"An immediate roll call has been ordered in the Senate! Will all Senators please return to the chamber! An immediate roll call has been ordered in the Senate! Will all Senators please return to the chamber!''
Those words have boomed over the loud speakers at the state Capitol for more than 20 years, and they came from the resounding voice of Tom Sheridan.
As the clerk of the Senate, Sheridan has been well-known to the legislators, lobbyists, and staff members who watch the legislative process from a front-row seat on the third floor.
But after battling cancer for more than a year, Sheridan died Monday at the age of 62. Although he had lost some of his hair, he still returned to the Senate "circle'' this year to complete his tasks, announce the pending roll call votes, and handling the Senate's business while sitting in front of the lieutenant governor in his familiar chair in the chamber.
"There will be other clerks for the Senate, but no one with his exact style - no one with that Tom Sheridan voice,'' Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams said Tuesday. "The voice certainly conferred authority, but there was a lot more to Tom than his voice. His knowledge of procedure and his ability to keep business moving in the Senate was unparalleled. He was tremendous at what he did.''
Williams added, "He was, quite literally, the voice of the Connecticut state Senate. Everyone knew that booming voice.''
Sheridan was the state Senate's Bob Sheppard - the famous voice that reverberated through Yankee Stadium for decades until his recent death at the age of 99.
A graduate of Amherst College who lived in Glastonbury, Sheridan worked as an attorney for more than 30 years. But his great love was returning each year - on the days when the Senate was in session - to help make the chamber run smoothly.
Sheridan was famous for reading the items on the "consent calendar'' so fast and so efficiently that even seasoned veterans at the Capitol could not keep up with him as they scrambled to turn the pages of the calendar to see which bills were included in the vote. As such, senators realized that something was wrong last year when Sheridan was uncharacteristically stumbling on the final night of the session.
"It was the close of the regular session last year,'' Williams recalled. "We had left a long consent calendar - not remembering that the clerk has to read every one of those bills before we can vote on the consent calendar. Tom struggled. He struggled getting through. Both he and Marty [Looney] are usually able to speak at lightning speed. We noticed he was having some difficulty. He was stumbling through it. He wound up in the hospital the next day. He had struggled to get through the last couple of weeks and the last couple of days of the session last year, and he didn't know why.''
Sheridan was soon diagnosed with cancer, but he bounced back and returned to the Capitol this year.
"For the most part, he was in the saddle for us - right through the last day of the session,'' Williams said. "It was a real tribute to him. Even though he looked like he was doing reasonably well, in point of fact, he was digging deep.''