About Your Smithfield Magazine

Your Smithfield Magazine is exactly what the title says: a magazine written specifically for your town – Smithfield, Rhode Island. Every household, business, and post office box in town receives a copy each month, free of charge.

About the Publishers

Larry Sasso, Jr. is a lifelong resident of Smithfield where he was a student in the schools before moving on to Hope High in Providence in the days when Smithfield didn’t have its own high school. He earned bachelors and master’s degrees at the University of Rhode Island and did further graduate study at the University of Massachusetts.

For more than four decades he was associated with the local weekly newspaper, the former Observer. For the last 19 years he was the editor. Larry has been involved with many community organizations over the years, and for three years was President of the Rhode Island Press Association. His work has appeared in many other publications, including the Boston Globe, The Providence Journal, The Worcester Telegram, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Yankee Magazine, and he has won numerous awards.

Ron Scopelliti is a lifelong Smithfield resident, apart from a few years in the Dartmouth, Mass. area. He graduated from Smithfield High School in 1981. A former technologist for Union Carbide, he holds degrees in mechanical engineering technology and English. Prior to becoming a journalist, Ron tutored and taught business and technical communications at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth.

In his six years as a journalist, he has received two awards from the Rhode Island Press Association and one award from the New England Press Association. He lives in Esmond, where he grew up playing football and soccer behind the mill, and can often be seen pedaling a mountain bike or a vintage Raleigh three-speed through the village.