Plaque of Appreciation for 31 years of public service was presented, last week, to outgoing Windham highway superintendent Gary Thorington (right) by Windham town supervisor Thomas Hoyt.
By Michael Ryan
WINDHAM - The traditional walk home on his final day of work was taken by Windham highway superintendent Gary Thorington, last week.
Thorington has retired after 31 years with the department, rising old-school through the ranks to follow in the bootsteps of his mentor, the late George Mulford, and immediate predecessor, Thomas Hoyt.
Hoyt has moved on to become town supervisor, presenting Thorington with a Plaque of Appreciation during a town council meeting.
“This means a lot to me,” said Thorington whose closing hours on the beat were December 31, passing the torch to Robert “BJ” Murray.
Wasting no time putting Murray to the test, Mother Nature provided him with back-to-back snow and ice storms which he handled with aplomb.
“It’s been a really good ride and you have been extremely supportive of the decisions that had to be made,” Thorington said to government leaders.
“I always took the words ‘public service” to heart, and I can assure you the town will be in good hands with Mr. Murray,” Thorington said.
A graduate of Windham-Ashland-Jewett school, Thorington is taking no time to chill out, accepting a position with the Greene County highway department as a project manager and field trainer, starting this week.
“There are plenty of county roads in Windham so I’m not going very far and my phone will still always be on to help out here,” Thorington said.
Sticking with tradition, he hoofed the quarter-mile home after bidding adieu to the local shop, and in a followup social media posting started, “I am forever thankful for every moment and memory.
“To my highway family, I thank each and every one of you for making this trip worthwhile. Without you all, there'd be no reason to hit the grind stone.” Thorington stated.
While cherishing his three decades of 24-hours-a-day duty in the winter months, he won’t miss the 2 a.m. wake-ups to battle nasty weather.
“It will be different, for sure, leaving something so familiar,” Thorington said. “But It won’t be a bad sound, hearing the plow go by my house and not being the one behind the wheel of it.”
Murray joined the department in the spring of 2025, having extensive background in road paving and building, and heavy construction.
Public service is deeply embedded. When he was nine years old, his father, a local volunteer firefighter, was tragically killed in a car accident while responding to an emergency call.
“My family has had some hard knocks so I understand what it can be like for other people too. I feel ready to do this job right,” Murray said.
In other matters:
—Local resident Donald Alberti, at a recent meeting, suggested providing more attention to vintage documents and photographs hanging on the south wall of the entrance to the municipal hall in Hensonville.
The building contains history, having been a movie theater in an earlier incarnation, now housing government offices, the local court and the Windham police department.
Alberti noted that much memorabilia is now hidden behind an in-house metal detector used by the court, stored in the outer foyer.
Some of those items are a plaque dated March 3, 1974, when the town hall was dedicated, with the names of officials then in office, and a playbill from the old movie house featuring George Bancroft in “Rich Man’s Folly.”.
Those pieces and more could be moved to the main meeting room, joining old photographs of Main Street in Hensonville showing a horse and buggy “motorist,” circa 1900, and antique snapshots of the now defunct county Board of Supervisors prior to formation of the county legislature.
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