West Brookfield bandstand committee bids a fond farewell

By Ruth M. Lyon

Turley Publications Reporter

WEST BROOKFIELD – This town’s bandstand music committee has proclaimed this year’s final concert as that committee’s swansong.

Sue LaBarge, a longtime member and chairman of the bandstand music committee, has planned her last concert, she says. “Sadly,” she said, the committee members she’s served with for years have decided to leave as well. “I’ve had a wonderful time for all of these 24 years on the committee, but I have new commitments, and no longer feel I have the time this rewarding job requires. I’ve loved every minute of it; the concerts, the people I’ve worked with, the marvelous support of businesses and individuals. I feel certain there’s someone in this community who’ll be willing to take over, and I’ll be available to assist in the transition,” she said. “I’ll be at the bandstand during this year’s concerts; I hope interested people will stop by and talk with me and other members of the committee and let us know of their interest.”

As she spoke, committee members Reed and Kathy Savary, Heidi-Jo Kemp, Annette Fortin, Cheryl and Tony Woodman, Dave Frazier, John and Tammy Tuttle and John Head stood by. Quietly, they nodded their heads in agreement. Each member of the group has also decided, individually, to leave the committee for other pursuits. Not present were Dave and Leanne Pierce, but their intentions to also leave were conveyed by the group. They could not be reached for comment at press time.

LaBarge, Community Relations Officer for Country Bank, has new responsibilities in that position, she related. “I find myself too busy to do justice to the music committee as I have done in the past. I’d hoped some of the members I’ve worked with would decide to stay on, but they also have moved on in their lives. Most of them have been with me from 5 to 18 years; without that great group I wouldn’t have been able to stay on this committee for that length of time. We all love the bandstand, the concerts, and West Brookfield, and look forward to offering our support in other ways,” she concluded.

The Helen Paige Shackley Memorial Bandstand has a history of nearly four decades in West Brookfield. Since 1972, weekly concerts on the common, offering diverse musical performances, have attracted an ever-increasing audience, which in turn is supportive, along with area businesses, of what has become a renowned summertime tradition

Helen Paige Shackley, a life-long West Brookfield resident and important figure in town affairs, left a legacy to build a bandstand on the town’s common. Several seasons of refining requirements later, the bandstand was built on town-owned land, the site of the town’s elementary-junior high school, across School Street from the common, in 1971. The structure was opened and dedicated on Memorial Day of that year.

Committees were established to contract for and finance musical programs which would honor Shackley and serve the community in, according to literature of that time, “a distinguished manner”. At that time, the music committee contracted for the programs, and the friends of the bandstand solicited funding from the community. In time, the two groups have become the bandstand music committee, LaBarge said. “We all worked together at everything anyway,” she smiled.

Funding is provided, as it has been since the beginning, by individuals and businesses throughout the community and beyond. An annual letter is mailed to town residents, and contributions are accepted at the music committee table at concerts.

“I look forward to seeing our friends and supporters during this year’s concerts, and at the end, to introducing members of a new committee. I know they’ll be welcomed and supported as we have been,” LaBarge said.