A recent subscription drive for Deerfield Valley Rescue (DVR) has resulted in a discouraging 20-percent response rate, prompting a discussion at the March 30 Selectboard meeting of how the town and the agency can work together to promote the value of a subscription to residents.
DVR Business Administrator Heidi Taylor, backed by a phalanx of DVR and Whitingham Emergency Response personnel, provided a general overview of the organization and described its activity in town.
The nonprofit - which maintains an annual contract with the town for $10,000 - made 87 calls to residents in 2015 that resulted in $61,000 in charges, of which $20,000 was written off as not collectable.
Because of higher deductibles and a shifting health-care landscape, many insurance policies fall short of full coverage for ambulance and other emergency services, Taylor said.
A local radio station’s forum on mental health attempted to shed light on the experiences of people trying to find health in the Windham County mental health system. WKVT’s forum, “A Call to Action,” drew a large crowd to the Brooks Memorial Library. Unfortunately, according to the stories shared...
As states like Vermont push for more say in nuclear-plant decommissioning, an industry group is pushing back. Rod McCullum, a senior director at the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute, says the state’s demands for more public input and more financial regulation could have a negative effect on cleanup efforts...
This spring, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital offers three self-management workshops to give individuals new tools to deal with chronic health issues and build fuller, healthier lives. The workshops are free and open to the public. The first program, Tobacco Cessation Workshop, is for those 18 and older and ready to quit smoking. Your 802Quits Partner will help you get ready to quit with advice and support that works for your needs. Free nicotine replacement therapy is available for Vermont residents. The...
Neverland - a place where children don't ever have to grow up: No jobs. No responsibilities. Just adventure after adventure in a land inhabited by pirates, Lost Boys, mermaids and, in this interpretation, a band of wild cats. It is fitting that sevcnth- and eighth-graders at The Grammar School are working with director Rebecca Waxman to create a fresh take on this beloved story for their annual musical production, as Pan explores the same terrain these middle-schoolers are crossing now:
Unprecedented drought in California, widespread flooding in South America, staggering snow in Mexico, the need to ship in snow for Alaska's Iditarod dog sled race, sap running unexpectedly in Vermont in January. Although these are strange weather patterns, they're becoming the new normal in an era of human-caused climate change. It's easy to feel powerless and think that nothing we do makes any difference. But as the mother of a young child, I must believe that we can mitigate the...
The Brattleboro branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) again offers scholarships of up to $1,000 to qualified female candidates who reside in Windham County. Both graduating high school senior girls, and mature women continuing their higher education, are eligible to apply. Applicants are judged on academic performance, extracurricular activities, community involvement, and financial need. Senior students from area high schools, preparatory schools, and home schools and who are legal residents of Windham County may apply. They must...
A team of professional engineers from Stevens & Associates, P.C., recently volunteered at St. Michael's School, working with eighth- and ninth-graders to provide a project-based educational program. The aim was to foster creativity and innovation for an anticipated “green space” project, which will be located behind the school. Serenity Wolf, civil engineer at S&A, explained in a news release that her firm focuses on building community through engineering projects and personal and company service. “I love that I can share...
We at the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) recently convened a group of Windham County region manufacturers for the first-ever Southern Vermont Business Roundtable. The roundtable meetings are divided into industry specific working groups, and designed to support workforce needs, as well as identify any existing programs and resources that will help recruit, train, or retain new and incumbent workforce. The roundtable discussion focused on both the short and long-term workforce development needs of manufacturers in the region. The Southeastern...
The United Way of Windham County invites the public to an innovative event, Handbags for HOPE, to be held at the VFW Hall on Thursday, April 28, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. This fun “ladies' night out” will feature silent and live auctions, with local personality Jean Gilbert as auctioneer. More than 100 items will be up for auction, including designer bags by Kate Spade, Calvin Klein, and Michael Kors; artisanal bags; totes, purses, evening bags, backpacks, briefcases, and local...
While it might be true that Vermont is at a crisis point in our child-protection system, we have people and programs in communities throughout the state working to address the thorniest issues currently plaguing Vermont. They do so through Vermont’s 15 Parent Child Centers, which have been working with community partners to ensure that families get the help they need to give their children the best possible start in life. Yet for the past 20 years, Parent Child Centers have...
Explore historic stone structures at Manitou WILLIAMSVILLE - On Saturday, April 9, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., come and walk the land at the Manitou Project with Mary Stowe, Vermont coordinator of the Northeast Antiquities Research Association (NEARA), which mission is the protection and preservation of stone cultural resources in the Northeast. April, before the leaves come out, provides the best opportunity to see the lay of the land and the stone cultural resources it shelters. Bring lunch to...
Springfield High School was abuzz with excitement on March 19 as 54 enthusiastic 4-H'ers, ages 5 to 18, shared what they learned in their 4-H projects through stage performances, demonstrations, illustrated talks, photography, and more. The event was the annual Southeast 4-H Regional Day, sponsored by University of Vermont Extension 4-H in Windham and Windsor counties. In addition to earning ribbons, many of the participants were selected to perform at 4-H State Day, May 21, at the Barre Civic Center...
