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Remembering Dick Bellavance: WHS '58

Posted By: Charlie Barrett <barcopr@earthlink.net>
Date: Saturday, 19 May 2001, at 12:00 a.m.

I got word tonight way out here in California that Willimantic lost one of its native sons -- and one of my dearest personal friends..

Dick "Scoop" Bellavance passed away at St. Joseph's Living Center. He was a guy who loved Willimantic, particularly the city in the 1950s. or "the old" Willimantic as he used to call it. He could tell you just about anything that ever happened in Willimantic, coloring it with a sense of humor and dry wit. He loved sports more than anyone i ever knew and was a huge fan of Jean Sheppard the late-nite radio guy out of NYC on WOR.

Dick worked as a sportswriter -- first for the WHS "Croakings" and then "The Chronicle" and later some newspapers around Hartford, etc.

Dick was in our 1958 class at WHS. God bless.