Civic Center mezzanine dedicated to memory of Phil Edwards

The brand new second-floor mezzanine that overlooks the ice sheet at the Tupper Lake Civic Center was dedicated to the man who was the local arena's primary builder four decades ago.

The late Phil Edwards was recognized Friday afternoon in a ceremony hosted by the Tupper Lake Central School District in the new room above the arena lobby. It was attended by about 50 family members and friends. In the crowd that day were Phil and Betty's eight children, many of their 19 grandchildren and one of their three great grandchildren.

About the time of the ceremony their third great grandchild, Emery Marie, was born to parents Andrea and Alex Stuart of this village.

The timing of the dedication was fitting. The short observance took place about an hour before the first game in the sixth annual Phil Edwards Memorial Hockey Tournament this weekend.

Phil, who was co-owner with Don LaBarge and Bob Chartier of C.E.L. Lumber here, was the chief builder on a local committee of volunteers who canvassed the community and held fundraisers during the late 1970s and in the end raised over $100,000 to begin the project. The names of Phil Edwards and Tom Proulx became synonymous with what became one of Tupper Lake's most successful recreational projects.

A year or so after the arena's shell was up and open it was sold to the then Town of Altamont when improvements were made and then passed to the Tupper Lake Central School District to take advantage of two major building programs, the most recent of which was in 2018 when the mezzanine, new shower rooms and other features were added to the arena.

Phil continued to stay involved with building chores and improvements there all during the 1980s.

Superintendent of Schools Seth McGowan welcomed the “Edwards family and guests” to that day's ceremony. He introduced School Board President Jane Whitmore and board member Jason Rolley, as well as business manager Dan Bower, Pierre St. Pierre, building and grounds superintendent at the district and Jonn Kopp, the district's arena manager.

He called Mr. Kopp “the main guy” at the civic center these days “and we're very proud to have him attached to it.”

He told the guests it was a great privilege for him to be there.

“There are so many people who had a hand in its development and construction when it was originally built by a volunteer force going on 40 years ago.”

“It is our intention as a school district to recognize those other people who played those critical roles in the early days of the civic center over the course of the next few years,” he explained.

“But tonight on the eve of the first day of Phil's tournament we thought it particularly appropriate to start, as we should, with Mr. Phil Edwards.”

“This place and this space was designed for the community and for visitors to use and while the building has been proudly owned by the Tupper Lake Central School District since the mid-1990s, it remains a vital resource for the community. It can be proven by the packed house we saw several weeks ago during the skate show and the many, local, organized events that go on here, including this weekend's events with local and visiting teams” in the tournament that honors Mr. Edwards.

Mr. McGowan said the building is commonly called by locals and visitors as “the jewel of the Adirondacks.”

“It is by far and without question, in everyone's opinion and without any bias, the nicest facility, the most well-designed facility of any of its sort in the entire North Country and maybe the state and maybe the world.”

He said it's more than organized events that bring us to this “jewel of the Adirondacks.” When he stopped there the other day to talk with Mr. Kopp he found the lobby and skating surface “was loaded with children from this community” at public skating.

“The district vision is to be in partnership with each child's home and community in order to help each one achieve academic and personal excellence,” he told the audience.

“In my opinion, what better way to demonstrate this than at the place where Tupper Lake comes together to celebrate a great community builder like Mr. Phil Edwards.

“We never discussed it while Phil was alive but I know that he and others envisioned the civic center should be more than just a place to play hockey,” although hockey is important.

“As we stand in this room you have to be impressed that Mr. Edward left space in the design for this room to be built. That is foresight of a whole different variety!”

He said it turns out that over 30 years later “a community-supported capital project in this district” would take that vision to reality “and that's what brings us here today to honor Mr. Edwards.”

“So it is with great pride, on behalf of the board of education of the Tupper Lake Lake Central School District, that I hereby dedicate this room to Mr. Philip Edwards in recognition of his commitment to its construction and foresight in the design of the civic center for the betterment of the community of Tupper Lake.”

