Landmark College, 1 River Rd., holds its inaugural Energy Summit on Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m. at Brooks M. O'Brien Auditorium in the East Academic Building.
The summit is part of “Green Week,” a series of events focused on the science of global warming and the role that individuals can take to protect the environment.
Guests include Christopher E. Tripler, an expert in ecosystems and climate, and Tom Clynes, a nationally published photojournalist.
A brief presentation on the science of climate change by Tripler is followed by a panel discussion. This event is free and open to all.
Vermont Theatre Company seeks four more actors to round out its cast for its June production of “As You Like It,” this year's VTC Shakespeare in the Park offering. Show dates are June 26-29, with special performances on June 14 and 21. The parts needing to be filled are...
Town Clerk Annette Cappy scanned the ticker-tape spit out from the electronic voting machine minutes after the polls closed on the special budget referendum. “The budget is a 'no,'” Cappy said to the crowd of reporters scribbling down numbers. “Back to the drawing board.” Overturning the prior Representative Town...
On Saturday, April 26, Timson Hill Preschool hosts its annual Latin Dance Party and Silent Auction fundraiser at Williamsville Grange. The silent auction runs from 6 to 7:45 p.m. and offers incredible goods, services, and art items. During the silent auction, popular local musician Peter Miles will entertain. Throughout the night, attendees can enjoy delicious, homemade food and desserts featuring a Latin theme, and a cash bar of beer and wine. From 8 to 11 p.m., De Lomas y Sones...
On April 10, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital hosted a dedication ceremony of BMH's new lobby in honor of long-time Brattleboro residents Roland and Harriet Fisher. The new “Roland and Harriet Fisher Lobby” recognizes the couple's final and generous gift in support of BMH's $3.5 million “Doorway to Exceptional Care” Capital Campaign for the new Emergency Department and front entrance at the hospital. Guests were welcomed by BMH Board Chairman Peter Carvell. Following brief remarks about the renovation and the improved facilities,
I have to admire Dart Everett for his creative and rampant imagination with regards to the governor's future plans, farfetched as they may be. I support the Affordable Care Act, but it falls far short of the ease and efficiency of Medicare, which is, in fact, a single-payer system. The governor's efforts in promoting a single-payer system would, in aggregate, reduce overall spending on health care. The billions Dart quotes are scary and should be, but those are the billions...
Why sing? Here are five good reasons why singing is so natural a part of the human condition. * * * • Because you are made for it. Singing is our first language. Anthropologists and neurologists alike now concur that singing (i.e., using pitch to communicate) is the manner in which our human ancestors relayed basic information and feelings. At the turn of the century, there were still three identified groups of peoples who used pitch and pulse as their...
Marjorie Porter, a Democrat, complains that New Hampshire is not taking care of its roads, but she left out a very important piece of that puzzle. Yes, New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT) Commissioner Christopher Clement indeed claims he cannot get the job done on our roads without more money, but here is a fact: Over 25 percent of the NHDOT budget money is redirected to other departments and used for purposes other than roads. Instead of demanding that lawmakers...
Where can you learn about barred owls and bats, see a tortoise and a wallaby, and enjoy a day outside along the beautiful Connecticut River in Rockingham? At the Herricks Cove Wildlife Festival, of course. For the past 15 years, people have celebrated spring and wildlife on the first Sunday in May. This year's festival, May 4, runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., rain or shine. Included are nature presentations, activities, and programs featuring live animals, guided nature walks, crafts,
“Each part of your homestead benefits the other and works together in harmony.” With this basic premise, offered by Westminster farmer Rachel Ware, the Food Security Collaborative will host her small-scale self-sufficiency workshop at 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 27, at her AlpineGlo Farm. Ware will discuss gardening, including raised beds, container gardening, and cold frames, as well as preparing beds and using manure and compost from your own your homestead; picking beginner-friendly crops; planting timelines; staggered schedules; crop rotation;
A dramatic reading of “Project Unspeakable,” a new play about the 1960s assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, will be presented on Saturday, May 3, at New England Youth Theatre. The play, inspired by James Douglass' groundbreaking and meticulously researched book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters, was written by playwright Court Dorsey and associate playwrights Debbie Lynangale and Steve Wangh (author of The Laramie Project).
