By Wiley Wood

A gathering Sunday, September 14 honored Norfolk’s departing superintendent of schools, George Counter. As the guests spilled out over a sunny lawn with drinks in hand, a 70-pound pig was lifted from the bed of coals where it had roasted since dawn and was carved into portions. Counter retired as superintendent of the Thomaston school district before coming to work part-time in Norfolk 12 years ago.

Handing him a signed and sealed certificate of appreciation, State Representative Roberta Willis said, “It’s official. When I’m here, it means you’re done.” Counter has announced plans to visit the beaches of Normandy this fall with his wife.

Norfolk’s chairman of the Board of Finance, Michael Sconyers, described his long association with Counter in setting the school budget as one in which the keynote was honesty. “Everything he said, I believed,” said Sconyers. Counter, whose gravelly voice can be counted on at meetings to sum up a complex situation in pithy terms, returned the compliment: “We always thought you were fair, but sometimes we thought you could have been fairer.”

The Town of Norfolk has not released Counter from all of his duties. He remains a member of the Norfolk-Colebrook Regionalization Study Group, as First Selectman Sue Dyer reminded him at the close of her remarks: “See you Thursday night!”

Photo by Phylis Bernard.