On March 7, the Town Offices will lose a major source of institutional knowledge. A new lister will replace long-time public servant Doris Knechtel, who ends her last term as lister the day after Town Meeting.
Before joining the municipal staff, Knechtel, a native of Orange, Mass., taught high school home economics in East Longmeadow, Mass. When she moved to Vermont, she worked at Mount Snow.
“Then I decided I had to get a serious job!” she said.
Knechtel has served Newfane for 27 years, starting as a Selectboard member, then as administrative assistant and lister. When the Selectboard hired Shannon Meckle as administrative assistant in August 2007, Knechtel remained in the lister's office.
A new partnership project between the Rich Earth Institute and the Windham Regional Commission, called the “Village Sanitation Pilot Study,” seeks to engage neighbors in villages and community centers in the Windham Region. The feasibility study will test, at a neighborhood scale, innovative wastewater solutions that can help address...
Next Stage Arts Project continues its highly-popular cooking class series with upcoming events on Monday, Feb. 12, and Monday, March 19, each from 6 to 9 p.m., at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill, taught by acclaimed chef, Linda Stavely. The cost is $65. Registration is limited, tickets are available...
Vermont's Department of Mental Health, the Department of Vermont Health Access, Health Care and Rehabilitation Services, and Northeastern Family Institute (NFI), announced plans to open a six-bed Hospital Diversion Program at 945 Putney Rd. This program is a collaboration between HCRS and NFI to provide additional services to youth and families in southern Vermont. The program will be located in the old Tyler Farm House, the last Victorian house on Putney Road still standing north of the West River. The...
Dartmouth professor Nancy Jay Crumbine will consider the enduring influence of environmental author Rachel Carson in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on Feb. 7, at 7 p.m. Her talk, “The Legacy of Rachel Carson,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open to the public. Carson's book Silent Spring not only launched the environmental movement but also identified fundamental problems with our relationship to nature. In this talk, Crumbine...
The Dummerston Conservation Commission recently announced its annual Winter Education Series, and this year, it's all about the weather. Commission Chair Mary Ellen Copeland told The Commons she and her colleagues have developed the series for about four years, and they select themes by considering what's current, of interest, and of most value to residents' lives. “We tried to identify something the community wants to know about and needs to know about,” Copeland said. Programs are held every Wednesday in...
College news • The following area students at the Community College of Vermont (CCV) received academic honors for the fall 2017 semester: Natasha Diamondstone-Kohout of Dummerston and Henna Patel of Ludlow made the President's List. On the Student Honors List were Penny Burkholder, Tana Cutting, Megan Manley, and Joshua Russ of Brattleboro; NancyJean Flood of Brookline; Ciara Walior of Dummerston, Paige Gargett of Jamaica; Nolan Edgar and Jessica Heinemann of Newfane; Mary Lachenal and Rebekah Willey of Putney; Mackenzie Hall...
As you know, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is the subject of a proposed sale to NorthStar Nuclear Decommissioning Company. As long as the owner has the resources to clean up the site, I do not necessarily care who owns it. What I do care about is a commitment to clean up the site to at least the same standard as the rest of the sites in New England of decommissioned reactors: Connecticut Yankee, Maine Yankee, and Yankee Rowe...
On Dec. 15, Parks Place Community Resource Center held Sugar's Closet, a holiday program designed to reach those in need of a little extra help during the holiday season. This event was made possible with the help of a very special donor who was inspired by her late mother who never wanted to see a child go without during the holidays. Sugar's Closet uses a unique model that allows parents and guardians to “shop” free of charge for their children.
Senior meal in Townshend TOWNSHEND - Everyone is invited to dinner at noon on Thursday, Feb. 1, at the Townshend Church. Sponsored by Senior Solutions, the meal is prepared by Chef Stephanie of the Townshend Dam Diner. Suggested donation for people age 60 and up is $3.50; for all others, $4. Takeouts will be available. All are welcome. Stroll presents 'Love Local' BRATTLEBORO - On Friday, Feb. 2, from 5 to 8:30 p.m., Strolling of the Heifers presents “Love Local”
Antioch University New England and Green Writer's Press will offer a free public screening of the short documentary The Best Day Ever and readings from a new edition of Wild Play: Parenting Adventures in the Great Outdoors by David Sobel on Friday, Feb. 2, from 6 to 8 p.m., at 118 Elliot Street in Brattleboro. The event will be held during the monthly gallery walk and is suitable for children, according to a news release. There will be refreshments and...
Join Bartleby's Books, 17 West Main St., on Saturday, Feb. 3, at 4 p.m., for an event with Bill Mares, editor of The Full Vermonty: Vermont in the Age of Trump. Mares will read from the book, answer questions from the audience, and sign copies of the book. This event is part of the Apres-Ski After 3 program in downtown Wilmington on Saturdays in February. The Full Vermonty is a humorous look at some Vermonters' responses to the election of...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present award-winning contemporary folk singer/songwriter Antje Duvekot and Americana and acoustic blues duo Beaucoup Blue at Next Stage on Saturday, Feb. 3, at 7:30 p.m. According to a news release, Duvekot is a German-born, American-raised singer/songwriter whose songs “have been critically praised for their hard-won wisdom, dark-eyed realism, and street-smart romanticism. Her bicultural upbringing and relative newness to English have helped shape her unique way with a song, giving her a startlingly original...
