[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 93 (Thursday, July 8, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1330-E1332]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    TRIBUTE TO EDWARD J. PHILBIN SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS CLINTON, 
                             MASSACHUSETTS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, July 8, 2004

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, a little more than a week ago, Edward J. 
Philbin retired as Superintendent of Schools for the Town of Clinton, 
Massachusetts marking the end of an extraordinary thirty-five year 
career in public education. As a foreign language teacher, department 
chair, high school principal and administrator, Ed Philbin earned a 
well-deserved reputation for passionate and tireless devotion to the 
education and development of children and young people. On June 24, 
2004, a reception attended by more than 200 of his colleagues, family 
members, former students and friends was held at the Clinton Town Hall 
to honor his lasting contributions to the communities of Clinton and 
Worcester. Due to votes scheduled here in the House of Representatives, 
I was unable to attend that reception to personally express my great 
respect, deep

[[Page E1331]]

gratitude and best wishes to Ed Philbin for a happy and healthy 
retirement. However, I would like to submit for the record the remarks 
delivered at that tribute by his son Chris, a member of my 
congressional staff, which I think capture the essence of this 
remarkable man.

   Remarks by Christopher R. Philbin on Behalf of the Philbin Family 
 Honoring Edward J. Philbin on the Occasion of His Retirement June 24, 
        2004, Fallon Memorial Auditorium, Clinton, Massachusetts

