Adele Taylor Civic Awards 2026
The Woodbury Democratic Town Committee in coordination with the Taylor family is pleased to announce this year’s Adele Taylor Civic Awards honorees: Janet Morgan, Raymond Robillard and Paul Hadzima.
The Adele Taylor Civic Awards are given annually to Woodbury residents who embody the irrepressible spirit of goodwill and practical optimism that Adele Taylor (1927-2021) brought to her lifelong engagement with Woodbury.
In a note to a friend, Adele described her approach: “I’m embroiled in a Woodbury town political controversy – as an agitator – seems to fit my style. Anyway – more later – I’m off to collect petitions and rattle some cages”.
A devoted resident for 71 years, Adele regarded it as her joyful duty to attend, and contribute frequent questions and comments to as many local town meetings as possible. From its founding in 1963, Adele was a staunch supporter of the Flanders Nature Center. Adele played a leadership role in the American Field Service which brought exchange students from around the world to Woodbury. Adele also worked diligently on behalf of the Woodbury Scholarship Fund which helps fund university educations of Woodbury high school students. In fact, Adele was involved in too many local and environmental organizations to name them all.
The third annual presentation of The Adele Taylor Civic Awards will be held on Sunday, September 27th at 2PM at Woodbury Brewing Company (738 Main Street South, Woodbury, CT 06798). Come celebrate the neighbors who make this community so great. Drinks available at the cash bar. The DTC will provide pizza.
The 2026 Adele Taylor Civic Award Winners Are:
Janet Morgan: There’s a part of Janet Morgan’s job as Woodbury’s long-serving Fire Chief – 22 years and counting – that she’d rather not do. “I would prefer not to back the trucks into the station,” she says, “I let the guys handle that.”
Then, there’s the business of responding to calls for help. Morgan says, “80% are for smells and bells.” That’s out of the over 450 calls the fire department volunteers typically respond to each year. Serious structural fires, both in Woodbury and assisting our mutual aid towns – six so far this year – are less common.
Morgan joined the fire department in 1980. Back then, “Women still weren’t easily accepted. You had to prove yourself; you have to have a thick skin. But I’m here to do a job, not push a female agenda.”
She grew up in a fire-fighting household – her father was a Fire Captain – and their family lived in the Hotchkissville section of Woodbury, in a tenement built for employees of the former American Shear and Knife Company. (The factory burned to the ground in 1914, well before the Morgan family’s skills could be brought to bear.)
There have been a few annoyances along the way: “Some COVID newcomers think we’re paid. We’re all volunteers. We leave our families, our homes and our jobs to respond.” (Across the USA, over 80% of fire departments are volunteer.) Then there are drivers who don’t pull over when a fire truck is coming down the road. Morgan’s message is simple: “Pull over and stop. Don’t delay our response. The family or home we are responding to assist could be yours.”
Morgan has an excellent relationship with Woodbury’s Board of Finance. “They’re very good to us. They understand we only ask for what we need and we never add fluff in our budget.”
Morgan encourages Woodbury residents who are 18 or older – there’s no upper age limit – and who live and work in town to join. Over the last three years, 15 new recruits have joined the force of 44 volunteers.
Across our region and state, Janet Morgan is a widely respected fire-fighting professional and Woodbury is lucky to have her.
Raymond Robillard: How many high school students would happily give up their Friday afternoons to do math? Perhaps a few; most probably, none. But not at Woodbury’s Nonnewaug High School, where Raymond Robillard’s students regularly show up for meetings of his Math Honor Society. “It makes you realize you’re inspiring some kids,” says Robillard, who has taught all levels of math at Nonnewaug for thirteen years.
Robillard is more than just an inspiring teacher; his impact extends well beyond the classroom. In May this year, Robillard was the driving force behind a 5K Charity race to benefit a Nonnewaug High School senior, Jon Cheung, who had developed leukemia. Robillard’s efforts drew over 300 participants who helped raise over $26,000 to help Cheung’s family with the high costs of Jon’s treatment. Jon is currently a college freshman.
Robillard is quick to point out that his work rests on the shoulders of others. He is particularly grateful for the remarkable dedication of Nonnewaug’s entire faculty, staff, and administrative team. Their generous support of students along with the strong bond between Woodbury’s Board of Education and Nonnewaug’s teachers’ union continues to help transform the lives of Woodbury’s students.
Woodbury’s Orenaug Park is the site of yet another of Robillard’s contributions to community life which he designed and maintains, namely an 18-hole/basket disc golf course. What might that be? Disc golf is perhaps best understood as frisbee with a purpose.
Every Tuesday afternoon from spring to late fall the disc golf course – ranked in Connecticut’s top ten – fills with 20-30 players at a location just behind Woodbury’s Senior Center. Woodbury’s eighteen-hole disc golf course is an amazing public asset brought about by Raymond’s vision and commitment to public service.
Paul Hadzima: Paul Hadzima is almost certainly the only Woodbury resident to have been adopted by an Oglala Lakota family. In the late 1960s, a Lakota family living on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge reservation – on land that is 70% the size of Connecticut – decided Hadzima should be one of their own. Drawing on nearly 40 trips to Pine Ridge, Hadzima taught a highly popular course in Native American history and culture – including the music and dance of the Plains Indians – at Nonnewaug High School for thirty years from 1968-1997.
Hadzima has also played a pivotal role outside of the classroom, serving as Scoutmaster of Woodbury’s Troop 54 for 10 years and then helping to set up Woodbury’s Troop 480 in 1963.
More recently he serves on a committee for the all-girl led Troop 59 in 2025, which serves the Woodbury/Bethlehem area.
Hadzima, 88, is still going strong at a bracing clip of 16,000 steps a day, much of it along Woodbury’s Main Street. His walks take him past the town’s library where he is in his 11th year as a board member and past structures that have been preserved through his decade-long work on Woodbury’s Historic District Commission. He has also served as a poll worker and assists the Woodbury Scholarship Fund Dollars for Scholars.