• Robert Newbern Chiperfield, 80, of Brattleboro. Died May 4 from complications from frontotemporal dementia at Applewood Rehabilitation Center, Winchester, N.H. Husband of Laurie Crosby Chiperfield for nearly 52 years. Father of Robert N. Chiperfield, Jr. and his wife, Pamela, of Chatham, N.J. and Andrew C. Chiperfield and his wife, Julia, of Brookeville, Md. Brother of Virginia Larsen and her husband, Peter, of Olney, Md. Brother-in-law of Jeanie Crosby and her spouse, Cynthia, of Brattleboro, and Martha Tompkins and her husband, Ronald, of Lighthouse Point, Fla. Born in Peoria, Ill., the son of Robert Bruce and Katherine Alice (Newbern) Chiperfield, he grew up in Washington, D.C. where both his grandfather and father served in the U.S. Congress, his father for 26 years, including several years as Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He spent memorable summers away from the city with family, including aunts, uncles and cousins in Illinois and Arkansas. After attending Georgetown University, where he was a member of the track team, he served in the Army and graduated from Knox College. He enjoyed a 36-year career at the U.S. Department of State that included time as a Foreign Service Officer. He served as a Consular Officer in Toronto, Canada, during the Vietnam War and returned to Washington to serve in the Department of State's Immigration and Naturalization Service until his retirement. He was an avid golfer and especially enjoyed ice hockey, a passion he passed on to his sons and grandchildren, all of whom are proficient players. One of the great joys of his life was watching and cheering the sports activities of his sons and grandchildren. Memorial information: A graveside service was held May 9 at Meetinghouse Hill Cemetery in Brattleboro. Donations to St. Michael's Episcopal Church, 16 Bradley Ave., Brattleboro,...
Registration is now open for children who will attend Hebrew School at the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community this fall. There is Aleph Class for 6-7 year olds, Bet Class for 8-9 year olds, Gimmel Class for 9-10 year olds, and Dalet Class for 11-12 year olds. Hey Class is...
BMH Auxiliary presents talk on everyday chemical exposures, breast cancer BRATTLEBORO - The Brattleboro Memorial Hospital Auxiliary will host Janet Gray, Ph.D. as a guest speaker on Thursday, May 14, in the parlor of Centre Congregational Church on Main Street. Janet Gray, Ph.D., is director of the Vassar College...
The second annual Fiddlehead Festival kicks off in Dover on Memorial Day weekend, May 23 and 24. This year, the festival will be bigger. Visitors can taste the harbinger of spring, the fiddlehead fern, and enjoy live music, a craft fair, and many children's activities. The fest features a line up of regional bluegrass bands: Gang of Thieves, Blind Owl Band, Brummy Brothers, and Jatoba under the tent at the Dover Forge/OMT in West Dover on Saturday, May 23. This...
It's an old baseball adage that hitting is contagious. It's certainly true for the Leland & Gray Rebels, according to coach Eric Durocher. “We've gotten off to some slow starts, but all it takes is one player to get a hit, and then it starts waterfalling from there,” he said last Saturday after his team's 22-4 win over Twin Valley in a six-inning game cut short by the 15-run rule. The Rebels got 13 hits off of Twin Valley's three...
Closing the High Street entrance to Harmony parking lot is a serious mistake. The Harmony lot was, at one time, one of the best revenue resources for the town's parking system. Being the most productive lot for revenue also meant that it was one of the most popular, most convenient, and easiest parking areas for anyone to try to park in downtown. The entrance was the pathway to downtown. If one approached downtown from the north, the egress to parking...
The Windham Solid Waste Management District (WSWMD) recently received a $26,958 grant from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to assist the district with the expenses associated with its hazardous-waste collection programs. The grant, awarded annually to municipalities by the DEC, a department of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, provides assistance for education and collection programs for household hazardous waste, conditionally exempt generator waste (HHW/CEG), and mercury-added consumer products. Household hazardous waste (HHW) is the unused or leftover...
When we changed our name a few years ago from “Women's Crisis Center” to “Women's Freedom Center,” part of our aim was to broaden public awareness of the actual scope of our mission. Of course, that mission involves crisis intervention, but beyond that, we advocate to help women achieve true liberation in our culture. And a crucial step toward independence is gaining economic empowerment. Even women who haven't experienced the devastating toll of domestic violence on their financial lives absorb...
