WESTFIELD – Retiring principal Raymond Broderick has only a short time remaining in his career at Westfield High School but somebody appears to have left him a cryptic farewell message Wednesday when a graduation program was burned on his desk.
School resource officer James M. Summers reports that his investigation is incomplete but he has found thus far that the first indication something was amiss was about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday when a school custodian had smelled a burnt odor and thought that the ballast for one of the fluorescent lights in the office area had burned out.
Summers said that a search for a malfunctioning ballast was fruitless and the worker shut off power to the lights.
Thursday morning, Summers said, Broderick entered his office to find that a graduation program had been burned atop his desk.
Summers said the program had “burned itself out” and had not ignited other papers on the desk, he said, because the papers were lying flat and there was no airflow underneath the stack to support a fire.
Although a pencil holder and the stack of paper on the desk showed signs of scorching, no significant damage was done, he said.
The incident occurred some time after the main office closed at 3:30 p.m. and before the custodian noticed the burnt odor at 8:30 p.m.
He said that both the door to the main office and the door to the principal’s office are normally locked after hours.
