Sut Marshall Conway Chamber's Business Citizen of the Year

Friends, family gather in tribute to Abbott's Premium Ice Cream owner

Sut Marshall is the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce's Business Citizen of the Year and a full house turned out to Purity Spring Resort in East Madison Tuesday night to honor him. Family, friends, colleagues and the local business community threw the owner of Abbott's Premium Ice Cream an evening to remember.Laughs were the order of the night as each of the seven guest speakersMargie MacDonald, Bayard Kennett, Tom Deans, Paul Stephens, Bob Murphy, Maurice Baillargeon and Chris Marshall, his brother brought a big smile to Marshall's face. He called it "a great evening," and said he owed a few of them "a little payback" down the road. "I am honored to be chosen for this award," Marshall said. "As I looked around the room I recognized so many people who I think are equally deserving and contribute so much to this valley. The evening made me realize how fortunate we are to grow up here and be exposed to such people as Dave (Rev. George T. Davidson), Crush (Karl Seidenstuecker), Mr. (Gordon) Mann, Mrs. Sanborn, Mrs. Goldman and Mrs. Pinnette to name a few those people all made a difference in our lives. "I feel so fortunate to have so many close friends and want to do my part in making a difference in helping others," he continued. "Thank you to the Conway Village Chamber of Commerce and to everyone. This was an evening I'll always cherish.""It's easy to have a wonderful night when you're honoring someone like Sut," MacDonald said. "He and Margaret (his wife) are just such good people. Everyone loves them they're the way we all want to be."Baillargeon spoke about what it's like to work for Marshall and let people know what a "Freezer rat" (the people who work in the freezer) is and who the "Cowboys" (the drivers for Abbott's which he is one) are. "I know he's my boss," he said, "but Sut's much more than that. He's been like an older brother for the last 23 years. I think I can speak for everyone at Abbott's when I say he's been a friend to us all and we have nothing but respect for the man. He's a great guy to work for."Murphy praised his friend for his sporting skills. "I spoke a little bit about what a great tennis player Sut is," he said with a grin. "All summer long he only lost two matches that's because he hurt his shoulder and was only able to play two matches." Flying was another topic of discussion. "Sut graduated Magna Cum Laude from flight school," Murphy said, "it was fear of flight school... He's only been up in the air once and that trip lasted three minutes. He took off from the Fryeburg Airport got over the Brownfield Bog and said get me back on the ground and back he came. He contends he once went up in a plane over Boston Harbor, but I contend he was only in a flight simulator and never left the ground."Murphy also explained why the evening was a sell out with a standing room only crowd. "Tickets sales were a little slow heading into the last week," he said, "but once word got out that anyone who signed up at the last minute would get five free pints of Ben & Jerry's, just like that all of the tickets sold out."On a more serious note, Murphy had nothing but praise for Marshall. "He does do many things that people just don't know about," he said. "For instance, to the best of my recollection, he was the first business to adopt a highway and adopted (from East Conway Road to the Conway Transfer Station) and that's one of the worst stretches of road (in terms of litter) and for the last 10 to15 years he and his employees have maintained it without looking for any publicity. He does so many things behind the scenes like tutoring, coaching basketball, hiring people in the community and being a silent leader. The people he hires he gives them the principals of good workmanship and how to be a good role model."Sut's so generous in so many ways," Murphy continued. "I don't think there's been a day in his life where he hasn't given in some way. To me, he's a very dear friend it a privilege to call a guy like him a true friend."Kennett also had nothing but kind words for his friend, but couldn't help but wonder about "a sinister plot" to eliminate him a while back. "Sut Marshall... You are the very best kind of friend that any of us would ever wish for... You are always there for us when we need a lift... Your concern is sincere and your smile is uplifting... How do you always seems to just appear with a helping hand when your friend is sinking way too deep? Your hand is strong and your soothing words are often the catch net that saves a free falling comrade... "Our spouses and our kids are the source of compassion, our pride of parenthood and our most constructive criticism... We love them deeply for all those gifts... You don't have to fill any of those positions for most of us, and thank God for that, because you fill nearly all the other important positions in many of our lives... And we love you for that... Sut... you are the very best kind of friend... You are very generous to a fault, while you would shun any suggestion that you are a pillar of our community, and would humbly deflect the attention to someone much less deserving, you are truly the fiber that makes our community a great place to call home... You can't escape the love and attention we are giving you tonight and we are all so happy to honor you. Congratulations to a man that I am very proud to call