• The Brattleboro Retreat recently bestowed the 2011 Anna Marsh Award to former state Sen. Robert T. Gannett. The Anna Marsh Award was established by the Brattleboro Retreat in 2009 to recognize individuals for their advocacy on behalf of people with mental illness. Gannett served on the Brattleboro Retreat Board of Trustees from 1967 to 1981.
Gannett graduated from Harvard College in 1939 and Harvard Law School in 1942. He came to Brattleboro with his wife, Sarah Alden Derby Gannett, in 1946 after completing four years of military service in the Army. He became a member of the Vermont state bar in 1947 and has been a practicing lawyer for more than 60 years. Gannett represented Brattleboro in the Vermont House of Representatives from 1953 to 1959, and Windham County in the Vermont Senate from 1973 to 1992.
He has served as a corporator and past president of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital; director of National Life Insurance Co.; director of the United Way of Windham County; and trustee of the Vermont Community Foundation. In addition to his involvement with these and many other organizations, he has been an avid golfer, fisherman and fan of the Boston Red Sox.
...As housing issues rise in Windham County in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, and Vermonters prepare for winter, residents have again lodged complaints that it is inappropriate to locate an overnight homeless shelter within the village. The Greater Falls Warming Shelter (GFWS) is preparing for its second year...
Google seminar on online business tools offered Oct. 13 BRATTLEBORO - Building a Better Brattleboro (BaBB), in partnership with Marlboro College Graduate School, will present a Google seminar that provides the tools and resources for Vermont businesses to get online and succeed online at the Marlboro Grad Center, 28...
Shortly after Governor Peter Shumlin took office, he said that he was very surprised that the State Energy Plan included Vermont Yankee operating past March 2012. Now his team has put together a proposal for Vermont without Vermont Yankee: the Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP). The plan was released by the Department of Public Service (DPS) on Sept. 14. The public comment period ends Oct. 10, less than a month later. The CEP covers electricity, heating, transmission, and transportation. It is...
Vermont will likely get a reprieve from the No Child Left Behind Act under new rules set by the Obama administration. Gov. Peter Shumlin sought a waiver from the federal law in September; the state has until February to develop a new plan for measuring school performance. Rae Ann Knopf, deputy commissioner of the Department of Education, told members of the State Board of Education that the federal law had set an “artificially high standard” based on student (and school)
One recent day, I left home in Brattleboro around 8:30 a.m. and drove north to spend the day with my son and his family. It felt lucky from the start, with sun shining and no sign of rain. When I arrived, close to three hours later, those night owls - Dave, Heather, and home-schooled Aedan, age 10 -were getting up, making coffee, stirring about in preparation for the day. I never have to leave home at the crack of dawn...
Tropical storm Irene has not interrupted plans for the ninth annual Gilfeather Turnip Festival scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 22, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Wardsboro Town Hall and under a big tent, both on Main Street. The free event takes place rain or shine, and is the largest community fundraising event supporting the town's public library. The unique festival celebrates the Gilfeather turnip, first propagated in Wardsboro in the early 1900s by farmer, John Gilfeather. Gilfeather Farm...
I have read a lot of articles discussing “safety” and “reliability” when it comes to Vermont Yankee. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulates safety at the plant. This is done by providing two full-time inspectors and implementing an inspection program that includes about 12 specialist inspections per year. All of Vermont Yankee's findings over the recent past have been “green” on the NRC's color-coding scheme, indicating that the plant is considered very safe by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Information about Vermont...
On Saturday, Oct. 15, at 7 p.m., the Broad Brook Grange will show all of its painted theater curtains, described by the program's organizers as “a collection of important folk art works.” Guilford's Grange Hall has four curtains, but they are not ordinarily all viewable on any given occasion. As part of the ongoing 250th anniversary celebration of the town, all four will be lowered and then, over an interval, raised one by one to reveal each of the four...
The Vermont Fatherhood Initiative will host its first statewide conference on Responsible Fathering at the Vermont Statehouse on Tuesday, Nov. 1, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A brochure/registration form can be found at this link; www.vnacares.org/fatherhood. The conference will feature keynote speaker John Laing. He is a father, businessman, and consultant to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. Welcoming the assembled will be Gov. Peter Shumlin and Vermont Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Reiber. The day will include...
