Remembering Everett Coffey's life in service
February 13, 2021 | By Caleigh Cross 
Waterbury Village Trustee Everett Coffey at the 2010 annual village meeting. File photo by Gordon Miller.
For decades in Waterbury, if one attended a Waterbury Village Trustees meeting back when there was a village government, or if someone was in need of an ambulance, or if while headed in or out of the town offices you caught bits of a lively conversation about the latest town business, you probably ran into Everett Coffey.
With a kind encouraging smile, determined, flinty eyes, and a nigh-intimidating attendance record at meetings where local government affairs were conducted, Coffey took the business of citizenship seriously.
"He definitely cared about Waterbury and he showed it. Whether you agreed with him or didn’t agree with him, you couldn’t take away from his dedication and commitment to the people of Waterbury," said Skip Flanders, another longtime local official and fellow village resident who served alongside Coffey since the 1980s mainly as village trustees. That was before the village government was dissolved in 2018 leaving the Edward Farar Utility District to manage the water and sewer departments.
Coffey died on Dec. 19, 2020 at the age of 83 after almost a year's struggle with several medical conditions.
In March last year, Coffey was honored with the Keith Wallace Community Service Award at Town Meeting. In January, the Waterbury Select Board and the utility district commissioner passed a joint Resolution of Sympathy posthumously honoring Coffey and extending their thanks for his dedication over the years.
Born in Orleans, Vt., in 1937, Coffey graduated from Orleans High School in 1955 and from the University of Vermont School of Agriculture in 1959. ROTC made him a member of the U.S. Army Reserve with a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant.
Coffey moved to Waterbury in 1962 and found his heart's home here, becoming an active member of the Waterbury Ambulance Service, a dedicated member and eventual president of the Waterbury Village Trustees, and a near-constant presence at select board meetings and many other occasions where town business was discussed.
"Every time he got up in public to talk, he would tell people he got here in October 1962, and he would tell you how many kids he had and what business he did, and he’d go through it. It got to be a pretty common thing that everybody would kind of snicker when Everett got up, because he’d start every speech he was going to make with the same introduction," Flanders recalled.
That introduction grounded Coffey and provided context for his words, Flanders noted.
In 1975, Coffey and his wife, Annie, purchased Eagle Oil Co. in Waterbury and ran it until 1999. Flanders and Waterbury Select Board member Chris Viens said they think owning and running a small business in town was part of what drove Coffey's passion for improving the place where he lived.
"He was committed to customer service and wanting to serve people and get as many customers as he could. That perspective that he had, from wanting to have a prosperous business, carried over into a municipal function. His dedication to his business, his dedication to the community" sprang from the same well, Flanders said.
His four children also inspired him to ensure the town in which they lived was run according to his standards.
A legacy of service
Everett Coffey, center, in 2010 with a young Republican Washington County state Sen. Phil Scott, left, and fellow longtime Waterbury village trustee Lefty Sayah, right. File photo by Gordon Miller.
Daughter Sally Dillon, a battalion chief for the Waterbury Fire Department, remembers a caring, loving father who held his children accountable but wasn't bull-headed, though she knows he seemed that way to many who encountered him.
"Even though sometimes he was bull-headed in his presentation, he truly did care about the community," she said.
Everett and Annie Coffey met at a community dance in Glover and were married in 1960. Early in their marriage, they worked to build a camp in Island Pond where Coffey loved spending time hunting and fishing, remembered son Don Coffey.
He also loved watching his eight grandkids' sporting events, Don said.
Community service was the cornerstone of both his parents' lives, and that meant sometimes passions ran high.
"There were a lot of people that would say they had disagreements over the years, but they respected that he was trying to do what he felt was best for the community. ... My father thrived on controversy," Dillon recalled with a laugh. "He just sometimes was very stubborn. He wasn’t willing to give in or to compromise. When he decided on something, he stuck with that."
But when his view lost, Coffey remained agreeable and stayed engaged.
"I remember Everett was a big opponent of the new municipal building, where it sits now, and fought like hell to derail that project,” Viens recalled. “At the end of the day, when it was all finished, said and done, Everett frequently walked from his house on Winooski Street down to the town office to participate in the select board meetings."
To Coffey, pushing back against what he saw as ill-informed policies and decisions was a form of public service, and to him, that was really important.
His first taste of involvement in the Waterbury community came when he joined the Jaycees, a service-oriented club similar to the Rotary. He and Annie were both on the Waterbury Ambulance Service, with Annie helping answer phones before 911 was widely used. Coffey was a dedicated first responder.
"He was so involved in Waterbury politics and a lot of people didn’t like him, but when an ambulance call came in, he went to whomever was calling, even if they had political disagreements," said Brian Lindner, an emergency medical technician for Waterbury Ambulance Service. "He always had a great sense of community.”
That sense of service was passed along to his four children. In addition to daughter Sally Dillon, the fire battalion chief and also an emergency dispatcher, daughter Em Lamson works in public safety and is on the fire department along with both sons, David and Don, who is retired from the Vermont State Police.
"He had that blood in him, and I think we all got that from him," Dillon said of her dad and siblings.
Don Coffey, the former state trooper, called it his father's legacy. "People should become involved in their communities," he said. "They don’t have to run for office, but [they should] be involved in decisions being made in town politics, or join an organization that does something that you have an interest in in the community."
No handbook for running a town
"If anybody knew Everett, throughout his tenure here in the town, [they knew] the town was his family, good, bad or indifferent," said Viens, who described Coffey's dedication to the community as "above and beyond."
"He certainly had the ability to inspire everybody to get involved. He was able to raise the roof off the place at times, and got people’s dander up on both sides of the aisle, for whatever particular conversation they were having, whether it was the police department or fire safety issues or town budgets," Viens said.
Sometimes Coffey’s strong convictions motivated others to get involved to argue an opposing view.
"Even though I didn’t agree with him many times, you appreciated his commitment to the community and the time he spent coming to the meetings just to watch and offer a comment here and there. You appreciated the time he put into things. That’ll be the thing I remember about Everett most," Flanders summed up.
In a way, it’s people like Coffey who help the wheels of democracy turn, Viens said.
"There’s been a few people throughout the history of Waterbury that people that have been here any length of time will remember for being the type of people that aren’t bashful about voicing their opinion and stirring up a ruckus,” Viens opined. And you remember those who “cause the ruckus,” he added.
"People like Everett need to be remembered for his good points and his bad points – whether you liked him or disliked him – and learn from him, to have compromise."
Everett and Annie Coffey at their camp in Island Pond, summer 2020. Photo courtesy Sally Dillon.
Freelance writer Caleigh Cross is a former Waterbury Record staff reporter. She lives in Stowe.