Mayor Jennifer Macksey, left, and her sister, Libby Macksey, pose with the New Year's ball on Sunday night.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Several hundred people gathered in the Center Street parking lot to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve.
It was hours before midnight and took a double count to make its way down but cheers, whistles and tooting horns filled the air for an early welcome to 2024.
The event was the inspiration of "first sister" Libby Macksey.
"My sister has a lot of crazy ideas," said Mayor Jennifer Macksey. "She said we need to have our own ball drop ... and ran right to Bud Sherman."
Forrest "Bud" Sherman and his crew at North Adams Sheet Metal took on the challenge, designing and building a lattice ball wrapped in rope lights and the 20-foot pole to drop it from. They donated all the labor and materials.
"They made tonight possible," said the mayor, thanking their hard work from the flat bed set up with the pole.
Libby Macksey said she had felt the city should have some kind of New Year's event and envisioned something bigger next year with maybe food trucks and activities.
For Sunday night, there were horns and glasses and headgear being passed out for the family friendly event. People began to cheer as the ball made its way up the pole and then gave out a loud shout as the lights came on at the top.
The mayor asked for a "slow roll" for the countdown at 8 p.m. to give the ball time to make its way down but the crowd was a little too eager. About halfway down someone shouted "nine" to restart the count and the ball successfully made its journey to the bottom.
The crowd sang a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne" before breaking up to head for parties or home.
The mayor said at the start of the event that she doesn't like New Year's but seeing all the people who came "makes me love New Year's and love the job I do even more."
"I want to thank all of you for coming out," said the mayor. "This is hopefully going to become an annual tradition for us. We're going to have bigger and better every year. But this is a fantastic crowd."
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North Adams Native Wins Sports Emmy for 'Toy Story' Production
By Jack GuerinoiBerkshires Staff
Allison Cellana, a Drury High graduate, says the Emmy was heavier than she expected. Cellana is an animator at ESPN.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass.— North Adams native Alison Cellana was part of an ESPN team that produced "Toy Story Funday Football," a production that clinched three Emmys at the 2024 Sports Emmys Awards.
"Honestly, it was a bit of a dream come true for me," Cellana said about the award ceremony that took place on May 21. "I've always sort of wanted to walk the red carpet and go to a big event like this. So finding out that my team was nominated for some awards was awesome."
Cellana, a 2014 graduate of Drury High School, is an animator at ESPN where she works on various shows such as "SportsCenter," "Daily Wager" and NFL Live.
She was part of a team of 150 or so who created "Toy Story Funday Football" that streamed on ESPN-plus and Disney-plus. The production was recognized with three awards:
Outstanding Studio or Production Design/Art Direction,
The George Wensel Technical Achievement Award
Outstanding Graphic Design – Event/Show
Cellana was called up for the Outstanding Graphic Design award.
She explained that the production was essentially a live broadcast of a football game between Jacksonville and Atlanta played out live through Toy Story-themed animations.
"It was live one for one. So you could either go on ESPN and watch the live game with the humans or you could go on Disney-plus and watch these little animated characters doing the exact same thing," she said.
She said the ESPN team worked alongside Epic Games and Pixar for a few months to develop the one-of-a-kind project that utilized cutting-edge technology. She said they started working on "Toy Story Funday Football" in July 2023 and the game aired in October.
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