my friend."Kennett brought up the "sinister plot" and brought down the house with laughter."Now, what do you suppose would cause this virtuous man to try to kill one of his best friends? What made him hatch a sinister plot to eliminate me and make it look like an innocent buggy accident? To make matters worse, he openly admits it and even jokes about it. Let me briefly fill you in on the gory details:Sut had been quite insistent that 'The next time we get together, you gotta let me take you out for a buggy ride.' I thought he was a little bit pushy but... One gray Saturday afternoon, I was returning from another fun filled trip to the Conway Transfer Station when I spotted my close friend, Campa, exiting the complex known as Abbotts Premium Ice Cream and Instant Salvation Center in what could best be described as sulky crafted from wood drawn by perhaps the largest, hairiest horse, or the smallest woolly mammal, that I had ever seen.I turned in, so eager to see my good friend that I forgot that he was pushing the buggy ride much too aggressively. But no worry, you could never get two men into that little contraption being effortlessly flung about by a horse the size of a D8. Gesturing with a big grin to the two foot ribbon of strapping with coat hanger handles next to him, Campa hollered for me to jump in (there's no such thing as 'IN' with something that small) as he wrestled with the reins attached to the uncontrollable animal he pretended to have under his command. To this day, I have no idea why I got out of the car, say nothing about making a vein attempt to 'jump in.' Jump on was exactly the right term cause the damn circus in front of me never stopped moving and I was too committed to back away. Once somewhat on, not in, MY seat (notice that's different from Suts seat), we took off in whatever direction the huge animal wanted to take us. Campa, renowned buggy collector, not horse trainer, feigned command over beast and I lost circulation in all 10 fingers as we careened toward the barn. I was pretty sure that this horse, like all other horses I had ever had the ill fortune of riding (I knew better than to sit immediately behind a horses ass in my younger days) knew when he wanted to return to the barn and nothing my best friend could say or do was going to alter his course. I was regrettably mistaken.Instead of the sharp right turn to the barn which I was already braced for, we shot to the left around Frank & Bobs Pond (explain how Audley Construction convinced Dad and Uncle to let them steal all that sand for Route 302 and leave them with a useless oasis-like feature in downtown Redstone free of any palm trees or veiled servant ladies) and headed almost straight for Glens tank farm. 'Almost straight' means that we were swerving all over the place.Still out of control, we somehow missed several construction obstacles as if we really intended to negotiate our way through them, and did a couple laps around the oil storage tanks. As the horse the size of Rhode Island actually slowed to a trot, I spotted ahead of us a three-foot high pile of gravel dead center in our path. With my best friend Campa sizing up the pile with an odd un-Sut-like grin on his lips and me utterly speechless with the thought that he was even contemplating this daredevil scheme, Gargantua the horse raised his tail and let loose with a fart that reminded me why I always sat on the horse, not behind it. Comfortable again, and with no urging from Sparticus sitting next to me, we rocketed forward toward the gravel obstacle with such velocity that neither of us time scream the customary Oh S###, to say nothing of the time to bail out of that flimsy wooden contraption. Over the pile went the faithful steed and over the pile went his hapless driver, my best friend, Sut. Bayard didn't go over the pile with his companion. As the single axle sulky crested the pile, the passenger seat and its terrified occupant ejected from the cart in the opposite direction from the line of flight of the horse and buggy. The only subtle difference between my departure from that buggy and ejection of a pilot from a doomed jet fighter is that the pilot has an even chance for a soft landing.Once Campa negotiated a mile slowdown and turnaround of the deathcart, he plodded back to find his good friend flat on his back on the upside of the gravel pile, still clinging to the seat in the seated position and wondering why I ever turned into Abbott's Premium Ice Cream and Instant Salvation Center. I think its because I have always cherished my time with Sut, and despite the fact that we could only find two of the four screws that held my seat in place, I would probably follow him almost place today, provided that we weren't just south of that huge horse."Marshall had the final say on this incident. "I'm not going to respond to everything everyone said, but I would like to respond to Bayard," he said with a smile. "Let me give you my side of the story. This horse Ben he's my favorite, and I have taken over 500 people for rides in the last three years and they've ranged in age from Bob Murphy's six week old grandchild to Dick Burns' parents who are 90 and no one else has ever fallen out of that cart. My theory is the real estate market down at the time and we were being set up. When I returned to pick up Bayard I found a business card for that lawyer Joe Bornstein and it read 'we mean business.' Bayard wanted to sue the horse but when he found out it had no assets he dropped the case."