“Tonight we celebrate. Tomorrow we get to work.”
Those had been the phrases of Gov. Maura Healey at her packed inaugural celebration Thursday night time at TD Garden, which serves as the house of the Boston Celtics and was seemingly chosen as a nod to her and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll’s time taking part in school basketball, a degree of pleasure for each ladies.
“I will always be a point guard,” mentioned Healey, who performed basketball at Harvard University. “It’s about the assist. That’s the statistic that matters.”
The sport’s theme was evident all through the night time’s festivities, which was dubbed the “Moving the Ball Forward” celebration and featured a video the place Healey-Driscoll supporters had been actually passing a basketball to at least one one other.
The video, which was performed after Driscoll spoke, concluded with Healey catching the ball, and saying, “I believe in teamwork. Together we’ll make Massachusetts stronger,” earlier than she got here out to talk to the gang in individual.
Having given her official inauguration speech earlier within the day on the State House, it was all pomp and circumstance on the Garden for the primary girl to be elected governor of Massachusetts and the primary openly-lesbian governor within the nation and her working mate, who was additionally formally inaugurated earlier on Thursday.
“We’re so glad you could join us for a different kind of Garden party,” Driscoll mentioned, including that she was impressed by how the basketball enviornment had been reworked to a spot befitting a historic inaugural celebration.
“For all the little girls out there, we may be the first all-female team leading the state, but we will not be the last,” she mentioned.
Healey additionally touched on the historic nature of the event, whereas she was introducing her favourite performer and headliner for the night, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile, who can also be overtly homosexual and married her spouse, Catherine, in Massachusetts.
“I knew if I had the opportunity to choose one person who was going to play at our inauguration, it was going to be Brandi Carlile,” Healey mentioned. “I actually admire how she’s put herself on the market.
“I admire her voice, not just her singing voice of course, but the voice she gives to so many, so many women, young LGBT people, so many people who from whatever walk of life may have felt vulnerable, may have felt marginalized, may have been made to feel less than.”
Healey pivoted by saying that these gathered had been additionally welcoming a brand new starting.
“It’s 2023, and we are committed to truly being a commonwealth. A commonwealth that looks after one another, a commonwealth that takes care of one another,” she mentioned.
Healey concluded her remarks with one other basketball reference, saying that she and Driscoll had been going to work their “butts off” like they did on the basketball courts for “the health, prosperity, the future of this great state.”
Carlile, who sang a number of of her hit songs and concluded with a canopy of Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow,” led an inventory of performers that additionally included Boston Bruins official nationwide anthem singer Todd Angilly, the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus and the Everett Marching Band.
DJ Frenchy spun hits all through the night to maintain the gang engaged, and a number of other movies had been proven, together with one that includes celebrities like tennis nice Billie Jean King, soccer participant Megan Rapinoe and former Celtics level guard Bob Cousy.
“From an exceptional point guard at Harvard to the governor’s mansion — go girl,” Cousy mentioned of Healey within the movie star video.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”