dlyon Jan 7 2005 - 8:34am Local News
By GAIL ELLEN DALY
Chronicle Staff Writer
HEBRON — There will be a fair in September.
It may take time and energy and a lot of help from friends, but the Hebron Lions insist the 35th Hebron Harvest Fair will take place as usual the second weekend in September.
“We had a club meeting the night it happened and Lions from Colchester and other clubs came or called with offers of support,” said Lion Norman Dorval of Hebron. “There have been so many offers of help.”
Lions President Bob Musson called it “uplifting and gratifying” to get so many offers from both Lions and other organizations.
“The fair will go on,” he said this morning. “There’s no doubt about that, and it will be bigger and better than ever.”
Musson said the insurance companies should wrap up their work by Monday or Tuesday and crews can begin cleaning up.
Dorval, who serves as the fair’s superintendent of concessions and rentals, was at the Route 85 Hebron Lions Fairgrounds early Wednesday morning, shortly after firefighters answered an emergency call concerning a blaze there.
“I was there while the Better Living building was on fire,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it — it was real hard to watch.”
Sometime before 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, vandals set one building on fire, totally destroying the structure and two cars and a boat that were being stored inside for the winter.
Club members owned the cars — a 2002 Corvette and a restored 1967 Mustang.
Those responsible managed to start a dump truck on the grounds and began damaging or destroying nine additional structures.
They smashed the truck into the east wall of the former DEP Building, which is now used as the Lions headquarters, and smashed the wall in about 3 to 4 feet, Dorval said.
In addition, a bathroom was devastated and the truck rammed a concrete storage building so hard it caused a vertical crack in the structure.
“Police said this took vandalism to a new level,” Musson said. “Yet for some reason, probably luck, the newer buildings were left untouched.”
Hebron Town Manager Paul Mazzaccaro, who walked the site, said it’s shocking someone would do all that damage. “What could have been going through their minds?”
