Memories and Honors at Hall of Fame Induction

Philadelphia may be able to take credit for vaulting Rob Hyman to international fame when his band The Hooters was featured on the US portion of Live Aid in that city in 1985, but Meriden can say that the Grammy-nominee was vaulted in this town long before that – right out of a movie theater after he was caught with a pea shooter.

Hyman, 61, shared this and other memories of growing up in Meriden – of drooling over instruments at Jimmy Azzolina's Music Box downtown and winning the Battle of the Bands in Hubbard Park – to a packed audience at the Augusta Curtis Cultural Center Sunday afternoon. The crowd was assembled to honor four 2011 inductees to the city's .

Hyman was inducted along with current civic leaders Rhuden Raye, 85, Matthew Dominello, Sr. 80, and also Dr. Francis Giuffrida, who was posthumously recognized for his contributions to the city. Each honoree was introduced by a relative or friend.

Dominello was introduced by his son, Matthew Dominello, Jr, one of his four children. Before listing some of the popular 27-year city councilor and former mayor's exhaustive list of affiliations and accomplishments in the city, Dominello, Jr. told a surprised-sounding crowd that his father, born to Italian immigrants, was the youngest of 15 children. 

Long before the Wilcox Tech graduate was involved in city politics, Dominello, Sr. was known throughout town for working at his brother Sal's grocery store and for opening his own store in Meriden called Dominello's Superette. His son said that he was so kind to the neighborhood kids that many of them called him "Uncle Matt" – and still do.

To this day, "I'm still not sure which are real cousins and which are store cousins," Dominello, Jr. said.

Dominello Sr. thanked his family for their support and sometimes necessary patience as he spent time working with city government and organizations like the Civitan Club, Knights of Columbus, Meriden-Wallingford Society for the Handicapped, and the Senior Center. Today, in addition to serving on city council and acting as Deputy Mayor, Dominello volunteers as a Senior Buddy Reader, and works at the Senior Center as a constituent liasion for US. Rep. Chris Murphy (D-5). He specifically thanked his wife Helen, with whom he just celebrated his 56th wedding anniversary on Saturday. "This day couldn't have been possible without her."

Beverly Miller, a Meriden teacher, introduced her friend Raye. The retired teacher and nurse was raised by a single mother in South Carolina, and worked to attend Bennett College for Women in North Carolina and then nursing training in Brooklyn, New York before moving to Meriden in the 1950s.

She did this despite the fact that "It wasn't easy for a Black girl to strive for anything but minimum wage labor," Miller said.

In Meriden Raye worked as a first and second grade teacher at Nathan Hale Elementary School in the day and at Wallingford's Masonic Care Center in the evening as the center's first Black nurse, building enough funds for Raye to buy her first house for herself and her two sons.

"She's the only person I've ever known to hold two full-time jobs at the same time," said neighbor Judy Adamowicz, who came out to see Raye inducted."She has more energy than I could dream of."

For the last 26 years, Raye has put much of that energy into the city's Martin Luther King, Jr./Albert Owens Scholarship Breakfast, which she founded in 1985. The annual breakfast honors both the national and local civil rights leaders after whom the event is named and awards scholarships to local high school seniors. Raye is known for her tireless efforts and persistence in putting on the event. Mitchell joked "does she badger you for a donation? Absolutely."

Following the introduction, Raye talked about the scholarship program, which has, according to her bio, provided more than $104,000 to local graduating seniors.

"College comes with an ever-increasing price tag - going to college may seem like a pipe dream. (The scholarship has helped) to make that dream come true regardless of a student's race, color or creed," Raye said, before adding a final plug for the breakfast. "So I hope to see you all this year."

Musician Rob Hyman, who now lives in Philadelphia with his family, was introduced by his brother, Meriden dentist David Hyman. David Hyman described his brother as a piano phenom who, according to family lore, could play the theme from the Davy Crockett television show on the piano at 3 years old. He described his brother's transition from Beethoven (learned from local music teachers) to Beatles, and his forming of local rock bands like the Trolls, as early as 13. He said that this early rock-star-dom led to clashes with the Maloney High School brass in a time where "hair couldn't touch the ear and eyebrow, and if you couldn't toss a golf ball down your pants" they were too tight.

The experience with Meriden bands like the Trolls, Back Door Blues, Pro-teens helped Rob Hyman form "The Hooters" in Philadelphia after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. "We played somebody's party," Hyman said of his first band the Trolls, in his remarks acknowledging the Hall of Fame honor Sunday, "I think we got $20 and I thought 'hey this is for me.'"

The Hooters became popular, with Top 10 songs, platinum albums, constant MTV airplay, and the group toured the world. Hyman worked as a songwriter and music producer as well. He recieved a Grammy nomination in 1984 after co-writing Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time. Today he continues to tour with the Hooters, and work as a songwriter and producer. Though he lives in Philadelphia, he comes back to the area about once a month to see his mother and aunt, Hyman said.

"You can go home again, and I do – often," Hyman said of Meriden, thanking his music teachers, old friends and family. "It was a great place to grow up."

Inclusion of the final honoree, Dr. Francis Giuffrida, was long overdue, said Hall of Fame Vice President Michael Quinn, who said he was surprised to find out he wasn't in the hall already.

Giuffrida was a physician at Colony Medical Group on Colony Street and a surgeon in Meriden at the Meriden Hospital for only 18 years before he died of cancer at the age of 56, said his daughter Lyn Giuffrida. But in that time the Middletown-born physician made a significant impact, such that the city chose to name its East Side Park after him.

In addition to being a director and president of the YMCA, director of the Chamber of Commerce, and a leader in the national and local Boy Scouts, Giuffrida was an attending physician at home football games for for Meriden, Maloney and Platt high schools.

When there was a crosstown game, "He would spend half the game on one bench and half on the other," Lyn Giuffrida said laughing, no matter that she and her sisters were all at Maloney.

The doctor's daughters, Lyn Giuffrida, Joanne Becker and Leslie Giuffrida, accepted the award on behalf of their father.

Plaques bearing the photos and biographies of the four 2011 inductees will be placed in City Hall.