SOUTH DEERFIELD — Following public outcry, the Frontier Regional School District School Committee has voted to move a plaque honoring fallen soldier Gregory Belanger from the old scoreboard to the new one, reversing a June vote against the move.
About 100 residents of Deerfield and nearby towns, Frontier alumni and parents, and local veterans packed the Library Media Center for the meeting Tuesday night.
Belanger, a former South Deerfield resident and Frontier alumnus, died in 2003 while serving in the U.S. Army Reserve in Iraq. Community groups in town dedicated the previous baseball scoreboard, which remains near the school parking lot, to Belanger when it was installed in 2004. According to Frontier Superintendent Darius Modestow, the scoreboard became “non-functional” shortly after its installation due to electrical issues.
At the June 11 School Committee meeting, Gregory Belanger’s mother Kathleen Belanger asked the committee to approve moving the dedication to the new scoreboard at the athletic fields. However, before committee members voted, Modestow reminded them about the district’s memorial policy, which reads, “The School Committee recognizes that the death of a student, member of the staff or prominent community member is deeply felt by the school community. As places designed primarily to support learning, school sites should not serve as the main venue for permanent memorials.”
Modestow said the policy does not provide clear guidance for next steps when the structure of an existing memorial reaches the end of its “useful life.”
“We need clear guidance so future committees are not left making these difficult and deeply personal decisions on a case-by-case basis,” Modestow said this week. “As part of that work, I believe that we should also consider how an educational institution, Frontier, appropriately and meaningfully recognizes veterans and members of our school community who have lost their lives in service to our country, and come up with a thoughtful and consistent framework that allows us to honor that service and sacrifice while also providing clear guidance for the school in future committees.”
Several locals voiced their opposition to the committee’s past vote, urging the members to reconsider. Among them was Rachael Otto, commander of the Hale-Clapp Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3295, who served in Iraq around the same time as Gregory Belanger.
“The big difference between Greg and I is I came home and he didn’t. … For me, this is very personal,” Otto said, urging the committee to permit moving the plaque to the new scoreboard. “This issue isn’t whether or not a plaque or a memorial should exist. The real issue is whether Greg’s memory remains visible to the entire community.”
“We need to get past the administrative process and go back to being patriots,” said Larry Kleinschmidt of South Deerfield.
Those who knew Gregory Belanger and know his family also urged the committee to rescind the vote, including John Hannum of Turners Falls, whose little brother was best friends with the fallen soldier.
“We stood there and we said we would never forget,” Hannum said. “That is what we’re asking for, is that everyone will remember him and everyone who gave their life trying to save others, serving us, serving you.”
Veteran Brian Fitzgerald of Whately argued that memorials like this belong in schools.
“This is part of education. … It’s history,” Fitzgerald said. “If we leave [the plaque] with an old, dead scoreboard, [Gregory Belanger’s] memory’s dead.”
Deerfield resident Barbara Krolick brought up Kathleen Belanger’s contributions to the school community, including the scholarship fund she runs in her son’s name.
“She has given to this community. … Are we going to support someone like that over a policy? Where is the kindness?” Krolick said. “Let’s bring out our human heart and not let her have the knife dug deeper every time this comes up.”
Deerfield Selectboard Chair Blake Gilmore encouraged the committee to establish a subcommittee focused on protecting memorials in school for soldiers killed in action.
The audience, which applauded after each statement from the visitors, cheered when Jeff Upton of Deerfield asked the School Committee to “grandfather in” Gregory Belanger’s plaque, so the school’s memorial policy, which was adopted in June 2018 — 14 years after the installation of the old scoreboard — would not apply to the memorial.
“We’re giving the committee a second chance to make the right choice,” said Sunderland resident Brian Bagdon, who competed on the Frontier wrestling team alongside Gregory Belanger.
After other locals spoke, Allison Belanger, Gregory’s sister, described the flood of support she and her family received from community members, veterans, Frontier alumni, and those who did and did not know her brother after the committee’s June vote.
“It’s shown us that Greg’s memorial doesn’t just belong to our family; it belongs to the community,” Allison Belanger said.
Before the School Committee voted to rescind its June vote, several members weighed in, explaining their perspectives at that previous meeting. Committee members Mary Ramon and Damien Fosnot said they had approached the decision in June with limited information on the scoreboards.
“Our policy left a gap,” Ramon said, adding that she would support grandfathering in the plaque. “Making on-the-spot decisions without considering the bigger picture going forward did not seem right to me. It was not meant to close the door, and unfortunately I didn’t see the bigger picture of it being perceived that way. I sincerely apologize to Kathy and Allison and the rest of the family for being viewed as disrespectful or thoughtless.”
After sharing her experience visiting Gregory Belanger’s grave at Laurel Hill Cemetery, School Committee member Jessica Corwin said that Frontier baseball and field hockey athletes paid for the new scoreboard through fundraising. She worried that the students would lose the proper credit if the plaque was moved.
“They put in their time and energy in order to give something back to the school we hope will last beyond their graduation,” Corwin said.
To address this, the School Committee asked Modestow to work on an acknowledgement of the student athletes for the board, an idea Fosnot raised. Kathleen Belanger pledged to donate $1,000 for a sign recognizing the student athletes.
School Committee member Diane Curtis shared that she recently toured the many memorials at Frontier, and the number stunned her.
“I absolutely hate, for you, the family in particular but for the whole community, the idea of waiting to figure out how to address whether or not to move the memorial to Gregory Belanger, but I can’t see a way forward to do that without addressing the bigger policy,” Curtis said.
As several attendees groaned, School Committee member Elaine Campbell said “the family really needs some resolution this evening.”
Six committee members voted to rescind the June vote and four voted against. Factoring in a weighted vote for School Committee members representing the four municipalities based on town populations, the motion to rescind passed. The crowd applauded.
To tackle what Modestow described as the “gray area” in the policy for memorial structures in disrepair, the Policy Subcommittee will review the current wording.
In an email on Wednesday, Modestow said the school is working on moving the plaque to the new scoreboard “immediately,” and he expects the process to take a few weeks.
School Committee Chair Melissa Novak encouraged the crowd to donate to the scholarship fund in Gregory Belanger’s name and visit his memorial.
“This memory is beyond a plaque,” Novak said.
