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In Loving Memory . . .

Sally Rich, 1941 – 2019, Town of Hawley Selectman
In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene (August 2011), Sarah “Sally” Rich stands in front of a Town Truck with other officials and participants in Hawley’s response.  Left to Right: Richard “Dick” Desmarais; Sally Rich; Lisa Turner; Richie Gould; Darwin Clark; Hussain Hamdan.​

It is with great regret that I inform you that Hawley Selectman Sarah J. “Sally” Rich (formerly Sarah Jones), passed away surrounded by her family a little after eight o’clock in the evening on Tuesday, March the 26, 2019, at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. She was 77 years old.

She was presently also serving on the Hawlemont Regional School Committee and the Hawley Conservation Commission. As many people in Hawley know, she was also my grandmother and one of my best friends.

Sally was Hawley’s first and, thus far, only woman to sit on the Select Board, serving on and off from the 1980s and being elected to her current term in May of 2018.  She left the Board in the ’90s for health reasons, but when her health improved and the Town needed her she answered the call and came back.  She liked to be called by the traditional title “Selectman”; not “Selectwoman,” “Selectperson,” or “Select Board Member.”

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