The Vermont Jazz Center welcomes vocalist Alicia Olatuja and her quartet on Saturday, May 16, at 8 p.m. Olatuja is best known for her soaring solo with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir at President Obama's second inauguration. But even though she grew up in the church, loves the music, and draws inspiration from it, her voice and persona are expansive. She uses her gospel roots as a springboard to investigate jazz, African music, classical, and even well-crafted pop. In a recent...
May birthday luncheon BRATTLEORO - The Brattleboro Senior Center and the Brattleboro Senior Meals Program will host their May Birthday Luncheon for seniors with birthdays this month on Thursday, May 14, at 11:30 a.m., at the Gibson-Aiken Center, 207 Main St. The menu will include an appetizer table, punch, baked apricot ham, scalloped potatoes, turnips and greens, cake, and ice cream. All are invited to attend. Those with birthdays in the month of May are invited to celebrate the occasion...
Tickets are on sale now for “City Lights,” the annual spring dance performance presented by Company of Muses in association with Brattleboro School of Dance. For the last two weekends in May, Brattleboro School of Dance students, faculty and alumni will perform a varied program of original choreography on the theme of life in cities at the New England Youth Theatre. Dance styles include modern, jazz, ballet, tap, and ballroom. Some pieces will be the same each evening, while solo...
On Thursday, May 21, at 6:30 p.m., join the public discussion at the Rockingham Free Public Library about Phase 3 of the Bellows Falls Historic Riverfront Park & Trail System Project. KAS, Inc., an engineering firm, will review Phase 3's main goals. Then the floor will be open for any questions, suggestions, or comments. To date, the Bellows Falls Historical Society has applied for and received more than $700,000 in federal EPA grants, and other sources, to clean up a...
“Tax lister” is an incorrect term for the designated person elected by the townspeople to list their properties. Adding the word “tax” implies that we somehow set the tax on a property. We list the property and its buildings and outbuildings. The following is the explanation from the website of the state Department of Taxes Division of Property Valuation and Review: “Programs that are primarily administered by municipal governments are supported by the Division of Property Valuation and Review. We...
We were the freshmen, the Brattleboro Union High School Class of 1964, and then we were the graduates and weren't we all so glad for that long-anticipated event to arrive. Once our graduation ceremony concluded, we quickly scattered in our own directions without thought to the fact that we were seeing some of our classmates for the last time. We had no way of knowing that in a few short years many of our classmates would be gone or that...
Quick work by the Wilmington Fire Department kept a small fire at the Nutmeg Inn on May 6 from turning into something more serious. According to Vermont State Police, the Wilmington Fire Department received a call from a passer-by at about 2:30 p.m. of a fire on 153 West St. When crews arrived, they found two sheds and two trees totally engulfed by flames, while a third shed was just starting to catch fire. State police said the fire was...
I was putting my trash out on Williston Street on the evening of May 6, around 5 p.m., when I suddenly heard what sounded like a mosquito on amphetamines, amplified 100 times. I turned to my left just in time to see one of those low-to-the-ground mini-motorcycles with the wide tires heading straight at me - straddled by a young dude looking not at the road, but at his rear tire for some reason, accelerating the wrong way up a...
I love the sketch by Karen Becker of the chorus singing. How refreshing it is to have a drawing done on the site of local activities. Would that The Commons have more illustrations like this one.
The Friends of the Wardsboro Library sponsors its annual Memorial Day weekend Plant Sale on Saturday, May 23, at 170 Main St. Admission and parking are free and the sale proceeds rain or shine. The annual event is a fundraiser for the Friends of the Wardsboro Library, a nonprofit organization that supports the Wardsboro Public Library. (For more details, see www.friendsofwardsborolibrary.org) The Plant Sale runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and takes place on the front lawn of the...
Roof fixed, for now NEWFANE - The hole in the roof that caused water to drip onto Selectboard member Mike Fitzpatrick's head at a recent board meeting has been fixed. Asa Goodband made the emergency repair on the town offices, but, as was noted at the May 4 Selectboard meeting, he did not replace the missing and broken slates. Goodband's firm, A.T. Goodband Company, Inc., of Windham, and Jancewicz and Son, based in Bellows Falls, have both submitted bids for...