In the late 1990s in California, a group of environmental activists banded together to protect the ancient redwood forests from extensive clear-cut logging by the Pacific Lumber Co. The group became known as “tree sitters” because they built treehouses to live in - some of them 200 feet in the air. The tree sitters endured high winds, freezing temperatures, threats from helicopters hovering very close by their treetop abodes, and harassment from the company's security forces. Some of the activists...
Since the terrible disaster of the 2016 election, like so many others, I have been in a quandary about my level of engagement with the Democratic party. Well, the recent complete cave-in to the forces of evil have renewed my strong feelings about not ever being a Democrat. The Democrats gave away the store to the Trump administration, selling out 800,000 young people who have been busy making this a better country. These Democrats have proved that they are a...
I am a motorcycle rider, and have been one on and off for 20 years. When I first started riding, car drivers didn't have the distraction of smartphones, but motorcyclists still had to worry about distracted drivers and/or drivers just not looking out for motorcycles. I agree with almost everything that T. Breeze Verdant writes up until “I encourage people to stop riding and to encourage others to quit as well.” Look, it's always been more dangerous to ride a...
I'm not sure how often I or anyone else comes home from a night of music and says, “Wow, that was exquisite.” We might say it was “awesome,” or “amazing,” but “exquisite”? The word seems a bit out of synch with today's grittier, modern aesthetic. But during In Stile Moderno's concert at the Brattleboro Music Center on Jan. 21 (which I learned about in this paper), I not only had to dust off the word and add it back into...
Donald Trump's racist remarks about African nations and Haiti display a profound level of historical ignorance. In preparation for an upcoming trip to Haiti, I have been reading Haitian history - especially the roots of its economic difficulties. More people in this country should know that Haiti was the second nation in this hemisphere to throw off its colonial rulers. The United States gained independence from Britain in 1783, and in 1803 the slaves of Haiti overthrew their French masters.
Michi Wiancko - described by Gramophone magazine as an “alluring soloist with heightened expressive and violinistic gifts,” - will perform a “Stone Church by Candlelight” concert on Saturday, Feb. 3, at 7:30 p.m., at Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St. Wiancko gave her debut concerto performances with the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, made her New York recital debut in Carnegie's Weill Hall, and released a solo album of works by Émile Sauret on Naxos. The internationally-acclaimed violinist and...
This year's Selectboard race can be framed as a tale of two incumbents - and the differing paths they chose toward re-election. Last year, Brandi Starr and Tim Wessel were elected to one-year seats on the Selectboard. Both Starr and Wessel are running again this year. Starr chose to run for the three-year seat on the board being vacated by John Allen, who chose not to seek re-election. After the Jan. 29 deadline for turning in nomination petitions had passed,
Good day to you, fine folks of southeastern Vermont! After our generally milder temperatures over the past few weeks, it appears that we are witnessing another pattern change with a reversion back to winter conditions by the first and second weeks of February. On a macro-scale, a large ridge that should extend to the North Pole will form near Alaska. This feature will help to drive much colder air pooling in northern Canada southward into the regions of the Great...
Instead of giving your beloved a box of chocolates on St. Valentine's Day, why not let a puppy do it? The Windham County Humane Society is holding its first-ever “Valentine's Day Puppy-grams” fundraiser. For a donation of $50, a puppy - accompanied by a human volunteer - will visit your loved one at their home or workplace in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Newfane, Putney, and Vernon. “The recipient will have a half an hour to enjoy the puppy - and the...
“Around the Pond” a photographic exhibit by David Parker, will be shown at the Crowell Gallery at the Moore Free Library, 23 West St., during the month of February. A reception with the artist takes place Saturday, Feb. 3, from 1 to 3 p.m., according to a news release. For naturalists, birders, and those who enjoy the outdoors, this show will delight and inform. Parker's experience as an educator is evident in the narrative of each image. In more than...
Todd Bell is something of a pioneer at Brattleboro Union High School, as he has taken on leadership of two new varsity sports - bowling and unified basketball. Unified basketball has been successful, as the Colonels won the state title last season in only the second year of the team's existence. Bowling has been a little tougher. This is the second season that bowling is a varsity sport at BUHS, and in Vermont. Brattleboro, which had a club-level program for...
Agility, endurance, and perseverance were honored by the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce at its annual awards breakfast on Jan. 25 at the Brattleboro Retreat. The two winners of the Chamber's major awards - Person of the Year Nancy Heydinger and the Member of the Year, New England Center for Circus Arts - displayed massive amounts of those qualities over the past year. Heydinger is executive director of Girls on the Run Vermont, which teaches lessons in physical fitness, promotes...
What would you do if you had to leave your home because violent gangs threatened you and your family - or worse? What if you had the “wrong” religion, race, gender, or sexual orientation, and were in danger? What would you bring, knowing you could carry only so much? If you have children, would you take them with you? They could slow you down. They might get hurt or lost. But leaving them behind is worse. What if you were...
Violinist Brigid Coleridge and pianist Lee Dionne have conceived of a whole new way to present a classical music recital. Yellow Barn in Putney is welcoming the two alumni for a week-long residency weaving free-verse poetry from British modernist poet Christopher Logue's War Music together with physical theater and music for violin and piano, and on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 8 p.m. at Next Stage, their work will culminate with an evening performance, Permanent Red. Juxtaposing scenes from a re-imagining...