The Maine Sports Legends Hall of Honors will have three inductees from the northern region this fall, all representing different parts of Aroostook County.
Kathleen Mazzuchelli of Caribou, Murray Putnam of Oakfield and Ben Paradis of Fort Kent are this year’s honorees who will be honored Oct. 13 at the Alfond Girls and Boys Club in Waterville. The event begins at 12:30 p.m.
Kathy Mazzuchelli is being honored for her work with the Caribou Parks and Recreation Department in a career that began in 1972.
She grew up in Massachusetts, graduating from Braintree High School where she lettered in field hockey, basketball, softball and track and field. At Plymouth State College, she played on the field hockey, basketball and lacrosse teams.
She was first hired as the programmer for the Caribou Parks and Recreation Department, teaching and coaching softball, tennis and basketball and developing an after-hours exercise program for area residents which at one time included 120 participants. In 1980, she was appointed as the first female superintendent of parks and recreation.
That same year, Mazzuchelli worked on the construction of a recreation facility which would be attached to the General Carter Armory on Bennett Drive.
“Kathy worked in conjunction with the Parks and Recreation Commission to complete the construction under budget,” said former Caribou city manager Steven Buck. “This was a starting example of Kathy’s capabilities far and beyond exceeding what one would ever associate with the position she holds. Her diversity in the skill sets and work ethic was simply becoming known to our community.”
Twenty years later, in 2000, Mazzuchelli was again confronted with the challenge of securing a new gymnasium for the city.
“Three years of intense and tireless work finally resulting in a new gymnasium and recreation center that is second to none, known as the Caribou Wellness and Recreation Center,” said Jim Saucier, who worked with Mazzuchelli for several years as the program director before retiring in the mid-2000s. “She is leading this department into the future.”
Susan White, chairperson of the recreation commission, gets to see Mazzuchelli in another light.
“Almost every meeting we have, it starts off with Kathy saying, ‘Hey guys I have an idea to run by you!’ Kathy took it on the chin time after time during our building project, but now the city of Caribou has a wonderful facility that started with a vision Kathy had to allow a recreational facility offering to transcend generations is a reality for all citizens.”
Mazzuchelli has made a positive impact on every individual who has crossed her path, especially young people.
“She has fought to keep program costs low so all kids have an opportunity,” said former longtime Caribou resident Allison Heidorn. “In 38 years, she has held on to her passion and belief that all kids deserve a chance. She has made a small community in northern Maine a place where families have opportunities for some of the best recreational programs that can be found anywhere.”
Mazzuchelli is credited for developing the Nordic ski trails at the Caribou Country Club, she was instrumental in the acquisition of over 70 miles of abandoned rail line for a multi-recreation trail system for Aroostook County and worked on many projects in the Caribou Parks and playgrounds.
“Kathy has proven herself to be a true asset to Caribou,” said Caribou Police Chief Michael Gahagan. “Without time spent in her facilities, the youth of the community would unfortunately be spending time in my facility.”
She works very closely with Gahagan as a co-leader in the Community Alcohol and Drug Education Team (CADET) that has become a model for how any community can try to overcome the problem of substance abuse.
“Kathy helped generate the largest community town hall meeting in the history of the city when nearly 1,700 citizens and students filled the Caribou High School cafeteria and Performing Arts Center to learn about how to combat prescription drug abuse in our area keeping the safety of our young people up front,” said Bill Flagg, director of community relations and development at Cary Medical Center.
Mazzuchelli has been involved with the Hershey Track and Field Program for the last 36 years. She and Andrew Mead of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, put in many hours with workshops to build this program.
“Kathy does it because it’s fun or for the free chocolate,” Mead joked, “but we all know it’s because of her undying passion for helping young people find their achievement and identity.”
She has also been the “voice” of the official Aroostook County Snowmobile Trail Report for over 30 years and is a member of Aroostook County Tourism Board, helping to promote the region state-wide and into Canada.
She was a board official for field hockey, basketball and softball for several years and continues to officiate recreation soccer, basketball, baseball and softball games.
Mazzuchelli has received multiple awards from the Caribou Business and Professional Women, including “Woman of the Year” in 2002 and 2006. She was the recipient of the 2007 “Bridge Builder of the Year” from Aroostook Substance Abuse Prevention Program, was named AAUW State of Maine Woman of the Year in 2007, earned a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow Award in 2009 and was the first female to receive the “Outstanding Professional Award” from Maine Recreation and Parks Association in 1983.
In her free time, Mazzuchelli enjoys biking, kayaking, walking and snowmobiling.
Murray Putnam established himself as an outstanding athlete, educator, coach, assistant principal and athletic director over a period of four decades in the southern Aroostook area. He grew up on a potato and dairy farm 10 miles south of Houlton, with a family of 11 children. Putnam and several of his siblings became educators following in the footsteps of their mother, a teacher for 35 years.
Putnam played basketball and baseball in high school at Ricker Classical Institute. He graduated from Ricker College in 1968 and the University of Southern Maine in 1990 with a master’s degree in administration. He didn’t compete in athletics while he was in college.
Putnam became an elite coach on the baseball diamond for 44 years with an outstanding record of 481 wins and 131 losses.
Sterling Lawrence, the pastor of Bethel Church in Oakfield, remembers his years in the late 1960s playing for Putnam.