Obituaries • Robert Everett “Bob” Burbank, 87, of Brattleboro. Died March 24 at home. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Louise Caley Burbank, whom he married in 1951, and his four children, Hollis Burbank-Hammarlund of Newfane, Nancy Woodward of Fitzwilliam, N.H., Todd Burbank of Wilton, Conn., and Ross Burbank of Bedford, N.Y. Arne Hammarlund, husband of Hollis, was like a son to Bob as well. He is also survived by five grandchildren and his younger brother, Allen Burbank, of...
What happens in a single day in Vermont libraries? How many books do patrons check out or request? What activities take place? What types of questions are being answered? Find out by participating with the Vermont Library Association (VLA) in Library Snapshot Day 2016. Snapshot Day is a statewide initiative where all public, scholastic, and special libraries have the opportunity to capture a day in the life of their libraries through photos, user comments, statistics, and other data. Participating libraries...
The Selectboard has approved purchasing the land and building at 62 Black Mountain Rd. with a 3–0 vote. True to form for the controversial Police-Fire Facilities Project, even this final vote made the board and town staff - specifically Police Chief Michael Fitzgerald - sweat. With only three of the five board members present at its March 30 organizational meeting, the motion to purchase needed to be unanimous. Nervous eyes turned to Board Member Kate O'Connor, who had consistently voted...
As the Selectboard convened for the first time since Town Meeting, board members welcomed Gary Deluis to his three-year term on March 7. Incumbents Marion Dowling and Todd Lawley both won one-year terms, Carol Hatcher is into the second of her three-year term, and Michael Fitzpatrick finishes his three-year post this year. Dennis Wiswall - who replaced Rosalind Fritz midway through last year - declined to seek election. At the March 7 meeting, the board elected the chair (Lawley), vice-chair...
“For our upcoming concert, we are pulling out all the stops,” says Hugh Keelan, music director of the Windham Orchestra. “With over 150 singers, 75 instrumentalists, and two soloists, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana may just be the biggest thing we have ever done.” On April 8 and 9, under Keelan’s baton, the Windham Orchestra will be joined by the Blanche Moyse Chorale and singers from Brattleboro Union High School, Bellows Falls Union High School, Leland & Gray Union High School,
Joshua R. Helms, winner of the Dzanc Poetry Collection Award, will read from his debut poetry collection, Machines Like Us, at Everyone's Books, 25 Elliot St., on Friday, April 8, at 6 p.m. The author will be available for a brief question-and-answer session after the reading. Helms, a Brattleboro resident, describes Machines Like Us as part love story, part dreamscape, and part exploration of self. “For the characters (Speaker, Boy, and Historian), love is dangerous, disorienting, self-erasing. The three struggle...
At Town Meeting this year, Mitchell Green reclaimed his seat on the Selectboard after a six-year absence and Brad Rafus, the road commissioner and road supervisor, won the board seat to which he was appointed on an interim basis last November. And with these changes in board composition also comes a departure in the way appointments are made, in the form of the board's decision to exclude the public from consideration of whom to appoint to two openings on the...
Charitable Work Day is The Putney School's way of contributing to the global community by students donating their labor toward a cause. This year's Charitable Work Day, Saturday, April 6, supports the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. This program, founded in 1980, “works to open doors for uprooted people, helping the world's most vulnerable rebuild their lives.” The program helps refugees in navigating American culture, lays a foundation for a successful, fresh start, and makes strong connections with their community upon...
VFW Post 1034 invites qualifying 2016 graduating seniors to apply for the Leroy Dessaint and Angelina Buccossi Dessaint Scholarship. The scholarship committee will award $1,000 to the winning applicant on completion of the first semester at college, according to Douglas MacMurtry, who manages the scholarship. Applicants must be descendants of a VFW 1034 member, living or deceased. They must attend a Brattleboro-area high school or live in the region if home-schooled. The scholarship was established in 2003 by Angelina Dessaint,
Kurn Hattin Homes for Children welcomes the public to attend its Annual Jazz Invitational on Wednesday, April 13, at 7 p.m., with performances by the Dylan Chambers Jazz Ensemble, Vermont Academy Jazz Ensemble, Vermont Jazz Center High School Jazz Ensemble, and Kurn Hattin Homes Beginning and Select jazz ensembles. Jazz groups from local schools are invited each year to participate in the annual event to showcase their musical skills. The event is hosted by Eugene Uman, artistic director of the...
It was a standing-room-only house in the fire station’s meeting room the evening of March 31, when Bob Stevens of Brattleboro-based architecture firm Stevens & Associates presented plans and information on two proposed affordable housing projects: the Noyes House and Putney Landing. More than 30 residents showed up to the public hearing of the Affordable Housing Committee and the Windham-Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) with questions and comments about the two projects. The historic Noyes House, on Kimball Hill, has eight...