       It has been alluded to earlier tonight, but I think it 
     bears repeating. The only thing our Father has done longer 
     and with more success than work in public education, is to be 
     married to our Mother for nearly 36 years, his closest friend 
     and most loyal supporter. So on behalf of our Mom, my brother 
     Ed and his wife Lynn; my sister Cara, a high school English 
     teacher in New Jersey, and her husband Tim who couldn't be 
     here tonight; my brother Matthew and his longtime girlfriend 
     Christie Mullin; and the rest of our family, we would like to 
     thank all of you for being here to pay tribute to a guy that 
     we happen to think very highly of. We are especially pleased 
     that our Grandmother, Dorothy Philbin, is here tonight for 
     this special occasion.
       As many of you know, this retirement party was originally 
     supposed to be a surprise because our Dad would have much 
     preferred come June 30th to leave the keys on the desk with a 
     kind note for Mr. Gaw and quietly slip out the side door. But 
     that was not to be, and so when our Father found out about 
     this party it required some persuasion from the gang of four 
     that he affectionately refers to as the `girls'--you all know 
     them as Mary Neeley-Winkler, Marilyn Tierney, Maureen 
     Weatherell and Christine Bonci--to convince him to allow this 
     party to go forward. It was a closed-door meeting from which 
     no minutes will be released but I'm guessing that when our 
     Dad protested he was told something like ``shut up, smile and 
     be gracious!''
       Our family would like to thank the four of them for the 
     work they've put into planning and organizing this party and 
     for being so good to our Dad these last five years; for 
     putting a smile on his face; and for educating him on the 
     finer points of KENO. We would especially like to thank Mary 
     Neeley-Winkler who in addition to being our Dad's right hand 
     these last several years has helped my brother and his wife 
     find a house, plan my sister's wedding and given my brother 
     Matt a part-time summer job. In short, we are all indebted to 
     Mary and without saying much more, as far as we're concerned, 
     you can't put a price on what Mary Neeley means to this 
     family.
       I'm not sure Matt and Cara will remember this, but Tripp 
     certainly will. Growing up, one of the many summer rituals in 
     our house was to accompany our Dad to the old high school in 
     early August to help him unpack and date stamp the new 
     foreign language text books for the upcoming school year. We 
     would follow him down the long promenade into the school, 
     past the trophy cases in the lobby, and down the hall to the 
     second door on the left marked ``STORAGE''. At the time, that 
     storage closet doubled as the chairman of the foreign 
     language department's office and inside there were makeshift 
     shelves filled with books toppling in on his desk with barely 
     enough room to turn around. Our Dad would lead us out of his 
     office into the language lab where we would fool around with 
     the tape recorders and earphones for awhile before he put us 
     to work unpacking the boxes of books. During the rather 
     mundane process of unpacking the books, what quickly became 
     apparent to us even at that early age, was the excitement 
     and enthusiasm our Dad had for the coming school year. His 
     passion was palpable. This is a man who clearly loved to 
     teach.
       It wasn't long after each school year started, that our 
     parents would have scores of students parading through our 
     house to videotape an installment of the long-running French 
     Soap Opera or French Newscast that he had his students both 
     script and act in as a way to learn the language. Each of us 
     were granted a cameo appearance in those productions but I 
     think Cara set the record by appearing in twelve consecutive 
     editions of the French Soap Opera. When his students weren't 
     shooting a movie in our house, they were there sampling 
     foreign cuisine our Mother prepared for members of the 
     International Club which our Dad founded or compiling 
     photographs for the yearbook when he served as the faculty 
     advisor to that activity. Our Dad never suffered from that 
     notion that teachers had to keep their students at a safe 
     distance; that you had to erect a firewall between what you 
     did for work and what you did at home. He wanted to know all 
     of his students and wanted his students to know him. Some of 
     his students were actually granted the unique privilege of 
     babysitting his children and many of them bear the physical 
     and emotional scars to prove it. Others are still in therapy 
     from the experience and were advised by their counselors not 
     to come tonight.
       When our Dad wasn't inviting students into our home, he was 
     inviting them to travel around the world with him to London 
     and Paris, to Quebec and to Rome, and he bears the physical 
     and emotional scars from those trips. Our Dad sought to do 
     more than just teach a language, he tried to introduce his 
     students to another culture and he thought to do that best 
     you often times had to go and meet those cultures where they 
     are. His approach also included assigning his students novels 
     by French authors and philosophers. In fact, he may be the 
     only French teacher in the world who assigned Camus and Satre 
     to high school students. In hindsight, I'm not sure that No 
     Exit and The Stranger were the best choices for 16-year-old 
     kids worried about finding a date for the prom. That may have 
     been a little too much existential angst for them at that age 
     but he assigned them nonetheless.
       The one book that our Dad insisted every one of his 
     students read and actually memorize parts of is his favorite 
     book, the children's story, Le Petit Prince. Over the years, 
     as I've grown to be friends with many of my Dad's former 
     students, a number of them after inquiring about my Dad have 
     spontaneously quoted a passage from that book to me: ``Il 
     faux exiger de chacun, ce que chacun peut donner,'' which 
     loosely translated means ``Ask of a person only that which 
     they can give.''
       I think anyone who had our Dad as a student would agree 
     that he certainly gave all of himself to teaching. He seemed 
     to believe that just about anyone can instruct students on 
     conjugating verbs or using the proper accent but it takes 
     something extra, something special, to actually inspire them. 
     He managed to do that--to inspire them--and perhaps the best 
     evidence of that are the postcards and letters he continues 
     to receive from former students that have traveled all around 
     the world. A few have even become foreign language teachers 
     which is something that I know gives him a tremendous amount 
     of pride and satisfaction.
       When the time came for our Dad to move from teaching into 
     administration, I think we were all more than a little 
     surprised because he never seemed to be inclined in that 
     direction. Believe it or not, he is not an especially 
     ambitious person. But, sometimes circumstances tap you on the 
     shoulder and life pulls you in a certain direction. Or, to 
     put it another way, the cream has a way of always rising to 
     the top. As a principal, quadrant manager and superintendent, 
     our Dad brought the same level of energy and passion he 
     displayed in the classroom to the often-times dispassionate 
     duties that those positions require. And, just as he used to 
     bring his students into our home, he also brought the demands 
     of those positions home with him. Particularly as a 
     principal, I distinctly remember him being completely 
     exasperated by his inability to help one child who was 
     trapped in a terrible home situation. But he never gave up on 
     that kid or any other for that matter. With an unrivaled work 
     ethic he never stopped trying to find new and innovative ways 
     to help children, improve the curriculum and expand and 
     enrich the opportunities available to students. He resisted 
     mediocrity at every turn and categorically rejected the 
     suggestion that a student's academic success is based largely 
     on socio-economic status or ethnicity. He rejected that idea 
     because he knew otherwise. He had been a teacher and some of 
     his best students were the children of immigrants and 
     themselves first-generation Americans. The real difference, 
     he would often tell us at the dinner table, is expectations. 
     As a teacher and as an administrator he constantly tried to 
     raise them and that, more than anything else will likely be 
     remembered as the hallmark of his career.
       I know it will not come as a surprise to any of you that in 
     addition to being very dedicated to his job, our Dad has 
     always been very devoted to his family. So much so, that we 
     can scarcely remember a soccer game, a dance recital or an 
     academic awards banquet, not mine by the way, where our Dad 
     was not present. You could usually find him in the last row 
     of the bleachers, or up against the wall in the back of the 
     auditorium or along the fence at the soccer field but he was 
     always there--a constant reassuring presence. Many years ago 
     a friend of mine spotted my Dad at some event that one of my 
     siblings was participating in and remarked to me without 
     realizing how profound a statement he was making, `` Boy, 
     your Dad is always where he is supposed to be.'' And, it 
     struck me then as it does tonight as being so absolutely 
     true. Our Dad is always where he is supposed to be.
       Growing up, our Dad encouraged each of us to seek our own 
     interests and he was content to let us find our way without 
     trying to live his own life vicariously through us. He was 
     always just one step behind, providing a nudge when needed, 
     or sometimes a whisper and less frequently a bark but always 
     right there. In fact, growing up there were two things we 
     knew were important to our Dad without him ever having told 
     us: (1) that we were expected to be educated; and (2) that we 
     vote democrat. I think he thought that if we did the first, 
     the second would follow naturally.
       When the time came for us to apply to college, our parents 
     made it abundantly clear that it was our job to get in to the 
     best school we could and their obligation to pay for it. We 
     would be expected to help but it was made plain to us that we 
     would never be
     denied an opportunity based on the cost of tuition. For as 
     far as we wanted to go, for as long as it took and whatever 
     it took, they would be there to help us. And to that end, 
     they did what many parents in this room have done. My Mom 
     took a second job at the walk-in medical center in downtown 
     Clinton and our Dad joined many of his fellow administrators, 
     some of whom are here tonight, working nights and weekends as 
     a security guard for the William Polack Security Agency, an 
     elite, top-flight force of

