Brattleboro improved to 7-1 on the season with a 54-40 win over St. Johnsbury in the BUHS gym on Friday.
The balanced offensive attack of the Colonels, led by the trio of Travis Beeman-Nesbitt, Jay Vinci and Soren Pelz-Walsh gave the Hilltoppers fits all night. When St. Johnsbury tried to double-team Beeman-Nesbitt, the result was open shots for Vinci and Pelz-Walsh.
The Colonels led by as many as 22 in the second half before St. J made things a bit more competitive in the final minutes.
Beeman-Nesbitt finished with 14 points, followed by Vinci with 13 and Pelz-Walsh with 11. Good rebounding and defense by Beeman-Nesbitt and Tommy Heydinger also helped the Colonels' cause.
On Dec. 19, 1995, The New York Times reported the discovery of a man's remains, found “face down in a slushy pocket of glacier” in the Italian Alps, along a path where local shepherds still guide their sheep. The German hikers thought they had discovered someone recently lost. In...
As the Greater Falls Warming Shelter struggled this fall to open a winter warming shelter in Rockingham, there has been a tremendous outpouring of support for our efforts, from which we take heart. The majority of the people of this region are truly caring. This is evidenced by the...
I guess I'm not the only one who increasingly finds blogs boring and social media less than stimulating. A recent New Yorker cartoon, headlined “Blog Breakdown,” showed a pie chart in which blogs were broken down into thirds for “conspiracy theories,” “self-promotion,” and “stories about crap somebody cooked, knitted, or sewed.” I can relate. If I have to read one more tweet like this one, I'll start banging my head against the wall: “Off to church. Then I'll exercise, watch...
Obituaries Editor's note: The Commons will publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham County and others, on request, as community news, free of charge. • Richard “Dick” Gordon Avery, 93, of Albuquerque, N.M., formerly of Brattleboro. Died Dec. 4 at his home. Husband of Lois Sawin Avery for 66 years. Father of Susan Avery of Brattleboro and Gretchen Avery of Albuquerque. Sister of Evelyn Avery of Bennington and the late Helen Healy and Marion Jackson. Born in Brattleboro, the...
Author to discuss Eastern cougars BRATTLEBORO - Author Robert Tougias will discuss his book, The Quest For The Eastern Cougar: Extinction Or Survival?, on Thursday, Jan. 19, at 4 p.m., in the Brooks Memorial Library's Meeting Room. Tougias will pose the question: “Why does this phantom of the Eastern woods stimulate such passion among so many people?” “For decades, wildlife biologists have been telling us that they do not exist east of the Mississippi,” he says. “Yet each year, there...
The Brattleboro Winter Farmers' Market (WFM) recently received a $1,000 grant from the Ben & Jerry's Vermont Community Action Team for its Accessible and Affordable Campaign. The WFM has also received a $100 donation from the Brattleboro Food Co-op for this purpose as well. These monies will be used to finance the WFM's Market Match Coupon Program, which is one dimension of the market's Accessible and Affordable Campaign. Coupons are given to customers who are eligible for the 3SquaresVT food...
The state's two largest utilities have sued Entergy, the corporation that operates the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, for a breach of contract based on two cooling tower failures in 2007 and 2008. A complaint filed by Green Mountain Power and Central Vermont Public Service in state court Monday accuses Entergy of failing to follow “Good Utility Practice.” The complaint states that the company's failure to maintain, repair, and improve the cooling towers caused them to fail in 2007 and...
An attempt to mediate a legal dispute over a proposed skatepark in the Crowell Lot on Western Avenue has failed. A scheduled mediation session was cancelled last Tuesday, the day before it was due to happen, after Barry Adams, who lives near the Crowell Lot and is a member of the Save Our Playground Coalition (SOPC), objected to the scheduled presence of Town Manager Barbara Sondag at the first session. In an email sent to The Commons, Adams wrote that...
Sept. 5, 2001 As Howard Dean plotted out a potential campaign, he struggled with another important decision - whether he was ready to leave the governor's office. Leaving a job you've enjoyed for more than a decade isn't easy to do, even if you are thinking about running for president. But by fall, after months of going back and forth, Howard was relaxed, upbeat, and clearly comfortable as he told a small crowd of local news media, staff, and other...
