• Heather Fletcher of Brattleboro has earned a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies from Union Institute & University.
• Violet K. Dixon of Brattleboro and Carla M. Yudin of Guilford were both named to the Dean's List for the Spring 2011 semester at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I.
...“Swingin' at the Garden,” a free community dance party that was to have kicked off the Brattleboro Area Chamber's One and Only Brattleboro fall marketing campaign on Sept. 10, has been cancelled. “Although we are indeed sorry to have had to come to this decision and regret any inconvenience...
It was Sept. 22nd, and the Hurricane of 1938 was raging on Hale Road. “We had no radio. No one knew about the hurricane. I was ten years old,” remembers Eleanor (Coleman) Emery, now of Dummerston. “It had been raining so very hard for several days, and water from the Green River was coming right down the back of our home.” Around 6 p.m., a neighbor came in his automobile to evacuate the family. “Walter Petrie had seen the rising...
We are battered. We are worn out. We are emotionally spent. We are drained. We have just gone through a spring and a summer that has included a major fire that displaced dozens of homes and businesses in the heart of Brattleboro this spring. We have witnessed the heartbreak and the unnerving consequences of two homicides in this county this summer. And now, every part of Windham County finds itself coping with flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. From...
On Saturday, Sept. 3, from 7-10 p.m., Brattleboro Community Radio, WVEW, will present Boston-based bands Mission Creep and Adja the Turkish Queen in concert at the River Garden to benefit flood relief efforts in Brattleboro. The concert was to have been a benefit for WVEW, whose studios were destroyed in April's fire at the Brooks House. Instead, the show will aid Brattleboro's recovery and rebuilding efforts following Tropical Storm Irene. Mission Creep combines the talents of Guilford resident Gregory Grinnell...
Experienced Goods on Flat Street is closed BRATTLEBORO - Experienced Goods thrift store on at 77 Flat St. will be closed until further notice. Those wising to help the store recover from Sunday's flooding can help in two ways. They are accepting financial donations at their store at 51 Elliot St., and through the Brattleboro Area Hospice Flood Relief account at Brattleboro Savings & Loan. Experienced Goods Home Furnishings on Elliot Street is open for business as usual Tuesday-Sundays, 10-5:30...
I'm embarrassed to admit that like many folks in the area, I went about the task of readying for Hurricane Irene with half a heart. As a retired EMT, I believe in preparedness, but I felt reasonably sure that I wouldn't seriously have a need for the full gas tank I pumped and the water I purchased. I filled my prescriptions and took other precautions, but like the majority of folks that I saw at the grocery store, I was...
Aug. 8: Day zero I am freaking out right now. It's toward the end of what was supposed to be a fulfilling summer that ultimately turned out to be crap. I didn't write any of the articles I set out to write. A bucket-list dream of going to Dollywood got checked off but was a complete letdown. Oh, and my relationship of nine years ended up in ruins (as in “never-to-be-rebuilt because the earth has been sown with salt” ruins,
Bake sale benefits Moore Free Library NEWFANE - The Friends of Moore Free Library of Newfane will host a baked goods table at the Vermont Welcome Center in Guilford on Friday, Sept. 2, the start of the Labor Day weekend. The Friends are asking for baked goods (finger food), and these donations can be left at the library on West Street (behind the courthouse) on Thursday, Sept. 1, before 5 p.m.. For further information, contact [email protected]. Free health workshop offered...
The one-two punch of flash flooding on the Williams and Saxtons rivers on Sunday and a fast rising Connecticut River on Monday wreaked havoc on low-lying areas of northern Windham County. The flooding came as a result of heavy rain on Sunday from Tropical Storm Irene. The village of Saxtons River saw flooding of historic proportions. According to the National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y., the river of the same name that runs through the village rose to 19.7 feet...
BRATTLEBORO - Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is offering a free workshop series to help people with chronic health conditions live healthier, happier, and more active lives, starting Sept. 12. Stanford University developed the six-week Healthier Living Workshops program to empower individuals as self-managers through education, support and skill-building exercises. Classes meet each Monday from Sept. 12 through Oct. 17, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. in Brew Barry Conference Room 1 at BMH. The sessions are designed for people with chronic health...
For its 46th season in 2011-12, Friends of Music at Guilford plans an exciting series of programs. The season opens with one of their signature events, the annual Labor Day Weekend Festival. On Saturday, Sept. 3, at 7:30 p.m., guest organist Ken Olsson plays an all-Bach program on the Guilford Tracker Organ at the Organ Barn, assisted by soprano Lesley Cotter and the Guilford Chamber Players. On Sunday, Sept. 4, at 2 p.m., David Kidwell conducts the Guilford Festival Orchestra...
