People, Places, and Things: 12-26-14

Something to cheer about: a Christmas Eve proposalIt was a special Christmas Eve for Lynn Classical cheerleading coach Michelle Montoya, who was on the receiving end of a very important question: Will you marry me? Her answer, to her now-fiance Sean Mills, was a resounding “Yes.” Montoya is a Lynn teacher and Mills works for the MBTA. The proposal took place at a Christmas celebration at the home of Mills’ mother, Beth Clancy. Congrats to all.In Swampscott, they’re poets and they know itGet to work, young poets – the deadline for the 11th annual Lee Golomb Cadiff Teen Poetry Contest sponsored by the Swampscott Public Library is Feb. 26, with awards announced in April. Tin Box Poets, a local poetry group, will judge submitted poems, and eligibility guidelines require poets to be in grades 5-8. Additional contest details can be found at www.noblenet.org/swampscott/category/teenscene. Fourteen prizes will be awarded with finalists receiving between $40 and $150. Sophie Bereaud and Claire Weaver-Zeman were 2014’s first-prize winners, and Norma Cadiff Finn is one of the contest’s main supporters.Travis Roy scores with Lynn hockey playersLynn Rockets middle school hockey team members Troy Petkevitch, Luke Rao, Colin Reddy, Matthew Devin, and Aidan Seitz spoke with former BU hockey player Travis Roy, who was paralyzed 11 seconds into his first collegiate hockey game. Roy delivered a powerful message about goal setting, perseverance, and respect as part of the Breed Middle School guidance department’s speaker series. Roy spoke to the seventh-grade class, under the direction of English teachers Sarah Phelan, Val Gidaris and Andrea Smith.Saugus Police Department welcomes new officerNew Saugus police officer Alexander Klimarchuk has completed 22 weeks of police academy training and will train alongside a veteran officer before starting a one-year probationary period with the police department, according to Chief Domenic DiMella. Klimarchuk, 27, has two children.