The announcement drew loud applause from everyone in the room.

The second speaker Friday was Phil and Betty's oldest son John, a civil engineer from Bellows Falls, Vt., who helped his father design the mezzanine and who also engineered the design of the Tupper Lake train station about 2007.

John began by thanking the superintendent “for his wonderful words.”

“I speak for the whole family when I say thank you from the bottom of our hearts. This is an absolute, wonderful honor to my father. I wish he was alive to stand in this room and take a look out those windows” to the rink beyond “to see what he saw in his imagination. This room was always part of the plan. I remember in the late 1980s his hand sketches coming to me. There just wasn't money in the budget when we originally built this structure!”

“I want to thank Mr. McGowan and the Tupper Lake school district for putting this puzzle piece into place and for finishing Phil's vision for this building,” Mr. Edwards asserted. “It just adds so much to the structure.”

He thanked the district's gift to their family “for honoring my father's name forever by attaching it to this room in this building that he worked so hard to build.”

John said his father worked with so many others from Tupper Lake.

“I'm looking around this room and I see Gary Drayse, I see Randy Denis and I see Bob Duhaime who was in the hole setting rebar with my father.” Looking at Pierre St. Pierre, he said he remembers Pierre's father, the late Maurice St. Pierre and working along side him too “and getting bug bit” in the excavated site for the building's foundation. “I learned from them about setting a grade beam.

“This was a community thing!” he said of the many work bees that went into the fundraising and the construction of the place.

“My father put a lot of heart into this building, working on the various parts of it. But he couldn't have done it without the help of this community.”

He said the vision of a covered ice sheet was a community one shared by many and a community group effort, beginning in the 1970s. Pointing to people in the audience, John said “everyone pitched in...my mom, Randy's wife Theresa, Mrs. Flagg, Sandie Strader, the Drayses...through can and bottle drives, raffles. Everyone worked hard scraping up money!”

“-And how many years did they have bottle and can drives out front before the school district took over just to pay for the utilities?”

John said the “school district has the horsepower and the means to take this building that the volunteers built and take care of it.”

He said his son plays youth hockey in southern Vermont “and we go into a lot of rinks. Seth's right, this is the nicest one I've ever been in. I say it to Jonn (Kopp) every time I come up here: 'my hat's off to you!' I could probably eat off these floors, the place is so clean. The painting is always kept up. If you maintain a building like this, people respect it and they are less likely to want to cause damage to it.”

Again, on behalf of his family, he thanked the district for honoring their father and grandfather.

Next to a wooden and embossed plaque dedicating the mezzanine to Phil there was a framed copy of Phil's plans for the arena, showing the lay-out of rooms. Also hanging there was a framed sketch by granddaughter Noelle Casagrain of her grandfather lovingly holding the face of Pete Edward's son, Ethan.

“What a job she did...what a talent. She definitely has that Casagrain talent!” John told the audience.

He also recognized Don LaBarge, who, he said, was also involved with the arrival of the new civic center as his father's partner.

“I was the lightweight. Your father was the heavyweight,” Don told Mr. Edwards.

John laughed and said that many people helped, including himself. “I was told on more than one occasion that I was the lightweight!”

In conclusion he added his thanks to the organizers of the Phil Edwards Hockey Tournament, who keep running it year after year. For years the chamber sponsored it but this year a small group spearheaded by Adam Baldwin directed it.

“What a great honor it is to have this event annually to keep Phil's memory alive. A lot of people who will play in the tournament came long distances because when they were growing up they were playing here when this structure was going up in the early 1980s” and were some of the first players to use it.

He joked that he recently learned the tournament was in danger of cancellation this year due to the lack of a key referee. “I told them I knew someone who could take care of it.” Looking out at his mother, he said: “Mom, I brought your skates!”

That brought loud laughter and applause to conclude the touching ceremony that recognized a great man.