NEWBURY — The dedication of the Hay Street bridge over the Little River in honor of a retired Daily News editor is scheduled for Saturday.
The town will officially designate the span as "The Bill Plante Reflections Bridge" in a 10:30 a.m. ceremony at the bridge, near the junction of Hay Street and Newman Road. A bronze plaque on the bridge will be formally unveiled.
A reception at Town Hall on High Road will follow the ceremony. Both the ceremony and the reception are open to the public.
Town Meeting in May 2008 adopted an article that asked the Legislature to name the then-newly reconstructed bridge in honor of retired Daily News executive editor and general manager William L. Plante Jr., who has lived on Hay Street near the bridge since 1952.
After some research, town officials discovered they didn't need the Legislature's intervention, that they could name the bridge themselves.
Plante retired from The Daily News in 1986 but continues to write columns for the newspaper — often with the bridge, the surrounding marsh and the nearby Oldtown Hill as his subject matter.
Plante, 88, has lived at 20 Hay St. since 1952 in a house he built himself.
Plante and his late wife, Susan, walked the mile from their house to the bridge at least two or three times every week. Later, when Susan Plante was confined to a wheelchair, Plante would wheel her to the bridge.
He has said they enjoyed the view of the marsh from the bridge, at all times of day and in all seasons.
The current span opened Aug. 30, 2007, after a 467-day reconstruction. It replaced a bridge that opened in 1946.
A Newburyport native, Plante was a 1938 graduate of Newburyport High School. He was an Army combat engineer in World War II and graduated from Boston University in 1949.
Plante worked at The Daily News from 1951, starting as a night reporter and ad salesman, until his retirement. He served as executive editor of Essex County Newspapers, which at the time included the Beverly Times and Gloucester Daily Times, as well as The Daily News. He was also president and then executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association from 1984 until 2004.
He was active in the founding and operation of the Newburyport Area Industrial Development Corp., which built the Lord Timothy Dexter Industrial Green, and was a longtime member and president of the board of directors at Anna Jaques Hospital.
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