SOUNDS | FROM PAGE 5 Page 6 231-4168 or visit sauguspubliclibrary.org/events. · Tomorrow night at 7:00, the Theatre Company of Saugus will hold a Broadway Karaoke Fundraiser. Everyone is invited to sing or just listen to the theatre company’s fantastic musical theater talents. The Theatre Company will have a complete sound and song system, and a method of queueing up the singers. Patrons will pay $3 to sing (or to send a song to your favorite singers). There’s a $10 suggested donation for non-singer-listeners. Snacks, soft drinks and water, as well as raffles, will be for sale for great prizes, including tickets to the next production, “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals.” For those folks who fancy themselves as singers, this may be an event that’s worth checking out. Curbside Christmas Tree disposal dates The Town of Saugus announced that Christmas trees will only be picked up curbside on the following dates: · Today (Friday, Jan. 9) · Monday, Jan. 12, through Friday, Jan. 16. THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FRiDAy, JAnUARy 9, 2026 Residents may dispose of their Christmas trees on their regularly scheduled trash collection days. Trees should be left curbside near trash and recycling barrels. The Town of Saugus would like to thank everyone for their cooperation. Please contact Town of Saugus Solid Waste/Recycling Director Scott Brazis at 781-2314036 with any questions. Saugus government at work The Saugus School Committee and the Board of Selectmen are already gearing up for the new year. Last night (Thursday, Jan. 8), the Saugus Public Schools Superintendent was scheduled to present his proposed School Department budget for the 2027 fiscal year that begins July 1. Stay tuned for details in next week’s Saugus Advocate. Meanwhile, the Board of Selectmen are preparing for a busy month. The board has meetings posted for Jan.13, January 27 and Feb. 11 (a Wednesday). “We are having the cheerleaders in at our January 13 meeting,” Board of Selectmen Chair Debra Panetta said of next week’s meeting. The board plans to honor the Saugus U10 Cheerleaders and The wolf moon, the first full moon of 2026, rose above the rooftops earlier this week. (Photo courtesy of Laura Eisener) coaches as special guests for their recent third-place finish in national competition. The second floor auditorium should be near capacity that night as the cheerleaders receive citations and lots of cheers. “At our January 27 meeting, we’re having an Eagle Scout in for a citation,” Panetta said. “It looks like February 5 will be the date for the E bike/ scooter forum. I’m just trying to get everything finalized,” she said. This week’s “Shout Outs” We didn’t receive any nominations from readers on remarkable acts of kindness or impressive achievements by Saugonians this week. So, I will offer an editor’s collective, “super shout out” to all of those folks who contributed to The Saugus Advocate over the past 12 months. We are not your typical weekly newspaper. We are more of a weekly news magazine, an eclectic collection of news articles, photos, essays, features, sketches and sometimes even poetry that offers the reader useful information, news and entertainment in a format that truly captures the spirit of Saugus and its people. We welcome contributions from the public. And we look forward to a productive year. Want to “Shout Out” a fellow Saugonian? This is an opportunity for our “HOPE ALIGHT”: Local artist Joanie Allbee, who is known as “The Sketch Artist,” completed this 16x20 acrylic painting and dedicated it to Bill and Polly Stewart. (Photo courtesy of Joanie Allbee) paper’s readers to single out – in a brief mention – remarkable acts or achievements by Saugus residents or an act of kindness or a nice gesture. Just send an email (mvoge@ comcast.net) with a mention in the subject line of “An Extra Shout Out.” No more than a paragraph; anything longer might lend itself to a story and/ or a photo. Looking back on 2025 Hopefully, readers will enjoy our photo spread in this week’s paper that includes the top cover photos of each month during 2025. It’s time-consuming, but fun to do this every year for our readers, usually following our Year-In-Review issue. Sometimes the photos are in the same issue. This year, we’re doing our photos a little earlier because our Year-In-Review issue was published on Christmas Eve. I’d like to thank my good photojournalist buddy, David Spink, who wrote about Saugus and took a lot of photos in town many years ago when he was a staff writer and photographer at North Shore Sunday. He loved writing articles about Saugus so much that we split a few bylines back in the late 80s and early 90s. David has been an avid reader of The Saugus Advocate since I became editor in March of 2016. Practically every week, he helps me out with his photographic expertise by recommending which photo shots belong on page one and which ones don’t. Here’s David’s take on our best photo of 2025 – the one I took of Santa Claus and a child at the town’s Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony and Festivities – one of my favorite events during my decade as Saugus Advocate editor. I suggested that Dave consider an entry other than one of my photos for the Photo of the Year. But after considerable review, David gave his vote to Santa and the kid: “I just put my Christmas tree out for the Public Works Department to take away this morning. And I was about to do something similar with this photo. It was going to be the easiest to cut. But something caught my eye and I took a second look at this photo that we’ve all been in and seen a thousand times. I took a hard look at the people in the photo. I zoomed in a little on the faces. ‘Photo of the year,’ I thought. And I’m about to hit SEND with a New Year’s Resolution in mind: Take more second looks.” I asked David to select two Honorable Mentions. And both of them could have wound up as a winner. David nearly selected the best photo for the month of July by Neil Zolot as the cover Photo of the Year. It captured Jenice Anzalone and her daughter Delia Stanasek striking a patriotic pose – wearing matching flag dresses at the 108th Annual Lynnhurst Fourth of July Block Party. Here’s what David had to say about the mother and daughter in flag dresses: “Saugus is one hot town for patriotic garb and red-whiteand-blue wear shows up in photos considered for yearend recognition without fail. So I’m not easy to impress. But this photo made me put on a pair of shades myself, blast Whitney Houston’s 1991 Super Bowl classic take on the Star Spangled Banner on YouTube, while standing and saluting. At a minimum, good photos fire the imagination. Sometimes they spur you to action.” For the second Honorable Mention, David selected Amy Melton’s photo of Dom DeVico holding a toy ice cream cone while waiving a prize he had won for being one of more than 400 kids who combined for more than 4,000 hours of reading during the Summer Reading Program at the Saugus Public Library. David’s take: “I almost rejected this photo because the ice cream cone is plastic. But then I had second thoughts. The kid looks pretty good with a fake cone. How would he look with a real cone? Maybe we’ll find out in 2026. Would somebody please buy this kid a real cone this year, at least a triple dip cone, and send a photo to the ediTHE SOUNDS | SEE PAGE 8
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