NORWICH – The contributions and careers of longtime Holy Family School teachers Helen Capaccio and Val Dragoon will be celebrated at 6 p.m. tomorrow at a picnic-style dinner at St. Bartholomew’s Parish Center’s pavilion, East Main St., Norwich.
The public is invited to honor Capaccio, who is retiring after 22 years of teaching the first grade, and Dragoon, who is relocating to Cincinnati, Ohio after teaching art at Holy Family School for 17 years.
School principal Eugene Chilion said the two have been “cornerstones” of the education program at Holy Family “for a long, long time” and “are certainly going to be missed.”
“We may replace them physically, but all of the little things that they did to help children and encourage them to do their best and challenge them, that’s what’s really going to be missed,” he said yesterday.
Originally from Queens, Capaccio received her education degree and completed graduate work in counseling at Oneonta State College. She was a 4th grade teacher in Franklin, completed a counseling internship in Gloversville, was a middle and high school counselor in Greene, and a medical social worker at the Oxford Veterans’ Home. Prior to coming to Holy Family, she was a stay-at-home mother to her three children.
Capaccio sings in the St. Paul’s Folk group, is a St. Paul’s Eucharist minister and a volunteer at the Northeastern Classic Car Museum. In her retirement, she said she plans to join the Norwich Family YMCA and to continue the hobbies she loves: sewing, crocheting, singing and gardening.
“Holy Family is a warm, welcoming, nurturing ... just generally a really wonderful place to work. The teachers, the administration, the staff ... everybody is very caring. They’re like a family, and the kids are too. I just have remarkable bonds with the children, even after they’ve left,” she said.
The teacher said she will miss the children the most because “that’s what keeps you young.”
Val Dragoon came to Norwich from Cincinnati with her Procter & Gamble employed husband, Mike, and their two sons. Though she said she is not happy about leaving Holy Family and the area, she will be returning to live in a commercial building where she once actually worked.
The former department store is being transformed into loft-style apartments. The art teacher said she is looking forward to the renovation and decorating challenges.
Dragoon has dual degrees in art and physical education from Plymouth State College in New Hampshire. She was a part-time artistic designer for Shillito’s Department Store in Cincinnati. Ater moving to Norwich, she began substituting at Holy Family School, and later became the school’s art teacher. She taught both art and physical education when the 7th and 8th grade levels were created at the Festa Middle School.
For her, the most rewarding aspect of teaching at Holy Family School has been the number of students who have gone on to become class valedictorians in public school. “It’s kind of special, when you see them graduate,” she said.
Dragoon said she will mostly miss getting her hands and apron all covered with paint and having children say, “Mrs. Dragoon! You’ve got paint all over you!”
For more information about the picnic, call Mrs. Hose at 337-2207.