By Marilyn Fish
Open enrollment for Medicare ends on December 7th and long-time Becket resident and volunteer Steven Rosenthal is ready to help local seniors navigate the Medicare maze, particularly the confusing complexity of annual benefit changes. A state program managed through Elder Services, Serving the Health Insurance Needs of Everyone (SHINE) provides free health insurance information and counseling, often leading to savings on prescription drug and health insurance costs. As a SHINE counselor, Steve’s expertise comes from completing a 55-hour training course along with annual refreshers. Happy to connect in whatever way works best for clients—in person, by computer, via phone or his Zoom account—Steve can be reached at Town Hall, (413) 623-8934, ext. 141, to schedule an appointment.
A knowledgeable, affable and soft-spoken man, Steve has been involved with all things Becket since childhood. Although he was born in the Bronx, Steve’s parents, Bill and Fritzie, were counselors at Camp Watitoh in 1939 and ’40. When Bill, an educator by profession, returned to Watitoh as head counselor in the 1950s, Steve became a camper, and subsequently one of Watitoh’s waterfront counselors and the camp’s truck driver. He went on to graduate from Tufts University and served for two years on a destroyer as a US Navy officer. In 1966 he married Ruth Halperin, a Massachusetts girl, and became a full-time resident of the Boston area.
Success in manufacturing sales and management enabled Steve and his family to live comfortably and travel widely on their sailboat. Meanwhile his parents built a house in Sherwood Forest and hosted Steve, Ruth and their two daughters for frequent visits. In 2002 Steve and Ruth moved to Becket, taking over his parents’ house. It was then that his innate desire and ability to help others became focused on his adopted hometown.
Steve served as Becket’s harbormaster from around 2010 to 2022, a position that required him to patrol Becket’s four great ponds (natural bodies of water greater than 10 acres), to ensure the safety of boaters. He also monitored the proper registration of floating docks. Steve’s language skills were put to good use by the Literacy Network of the Southern Berkshires, through which he taught English as a second language. Steve is currently Becket’s Deputy Town Moderator and moderator of each of the town’s four prudential districts’* annual meetings. He also manages the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.
More than twenty years after becoming a full-time resident, Steve continues to enjoy the pleasures of life in Becket but enjoys in equal measure giving back to the community that, in a sense, has always been in his blood.
*See Massachusetts General Law, Section 71: a prudential district chooses a committee to manage its finances and operations but is not a homeowners association. Sherwood Green is a local example of a prudential district.
