PLYMPTON – The Massachusetts House of Representatives recognized Plympton Fire K9 Wilden and his handler, Captain Cheryl Davis, with a citation in recognition of their certification as a First Responder Therapy Dogs team.
State Representative Kathy LaNatra presented the team with the citation during a ceremony at Plympton Fire Headquarters on Wednesday, Dec. 21. Captain Davis rescued Wilden, a three-year-old-mutt, from Antigua in 2019. He was part of a litter found abandoned on a beach on the island, which has a rampant stray dog and cat population.
First Responder Therapy Dogs certify teams (handler and dog) who address behavior health needs by providing emotional support to first responders with the use of trained therapy dogs. The teams visit fire departments, police stations and dispatch 911 call centers. They are also available for debriefings after difficult calls and first responder special events. Captain Davis recognized Wilden’s knack for comforting people when he would visit her at the fire station. Wilden’s calming effect was on full display when she brought him to a class while getting certified in Critical Incident Stress Management.
“As first responders we’re telling their story, he had an instant instinct to go up to the ones who needed him the most,” Captain Davis said. The well-being of first responders is near and dear to Representative LaNatra’s heart. The wife of a police officer, she filed a bill to provide greater access to mental health services for first responders involved in traumatic events. “First responders encounter trauma events every day and are often reluctant to share their feelings with colleagues or friends,” she said. “My bill will really insist they get the help they need.”
Captain Davis and Wilden have been working hard to earn this certification. This past August, Wilden obtained his American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen certificate, which was the final step in his application for the First Responder Therapy Dogs program. Chris Maynard with Maynard Dog Training Solutions donated Wilden’s training.
Captain Davis and Wilden are one of 81 certified First Responder Therapy Dog teams across 17 states. Massachusetts has 11 certified teams. Two additional teams are currently enrolled in the certification process.

Saturday morning at the Plympton Town House the Girl Scouts, Daisies and Brownies put on a rousing holiday concert for all to enjoy.
Coffee and juice with sweet holiday treats helped with the rejoicing. Photos by Sandi Neumeister

If you want to call a turkey, just talk to Randy Sullivan.   He can give you a lot of choices that he creates in his Plympton workshop: slate calls, wing-bone calls, box calls, scratch box calls, trough calls, long paddle box calls that make a higher pitch, each designed to catch the ear of an ambitious Tom looking for a hen.  Or you can work a crow caller.  Why would you want to make sounds like a crow?   To wake up the turkeys early in the morning so you can take your shot.  Or owl calls, so turkeys think there are owls nearby and flush, or leave their cover.
The workmanship is beautiful, but Randy doesn’t take all the credit for that – the choice of the wood gives a lot to the appearance.  A favorite is flame elm, a pale beauty with a streak or two of rose pink running through it.
Each handcrafted turkey call makes a distinctive sound.   Randy demonstrated how a piece of wood used in the long paddle box caller is shaped to a specific curve to help give the call its voice.  He told of his friendship with Dick Kirby, founder of Quaker Boy Game Calls, a legendary turkey call maker who gave Randy the formula for that curve, and Randy uses it to this day.  The friend has since passed but the art of the turkey call continues through the friends like Randy he mentored.
While once you could just look up a Sullivan turkey call on eBay; these days he is more selective.  He now has a following, people he makes calls for every year.   “I just started making calls for the kids,” Sullivan continued. “Probably 70% of the calls I make go to the kids or for fundraisers all over the country, and that’s all right.”    He said he donates a fair number of calls to the Carver Sportsmen’s Club for their youth hunts and gets a lot of satisfaction when a young hunter sends him a picture of their first turkey.
Once plentiful in colonial Massachusetts, the last known wild turkey was killed in 1851, according to the Mass.gov website.  Native turkeys had been driven out of their habitat and hunted to extinction.  The Mass Wildlife naturalists undertook re-introducing the wild turkey to the Massachusetts landscape in the western part of the state in the 1970s.  Biologists relocated 37 wild turkeys from flocks in New York state.   Those birds thrived and by 1978 the count was estimated at about 1,000.  The turkey relocation and re-introduction was a success.  Turkeys were introduced to areas east of the Connecticut River and throughout the northeastern, and southeastern areas of the state until the mid 1990s when the count for these birds was more than 25,000.  In 1991 the wild turkey was named the official Massachusetts Game Bird.
If you’d like to talk turkey with Randy Sullivan just email him at [email protected]

The Silver Lake Warriors gathered around their trophy for their victory  over East Bridgewater Sunday, Nov. 13, winning the Super Bowl for their 10-0 season.

The Warriors are the 3rd and 4th grade players for the Old Colony Youth Football League, or OCYFL,  all from Halifax, Plympton, and Kingston.

Coming from a poor showing last year, this team pulled it all together and showed the world and themselves what good players they could be.   They are

Bechkam Rondeau, #32; Bobby Bodel, #80; Brady Cleman, #65; Brendan Barrette, #28; Bryan Ledwell, #48; Caleb Hession, #56; Camden Calter, #26; Colby Coleman, #71; Cole Ryan, #3; Declan Barry, #51; Declan Fay, #4; Deegan Rondeau, #16; Delilah Deaton, #8; DJ Barrett, #6; Drew Cyrus, #24; Faolan Mahoney, #85; Georgio Berkachi, #76; Jack Kelley, #17; Jack Calter, #12; Jacob Short, #14; Jake Tassinari, #35; Jameson Dansky, #47; Jaxton Litwinsky, #39; Joey DeWilde, #63; John Fontes, #31; John Paul Kennedy, #62; Kaden Mota, #93; Kayson Berrio, #2; Lucas Astuto, #34; Marc McGarry, Jr., #45; Mason Carbone, #5; Mason Ramsdell, #25; Nicholas Diodato, Jr., #58; Preston Berry, #11; Robert DeWilde, #74; Roland Toulopoulos,#77; and Seth Johnson, #68.

Coaching their team to victory were Erik Barrette, Chris Hession, Marc McGarry, Robby Cahill, John -Michael Fontes, Doug Carbone, Brandon Barry and Bobby Cyrus.

The early voting period for Massachusetts, Oct. 22 to Nov. 4, ends today.

Town clerks in each of the Silver Lake towns have held early voting sessions for the Tuesday, Nov. 8,mid-term elections.

All the towns in Massachusetts were mandated to offer a specific number of early voting hours, dependent on the number of registered voted in their town.

Of its 2,343 registered voters, Plympton saw 94 take advantage of the early voting convenience as of Wednesday morning.  An additional 397 voters asked that ballots be mailed to them.  Of those, about 175 have not yet been returned.

In Halifax, 156 of the 6241 registered voters cast their ballots early as of Wednesday morning at 9 a.m.

Kingston Town Clerk Paul Gallagher noted that of his town’s 10,908 registered voters, 430 have cast their ballots early as of Wednesday morning.  He also said that his office has sent out 2,907 mail ballots.  “If all of the mailed ballots are returned, added to the number of people who have votd early, we will have more than 30% voting before election day,” Gallagher noted.  “If the intent of the legislature was to increase voter participation, I would say they have succeeded.

Parsonage Road and Prospect Road in Plympton seem to have gone all out to celebrate the ghostly season.   

A drive through town will be enough to send a fright through any Trick or Treater!  Skeletons galore are seen on many lawns doing almost anything!