Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.

City honors radio hosts Bax & O'Brien for annual Mayflower Marathon food drive to support Open Pantry

Date: 2/1/2010

Feb. 1, 21010

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor



SPRINGFIELD -- Although they and other politicians have often been on the receiving end of jokes and jibes, the City Council ignored the opportunity for some payback and instead honored Michael Baxendale and John O'Brien better known as the hosts of the top-rated radio show Bax and O'Brien with a proclamation on Jan. 25.

The radio bad boys and their producer Steve Nagle were among the people and institutions recognized for professional and personal accomplishments.

Baxendale, O'Brien and Nagle were honored for the team's annual Mayflower Marathon, the 52-hour Thanksgiving event that has raised food and money for the Open Pantry. The radio hosts expressed their gratitude to City Councilor Timothy Rooke for sponsoring the proclamation and noted this was the first time the city has honored them in this fashion.

City Councilor James Ferrera was the lead sponsor on the four other proclamations, which honored:

  • Erich Bachrach, the founder of the Community Music School, on its 25th anniversary;


  • Bobbie Rennix, the retired principal of the Homer Street School, who was crowned Ms. Senior Massachusetts last fall;


  • Mark Hegarty, a Cathedral High School sophomore who won the Western Massachusetts Division II Cross Country Championship on Nov. 14, 2009;


  • and the late James Sloan, a Springfield native who served in the Army as well as having a lengthy career in military intelligence, who died June 24, 2009 due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.