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08/15/2018 08:30 AMSnap, Crackle, and Pop! Okay, it’s not Rice Krispies, but the advertising slogan works just as well for the Chester Rotary Lobster Fest. Or maybe something like Crack, Dip, and Dribble, a recognition that eating a whole lobster is messy undertaking. Still, the pleasure of the meal far outweighs the indignity of the plastic bib.
Enjoying lobster is just what Ted Taigen hopes many guests will do at Chester Rotary’s 48th annual Lobster Fest on Saturday, Sept. 8 at the Chester Fairgrounds. The fare includes steak for those who prefer or steak and lobster for those who can’t make up their mind.
Ted will be part of the set-up crew, and he notes that there are some changes planned for this year. The band, Someone You Can XRay, will not play inside the building on the fairgrounds property but outside as diners are eating at picnic tables, either under a large tent or in the open air.
“It was just so loud, too loud inside,” Ted explains.
He adds that there will be an outside area set aside for dancing. Of course, it never really rains at the Lobster Fest, but in case there is something resembling rain coming down from the clouds, there will be extra seating set up under the tent.
Ted describes Someone You Can XRay as a seven-member rock-fusion ensemble, “but they play all kinds of music and a lot more instruments; they swap out and have fun combinations,” he says.
Their instrumentation even includes electric bagpipes.
The proceeds from the Lobster Fest help underwrite Chester Rotary’s ongoing support for community programs. Ted says that the Chester Rotary would like to increase local awareness of the organizations and activities its supports, among them Bikes For Kids, Tri-Town Youth Services Bureau, and Shoreline Soup Kitchens. One of Chester Rotary’s most recent projects is the new 180-gallon saltwater aquarium for Chester Elementary School, replacing an older 55-gallon tank.
Ted and his wife Jan, also active in Chester Rotary, moved to Chester four years ago from Tolland, after he had retired from 32 years as a biology professor at the University of Connecticut. In addition to his work with Rotary, Ted serves on Chester’s Conservation Commission.
“We looked all around, in the Berkshires, in Litchfield County, and we came down here, nothing really in mind, and Chester felt charming to us,” Ted says. “We stopped by the Pattaconk, met people, and then started watching the real estate ads.”
At UConn, Ted taught an introductory biology course for non-science majors. There could be as many as 600 people at lectures, and, as Ted pointed out, not all of them were excited to be in a science class at all.
The way to keep their attention, Ted says, was to make whatever he was lecturing on as relevant to the students’ lives as possible—and Ted knew what an audience of 600 required in a lecture.
“It was theater,” he recalls.
He developed a feature called biology in the news. Students would email him interesting biology stories they found and he would choose one of them to report to the entire lecture hall.
Ted believes his success with the large biology class was one reason he was selected to be the academic advisor to UConn’s men’s basketball team, a position he held from 1993 to 2009. He traveled with the team, setting up study halls wherever they were, advising on choosing classes and completing the assignments each class demanded.
“I helped in many different aspects,” he says, “providing counseling, encouragement. Giving them [the players] the confidence to succeed in the classroom.”
Ted became more than an advisor; he was also a friend, particularly close to Richard Hamilton, Rashamel Jones, and Ricky Moore. He was a groomsman a Moore’s wedding.
“It was a family, an athletic family,” he says.
When he retired after 16 seasons, the team presented him with his own basketball jersey, Taigen 16, for his 16 years of service. Coach Jim Calhoun was effusive in his praise.
“He’s a special person. He means so much to us and our program. You saw the kids just run to him. Normally they run away from academic people,” Calhoun noted.
There were, to be sure, academic challenges during that time. The men’s basketball team was banned from post-season play in 2013, after Ted had left the program, but one of the problems cited was scores reflected in the APR, Academic Progress Report, from the 2007-’08 academic year to the 2010-’11 academic year. UConn argued the way the data was collected skewed the figures. (Since that time, the men’s team APR has improved dramatically.)
Ted likes to point to academic successes, prime among them Emeka Okafor, who was named an Academic All-American while also being named National Defense Player of the Year and Big East Player of the Year. A newspaper article on Okafor noted he spent his spare time in the study hall Ted set up on the road, and that he and Ted took time to visit museums as the team traveled.
Before he got involved with the men’s basketball team, Ted was a mentor for another UConn athlete: Leigh Ann Curl, now head orthopedic surgeon for the Baltimore Ravens, the only woman to be a team physician in the National Football League. Curl, a biology student of Ted’s, was a UConn women’s basketball star before Geno Auriemma became coach, at a time when the team had few wins and fewer fans. She later recalled her time studying at UConn with Ted, who encouraged her to go to medical school.
“At Connecticut, I went to class, studied, played basketball and spent a lot of my other free time with Professor Taigen, who worked with evolutionary biology,” she once told a reporter.
UConn athletes were not the only group to receive encouragement from Ted. In 2005, he got an official citation from the Connecticut General Assembly naming him an Unsung Hero for the work he had done with children in the Upper Albany Revitalization Zone in Hartford.
Now in retirement, Ted has time for his five grandchildren, all of whom just paid a week-long visit with beach outings, crabbing, and a theater trip to Oliver! at the Goodspeed.
For Rotary members, the Lobster Fest is a three-day marathon: Friday to set up; Saturday for the event itself; and Sunday for the cleanup. Ted will make time to eat a lobster himself, but despite his work, there is no free meal.
“We all pay just like everybody else,” he says.
To go along with the lobster, dinner includes roasted potatoes, coleslaw; and corn on the cob.
“And butter,lots of butter,” Ted says.
Just remember: Crack, Dip; and Dribble.
Chester Rotary Lobster Fest
The Chester Rotary Club hosts its 48th annual Lobster Fest from 4 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 8 at the Chester Fairgrounds. Early set up at 3 p.m. is available for a $10 donation. For more information and tickets, starting at $35 in advance, visit chesterrotary.org. Tickets are also available at Chester Package Store, Chisholm Marina, Lark and the Rotary booth at Chester Sunday Market.