Brattleboro's Estey Organ Museum will open for the season on Saturday, May 16, at 2 p.m. The museum is open during the summer and fall on Saturdays and Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. To visit the museum on other days, call 802-246-8366 to arrange an appointment. The Estey Organ Museum was formed in 2002 to celebrate and preserve the work done by the Estey Organ Company in Brattleboro for over 110 years. During that time, the company manufactured more...
The $1.93 million village budget, as presented, maintains the current staffing for the Bellows Falls Fire Department, which includes five full-time career positions, and approximately 18 paid, on-call career firefighters. Should the voters at the business portion of the Annual Village Meeting on Monday, May 18, decide to go with a figure from a preliminary $1.6 million budget - which eliminates all but one of the full-time, and all the part-time career firefighters, as well as $321,775 worth of wages...
The Athens Town Office building is in need of renovations, people to perform the renovations, money to fund it, and people to find the money. The town also needs people to run for town offices. Part of the problem is, not many people live in Athens. The northeastern Windham County town has only 340 residents, according to the latest census report cited on the town's Vermont.gov Webpage. The other problem is, those currently doing most of the volunteering in town...
Village voters will consider a proposed $1.93 million budgett - and possibly the fate of the fire department - during the business portion of the Annual Village Meeting on Monday, May 18, at 7 p.m., at the Bellows Falls Opera House. Voters will decide by Australian ballot on Tuesday, May 19, which two of three candidates for Village Trustee will be seated on the board. While an initial plan to reduce the budget was defeated during the budget process, Village...
Committee named to explore tax-exempt properties PUTNEY - At its May 6 meeting, the Selectboard appointed six members to the Property-Tax-Exempt Properties Impact Committee. The exploratory, non-voting committee is tasked with looking into which properties in town are tax-exempt and reviewing relevant statutes. Appointees to date are Carl Noe, Susan McMahon, Kathleen O'Reilly-Lawrence, Nancy Olson, Alice Maes, and Steve Bouch. The board received expressions of interest from eight individuals. Two of them are employed by Putney tax-exempt organizations, and their...
In the Morningside cooking class, kids learned how to follow a recipe as well as preparing food by following their senses. The popular salad dressing from last Wednesday night followed the taste buds approach. “Admittedly, we didn't use a recipe for the salad dressing for last Wednesday's Morningside family dinner,” Senni wrote in an email. “Sometimes we can be rigid with recipes in class, and other times we just use our senses to create things.” “So here, more or less,
School Board Chair Mike Hebert's cell phone connection crackled as he walked through the hallways of Vernon Elementary School. “We're not sure what we're going to do yet,” said Hebert on his way to the School Board's meeting, where he and his board were set to deal with the consequences of the town's vote on Monday. At a Special Town Meeting on May 5, voters defeated the fiscal year 2016 school budget a second time by Australian ballot, 174 to...
His name was Sam. To know Sam was to know, intimately and sometimes unfortunately, the innermost workings of an animal rescue organization. And then, there is Rocky. To know Rocky is to reawaken the hope, love, and passion that brought me into animal welfare. In the fall of 2012, I began working as a canine caregiver for a small shelter in southern Vermont. From there, I continued my education through two other shelters, and I obtained my degree in canine...
The community center in the Ledgewood Heights neighborhood recently took on the appearance of a staging area for a big slumber party, minus the pillow fights and sleeping bags. Little kids and big kids - sometimes accompanied by an adult, sometimes accompanied by other kids - filed into the two adjoining rooms to snack on milk and cookies and grab the essentials for a sleepover: pajamas and books. Lucy Tell and Denice Brown, coordinators for the Brattleboro Housing Authority's Family...
Virtually everyone knows about Samson and Delilah. In the story, perhaps best exemplified in the 1949 Hollywood film of the same name with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr that was revived at the Latchis last month, an Israelite strongman meets the seductress Delilah who cuts off his hair so that he loses his strength and becomes the captive of the Philistines who blind him. Nevertheless, he musters enough strength in the end to knock down the temple, killing all the...
Jonas Fricke, a Putney-based musician and artist, who performs and records what he calls his “one-man radical-courage-music choir and drum brigade” under the name “If not I than who then,” released a new album, Radical Courage Music Vol. 2 last month. When asked to describe his music, Fricke replied, “radio dial, many-personalitied, information beat-boxing.” “There's always a channeled aspect,” he said, adding, “my best lyrics come on the fly as I'm performing, and I try to capture them and learn...
