New baseball field at Gilman Waite to be dedicated in memory of Huhtala

New baseball field at Gilman Waite to be dedicated in memory of Huhtala

+ click to enlarge Photos by KEN POWERS Huhtala Oil & Propane co-owners David Huhtala (left) and Paul Huhtala (middle), along with Narragansett Vice Principal Tom Miller, met at the company’s office in East Templeton earlier this week to discuss Saturday’s ceremony which will dedicate the new baseball field at Gilman Waite in Baldwinville in memory of Richard D. Huhtala, who was known for his generosity just as much as his gas and oil business. + click to enlarge Ken Powers Sports Correspondent TEMPLETON — Dick Huhtala loved sports — playing them, watching them and coaching them. It was the spirit of the competition that got his adrenaline pumping, whether it was organized games of basketball or baseball, rounds of golf, pitching horseshoes in the backyard or shooting free throws in the driveway. One time, many years ago, he accepted the challenge of a much younger, much taller employee to a foot race after work. The race was held at 9 p.m. in the dark. Huhtala won. The only thing, other than family, that Huhtala may have loved more than a good competition, was helping out his community. Sports teams, church groups, annual festivals, the Lions Club, the food pantry and many, many other Templeton organizations benefited over the years from the generosity of the Huhtala family. Narragansett Regional High School and the greater Templeton community will say thank you and give back to the man and the family that has given them so much at 10 a.m. Saturday with the official dedication of the Richard D. Huhtala Memorial Baseball Field at Gilman Waite Field in Baldwinville. The field, part of a project that began seven years ago, won’t be ready to host games until next year, but Tom Miller, assistant principal at Narragansett Regional who served as the school’s athletic director for 11 years, thought it was important to dedicate the field this year. “Alan Mayo, who is the head of Parks and Cemetery in Templeton, he’s been the driving force behind the construction of the fields and the overall improvements that have taken place at Gilman Waite,” Miller explained. “The building of the field was coming along nicely but the last couple of years it has stalled. I’m retiring this year and I wanted to get the field finished.” Part of the reason for the project’s stalling, Miller said, has been financial. David and Paul Huhtala, the current owners and operators of Huhtala Oil & Propane, were all too happy to help steer the project to completion. “Tom called and asked us about helping out and Paul and I talked our mother, Ellen, and our brother Peter, who lives in California, and we all decided pretty quickly that this was the right thing to do,” explained David Huhtala. “It’s the type of thing that my father wouldn’t have thought twice about signing on to. And the fact that it involved a baseball field, given how much my father liked baseball, well, that made it a complete no-brainer.” Miller said the field is on schedule to be ready for Opening Day of the high school baseball season next spring. He said the field needs to be reseeded because it didn’t take this year, the roofs on the dugouts need to be installed and a net behind the backstop needs to be hung. Miller said he felt having the dedication, even though the field was not game-ready, would help ensure that the final improvements would get finished. “The plan is to have the family back next year for opening day ceremonies and have David and Peter and Paul and anyone else in the family who wants to, throw out the first pitch in the history of the field,” Miller said. Both David and Paul Huhtala were taken aback when Miller visited the company headquarters a while back to again thank them for their help in bringing the project to fruition as well as to let them know that the field was going to be named in their father’s honor. “This is huge,” Paul Huhtala said about the field being named for his father, who graduated from Templeton High in 1948 and passed away in 2000 at the age of 70. “This is something he would be humbled and honored by because he enjoyed the sport of baseball so much.” Paul Huhtala said his father coached all three Huhtala boys in Little League and attended their Narragansett Regional baseball games as well. David Huhtala is a 1976 graduate of NRHS (as is Miller), while Peter graduated in 1978 and Paul in 1980. All three played baseball. David and Paul also played basketball. Peter played baseball, basketball and football. “My father just loved everything about the game of baseball,” David Huhtala said. “As he got older he switched to softball and played in a league on the Cape every year up until three months before he died of Leukemia. My father went to many games and donated to various causes.” Helping out your neighbors is Dick Huhtala’s legacy, and a value he passed