Reprinted from patch.com article by Editor Judy Mottl judy.mottl@patch.com
Irish holiday event
will offer a special
remembrance of
beloved Bayport High School
teacher,
Doug Monsell.
Community residents are being urged to get their green on,
as well as their'Monsell,' at this year's
Bayport-Blue Point St. Patrick's Day parade.
Long Island's most popular St. Paddy's day event
will likely boast a special sea of green as local groups
are selling t-shirts to be worn
honoring the memory of
Doug Monsell.
The parade will be held Sunday, March 10.
Monsell was a beloved district business teacher
who lost a valiant battle last May against liver disease.
He was highly respected for his love of teaching, his passion for the high
school DECA club and his enthusiasm
for coaching young athletes.
The B-BP teacher has been selected as this year's Grand Marshall in
postmortem. The t-shirt endeavor
is a fundraiser for the School to Business program which Monsell initiated at
the high school.
"The idea for the shirt came from the old saying 'everyone is Irish on St
Patrick’s Day,"
explained Lenore Ringer-Prezioso, secretary of the Bayport-Blue Point Chamber of
Commerce.
"So I said everyone is a Monsell on St Patrick’s Day and at the suggestion of
Chandler Varone
we shorted it to 'Everyone is a Monsell Today,'" she added. Varone, a B-BP
student,
designed and built a memorial patio at the high school in honor of Monsell last
year.
The shirts, selling for $10, are available at the high school store and at
State Farm, at the corner of
Gillette Avenue and Montauk Highway, in Bayport.The chamber and the Bayport
Foundation are
providing the shirts free to the 97 members of the high school band performing
in the parade.
The groups hope they'll be hundreds of parade watchers wearing the same message.
"I predict a sea of those shirts, a testimony to the impact he had on so many people," said Ringer-Prezioso.