A 22-year-old Wilmington arrestee who escaped from custody while en route to the Southern Vermont Correctional Facility in Springfield was captured Thursday in Greenfield, Mass. According to Brattleboro Police Captain Mark Carignan, Joseph D. Arsenault, 22, who escaped from Bennington County Sheriff's Deputies on Wednesday night, was apprehended by Greenfield Police, and will be arraigned today in Greenfield District Court. Carnigan said that Arsenault escaped from the vehicle at about 7:15 p.m., while it was stopped in traffic on Western...
Yes, I would like to have a look at Ethan Allen's bar tab, thank you. And I'll be able to do just that at the Bennington Museum exhibit, running through June 21, “Alcohol in Vermont: Creation to Consumption, Tolerance to Temperance.” Even better, I'll be able to do it with beer in hand on the evening of Friday, May 15, when the museum hosts a “Brews and Blues” event. Conveniently, that's the night before the Brattleboro Brewers Festival opens the...
The Selectboard discussed piles of tires on Putney's Old Route 5 at a May 6 meeting. Although board members estimated these tires have been there since at least the 1960s and 1970s, the town would like to remove them. However, several unknowns make it difficult to begin: Whose property are the tires on, and is the town empowered to order their removal? Putney resident Steve Bouch attended the May 6 meeting to register his complaint with what was called an...
As a CD plays Michael Jackson in the background, kids living at Morningside Shelter, their families, and Morningside staff circle around the kitchen of the Brattleboro Food Co-op's community room. The diners pile plates with lasagna, pizza, salad, and cookies all prepared by approximately 10 kids currently living at Morningside. Kids participating in the cooking class held a dinner party for family and friends at the co-op on May 6. Mariska, 4, one of the kids in the Morningside cooking...
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont will address 50-plus members of the class of 2015 at Marlboro College's 68th graduation ceremony on Sunday, May 17, at 10:30 a.m., in Person Auditorium. “We are very honored to welcome Senator Leahy, Vermont's senior senator and a respected national statesman, who has been a dedicated supporter of higher education over many, many years,” Marlboro President Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, who was chief of staff to the senator from 1983 to 1994, said in a news...
The Keene chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society and the Cheshiremen Chorus will present their 63rd annual show on Saturday, May 16, at 7 p.m., at the Monadnock Regional High School auditorium in Swanzey Center, N.H. The groups will present an evening of a cappella harmony in the first portion of the show with the production of “Somebody Stole My Gal!” The performance is a “mysterious and romantic travelogue that follows our hero on a journey to find his lost...
Gazing over the Connecticut River to a looming Wantastiquet Mountain, outside the window of the River Gallery School, I listened to Ric Campman waxing philosophical about creativity, art, and being present in the moment. As a teacher, Ric was always present with his encouragement while he created a space for his special brand of art mentoring. We would have a meditative dialogue until my mind quieted and l settled back to my canvas to explore light, form, and paint. I...
The Brattleboro Area Farmers' Market has successfully finished a $58,000 fundraising campaign to help with the acquisition and redevelopment of the former Planet Gas station parcel on Route 9. In the coming months, this site will be transformed into space for vending, driveway access, and parking for the market. The market partnered with the Vermont Land Trust to raise this money, so the market could continue at this location. Now in its 41st season, the market has more than 50...
The River Gallery School (RGS) of Brattleboro will present its 25th annual benefit auction and fundraiser on Saturday, May 16, at the Scott Farm Orchard on Kipling Road in Dummerston. The $25 admission includes a paddle with number, appetizers, music, coffee and dessert. A cash bar will be open all evening. The doors open at 5 p.m., when a silent auction begins for local gift certificates for products, goods, and services ranging from massages and haircuts, to trees and plants,
Why do people devote their lives to firefighting? It's not a simple question, but for newly retired firefighter Thomas Barrows, the answer is simple. “It's what I wanted to do,” he said. Barrows grew up in the fire service. He started his career as a volunteer for the Dummerston Fire Department at the ripe age of 15. Brattleboro hired him full-time when Barrows turned 19. He retired after 35 years with the department on May 1. “This is hard for...
Four new exhibits are now on display at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC). Two of the new exhibits extend the museum's spring 2015 investigation into fiber art, while the other two showcase the creative pursuits of two southern Vermont artists. Filling the museum's Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason Gallery is the “Hand Towel Project,” an installation by artists Elizabeth Billings and Andrea Wasserman that explores both the precarious condition of our planet and the profound difference art can...