onto his children early on. “Giving back to the community, our father instilled that in us at a very early age,” Paul Huhtala said, “whether it be sports teams, church groups or summer festivals. We really pride ourselves in helping out those in need in the greater Templeton area.” Organizations which have benefited from the Huhtala family’s generosity include, but are certainly not limited to, Little League baseball, hockey leagues, soccer leagues, summer field hockey teams, summer basketball teams and the Templeton Rec League. Communities helped include Gardner, Winchendon and Hubbardston as well as Templeton and Baldwinville. “My grandfather bought the business and passed it on to my father,” David Huhtala said. “They both taught us that we need to help out the community. I remember my father telling me ‘there are 6,000 people in Templeton, that’s a small community. You need to help out the community the best you can.’ So when Tom brought the idea of helping finish the baseball field at Gilman Waite to us it was a pretty quick, pretty easy decision to get on board.” Toivo Huhtala and his wife, Alli, bought the business in 1945. At some point it was passed on to Dick Huhtala and his wife, Ellen, and then to their sons, David, Peter and Paul Huhtala. Peter Huhtala moved to California in 2003 so the business is now co-owned by David and Paul Huhtala. The Huhtalas have had a strong presence not only in the community but at Narragansett Regional as well. David and Kathie Huhtala’s twin daughters, Alli and Abby, graduated in 2007. Both played field hockey. Paul and Margaret Huhtala’s children, Evan and Shauna, are 2008 and 2010 NRHS graduates, respectively. Evan Huhtala played football and baseball. Peter Huhtala’s wife, Lori, is a 1979 Narragansett grad. They have one child, a daughter, Sam. “This is a way of thanking the family,” Miller said about dedicating the field in Dick Huhtala’s honor. “Any athletic team, any high school organization, any graduating class and community group that has needed help, they’ve been there. They’ve donated many Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins tickets to organizations and teams and clubs so they could hold a raffle and raise money. They take a full-page ad out in the Yearbook every year. They hold a golf tournament for the food pantry every year. Their help to the community is endless. “Huhtala Oil has been the one mainstay in the town. When all the other businesses have dried up or moved away, it’s still going,” Miller continued. “This is a way for the town to give back a little bit, to show thanks. It’s a business in name but really it’s a way to thank the family because it has always been about the family and they’ve always cared. They take care of the people in this town and the surrounding towns. It’s always been that way.” One of the biggest fundraising efforts orchestrated by the Huhtalas came one year when the Warriors won the Super Bowl. “The football team needed some extra money for Super Bowl jackets and rings so we donated a couple of Patriots playoff tickets to be raffled off,” David Huhtala said. “They raised $10,000 to pay for the jackets and the rings. That was unbelievable. That worked out very well.” In addition to having helped many groups in the area, the Huhtalas have also helped many families in the form of hiring many current and former students to work at the business. Miller and his father have worked at Huhtala Oil & Propane in the past and there is a persistent rumor, because of his impending retirement, Tom Miller may soon be back in the employ of his lifelong friends. Three generations of Huhtalas have hired three generations of members of the great Templeton community. “We have a lot of current and former Narragansett students who have worked here,” Paul Huhtala said. “We’ve got four or five Narragansett kids working here right now.” And they don’t just hire Narragansett kids. Gardner graduates Josiah LeBlanc and Peter Gallant have worked for Huhtala Oil & Propane, too. “It’s very rewarding,” David Huhtala said. “This is a very nice thing that Tom has done. He knew how much my dad and our family would appreciate this. I still keep the scorebook for the high school basketball team during the winter and when I’m walking to the gym and I see the sign, that it’s the Elinor J. Putnam Gymnasium, that’s a meaningful thing. It’s the same with the Arthur L. Stuart Memorial Field. These are people who helped out in the community. “My grandfather and father always told us you need to help out the people in the community who are helping you run a successful business,” David Huhtala said. “You can’t have a successful business without people in the community. We’re a smaller company that tries to do as much as they can for the community.” Oh, that kid who challenged Dick Huhtala to a foot race after dark? It was the 6-foot, 10-inch Chris Haley, one of the better basketball players in Narragansett history.