[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 147 (Tuesday, October 4, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1764]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               FOREST DEDICATION RECOGNIZING DAVID CUTLER

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. WILLIAM R. KEATING

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 4, 2011

  Mr. KEATING. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the dedication of 
the David Cutler Memorial Forest in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
  David Cutler became of fixture in Duxbury in 1945 when his family 
decided to settle here, and from that point on, our community has been 
the better for it.
  Just five years after moving to Duxbury, his parents started the 
Duxbury Clipper, and thus began David's affair with newspapers. After 
serving as captain of Colby College's football team, he came back home 
and got a job as a reporter at the Patriot Ledger. It wasn't long, 
though, before he felt a call to duty and David enlisted in the US 
Marines.
  Like many men of his age group during that time, he was sent to 
Vietnam, where in an attack in 1968, he was shot in both legs. His 
courage and valor were rewarded with a Purple Heart and the title of 
Captain. Upon returning to the states, he went back to the Patriot 
Ledger and would soon become the paper's State House reporter. But 
after two years, he felt another call to duty, and left the Ledger to 
start the Marshfield Mariner.
  Today, communities throughout Massachusetts' South Shore are served 
by one of David's papers--whether it be the Norwell Mariner or Scituate 
Mariner or anywhere in between. But it takes a special kind of man--a 
truly gifted story-teller--to make the most local of news a successful 
business; yet, that's what David did. He took a $1000 investment and 
turned it into an $8 million empire. From there, David went on to sell 
his Mariner newspapers and began working to resurrect other struggling 
newspapers around Massachusetts until his untimely death.
  The details of David's life appear to describe a man who was larger 
than life--college football captain, honored Marine, intrepid newspaper 
reporter and successful entrepreneur. And that is just the highlight 
reel. It doesn't take into account all the lives he touched both 
professionally and personally, the numerous community functions and 
local causes he threw his support behind, the countless games and 
events he attended for his children and later grandchildren.
  These are often thought to be ``the little things,'' but in reality 
they are as much the mark of a man's success. Maybe even more so, for 
they are what make life rich. So by all accounts, David Cutler was the 
richest man in town. And the truly fortunate thing is that he seems to 
have known that while he was still alive. I was moved when I read that 
early in his illness, David said to an old friend, ``My life's work was 
my family, and I've succeeded.'' I never had the pleasure of meeting 
David Cutler, but if all I knew about him was that one quote, I would 
know he was a good man.
  David's legacy of service and commitment to our community lives on 
today. It lives on in his newspapers. It lives on in his family. And it 
lives on in this forest we are dedicating in his honor. It seems to me 
that there is no more fitting a memorial for man who contributed so 
much to Duxbury than a living, breathing, growing part of the town he 
loved. David Cutler's forest, like the man it is named for, will make 
its mark on the lives of countless members of our community for 
generations to come.

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