Bellows Falls Area Community Television's (FACT-TV) No Film Film Festival (NFFF3) is back for a third year to challenge budding filmmakers and actors to make a brief, themed film. This year the winner of best picture, as determined by the audience, will walk off with a $1,000 prize. According to Jacob Stradling, FACT TV's executive director, the event should be filled with laughter and tears: “At the very least it will be entertaining.” Last year, 18 teams from all over...
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), March 3, 2014, a daughter, Lily Grace Kurkul, to Jennifer (Howland) and Kevin Kurkul of Westminster; granddaughter to Walter and Catherine Kurkul of Westminster and Linda and the late Arnold Howland of Westminster. College news • Kerry Howard of Londonderry, a member of the Stonehill College Class of 2015, was recently inducted into the Psi Chi Honor Society. The society encourages, stimulates and maintains excellence in scholarship and works to advance the science of...
Brattleboro announces leaf pickup schedule BRATTLEBORO - Brattleboro's curbside Spring Leaf Collection will take place on Friday, April 25, and Friday, May 9. All leaves and clippings must be in brown paper leaf bags and at the curb by 7 a.m. on scheduled leaf collection days. Acceptable waste includes leaves, grass, clippings, garden waste, twigs, and branches no larger than 1 inch in diameter and 2 feet long. No other household trash is to be included. No plastic bags or...
On Saturday, April 26, Sandglass Theater's co-founder, Ines Zeller Bass, passes the torch as she and her daughters, Jana Zeller and Shoshana Bass, take to the Sandglass stage with “Kasper, Fritzi, and Me.” More than an afternoon of delightful puppetry, this momentous occasion celebrates the work of Ines Zeller Bass and the rise of a new generation in Sandglass Theater's history. “Kasper, Fritzi, and Me” features three of Zeller Bass' most cherished puppet pieces: “Punschi,” “Tschokolino,” and “Fritzi's Flea Circus.”
On Saturday, May 3, Youth Services holds its 16th annual Gala & Silent Auction, “Denim & Diamonds,” from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Grafton Inn. The festive evening of food and drink includes a silent auction and live music for dancing, with all proceeds benefitting the agency's critical safety net for area youth. Formerly known as the Jazz Jubilee, the event is sponsored by The Richards Group and The Windham Foundation. Denim & Diamonds will feature entertainment by The...
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and intelligence expert Tom Powers examines the shape of American foreign policy in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library on May 7 at 7 p.m. His talk, “Soft Versus Hard Power in American Foreign Policy: Finding the Right Mix,” part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series, is free and open to the public. Powers will examine America's not-always-successful attempts, from the Cold War to today, to strike the right balance in foreign policy between...
Writer Deborah Lee Luskin offers a one-day writing workshop for those who want to remember their mothers in a writing circle. “Mourning Our Mothers: A Day of Remembrance” runs Saturday, April 26, from 8:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. at a private home near Brattleboro. The cost for the day is $75. Luskin is a novelist, essayist, and educator. In her writing circles, she says, she creates “a safe place where the synergy of writing with others loosens the tongue of...
Auditions for a summer production of Thornton Wilder's “Our Town” are Friday, April 25, from 7 to 9 p.m., and Saturday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to noon, at Main Street Arts. Directed by Gordon Korstange, the play will use Saxtons River as the stage, inserting local information into the script and moving among various locations within the village, including the former Congregational Church (now the historical society), the Saxtons River Inn, Main Street, the elementary school, and the cemetery.
I wore a strip of twisted gray bandanna around my wrist to commemorate a strange time when approximately one million people were killed by their friends and neighbors in approximately 100 days in one small country. Purple was originally used as the color of remembrance for the Rwandan genocide, which began 20 years ago this month. But the color was recently changed to gray - the color of ashes. Speaking of the color of ashes, April 27 is the date...
The U.S. Postal Service is in the final stretch of its plans to reconfigure office hours at its smallest post offices around the nation, and five area post offices are slated to see cuts in service hours. East Dover, Readsboro, West Halifax, Westminister Station, and West Wardsboro are all expected to see their daily office hours cut from eight hours a day to four. According to USPS spokeswoman Melissa Lohnes, public meetings for those five post offices are scheduled for...
The Blanche Moyse Chorale, an affiliate of the Brattleboro Music Center, is scheduling auditions for new members in all vocal sections. Those auditioning should be experienced in choral singing, able to learn music independently, and comfortable with foreign languages. The chorale, founded in 1978, is a chamber chorus of about 30 voices striving to attain the high level of musical artistry exemplified by the chorale's original director, Blanche Moyse. Based in the Brattleboro area, the chorale includes singers from the...