Two plays opening this weekend at Hooker-Dunham Theater seem bent on proving that absurdism may not be so far from normal after all. The Vermont Theatre Company (VTC) presents DUMB.soprano, an evening of two one-act absurdist plays. Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, directed by Ben Stockman, will feature Eric Walther and James Gelter, while Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano, directed by Sam Murphy, will feature Jonny Mack, Nancy Groff, Ran3dy Bright, Michelle Page, Kirsten Schrull, and Daniel Mitnik. Both plays...
Ken Schneck signed up to produce a radio show in 2008 during Brattleboro's Independence Day parade. Schneck, dean of students at Marlboro College and a Selectboard member, thought since no local stations were broadcasting a LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer) show, why shouldn't he take the reins? So Schneck began This Show Is So Gay (TSISG) on community radio station WVEW-LP, Brattleboro Community Radio, which over the years has expanded from talking about LGBTQ news, evolving to include what...
I am writing in response to Whit Blauvelt's letter “ZBA stretched state criteria [Voices, Jan. 4]. I don't want to get into the usual he said/she said back-and-forth that Whit so enjoys. However, I was at the meeting he was referring to and he was not. I am not disgusted with people poorer than I. I am disgusted with people who do not give these people proper care and attention, but merely a seasonal stop-gap handout, instead of a hand...
Dummerston has recently joined a growing number of cities and towns across the country and around the world that have become Transition Towns. The Transition movement is comprised of grassroots community initiatives that seek to build community resilience in the face of such challenges as peak oil, climate change, and economic crises. Thousands of communities around the world are becoming Transition Towns, exploring and using this positive, solutions-focused approach, finding innovative responses to the changes that lie ahead. In Vermont,
I have been a resident of Massachusetts for nearly 53 years and have recently started a temporary position working as an administrative assistant at Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee. I am writing not because of my own livelihood, but for all employees at VY and the lives they touch. They are not all Vermont residents; many live in New Hampshire or Massachusetts. There are several employees from my local area of Athol, Mass. Shutting down VY will affect many individuals and...
Greater Falls Warming Shelter (GFWS) board members met last week and made the decision to “take care of our own,” through a tiered response to house homeless people during this coldest time of the year in Vermont. As a result, the organization will sever its ties with Hundred Nights, a nonprofit that had stepped in after the shelter did not receive a permit [The Commons, Dec. 14]. Board members discussed ways in which, even without an overnight warming shelter in...
In a normal year, Southeast Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) would have its hands full dealing with people who need help with a variety of problems ranging from filling an empty fuel oil tank to emergency food assistance. But since Tropical Storm Irene struck last August, SEVCA has had to add the role of storm relief to its roster of services. SEVCA officials explained their plight to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during a meeting with the congressman last Tuesday in...
In a speech outlining his budget priorities for the 2013 fiscal year to the Legislature last Thursday, Gov. Peter Shumlin proposed creating a consolidated Community College of Vermont/Vermont Technical Center academic center in downtown Brattleboro. While the $4 million proposal is still in the preliminary stage and is subject to the approval of the Legislature, business leaders and property owners in town are excited about the possibilities. Former Brattleboro Selectboard member Martha O'Connor was appointed by Shumlin to lead a...
Gov. Peter Shumlin had plenty to brag about when he gave his State of the State address earlier this month. The effort to restore the state's transportation system after Tropical Storm Irene's devastation was truly heroic. The combination of private contractors, state Agency of Transportation workers, and the National Guard rebuilt washed-out roads in record time, and at a lower cost than first expected. Part of the reason for the speedy work is that many state rules and procedures were...
When you're in high school, you meet people who make an impression on you for the rest of your life. For some people, it's a coach or a teacher. For me, it was it was someone on the fringes of society. Stan the Can Man worked the edges of the high school ball field on the prowl for returnable cans and bottles, an insurgent in an undeclared war on poverty and mental illness. Nobody knew where he lived. He could...
There's more to the circus than razzle and dazzle. There's also psychology. I learned this when the staff of Brattleboro's own New England Center for the Circus Arts (NECCA) opened its studio and its abundance of serious toys for the general public to sample on Jan. 7, turning their gym in the process into a happy, noisy 12-ring circus. After signing waivers of indemnity, we were all allowed to line up and, one by one, play with the toys. For...