SPORTS, 10

Marauders sting ’Stangs

ALUMNI CORNER, 3

Guess wherethis couplemet?

INSIDE, 15-16

Cast your vote

POLLDedham readerswere asked: What are your plansfor Valentine’s Day?

TASTY, 8

Try your hand atthis homemadechocolate treat

NUMBER TO KNOW

2.1million: The numberof marriages that

took place in the UnitedStates in 2009. – Cen-sus.gov

INDEXAround Dedham 14, 18, 20News 2, 3Opinion 8Sports 11-13

SEE PAGE 8

FEBRUARY 10 - 16, 2011 wickedlocaldedham.com | GateHouse Media New England ■ Vol. 2 No. 19 ■ 75¢

KNOW WHERE IN TOWN THIS IS?

INSIDE

By Edward B. ColbySTAFF WRITER

The Dedham Mall Sears re-opened Wednesday morningafter it was forced to close thefirst two days of this week socrews could clear snow from itsroof, using cranes to lift the po-tentially dangerous snow overan 8-foot-high decorative para-pet.

“The job, I think, is com-plete and we’re just waitingfor the all-clears” from thetown, mall spokeswoman Shel-

ley Lord said early Wednesdayafternoon.

Three Dedham Mall stores –Toys R Us, T.J. Maxx, and DSW– were still waiting to reopen at

DEDHAM MALL

Snow forces stores to closeCrews clear roof after report sparks fear of collapse; some shops reopened Wednesday

STAFF PHOTO BY KEITH E. JACOBSONDedham Firefighters inspectthe roof of Sears at the Ded-ham Mall on Monday, Feb. 7.The buildup of snow forcedmany stores in the mall toclose until it could be re-moved.

But Wait. There’s More at Wicked LocalDedham.com

Video: Day 1 – Fire ChiefWilliam Cullinane explains thereasons behind closing the mall

Video: Day 2 – Crews work toclear the snow off the roof ofSears

Photos: Check out the gallery ofthe snow removal

SNOW, PAGE 6

By Andrea SalisburySTAFF WRITER

Following a crawling babyboy around the first floorof their Pratt Avenuehome, Chris Sarro retold

the story of his proposal in almostperfect detail.

“The proposal was great,” the31-year-old graphic designersmiled, paused and picked up 9-month-old Vincent. “I had beenthinking about it for a while.Especially after we bought thehouse.”

Ashley (Ingemi) Sarro, a 26-year-old teacher’s aide at OakdaleSchool, was quick to fill in the de-tails. The couple officially start-ed to date in 2005 and bought thehouse in February of 2008. Therewas a lot of renovation work to bedone to the house, so they didn’tmove in right away. In fact, Ash-ley said, they moved in only a fewmonths before the wedding.

“In that time frame when wehad the house in 2008,” Chrissaid, “that was when I proposedto her.”

Ashley stopped him, “Do youremember the date?”

“I don’t remember the date,”he replied, “I want to say it wasin March.”

“No, May.”“May,” he shrugged and put

Vincent down on the floor,who decided to find a monkeyto play with. “Close enough.”

“May 8,” she said without miss-ing a beat.

“May 8,” he repeated. “I wouldexpect you to remember it.”

“It was springtime and thisplace was just,” Chris paused,looked around the now com-pleted family room, full of babytoys and mementos. “I don’t

Want more love stories?

• YOUR STORY: LittleLeague coach finds love on-line / Page 7

• COLUMN: Transcript editor’s high school romance / Page 8

SARRO, PAGE 7

Theirperfect

proposal

STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GORDON

Dedham Youth Commission Director Tom Clinton, who will be retiring in March, chats with a friend at town hall on a recentThursday.

By Edward B. ColbySTAFF WRITER

An important part of what the DedhamYouth Commission does, Tom Clintonsays, is finding kids where they are. Thatwas true back in the looser, hazier ’70s,

when outreach workers would hang out at the

basketball courts. It is true most days at Dedham High School, where

Clinton talks with kids at lunchtime. And it’s trueat this moment, on a recent Thursday, as theYouth Commission’s only-ever director takes a re-

By Edward B. ColbySTAFF WRITER

Jake Santamaria says he has had manymentors during his 35-year career in theDedham public schools, but his “biggest fanand biggest critic” has always been his fa-ther.

A retired Boston principal, his father ledschools “for about 18 years in some diffi-cult situations,” Santamaria says. “And Ihave always looked toward him for guid-ance, for advice, and I just always re-member as a kid seeing how he ran a build-ing, his relationship with his staff and soforth – and to this day, (his) first question(is) ‘How’s school going?’”

That routine, among others, will prob-ably change later this year, as Santamariaretires on June 30 after three years as theprincipal of Dedham High School.

Aside from a short stint in Westwood asa substitute teacher in 1976-1977, Santa-maria has spent his whole career in Ded-ham – as a health and physical education

teacher at the junior high school from 1977to 1985, athletic director at Dedham Highfrom 1985 to 1997, assistant principalfrom 1997 to 2008, and the principalsince then.

Santamaria says he and his wife had beenthinking about it for some time, and after35 years, “it’s time to move on. I want to trysome other things, other career opportu-nities,” he said in an interview Tuesday, Feb.8. “Nothing really definite yet, but I’m re-ally excited about it and torn at the sametime.”

Asked what he views as his legacy at Ded-ham High School, Santamaria said that inhis three roles there, “I have fought for whatI truly believe in, and hopefully it’s been inthe best interests of the kids, my staff, and

By Edward B. ColbySTAFF WRITER

The Dedham public schools putforth a $33.5 million fiscal 2012budget that does not cut any pro-grams, despite the loss of nearly amillion dollars in federal grant mon-ey from this year.

