For decades Derby and Shelton High Schools played each other in football and continuously on Thanksgiving from 1922 to 2019. And for most of those years the Derby Shelton Rotary Club hosted the senior members of the football team – and later the cheerleaders at a Thanksgiving luncheon as couple of days before the game. As the saying goes, “All good things must end”. Both schools size and athletics had changed drastically as the student population had dwindled, and they had switched to the Naugatuck Valley while Shelton continued to excel in the Souther Connecticut Conference. The 2020 season was lost to Covid including the Thanksgiving game and luncheon and when the numbers finally caught up to Derby, they were forced to suspend their season and forfeit their remaining games including the Shelton game. The luncheon was held but the schools announced that they would no longer play football. Derby did start to rebuild their program and adopted another Valley high school, Oxford, as a Thanksgiving opponent. Shelton will be playing Amity Regional this year as a new tradition begins for them.
However, when Lucy Andrade was club president, she brought the luncheon back as a way to honor the players and cheerleaders of both schools even though they no longer play each other. The first luncheon was held in 2024 and this year it was held on October 15 during a bye week at the incredible J. R. Payden Field House. The history of the luncheon and the achievements of both schools were told and head coaches Jeremy Clarke of Derby and Mike Defelice of Shelton spoke briefly about their seasons so far and what they hope to accomplish the rest of the season.
