The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Celebration honors the Register’s Person of the Year
An overflow and diverse crowd of more than 200 friends, family, judges, attorneys, legal mentees and supporters of retired Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Lubbie Harper Jr. converged on Brazis’s Italian Restaurant at Long Wharf in New Haven, to celebrate the New Haven Register newspaper selecting Harper its “2018 Person of the Year.”
New Haven Mayor Toni Harp; Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Robinson, Associate Supreme Court Justice Raheem Mullins, Assistant Attorney General Christine Jean-Louis and former WVIT-TV crime reporter Lew Brown and his son, Judicial Marshal Sergeant Jason Goff Brown, were just a few of the guests on hand for the celebration. Former WFSB-TV reporter and later, NBC Correspondent Odetta Rogers, who had admired Justice Harper’s service to the community for years, drove all the way to New Haven from her home in Greenwich to salute Harper.
For the reception, Wilbur L. Cross High School Principal Edith Johnson — Harper graduated from Cross — had a graphic designer produce the incredibly large and beautiful banner of celebration, a task completed within 24 hours of Harper’s request to Johnson. Johnson told Harper she would do anything for him. More than five years ago, in 2013, Wilbur Cross High School dedicated and named its Library Media Center in Harper’s honor. In 2005, Justice Harper was inducted into the Inaugural Class of the Wilbur L. Cross High School Hall of Fame.
Along with many other professional, business and civic organizations, Eastern Connecticut State University also named Harper community recipient of its Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Service Award in 2013.
What we saw at this celebration demonstrated an incredible display of what America should be when a person of good will who is committed to public service, and who understands and appreciates the wonderment of diversity leaves his imprint on the community. The joy among all the people attending the reception tells the story of the beautiful unity and diversity among people that Harper has brought to the city of New Haven, the state of Connecticut and beyond.
Harper’s impact on the community locally, regionally, nationally and internationally reflects the best values in our society and defies the current national leadership style and behavior of offensive division and polarization. The world needs more people like Lubbie Harper Jr.