institutional rebrand to honor the museum’s history while preparing for its future.
“Joshua’s tenure was a time of study, planning, and clear strategic direction,” Harms said. “We appreciate his guidance and inspiration, and we look forward to advancing the plans developed under his leadership as scheduled.”
Torrance described himself as privileged to have worked with the museum’s board, staff members and volunteers.
“I am grateful to them for allowing me to be a small part of their distinguished history and impressive future,” he said.
The museum said the move is a homecoming for Torrance, who received a master’s degree in history museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program at SUNY Oneonta, and whose first job after graduation was at the Fenimore Art Museum in 1998 as curatorial assistant under then-Vice President D’Ambrosio.
“I am confident that under Joshua’s leadership the future of Fenimore Art Museum and Fenimore Farm are in good hands,” D’Ambrosio said. “There is no one I trust more with the stewardship of two places that have meant so much and been such a large part of my life, for forty-two years.”
To the Editor:
Having served as your First Selectman for 18 years, as member of the Board of Finance for 15 years and currently as a member of the Board of Assessment Appeals for 12 years, I am proud to whole heartedly endorse John Mesham to be our next First Selectman and Jude Read to continue as our Selectwoman. Both John and Jude are extremely well qualified to lead our Town.
John has been deeply involved in our community for decades as a State Police Officer, a Boy Scout Leader, a member of the Inland Wetlands Commission and a Deputy Registrar of Voters. He and his wife Nancy have resided in Old Lyme for 31 years and their three children have graduated from our outstanding Lyme/Old Lyme schools. John is a proven leader and manager and he is a person of impeccable integrity. John has been a key leader in supporting the Town’s right to access our Tantummaheag Landing, a leader in the fight to stop the HROD debacle, and played a vital role in bringing Town commissions together to oversee the Horseneck Creek Open Space parcel. John has significant supervisory and management experience of multiple state police barracks and personnel. His responsibilities included day-to-day management and oversight of over 100 people. This included scheduling, performance reviews, facilities management, vehicle assignments and upkeep, and a multitude of reporting requirements. John was also a local police union president with collective bargaining and negotiating experience. John knows how to manage people and is dedicated to supporting the needs and wishes of the majority of Old Lyme’s citizens. These skills and attributes make John the ideal First Selectman choice for Old Lyme in November.
Jude has resided in Old Lyme for 43 years, along with her husband, Sloan Danenhower, and both of their children graduated from our Lyme/Old Lyme schools. Jude has owned several small business and she is currently a business management consultant. She is deeply involved in Old Lyme, both politically and with local non-profits. She currently serves as one of the three members of the Old Lyme Board of Selectmen. She also served on the Board of Finance and the Lyme/Old Lyme Board of Education. She is a member and past Treasurer of the MacCurdy Salisbury Educational Foundation and has been a Board member of the Old Lyme Historical Society. She has been affiliated with the Girl Scouts and the Lymes’ Senior Center Meals on Wheels program.
John and Jude are willing and able to serve as our First Selectman and Selectwoman and they have excellent credentials to do so.
Please join me in voting for John Mesham as our First Selectman and Jude Read as our Selectwoman in the upcoming municipal election and please encourage your family and friends to do the same.
Sincerely,
Timothy Griswold,
Old Lyme.
Editor’s Note: The author is a candidate for the Old Lyme Board of Assessment Appeals in the upcoming election.
We are proud to say that on Dec. 3, 2025, LymeLine will celebrate 22 years of publication—that makes us one of the oldest, continuously published online community news websites in the country!
olwenonline.com/ was founded by veteran publisher Jack Turner in 2003—he engaged me as his News Editor, but after some 12 months of operation, he decided to sell the business, and my husband and I purchased it.
We have owned LymeLine since 2005 and pride ourselves on our objective, accurate and unbiased reporting through all the subsequent years. We also believe—and are frequently told—that LymeLine is recognized as an informative, vibrant and trusted resource for the community.
For almost 22 years, it has been my privilege to share local news and views with the community through LymeLine. Readership and financial support of the news site have increased dramatically over that time and I am truly grateful for the trust readers and advertisers have placed in both me and LymeLine.
Publishing LymeLine for that length of time has also been tremendously rewarding and fun (well, most of the time!) I have had the pleasure of meeting an enormous number of people along the way and forged many lifelong friendships.
But it is time for me to move on to new adventures. This has been a very hard decision but I—and my family—know it is the right one.
What ultimately made the decision easier was the knowledge that a group of local residents has formed a nonprofit organization with the intent of continuing the publication of LymeLine for the benefit of the community.
This organization, named LymeLine Inc., is fully committed to continuing our tradition of independent, accurate, unbiased local journalism covering the Lyme-Old Lyme community. It intends to be strictly non-partisan and hopes to be supported by charitable donations.
We are in discussions with LymeLine Inc. about the possibility of donating LymeLine to them, but at this point, LymeLine Inc. is not operational and LymeLine is still fully under our ownership and control.
I commit to keeping our readers updated as negotiations continue regarding the future of LymeLine. In the meantime, we will continue to publish LymeLine in the normal way with no change in the quality and objectivity of our reporting.
There was some recent speculation on social media that LymeLine has changed ownership. That is not correct—as stated above, we still fully own Shoreline Web News LLC, which publishes LymeLine.
Thank you for your continuing support—it is greatly appreciated.
Olwen Logan
Publisher/Editor, olwenonline.com/