Newington High School has lost four alumni in just over a month. I already blogged about Daniel Gorski, Class of 2001, who passed away on June 4. Then on June 30, Jonathan Calderone, Class of 2000, died of undisclosed causes. Barely a week later, on Sunday, Nikolas Tine, Class of 2003, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Finally, on Monday, Timothy Hazelton, NHS Class of 1999, died “unexpectedly…as a result of an accident.”


Above: Dan, Jon, Nick and Tim. Click the photos to read their obituaries.

Dan was a wrestler at NHS. Jon was on the swim team, “finished 3rd at the state championships in 2000, [and] he also holds two swimming records at Newington High School that still stand,” according to his obituary. Nick, like Sarah before him, was a member of Ars Musica Chamber Choir. Tim played football and basketball.

You can sign memorial guestbooks for Dan, Jon, Nick and Tim.

These tragic, untimely deaths are the latest in a seemingly endless series of NHS tragedies over the past year. You all remember Sarah LeFoll’s death in September 2005. Then in late October, former NHS wrestling coach Richard Hastings died in a house fire. That was followed in November by the deaths of senior Brendan Horan and school resource officer Ciara McDermott — the former in an ATV accident, the latter in a murder-suicide at the hands of her ex-boyfriend — thus creating a period of rapid-fire tragedies that made it seem like 1997 all over again. And now it seems like we’re in the “second wave,” as Daniel, Jon, Nick and Tim have all died in the space of barely a month. Leila asks: “what the hell is going ON with my hometown???!!?!” I realize every community has its tragedies, but methinks Newington has had more than its share lately.

Anyway… my deepest condolences to the families and friends of those who have passed on. May they all rest in peace.

A bit more on Tim Hazelton, who was a member of my high-school class, after the jump.

Tim is the third member of my class to die since graduation, and the fourth since we started school. Bob Aniello died during our junior year, in November 1997. May and June of 2004 claimed Chris Kotch and Joe Michalski.

So, four out of 273 class members (the 272 who graduated plus Bob) have died in less than 10 years. I don’t know what the average mortality rate is for 15-to-25-year-olds in suburban Connecticut, but 1.5% in a decade seems pretty high for people so young, doesn’t it?

Anyway, to be honest, Tim Hazelton and I didn’t particularly get along in middle school, and we rarely interacted in high school, as we were in different class “levels” and totally different social groups. But we shared a memorable moment on graduation night which I’ve always cherished. After the ceremony, as we were waiting in line for the all-night graduation party that the parents put on at the high school each year, Tim walked up to me, shook my hand, and congratulated me on graduating — this despite the fact that we’d barely spoken in our four years at NHS. I congratulated him as well, and it struck me that our little exchange was a fantastic example of how all the old high-school dramas and grudges and cliques were now totally irrelevant. We had both accomplished precisely the same thing — we’d earned our diplomas — and regardless of what might have transpired before, or what different directions we were probably heading in next, we both had a genuine feeling of admiration for the other’s achievement. And that was all that mattered.

Again, may he rest in peace.