Musicians Ken and Julie Olsson will kick off the fourth annual Taste of the Arts series at Main Street Arts (MSA) Thursday, Oct. 13, at 6 p.m. by telling their love story through song. Taste of the Arts features local personalities with interesting stories to tell over a catered meal in an informal setting. Reservations are requested at least three days in advance. Ken Olsson was musical director of the MSA productions of H.M.S. Pinafore, The Gondoliers, and High Button...
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital announced it will begin providing health services to area citizens planning trips out of the United States through its Occupational Health Department. The services fill a gap left by World Learning when they closed their travel health center prior to the start of their fall semester. Previously, students in the World Learning programs as well as the general public could go to the Black Mountain Road campus for immunizations and other travel-related health advice. BMH President &
The Brattleboro Recreation & Parks Department offers the following programs this fall. If more information is needed, or if any special needs are required, call 802-254-5808, or stop by the Recreation & Parks Department office at the Gibson-Aiken Center, 207 Main St. Baton twirling classes • Baton twirling classes will be held at the Gibson-Aiken Center on Thursdays, beginning on Oct. 20, for eight weeks, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. The cost of the eightweek program is $55 for residents...
Wendi Weber, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) Northeast Region in Hadley, Mass., and Bill Archambault, deputy assistant regional director of fisheries, want a boatload of pork for the failed salmon program of the Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Commission (CRASC). Now! Through an act of Congress, Weber and Archambault are seeking $10 to $14 million in emergency funding to rebuild the White River National Fish Hatchery (WRNFH) in Bethel, wiped out by Tropical Storm Irene in...
Fourth grade students, a volunteer, a teacher, and a reporter at Vernon Elementary School now know a lot more about some spiders common to New England than they used to, as well as some of their webs, their bodies, their diets, and the adaptations they've developed to survive in their environment, thanks to programs created by the Four Winds Nature Institute in Chittenden. During a training for this detailed spider program, the trainer, the volunteer, and the reporter spent a...
Eric Bass' award winning solo performance, Autumn Portraits, will take center stage on Oct. 21 and 22 at 8 p.m., continuing an annual Sandglass Theater tradition. Tickets are $15 ($12 for seniors and students). Autumn is a metaphor for that time of life when our thoughts turn inward, when we feel the loss of summer warmth. Each of these puppet “portraits” presents a moment in one character's existence. Some are funny, some touching, some bizarre, and all speak to the...
Excellent commentary by John Mack [“A long-term process,” Voices, Sept. 28]. There certainly was a core group of people who went way beyond what normal people would be expected to do: people (like John Mack, and I could name countless others) who worked endless hours every day for free during the emergency. We thank you, one and all. In addition, there have been few people in the villages, it seems, who haven't pitched in, despite lives that became incredibly complicated...
The five members of the recently appointed Green Mountain Care Board have their work cut out for them. Anya Rader Wallack, the board's chair, reeled off a daunting to-do list for each of the new members at the board's first official meeting on Oct. 4. Dr. Allan Ramsay, a primary care physician at Fletcher Allen Health Care, will take the lead on payment reform, workforce development and outreach. Dr. Karen Hein, a pediatrician from Jacksonville, will focus on developing a...
If you are wondering why protesters have occupied Wall Street for the past few weeks, and why similar protests have been springing up around the country, consider these facts. Since the end of 2007, the number of working-age Americans has grown by 7 million. Yet the number of those over age 18 who have full-time work has declined by 300,000. Job growth has come to a standstill, yet many U.S. corporations are enjoying record profits and are collectively sitting on...
Control room operators began removing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station from service on Saturday night to begin its 29th refueling and maintenance outage. The refueling, which will cost $92 million, including labor, maintenance and fuel, involves replacing about one-third of the plant's fuel rods, or about 116 assemblies. Fuel rods must be replaced every 18 months, and spent fuel rods are stored at the plant. Workers will also perform various maintenance activities, tests, and inspections on plant equipment that...
The Brattleboro Union High School Players will present William Shakespeare's farce The Comedy of Errors, on Oct. 14 and 15, at the BUHS Auditorium. Shakespeare's first comedy (written in 1589 and freely adapted from a work by the Roman playwright Plautus) boasts two sets of twins, long separated by a storm at sea, who are thrown together in the town of Ephesus. Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant, Dromio, arrive in Ephesus unaware that their respective mirror image already lives...
The Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) opened a temporary bridge on Oct. 7 along Route 30 in Jamaica Village. The new structure restores the community's vital traffic link north towards Manchester and Route 7, and south toward Brattleboro and Interstate 91. The bridge was originally scheduled to open on Oct. 15, but construction crews were able to accelerate work so that it could be ready in time for the Columbus Day weekend. Route 30 was severed when Tropical Storm Irene...
In advance of its 25th anniversary elebration in 2012, the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont (APSV) is seeking photographs, artifacts, and memories created over the years. Former Board members, volunteers, clients, and staff are particularly invited to go through albums and files and send along any pictures, posters, and other print and electronic depictions of APSV's important work in the community. APSV would also welcome 1-3 minute video clips of people sharing experiences and memories for use in stories they'll...
The September/October centerfold of Adbusters magazine showed a female dancer atop the brass bull icon of lower Manhattan, the symbol of Wall Street. She is calm; her arms are outstretched. She is not quite Joan of Arc, but she conveys the power and grace of a superior consciousness rising from the back of the charging bull unaware that his time is up. Behind her, in a cloud of tear gas, a mob is in the throes of battle. The call...
If you could help not just one girl, but 15 young girls, gain a stronger sense of identity, greater self-acceptance, a healthier body, and an understanding of what it means to be part of a community in just a few hours a week, would you? Girls on the Run Vermont is seeking volunteer coaches at new and established sites throughout the state to run its 10-week program - no prior coaching or running experience is required, and training will be...
Rep. Oliver Olsen, R-Jamaica, announced last week that he will not be running for his seat in 2012. Olsen, 35, has been an outspoken and articulate critic of several Shumlin administration proposals, and he is described even by Democrats as a “rising star.” A year after winning his first election bid last fall, however, Olsen has decided to forgo a second race. It's becoming increasingly difficult, Olsen said, to take care of his young family and pursue his professional career...
“You get more flies with honey than vinegar,” says former Marine Michael Russo, a security volunteer for the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest. Earlier that morning, a yelling match broke out between two people in Zuccotti Park.. With little fuss, the security volunteers appeared, diffused the conflict, and dispersed the gaggle of curious bystanders. Dispersing the crowd removes the fuel for any flaring tempers, says Russo. He says that the security volunteers would call in the New York Police Department...
The Occupy Wall Street protest has struck during an economically tumultuous time for many Americans. The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that 25 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed. The BLS reports an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent, up from 6.2 percent in September 2008 and 5 percent in September 2001. OWS, so far, has been characterized in media reports as a movement comprised of people under the age of 30 struggling with mountains...
Sometimes it takes a force from outside to shake things up - even if what is shook is something as solemn as a church hymn. In this spirit, the First Congregational Church has invited the “Minister of Music” and the lead soprano from All Peoples Christian Church in Los Angeles to lead a workshop on gospel music on Saturday, Oct. 22. It is open to anyone who would care to learn more about singing, no matter their individual beliefs or...
Protesters from and members of dozens of labor unions marched through Lower Manhattan from Zuccotti Park to Foley Square Oct. 5 in what media commentators called the biggest rally to date for the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest that began last month. An estimated 20,000 people, including a contingent from Windham County, streamed down the sidewalks past tourists, fellow New Yorkers, and police officers chanting, “We are the 99 percent, and so are you!” The rallying cry for the nonviolent...
Gov. Peter Shumlin has declared Oct. 22 the first-ever 'Vermont Clean Up Day' inspired by the generosity of Vermonters helping the state recover from Tropical Storm Irene. Modeled on its springtime sister event – Green Up Day – the newly created Clean Up Day will ensure all Vermont families and communities impacted by the storm are prepared for the upcoming winter season. “I want to start by saying thank you for everyone's outpouring of support, incredible generosity and patience at...
Twin Valley's soccer teams have had a nomadic existence this season. The flooding from Tropical Storm Irene on Aug. 28 thoroughly trashed Baker Field, rendering it unplayable for soccer or any other sport for the rest of this year. The backup site was the Twin Valley Middle School in Whitingham. But the combination of poor drainage and heavy rains for most of September has left that field unplayable too. So, the Wildcats have been forced to play “home” games in...
“We were all aware of the history of the hurricane of 1938 and the Latchis Theatre, and yet we assumed that something like that could never happen today,” said Gail Nunziata, managing director for the Brattleboro Arts Initiative and the Latchis Corporation. “But, of course, we were wrong,” she said.“Because it did happen to us.” The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 swept Brattleboro off its feet the very day the grand opening of the Latchis Theatre was to have...