LEFT: Marytrine DeCastro is sworn in as town council member, representing the First Ward, by Mayor Alberto Santos as her sons Chad (holding Bible) and Jordan
watch. RIGHT: Anthony Capitti takes the oath as deputy mayor with an assist from Councilwoman Susan McCurrie.
KEARNY –
When the Kearny municipal government held its 2016 reorganization last week, they did it in style, with professional musical accompaniment.
Mayor Alberto Santos and Town Council members were escorted into the assembly chambers by George Hayes, a member of the renowned St. Columcille United Gaelic Pipe Band.
Fitted out in traditional Irish tartan kilt, Hayes played an old Irish air, “The Dawning of the Day,” on his bagpipes as he stepped through the doors, marching to the back of the room and up the aisle to the edge of the dias before departing.
Hayes, who was pinch-hitting for another band member, said he and seven other members had just returned from an engagement in Ireland. They were playing in Annascaul, County Kerry, in the heart of the Dingle Peninsula, as part of a New Year’s celebration.
Next on the agenda for the elected officials, staff and guests came the singing of the national anthem, led by opera-trained vocalist Brandi Miller.
Although this was her first crack at singing the anthem for the yearly Kearny event, Miller has had plenty of prior experience belting it out at ballparks.
A native of Lakeland, Fla., Miller worked at Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Fla., for two years and during that time she was the botanical garden/ theme park’s “ambassador” to the Cleveland Indians baseball team which, until 2008, played its spring training games at Chain of Lakes park in Winter Haven.
She sang “The Star Spangled Banner” there and at Jacobs Field, the Indians’ home park in downtown Cleveland, many times.
Of late, she’s been singing with The Chorus of Communities, an ecumenical choral society serving northeast New Jersey, in Belleville.
Miller ended up in Kearny after meeting her husbandto- be, Jim Miller, when they both attended a National Young Republicans Conference in Washington, D.C., in 2004. “I moved to Kearny when I got married,” she told The Observer.
The couple have, each in their own way, connected with the Kearny community: Jim is a trustee of United Irish Associations of West Hudson and president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division 7, Hudson County, and Brandi is in her second year as president of the Junior Woman’s Club of Arlington and sits on the board of The Friends of the Kearny Public Library.
– Ron Leir