“We’re keeping the exact sameprograms that we had in (fiscal ’11),”business manager MichaelLaFrancesca told the School Com-mittee, which approved the pro-posed budget in a 6-0 vote onWednesday, Feb. 2.

LaFrancesca explained that sincefiscal 2009, the schools have received

Next step for Dedham schools$33.5M budget

proposed for fiscal 2012

CLINTON, PAGE 5

SANTAMARIA, PAGE 6BUDGET, PAGE 4

Go out for a romantic dinner 26%

Send flowers,chocolate

13%

DEDHAM YOUTH COMMISSION

‘We’re all in it together’

Tom Clintonretiring after

39 years

“I work with some great people, and that’s what’smade it very enjoyable.”Jake Santamaria

Outgoing principal reflects on past 3 years

VALENTINE’S DAY

Locals meet at Life Teen, marry

10 years later

Nothing - I am not a fan of

Valentine’s Day! 53%

Take a longweekend for a romantic

getaway 6%

even think there was a roomdone yet. Every room had some-thing going on in it.”

Then comes May 8, 2008.Chris was working in the kitchen,prepping the walls for painting.Ashley said she would be overwith groceries to keep in thehouse while he worked. Chris hadthe ring in his pocket with an“idea of what to do but nothingfinal.”

“It couldn’t have been moreperfect (timing),” he said, “becauseshe came over and she was in theworst mood.”

“I was miserable,” Ashleyagreed as Vincent found a brightwhite toy that made noise whenyou hit it.

“She was (angry) at everybodyand everything,” he said andAshley just smiled in agreement.“It was one of those things she justcame through the house, shewas like a tornado.”

Chris paused and looked at hisson who moved from the toy tohis feet. He leaned down untiltheir noses touched. And to hisson he said, “Yes she did, yourmother was very upset and Istill to this day do not knowwhy.”

As Ashley came into thekitchen with the groceries, Chrissaid he could tell right away thatshe was very upset. She had herback to him putting away food.

“I said, I think I have some-thing here that is going to makeyou happy,” he recalled. “So I got

down on one knee and I pulledout the ring and said ‘check thisout.’ She turned around and al-most fell over. She was shocked.She said, ‘Is this a joke?’”

Ashley said yes right away andthen “ran out of the house to tellher parents,” Chris said.

“I think I said yes, huggedand kissed him and then I was

gone,” she said. “I had to go showpeople.”

Chris laughed, “It was a ploy toget her out of the house, I had toget more work done.”

However, the Sarros’ love sto-ry, you could say, started in 1999when Ashley joined the Ded-ham youth group, St. Mary’s LifeTeen where Chris was also a

member. She was 14. Chris, how-ever, was 19 and a sophomore incollege.

Ashley said she was “kind ofvery nosey, and I guess bold”when they met. Yet because of theage difference they were justfriends. But, Ashley revealedthat in her senior year time cap-sule she did write a note pro-claiming she would marry Chris.

“It is true,” he said, “ I saw it.”The two started dating when

Ashley turned 20.“We finally said, ‘OK I am old-

er now, there is no problem,’” sherecalled. “So we slowly started todate and months into it I was like,we should get married.”

From the hallway Chris asked,“Wait, how long into it?”

“OK, a few weeks maybe,” shesaid.

“No, two weeks you were like‘we should get married,’” he said.

“I don’t regret any of my ac-tions, though,” she paused.

“Neither do I,” Chris smiled athis wife, baby in his arms.“They’ve all turned out well.”

Thursday, February 10, 2011 ■ Dedham Transcript ■ wickedlocaldedham.com 7

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Dedham Youth Baseball coach Dan Ma-her has “a pretty cool story” on how he methis wife Nicole. She works for FableVisionLearning. Here’s the tale in his words:

“We actually met using Match.com. De-spite all of these possible search parame-ters (on the online dating site), the mostcommon and practical search was geo-graphical (based on a radius of where youlive). That was exactly what I had done. Isearched for matches within 10 miles ofDedham and found Nicole (O’Brien). Herprofile said that she lived in Newton.

“She, in fact, did not live in Newton, butall the way down in Wareham. So, our en-tire relationship is built on a lie. Sheworked in Newton. Her story is that mostof her social life was up in this area, so that’swhere she wanted her search radius.

“Our first date was at Joe’s American Bar& Grill on Rte. 1 in January of 2005. Wecontinued to date and continued to go outin Dedham, frequenting hot spots like KikuYama, Deli After Dark, Isabella’s and

Dedham Community Theatre. “We were married in June 5, 2010 in

Marshfield, with several Dedhamites in at-tendance. I am a coach for Dedham YouthBaseball. Nicole works with FableVisionLearning right here in Dedham.”

Dan’s advice for online dating“I always found that there was no sub-

stitute for a face-to-face meeting. Tech-nology and online searches can be great,but you can’t really get to know someonethrough e-mail. With Nicole, we contact-ed one another through Match.com, thenwe phoned each other, then we met for ourfirst date. We didn’t mess around toomuch with back and forth e-mails. I thinkthat’s the best way to make an onlinedating site really work for you.”

YOUR LOVE STORY

Little League coach finds love online

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAWN HALEY MORTONDedham Youth Baseball coach Dan Maher

and Nicole (O’Brien) Maher married onJune 5, 2010, in Marshfield.

SARROFrom Page 1

COURTESY PHOTODedham residents Ashley (Ingemi) Sarro and Chris Sarro weremarried in July 2009. They met in 1999 through St. Mary’s LifeTeen, a church youth group.