I spent the whole day helping clean out my work. Other people were devastated by the flooding. When I returned to my car after 8 hours of salvaging I found I had a ticket on my car. I found it so disgusting and insensitive that the town would be out ticketing in the downtown area a day after such a historic flood. People can't park near their homes/work which were destroyed. They're trying to put their lives back together. They...
The Brattleboro Music Center's fall semester begins the week of Sept. 12, and offers a choice of individual lessons in any of 15 instruments and voice, as well as classes in chamber music, traditional music, and choral arts, adult group violin lessons, children's classes, student orchestras and classes for those with differentabilities. For children, the BMC offers Annie Frelich's “Movin' Into Music,” a music and movement class for ages 1-5. The class meets Mondays, from 10-10:45 a.m., starting Sept. 12.
I often hear derision for people who follow the pack - I've been one of them. I've had my snarky, self-inflating moments, calling folks “lemmings”, or worse, “sheeple.” Not to their faces, mind you. I now admit that it's cowardly behavior, lacking any respect for the individual decisions that make up the mass phenomenon of herd mentality. Using the words “lemmings,” “sheeple,” “pack,” and “herd” reduces people to animals and mitigates any shame I might feel for the name calling.
Residents of the West River Valley got their clocks cleaned by Tropical Storm Irene, but some towns were more damaged than others. Wardsboro, barely accessible, had Vermont National Guard helicopters airlift food and supplies on Tuesday afternoon to the elementary school's ball field. By comparison, most of Townshend's roads were open to trucks and four-wheel-drive vehicles by Monday night, according to David Dezendorf, chief of the town's emergency management department. Townshend Fire Chief Douglas Winot said most of the town's...
Long-timers Corrine and Raymond Boyd expected Tropical Storm Irene to raise the waters of the Deerfield's North Branch. They didn't expect water to surround their house across Route 112 from the river. Most days, the North Branch of the Deerfield River bubbles through the village of Jacksonville, swift and sparkling, following Route 112 to Colrain, Mass.. It passes the Municipal Center, behind residents, in front of Honora Winery, behind the gas station and the Village of Jacksonville Electric Company, and...
The Brooks House fire in April was a major disaster for Brattleboro, but little did town officials know that the lessons they learned in dealing with the fire and its aftermath would be applied again so soon, and on a much larger scale. Tropical Storm Irene caused massive flood damage to homes and businesses along Whetstone Brook on Sunday, and Town Manager Barbara Sondag said every town department has been fully mobilized to deal with the disaster. “This is not...
Kudos to the Brattleboro Fire Department. During the power outage I attempted to take my refrigerated insulin to the BMH Emergency Room to ask if they could keep it in their backup fridge. The Whetstone flooding blocked the roads so I stopped at the BFD on the chance they might help me. Lt. Dave Emery Jr. and his fellow firemen were rightfully uncertain about the protocol of storing my insulin. The firemen in the station were on alert and facing...
In 1938, the era before hurricanes were named, the people of Windham County were surprised by a weather system 125 miles wide. Its course had already taken the Sept. 22 weather system from the Bahamas, to Long Island in the afternoon, then to Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Around 5 p.m., the storm hit southern Vermont and New Hampshire. Because telephone poles and telegraph wires came down in the hurricane's wake, the remaining states could not be warned of its...
“Half a life of work is just gone,” says Ann Coleman. Floodwaters from the weekend's Tropical Storm Irene swept Coleman's eponymous gallery, building and all, down the Deerfield River, on Sunday, depositing the building's slab foundation in the middle of West Main Street. Coleman says she will keep painting in her home studio, but it is too soon to know if she will reopen a gallery. On Monday, a clear blue sky and vibrant sun bathed downtown in late summer...
Water and books don't mix. Four feet of Deerfield River water carrying mud, debris, and fuel from dislodged propane tanks, courtesy of Tropical Storm Irene, made for an estimated 90 percent loss of Bartleby's Books & Music's inventory. “We are planning to reopen just as soon as we can,” said bookstore owner Lisa Sullivan. Sullivan and her husband, Phil Taylor, stood in the bookstore Sunday watching the river's surge down West Main Street. As the water rose against the building's...
The November flood of 1927. The March flood of 1936. The September hurricane and flood of 1938. These historic weather events have the benchmarks for natural disasters in southern Vermont. What happened in Windham County on Sunday is on par with all three, as torrential rains from Tropical Storm Irene caused major flooding and epic devastation. Runoff from the 4-7 inches of rain that fell on the county between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon filled virtually every small stream and...