Under coach Bob Lockerby, Bellows Falls baseball uses a simple formula for success - good pitching and defense, just enough hitting, and aggressiveness on the base paths to keep opposing teams off balance and to manufacture runs. The formula works even when much of the lineup is young and inexperienced, as the Terriers are this year. Against Burr & Burton on Saturday at Hadley Field, all the elements were on display in a 5-4 win over the Bulldogs. “I don't...
This April marks the 11th annual National Donate Life Month, a celebration commemorating those who have given the gift of life through organ and tissue donation. For those whose lives have been saved or healed by a transplant, National Donate Life Month provides a chance to share their story to encourage more people to register as donors. Suellen Canfield, 61, was a happy wife, mother and grandmother when she died suddenly in 2001. Her family had no doubt that if...
In another sign of spring, Strolling of the Heifers hosts its Maple 'n Mud Fest on Saturday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden on Main Street. The festival celebrates the changing of the seasons with an array of participating farmers and maple product producers. This community event is free and open to the public at the new home of the Strolling of the Heifers. This year Vermont's official grades of maple...
Orchids, wildflowers, bumblebees, botanical illustration, and a garden tour are the subjects of upcoming events offered by the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) between April 24 and June 7. The programs complement BMAC's spring exhibit “Flora: A Celebration of Flowers in Contemporary Art” on view through June 22. • On Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m., Sally Winchester, owner of Brattleboro's Windham Flowers, presents a workshop on how to care for orchids, demystifying what it takes to raise them...
Brattleboro Utilities Division crews will start spring flushing of the town water mains on Thursday, April 25, at 10 p.m. and continue through Saturday, May 11. Some daytime flushing will continue throughout the week of May 13. Water main flushing will occur during both night and day. Customers are asked to check the flushing schedule closely, as flushing causes water discoloration, low water pressure, and, in some areas, periods of no water. Night flushing will take place from 10 p.m.
Following last year's successful Vermont performances of “Trial by Jury,” the Amherst, Mass.-based Valley Light Opera (VLO) is returning to Brattleboro for a second year to perform Gilbert and Sullivan's “H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor.” In an energetic, funny, and somewhat silly show, “Pinafore” pokes genial fun at the British class system, patriotism, party politics, the Royal Navy, and the rise, into positions of authority, of unqualified persons. This comic opera in two acts is performed...
Alisa Hauser, a member of the original Broadway cast of the musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” has directed and choreographed a junior version of that high spirited show for The Grammar School in Putney. On April 30 and May 1, 2, and 3, at 7 p.m., in two separate casts, all TGS seventh and eighth graders will perform in “Thoroughly Modern Millie Jr.” at the school auditorium at 69 Hickory Ridge Rd. The musical tells the story of “a small-town girl,
There was a rally for peace in Brattleboro on April 15 outside the main post office sponsored by the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. In Windham County, it's likely that people are dying because they don't have health insurance. In 2010, more than 44,000 Americans died because the U.S. does not have universal health care, which Europe and Canada have. A small percentage of the military budget could provide free health care for every American. Almost half (45 percent)
Resident Becca Balint is a writer who has worked in education for more than 20 years as a teacher, historian, health educator, tutor, advisor, coach, camp director, counselor, wilderness trip leader, rock climbing instructor, and mentor to wayward adolescents. And now she's an award-winning public speaker. On March 27, Balint prevailed over five other contestants in BrattleMasters' spring “table topics” contest, impressing a panel of judges who rated her on her ability to hold forth on a surprise topic of...
Hurray for a newspaper able to print in color proposed land use and zoning maps for a town. As someone who knows Dummerston a bit through teenage residency in Putney and continuing but occasional visits to the Brattleboro region, I have the following questions or thoughts: • There are other Vermont towns in which the center is not on a major contemporary corridor, and one wonders how they create - should it be considered a public good or aim -
Town staff, Representative Town Meeting members, and a few residents occupied seats on Tuesday night in the same room where the vote to reject the town's budget had taken place the previous week. Town staff looked pensive. Town Clerk Annette Cappy held in her lap a three-ring binder, its spine stamped with budget in large capital letters. Selectboard Chair David Gartenstein told the audience that the town-wide vote that overturned the budget [story, page A1] signaled to the board that...
