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‘Factum Est’: Generous Offer Has New-Look NCHS Teacher David Harvey ‘Pink’ for a Full Week

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Many New Canaanites by now have heard about New Canaan High School Latin teacher David Harvey’s plan to attend school Friday with his hair dyed pink. An incentive for a fundraising effort that will benefit a summer camp for kids who have cancer or who have had cancer, the deal was that if an extracurricular club dedicated to Camp Rising Sun could raise more than $200, Harvey would come to school with pink-dyed hair on Friday. (They raised $279.66.)

It’s an especially meaningful effort for Rising to the Cure Club founder Olivia Park, a 17-year-old NCHS senior who has attended the camp in Colchester, Conn. every year since she was seven, the summer after she was diagnosed with a tissue cancer (she has been in remission for 10 years). Hearing the story, town resident and local builder Arnold Karp decided to step up and encourage the club to exceed its original goal: He’s offering a dollar-for-dollar match for any additional funds, up to $1,000, that Olivia and the others can raise through next Friday.

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NCHS Teacher To Dye His Hair Pink, for a Great Cause

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New Canaan High School senior Olivia Park takes Spanish, not Latin, so she’s never had a class with David Harvey. And before last week, she never had reason to meet the (white-haired) teacher. Then a sophomore, Austin Pelli, a student of Harvey’s and member of the extracurricular club that Park founded two years ago—the Rising to a Cure Club—hit on an idea for a fundraising challenge: They’d try to raise $200 in spare change collected from students during two lunch periods, and if they reached that goal, Mr. Harvey would dye his hair pink. “I think they sold me cheap, frankly,” Harvey said with a smile Wednesday afternoon in Room 114, Park sitting one desk away. In all, the club raised $279.66, and Harvey on Thursday evening will dye his hair pink as promised (with a hand from his son’s girlfriend—his boys are unwilling to help) then come to school Friday and face the student body.

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‘The Most Influential Person I Ever Knew’: Ray Parry, 86, NCHS Teacher and Assistant Football Coach

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Before he retired as New Canaan High School’s assistant principal in 2003, Gary Field had wanted to construct what he calls an ‘Emeritus Wall of Fame’ near the auditorium or other conspicuous spot. Composed of plaques listing the names, years taught at NCHS and, importantly, a slogan relating to the honored educator, the would-be Wall of Fame in one special case for Field would honor a man that he said forever changed his life. “In Ray Parry’s case,” Field said, “I think his slogan would be: ‘Young people rely on us to touch their lives in some meaningful way.’ As for me, I know for a fact that they have certainly touched mine.’ ”

He added: “It was wonderful working with him and he was brilliant and he loved kids and they loved him. He was the most influential person I ever knew.

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Looking Back at Our Town: New Canaan in 1927

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An estimated 200 residents filed into the Lamb Room at New Canaan Library on Monday night for a presentation led by NewCanaanite.com contributing editor Terry Dinan, on New Canaan in 1927. New Canaan Library’s selection of “One Summer: America 1927” for a community-wide reading initiative will culminate this week with Wednesday’s speakeasy in the same Lamb Room and Saturday’s original play at the Powerhouse Theater. Terry, who writes the news site’s popular “0684-Old” local history feature, walked the crowd through a rapidly changing time in New Canaan’s history. The 1920’s saw New Canaan’s population jump by 40 percent, and important pieces of the town’s downtown and landscape took shape in the period. In 1927 itself, both Karl Chevrolet and New Canaan High School were founded, and the town marked locally much of what Bryson chronicled in his book, including Babe Ruth’s 60-home run feat and Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight.

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‘She Was Everyone’s Grandmother’: Kay Timmis, 82, Beloved Substitute Teacher in New Canaan

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The New Canaan High School family is mourning the passing on Sunday of a beloved substitute teacher who began working in the district in the late-1970s and touched hundreds of young lives here with her rare and unflagging kindness, smile and generous spirit. Kay Timmis was 82. “We started off first period with a lot of tears” as news of Timmis’ passing moved quickly through the school, NCHS World History, Civics and AP Comparative Government and Politics teacher Kristine Goldhawk said Tuesday. “Kay was an original,” added Goldhawk, in her ninth year in the district and who saw Timmis just last week. “She was a sweetheart.