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Duplisea honored for years of service
Marlborough | 8
HUDSON | 13
Marlborough Hudson An edition of the Community Advocate
Hudson town manager will not seek renewal of contract By Paul Hopkins Reporter HUDSON – At a May 18 Select Board meeting, Hudson Town Manager Thomas Gregory said he will not seek a renewal of his contract when it expires next year. Gregory, who joined Hudson in 2021, said that he will remain “100 percent committed to this job and to this town” in the interim. The news comes after a lukewarm performance evaluation from the Select Board. Gregory said he appreciated the board’s evaluation and the feedback: “It’s been a challenging year and I will continue to work on those areas needing improvement,” he added. Steven Sharek — the new Select Board chair — said that, to his knowledge, Gregory’s evaluation marked the first time the Select Board had evaluated a town manager or an equivalent position. He said the review is not a perfect process, calling it a learning experience. Four board members — former chair Scott Duplisea, Sharek, Diane Bemis, and Lauren DuBreuil — assessed Gregory on eight categories: professionalism and individual characteristics, knowledge and training, public relations and communications, board support and relations, community leadership, organizational leadership and personnel management, financial management, and town planning and organization. Each category included between three and eight subcategories. On a 5-point scale, with “5” being the highest, Gregory scored a 3.15. Gregory grew up in Shrewsbury and taught Latin and history at St. Sebastian’s Contract Renewal | 7
Vol. 52 | No. 21 | May 22, 2026
Nunzy had a story to tell How a near-death experience helped a Marlborough World War II veteran connect with others
Nunzio (Nunzy) Martino
By Sophia Oppedisano Reporter MARLBOROUGH – On the morning of March 19, 1945, then-22year-old Marlborough resident Nunzio (Nunzy) Martino began another ordinary day as a U.S. Navy machinist aboard the USS Benjamin Franklin, a carrier ship operating in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. It was a Sunday morning, just after 7 a.m., when the first enemy torpedo struck the ship 50 miles off the coast of the Japanese mainland, according to a letter Nunzy sent to his wife, Regina, in the days following the attack. A second torpedo sent the ship up in flames. Within minutes, it was dead in the water. “I speak the truth when I say that we thought we wouldn’t get through the ordeal,” Nunzy wrote. He was trapped for two hours on the second deck before he managed to escape and catch a glimpse of the horrors of the attack. Only 704 of the original 3,000 crew members survived, but the USS Franklin remained afloat as it was towed back to Ulithi, Nunzy | 7
Hudson may fly Canadian flag at Town Hall By Paul Hopkins Reporter HUDSON – The Select Board, with near-unanimous backing from Town Meeting, is being asked to restore a Canadian flag to the Cellucci Memorial outside Town Hall. The request was a citizens’ petition brought by Richard Harrity, who served as the town’s moderator from 1985 to 2025. Harrity noted that when the Cellucci Memorial was established through the efforts of the Rotary Club around 2015, a Canadian flag flew on one of the “lesser” flag poles to honor Cellucci’s service as U.S. Ambassador to Canada. That changed when a standardized flag policy was adopted by the Select Board. Former Select Board member Scott Duplisea, at his final meeting as a board member, said he wouldn’t argue with the praise offered Cellucci | 7