By Chéye Roberson
Sentinel Correspondent
The 42nd annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in Greenwich will be held on Sunday, March 20, led by a new grand marshal.
The leader of the ranks will be Catherine Lavaty, who will be installed as grand marshal by the Hibernian Association on Saturday, March 5, at the organization’s annual St. Patrick’s Dinner Dance.
The dinner dance is an annual event that happens a few weeks before the parade, and also acts as a fundraiser for the main event. Corned beef and cabbage will be served, followed by traditional Irish music. Although Lavaty typically donates her time to cooking for the dinner dance, she’ll get a pass this year.
“We joke that they’re all giving me the night off,” said Lavaty, who has been on the Hibernian Association kitchen staff for five years with her husband, Walter Kelly, and fellow members Frank Kelly and former Grand Marshal Ann Byrne.
“Oh, what a great time it will be,” Lavaty said. She recalls being a child and getting excited about the parade because it was the first sign that spring was coming. “I knew I had made it through the winter.”
Lavaty wasn’t expecting to be chosen for the role.
“It was a big surprise to me,” she said. “I was approached by Hayden O’Shea, who I know from church, and he asked me if I would do it. It totally stunned me. I needed a few hours to regroup.”
O’Shea is the president of the Hibernian Association.
Vice president of the Hibernian Association and a former grand marshal himself, James Dougherty said that when choosing who will be next grand marshal of the parade, the board members “always try to pick a local person from Greenwich and look at what they have done for the community.”
Lavaty is a lifelong resident of Greenwich. After graduating the Berkley Business School in White Plains, Lavaty went to work for NBC in New York for 38 years before retiring in 2005. At NBC she worked in the news division, first as program manager for the Nightly News, then on the Today show, and finally for Dateline.
Lavaty is involved with her church, St. Mary of Greenwich, where she is the head of the Social Concerns committee. The church has many community outreach programs, including helping with soup kitchens for the elderly in Stamford. St. Mary’s holds luncheons and ice cream socials for local nursing homes.
“I think life has been good to me, and now that I’m retired it’s good to give back—very satisfying and rewarding,” said Lavaty. “I hope there’s always people who believe in that. It’s nice to see people spending their time” helping others.
Lavaty met her husband, Walter Kelly, a retired New York City Police officer, on St. Patrick’s Day 1975, and they were married in 1980.
Her Irish roots go back to her grandparents George and Catherine Kelly, who emigrated from County Cork in the late 1800’s. The family home was on Oakridge Street in Greenwich. George was the first custodian of Hamilton Avenue School.
Lavaty remembers her grandmother being “decked out in green” whenever St. Patrick’s Day came around and hanging the Irish flag next to their American flag outside the house. She credits her parents for instilling in her the importance of taking care of your community.
Along with a Tappan Zee Bridgeman band from Westchester and several marching bagpipe players, many of the core institutions of the town will have representatives marching in the parade, from the police with their motor bikes to the fire department with their fire trucks.