Two hours into my bus ride to Butare, I began to get nervous. Staring out the bus windows, I hadn't yet seen a sign for Butare, and I was anxious not to miss my stop. I finally found the courage to turn to the young man sitting next to me and sheepishly inquire, “Parlez-vous anglais?” After he gave me a smile and a nod, I asked him why I hadn't seen any signs for Butare and if I had already...
With the Village entering the final phase of the 20-year wastewater improvement project, Trustees are set to ask voters at the annual village election on May 20 to approve a $6 million bond to fund it. Voters here approved a separate water-service bond in March. Bellows Falls voters passed an $8.2 million bond at a special vote in March to fund an improvement project to replace the water delivery system in conjunction with a planned state road improvement project. A...
The newspaper headlines, radio reports, and television stories about the opiate and heroin problem in Vermont are hard to ignore. I have received emails and telephone calls from prevention colleagues and friends and family expressing their concern for Vermont. As the director of a substance-abuse prevention coalition, I see all this attention as an opportunity to engage the community in open dialogue, to share information about preventing misuse and abuse of all substances, and to possibly implement prevention strategies and...
I applaud and commend my fellow Vermonters for the courage and foresight in this step toward a health-care system that is no longer for-profit and no longer carries costs that are arbitrary and capricious. I am anxiously awaiting this system's rollout; I have no doubt it will be successful, but more importantly, it will allow access to health care for all, regardless of economic status. Thank you, Vermont! Hurrah for Vermont!
Since Vermont is one of the 17 states to (finally) decriminalize possession of marijuana, one could say that the Legislature and governor should be patted on the back for doing the right thing. But wait. Not so fast. Is decriminalizing marijuana really an admission of guilt and culpability in criminalizing people who were not criminals before? There cannot be a great difference between marijuana use today and its use five, 10, or 40 years ago. If it's decriminalized now, that...
A town-wide property value reappraisal, conducted roughly every 10 years or as the state mandates, is scheduled to begin in the Village of Bellows Falls in July. The Vermont Department of Taxes monitors towns' property assessments annually by comparing them to real estate sales. Those statistics show how closely assessments match market sales by a measure called the Common Level of Appraisal, or CLA. The reappraisal is considered successful if these measurements come back within the acceptable range of 20...
I grew up in a middle-class family. We could pay for necessities as well as luxuries. If a washing machine broke, we ordered a new one. If an appliance needed repairs, we paid for it. We had two cars and could afford gas and repairs. We took a family vacation once a year. We had three solid meals a day. In 2014, in this difficult economy, being middle class is no longer a certainty for anyone. Middle-class families cannot pay...
In every nation except the United States and Canada, May Day is observed as a holiday for workers to remember the fight for the eight-hour work day, for workplace democracy, and for the right of workers to organize. And once Mary Alice Herbert learned the story - a story she and many other Americans never learned in school - she was determined to break the silence. Starting in 1984, Herbert and others began celebrating May Day on the Brattleboro Town...
Green Up Day 2014 is Saturday, May 3. Vermont was the first state to designate a special day for cleaning up the entire state, 44 years ago in 1970. Anyone can help. Arrange a group or just show up at one of the Windham County locations below. Pick up bags and sign in your area of clean up. For safety, wear bright colors, sturdy shoes, and gloves. Brattleboro • Elliot Street Café, Elliot Street; Robin Rieske, 802-275-7332; 8 a.m. to...
On Saturday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Windham County Sheriff's Department, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and in coordination with local law enforcement agencies and prevention coalitions through Windham County, will offer National Drug Take-Back Day VIII. This service is free and anonymous. The National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day aims to provide a safe, convenient, and responsible means of disposal while educating the general public about the potential for abuse of these medications. During the...
Selectmen acted on a variety of issues at their meeting April 17, a 2½-hour session that seemed to have spring on the mind. The safety of Arch Bridge was discussed early; the town constable set the record straight that he's not the town's animal control officer; and residents got a stretch of road renamed to their liking, with the promise of better traffic signs to come. But first Selectmen heard two pieces of seasonal news that were most welcome. According...
A local percussionist will perform on a New Jersey radio program on Monday. Stephan Brandstatter will join American Primitive guitarist Don Bikoff for a performance on the nonprofit radio station WFMU on Monday, April 28 from 1 to 3 p.m. The Brattleboro musician will provide tabla and other percussion for the performance in the station's “Love Room” on host Irene Trudel's eponymous program, which will be broadcast and streamed via the station's website, www.wfmu.org. Bikoff's debut - and for 45...