Picture Enfield - Then and Now

ENFIELD, CT — Today's installment of this weekly Enfield history series was taken just a dozen years ago, but it conjures up the memory of a yearly tradition that, for nearly four decades, drew town residents together on mainly chilly mornings in late November.

For 36 years, Thanksgiving Day began with the annual Enfield-Fermi football clash, with thousands of spectators ringing the field for the traditional 10 a.m. start. Following the 2007-08 season, however, the Raiders switched into the Pequot Conference, which did not allow its member schools to schedule games against out-of-conference opponents. Thus, the Thanksgiving rivalry ended.

In this photo from the final Raider-Falcon battle in 2007, which was the first game played on the Falcons' new artificial turf field, Fermi quarterback Keith Hill releases a pass before he can be caught by Enfield defender Brendan Greene. The Raiders prevailed 28-14 behind two touchdown passes and a scoring run by quarterback Pete Kelley, but the Falcons captured the all-time series, 19-16-1.

The schools merged into one at the Enfield High School campus in 2016, and the newly-named Eagles now play South Windsor annually in the season's final matchup (which is no longer on Thanksgiving, but nearly a full week earlier this year, on Saturday, Nov. 23).

Here is a more current view of the scene.

Last week's trivia answer:
Last week's trivia question was, "At the time of Enfield's consolidation of its two junior high schools in 1982, Kosciuszko principal Armand Regalbuti moved over to Kennedy as a housemaster. Who was the JFK principal at that time?: The answer: Jim Mahoney, who was named Kennedy principal in 1969 and retired in 1992. He passed away in 2009 at age 83. Here is his photo from the 1988 yearbook, courtesy of the Enfield Historical Society via archive.org.

This week's trivia question:
Who was the first woman to serve as mayor of Enfield? Post the answer in the comments section below, or on the Enfield Patch Facebook page.