Springfield to honor Edgar May

Former state Sen. Edgar May of Springfield turns 80 on Saturday, and in tribute to his years of hard work establishing the Southern Vermont Health and Recreation Center, the center is going to be named for him.

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Former Windsor County Sen. Edgar May stands inside the pool portion of the Southern Vermont Health and Recreation Center in Springfield. The facility is being named after May in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the project. Photo by Albert J. Marro - Rutland Herald

Springfield to honor Edgar May

By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer

Rutland Herald

Published: June 26, 2009

SPRINGFIELD – It's a really big present.

Former state Sen. Edgar May of Springfield turns 80 on Saturday, and in tribute to his years of hard work establishing the Southern Vermont Health and Recreation Center, the center is going to be named for him.

May, whose name was already synonymous with the Springfield health center and pool on Clinton Street, has been the center's chief fundraiser and promoter since 1995. The center opened two years ago after more than a dozen years of dreaming, planning and raising millions of dollars for the nonprofit foundation.

A public celebration and naming ceremony will be held starting at 4 p.m. Sunday at the center, with several of May's good friends in politics attending, including his sister, former Gov. Madeleine May Kunin, as well as former Gov. Thomas Salmon of Rockingham, both Democrats, and the current governor, James Douglas.

"He's been very helpful to the center," May said of Douglas, a Republican.

May said this week that he and others in Springfield started thinking about the health center in 1995, but it wasn't until the state began negotiations with the town about locating a new state prison in the town that the dream came closer.

"We always knew we needed an endowment to make it affordable," May said.

The administration of then-Gov. Howard Dean offered a big carrot for the town to accept the prison — $3 million for a community project.

The money was deposited as seed money, which established the center's endowment to keep membership fees low for needy people.

"We knew you needed a significant endowment to have a fee system to serve everybody," said May.

May said that the elderly and the youth of the area represent a strong percentage of the members who use the exercise room and the pool. Membership in the center includes 35 different towns, in Vermont and New Hampshire, May said.

May, a Democrat who represented Windsor County in the Vermont Senate and Springfield in the Vermont House, came to the Springfield area in 1951 as a reporter for the old Bellows Falls Times and Springfield Reporter.

He left Vermont to seek fame and fortune, winning a Pulitzer Prize while a reporter at the old Buffalo Evening News, leaving Buffalo for a career with the Kennedy Administration, working closely with Sargent Shriver, as inspector general for the federal Office of Economic Opportunity and special assistant to Shriver as head of the first Peace Corps.

He returned to Springfield in the 1970s to serve eight years in the Vermont House and then later eight years in the Vermont Senate.

In honor of May, there will be free swimming at the center from 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Sunday's ceremonies are open to the public and start at 4 p.m.

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