The Little Red School - Spot for budding artists celebrates 20 years

“Put your fingers to the metal,” the students of the Little People’s Class at The Little Red School of Art and Music sang to the tune of a conga line song, as they got their paintbrushes ready to add more dimensions to their Candyland pictures.

Memoir peels back life as a stripper, daughter and mother

Written by John Kovach

Stripping Down: A Memoir, the latest book by Sheila Hageman of Stratford, is not the prurient tell-all by a former stripper some readers may be looking for.

“I see this as more of a women’s book,” Hageman said. “It’s for women. What modern woman doesn’t have the same struggles of body image. Yes, there are bits about stripping, women always want to know about that. A lot of women are dealing with aging parents, and dealing with children at the same time. I was in a place where I needed help being a new mother, and my mother was not in position to help.”

While she tells about her life stripping in the memoir, 10 years in the making, it also peels back layers of a life story, about body issues, becoming a mother, dealing with a dying parent, and finding new success.

Winners of Black History Month contests honored

The Stratford Library and South End Community Center congratulated winners of the Black History Month Essay/Art Contest during a ceremony at the library Feb. 11.

Teen Librarian Lucretia Duwel and South End Community Center Coordinator Ty Sims led the event, which welcomed more than 125 students, parents and guests in attendance at the Library.

A life-long love and mission

Gregg Dancho started volunteering at the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport in 1975, while still in high school in Stratford.

“I loved animals, and I wanted to work with them” he said. “My particular love was reptiles, but I could only keep so many reptiles at my house.”