“We all learned from wins and losses that good enough isn’t good enough,” Lawrence said. “Excellence was something to go after, especially in the mental game of baseball. Coach helped us through the process of hard work on the playing field to become mature men by having qualities that would serve society well in our future.”
David Gordon, the president of Katahdin Cedar Log Homes, has hired many of Putnam’s players in his business.
“When hiring summer help for my mill, I always felt good about hiring these kids as Murray taught them the skills they needed in real life, not some fantasy world where everyone wins and there is no hard work,” Gordon said.
Putnam’s Southern Aroostook baseball teams captured 10 Eastern Maine championships, five state championships, one state Babe Ruth championship and 11 more in the North Eastern Maine League, which was abolished in 1985.
Putnam began teaching and coaching in 1968 at Oakfield, which was a big baseball community. He started a Pony League for young players. Success soon happened at the high school level and in 1970 Oakfield won the Katahadin Valley League title, its first in 16 years. Schools around consolidated, Southern Aroostook was formed and opened in 1976 with a growing school population as well as a baseball program.
A new diamond was built at the school and Southern Arooostook baseball had a permanent home. A large sign was standing at the complex, the Murray W. Putnam Baseball Field, which was build entirely with local help and named in 1979.
In Ernie Clark’s 2008 article in the Bangor Daily News on Putnam, former Presque Isle boys’ varsity basketball coach Tim Prescott said he played for Putnam in the mid-1970s and noted “the biggest thing I learned from Murray was discipline. I always think he looked at discipline as a positive. I don’t think he thought about what discipline does to kids, but what it does for kids.”
Jason Tarr played on two of Putnam’s state championship teams in the 1980s. “He was strict, and held high expectations, but we knew he was going to be fair if we did what he expected of us and we probably were going to be playing for championships.”
Putnam has received many honors throughout his career, including the Maine Baseball Coaches Association Coach of the Year in 1989. He was inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 and earned a plaque from the National Baseball Coaches Association in 2008 for 40 years of coaching baseball. He was the recipient of the Award of Merit in 2006 from the Maine Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
Putnam is a past member of Ricker College board of trustees scholarship committee, is a member of Houlton Lodge of Elks No. 835, where he was former treasurer and served on the Soccer Shoot committee.
In his spare time, Putnam watches sports, rides an ATV and reads books of historical nature.
Ben Paradis
Ben Paradis is an athlete, educator, coach and avid community volunteer. He grew up with six brothers and five sisters. Paradis went to high school in Bucksport and completed one year of college at St. John’s in Bar Harbor. In the fall of 1964, he attended the University of Maine at Fort Kent and graduated in 1967, majoring in education.
Paradis taught grades 5-8 at Eagle Lake School in the subjects of physical education and science. He then transferred to Community High School, now Fort Kent Community High School, to teach science. After teaching a couple of years, Paradis attended Cornell University to obtain a master’s degree in physics.
Returning to Fort Kent, he continued teaching at the high school in the physics department with his particular brand of ‘hands-on’ instruction until he retired in 2005, only to return back to the classroom teaching physics part-time at the present. He has no thoughts of completely retiring from the classroom any time soon,
“Not as long as I’m healthy and the kids are liking it,” Paradis said.
He also teaches science courses at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. In the early 1980s he became an astronomy instructor, a position he still holds today.
Paradis coached soccer, basketball and baseball at the junior high level. In 1981, he started coaching the high school ski team in both Nordic and alpine. His girls’ ski teams won Class A state championships in 1986, ‘89 and ‘91, while his boys’ teams took Class C state titles in ‘94 and 2004. The Warriors also own 20 Aroostook League titles under Paradis.
“Ben is a true gentleman and consummate teacher and coach, always getting in life’s lessons whenever possible,” said John Kaleta, who taught and coached with Paradis and currently serves as assistant prinicipal at Sacopee Valley High School.
Paradis continues to co-coach both the boys and girls Nordic ski teams and still takes part in all of the workouts with his team, even at the age of 70. That is a reason he is well respected by the athletes he has coached over the years.
“One thing that set Coach Paradis apart from other coaches was his understanding of the science of skiing, a sport that changes quickly. He understood the chemistry of waxing like no one else, and when I coached I often found myself lingering around the Fort Kent bus to see what they might be using for wax,” said Eric Waddell, principal at Traip Academy in Kittery. “The truth is Coach Paradis was always happy to share his knowledge with other teams — that’s the kind of person he is.”
Paradis is also well-known for his volunteering in the community. He has given much of his time to helping out at multiple biathlon events at the 10th Mountain Ski Center in Fort Kent and has helped out at the Cam-Am Sled Dog Races.
He has been director at Lonesome Pine Trails, the local ski area, since 1986 and served as president from 2005-11. He has also been past president of Northern Aroostook Education Association.
Paradis was inducted into the Maine Ski Hall of Fame in 2010. He was selected Fort Kent’s Outstanding Citizen of the Year in 1998 and in 2011 received the University of Maine at Fort Kent’s Distinguished Service Award.
In his free time, Paradis skis in marathons and this coming winter plans to do the Berkinbiner, a Nordic ski marathon in Wisconsin. He is also a passionate carpenter.
Paradis and his wife, Nancy, have five sons and six grandchildren.
