Haddadmania

You could feel it in the air.

The support for Charles A. Haddad, president of Building a Better Boyertown and all around community leader was palpable…even if the 54th annual Citizen of the Year ceremony honoring Haddad and four other outstanding community leaders was excruciatingly long.

My wife Heather and I picked up a couple of Malibu Bay Breezes at the bar on our way through the crowded banquet hall of the Friendship Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 to the cheap seats in the adjacent apparatus room Saturday.

Then we picked up a couple more as the evening dragged on (four hours if you count dinner, three hours if you don’t.).

The food was great---chicken, beef and stuffing. Haddad was honored along with Kathleen Little, a fifth grade teacher at Saint Francis Academy, Bally, David Viola of the Colebrookdale District Police, Glenn Trate, first assistant chief of the fire company, and Katie Moatz, a Boyertown Area High School senior.

You can read the story I filed for our paper, which co-sponsored the event with the Boyertown Jaycees, here.

Charles regaled the audience with stories about panty hose fitters and the poetic Pennsylvania German dialect.

I think it’s important to honor community service no matter how much time it takes…as long as the Malibu rum holds out.