Bernie Sanders has been properly drawing attention to the declining standard of living for the American middle class. In the process, he has been attacking trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, for causing the loss of jobs in this country. Is this stance not ignoring a more serious underlying reality - one that, admittedly, no politician wishes to confront in an election year lest the voters kill the messenger, yet one...
Main Street Arts’ gallery at 35 Main St. features the works of Walpole, N.H., artist Jon McAuliffe through April 25NOTE (Unknown Author, 2016-04-04T17:08:26): Per MSA site, with a public reception for the artist on April 7. After leaving a career as a musician in a nationally touring rock band, McAuliffe began his life as an artist and painter. With a natural aptitude for realism, he decided to study in Florence, Italy, learning classical technique at an epicenter of classical realist...
Filmmaker Jay Craven's six Vermont-made movies and characters buck the Hollywood stereotype of the rural fool. Media is so powerful that without cinema to reflect culture, that culture doesn't exist or is marginalized because it is treated in a generic way rather than specific, he said. “Our goal is to expand the conversation about our own place,” Craven said. “To say that we do exist” through our literature, music, history, and film. These goals also drive the educational process for...
Continuing my middle relief duties for Randy Holhut with a look at spring sports teams for Bellows Falls, Leland & Gray and Twin Valley high schools. The Commons front office says Randy will be activated off the Disabled List in time for next week's start to the regular season. Bellows Falls • It should be another strong year for Terriers Track and Field, with more than 30 athletes on both the boys and girls teams. Ask head coach Tim Eno...
In the presidential primary last month, Vermonters made a resounding statement in favor of Bernie Sanders, delivering him a decisive 86-percent win that rendered Hillary Clinton disqualified from gaining any of the state's delegates. Well - except for those pesky superdelegates, who can do whatever they so choose, regardless of what their constituents definitively prove they want. One of those superdelegates: Vermont's less-fiery senator, Patrick Leahy, who has told the press he will cast his heavily weighted vote for Clinton...
Vermont artist Paul Stone has donated his framed oil painting “Late Afternoon” to Youth Services. The painting will be sold via silent auction, with the winner announced after intermission at the Storytellers on a Mission event benefiting Youth Services (presented by The HATCH) at the Latchis Theater on April 9. The bid stood at $800 at press time. The winner need not be present. Stone, a former dentist, has been painting for 50 years. His work, reflecting his mastery of...
Southern Vermont-based The Hatch presents the sixth installment of its Storytellers on a Mission event, featuring nationally celebrated storytellers who will tell moving and hilarious stories to raise money for a great cause. This year’s nonprofit recipient is Youth Services. Storytellers on a Mission will be held on Saturday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m. at the Latchis Theatre on Main Street. The evening’s storytellers will be hosted by actress and comedian Michelle Buteau. Featured performers include Ian Chillag, Tom Bodett,
A celebrated early music vocal ensemble from Great Britain is coming to Southern Vermont with a new slant on some very old music. On Wednesday, April 13, at the the First Baptist Church on 190 Main St., Stile Antico will perform Sacred or Profane: Exploring Sensual Music Made Spiritual During the Renaissance. In this provocative program, the acclaimed Renaissance choral group will trace the blurred boundary between sacred and secular music in the Renaissance. Risqué, racy chansons were transformed by...
During the week of April 22 - Earth Day - Kristen Benoit, program coordinator with the Windham County Solid Waste Management District (WSWMD), plans to drive to three schools in her company's pickup truck. Her cargo will be specially made trophies going to the top three winners in the WSWMD's first-ever School Environmental Excellence Award competition. All public and private elementary, middle, and high schools in the 20 Windham County towns in the WSWMD service area were invited to compete...
When Governor Peter Shumlin took up the divestment lance this year, it came as rather a surprise to unaware Vermont state pensioners to learn that some of their retirement funds were currently invested in the fossil-fuel industry. I teach part time at Leland and Gray Union High School. I asked the teachers there about their reactions to the divestment controversy. News flash - teachers have no time to keep track of where their retirement savings are being invested. They are...
Join Bartleby’s Books for an afternoon of poetry with Sydney Lea and Lawrence Raab. The poetry readings and discussion will begin at 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 16, at the bookstore. Both poets will read from their latest volumes of poetry and answer questions from the audience before signing books. Lea was Poet Laureate of Vermont from 2011-2015. His most recent collection of poems, No Doubt the Nameless, was just released by Four Way Books. He has 11 previous book...
A little over six months after cutting the ribbon on a $10 million expansion project, Landmark College administrators are looking to grow again. The college, which specializes in serving students with learning difficulties, has submitted town permitting documents for construction of a new facilities-operations building and the campus's first athletic field. Landmark President Peter Eden said the school has raised more than $1 million for the athletic facilities, a project that he believes is necessary to keep pace with the...
The Vermont House wants to pump more cash into the state's “working lands.” The fiscal year 2017 budget bill approved March 24 by the House allocates $900,490 for the popular Working Lands grant program. That's a boost of about $189,000 from the allocation that had been proposed by the governor, said Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, who chairs the House Agriculture and Forest Products Committee. For a high-demand program that makes relatively small awards all over the state, any increase in...