[[Page E1332]]

     highly-trained professionals. Sometimes, our Dad even worked 
     a third part-time job tutoring inmates at MCI-Shirley which 
     was another job he loved.
       You see, for our Dad, supporting education was not just a 
     bumper sticker you slapped on the back of your car, or a 
     slogan you repeated at PTA meetings. For him, education has 
     been more than a career; it has been a way of life.
       For all of our Dad's native intelligence and his worldly 
     sophistication, he is really a very simple man with very 
     simple tastes. He likes a cheap glass of wine and a good 
     glass of scotch. He likes an all-you-can-eat buffet or any 
     restaurant he has a coupon to. He likes a good long walk, 
     preferably by the ocean. He likes short sermons at Mass. He 
     likes 60 Minutes on Sunday nights. He likes a good book, the 
     Boston Sunday Globe and anything Tom Farragher writes he 
     believes is the best thing he has ever read. He also likes 
     his so-called off-site construction meetings with Phil Bailey 
     and pizza with Carol Ann Hamilton and Joan Strang. And, he 
     likes family vacations or any other occasion, with the 
     possible exception of tonight, that brings his children and 
     grandchildren together.
       In addition to these simple tastes, there are a handful of 
     institutions that our Dad holds dear and the only one that 
     rivals his affection for the Clinton Public Schools is his 
     alma-matter, the University of Notre Dame, which he shares 
     with both of his brothers, two of his four children, and his 
     friend and former colleague Pat Burke.
       About 12 years ago, my older brother came across a letter 
     to the editor in the Notre Dame Student Newspaper, The 
     Observer, which he shared with me. I saved it because it is 
     as near-perfect description of our Dad that I have ever seen 
     reduced to writing and if you'll indulge me a little bit 
     longer, I'd like to read a portion of it for you now.
       ``A man is someone who cares passionately about things that 
     need caring about. Someone who refuses to accept things that 
     are wrong, even though accepting them would be easier. 
     Someone who yells sometimes and fights sometimes and cries 
     sometimes and is not afraid to do any of those things when he 
     feels a need to. Someone who doesn't always win or even come 
     close, but who know instinctively that trying is what counts. 
     Someone Notre Dame is proud of.''
       For fully thirty-five years, our Dad has tried and 
     succeeded in making the students in his care and the schools 
     systems in his charge the very best they could be. And so, by 
     that standard, or any other for that matter, I think tonight 
     it is fair to say:
       Dad, the University of Notre Dame is proud of you. Your 
     profession is proud of you. The Town of Clinton is proud of 
     you. And, most especially, your children are, as we have 
     always been, so very proud of you.

                          ____________________