• Mark E. Billetdeaux Sr., 58, of Hinsdale, N.H. Died July 18, 2019, after a courageous battle with cancer. He was born April 4, 1961 in Culver, Pa., to the late Edward Billetdeaux and Georgianna Morrisette, and attended schools in Brattleboro. He drove for BH Trucking for 20 years and, most recently, worked as a foreman for GPI Construction. He was an avid hunter, and enjoyed fishing and gardening. He especially enjoyed time spent with his grandchildren. Mark is survived by his loving wife of 34 years, Darlene (Gero) Billetdeaux; their two daughters Crystal Jillson and husband, Chris, and Tara Scarborough and her husband Matt; their son Mark Billetdeaux Jr. and his partner, Rachael; six grandchildren, several nieces and nephews, and his dear friend Brian Younger. Memorial information: A funeral Mass was held July 29 at St. Michael's Catholic Church in Brattleboro. Donations to the Kingsbury Cancer Center, 580 Court St. Keene, NH 03431
• Brian W. Halsted, 67, of Sunapee, N.H. and Saxtons River. Died unexpectedly on July 8, 2019, after a hospital stay. He was born on June 29, 1952, in Newport, N.H., to his parents, Betty Nilsen Halsted and John B. Halsted. He attended schools in Amherst, Mass., the Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Mass., Vermont Academy in Saxtons River, and Cornell College in Iowa. He then worked in the construction industry in Florida and spent another 10 years in retail management. After another stint in construction in New Hampshire, and a year with the Springfield (Vt.) School District, he moved to Saxtons River and became the Company Manager, House Manager, and Technical Director for the Saxtons River Playhouse. Known affectionately as “Unc Bri” to many, he was a humble man of integrity, wit, and empathy whose thoughtfulness, humor, and counsel helped all with...
Artist Barbara Takenaga, whose installation, “Looking at Blue,” is currently on view at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, will discuss her work at BMAC on Wednesday, Aug. 7, at 7:30 p.m. BMAC Chief Curator Mara Williams will moderate the free talk, which will be followed by a question-and-answer...
As part of World Breastfeeding Week, the Brattleboro community and local businesses will host events during the first week of August with the theme to “Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding.” This annual celebration of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls “the clinical gold standard for infant feeding...
Proposals are sought for Brattleboro marketing initiative BRATTLEBORO - The Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Brattleboro Alliance recently issued an RFP soliciting proposals from marketing professionals to develop a marketing initiative for the town of Brattleboro, VT. The purpose of the initiative is to support the growth of tourism in Brattleboro. The release of the RFP follows action by Brattleboro's Town Meeting Representatives. On March 23, 2019, Brattleboro Town Meeting Representatives appropriated the sum of $42,119 for the...
The Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a party on Saturday, Aug. 3, from 4 to 7 p.m., at the Winston Prouty Campus. The event is free and open to the community. A highlight of the event will be hot air balloon 'walkabouts' in which party-goers can walk inside a partially inflated hot air balloon. Live music will be provided by local band Hipfunk Associates. The Early Learning Express bookmobile will offer...
Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St., will offer a series of free workshops for writers and others engaged in artistic pursuits. On Saturdays in August, award-winning author Barbara Morrison will share strategies for promoting creative work. • Aug. 10 - Promotion 101: These days, all authors must help promote their books, and every entrepreneur must develop marketing skills. Beginning with the three questions that guide one's marketing strategy, participants will look at the marketing tools that work today and discuss...
I love Brattleboro. I love its down-to-earth-ness coupled with its flair for creativity. I love that I can walk to the co-op, to the library, to the hardware store, and to the woods. I love that we have curbside compost. I love that we come up with compassionate, practical programs like the recently announced day-work program. At the same time, the Brattleboro we have is not the ideal Brattleboro. We struggle with homelessness and addiction. We struggle to retain and...
The Windham County Prevention Partnership, in collaboration with the Windham County Consortium on Substance Use, has updated their Substance Abuse Resource Guide. The free guide provides information on substance prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery resources available within Windham County. The document includes contact information for crisis services, outpatient programs, residential and halfway housing, overdose prevention and Narcan distribution organizations, prescription disposal sites, along with healthcare support and private substance abuse counseling services. For parents and caregivers of youth, there...
Wilmington Works will host the annual Blueberry Block Party on South Main Street in Wilmington on Saturday, Aug. 3, from 5 to 8 p.m. The grand finale to the Deerfield Valley Blueberry Festival, the Block Party will feature live music, crafts, food, and fun. The Wyld Nightz Band will be playing on a flatbed truck (provided by Greene's Service Station) at the corner of South Main Street and Route 9. Come early to register for the annual pie eating contest,
Betsy Kalin's documentary East LA Interchange - which explores the tensions between community and “progress” - will be screened by the Kopkind Colony on Saturday, Aug. 3, at 7:30 p.m., at the Organ Barn in Guilford. The screening is free and open to the public and will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker. An exploration of social activism and love of place, originally workshopped at Kopkind's seminar/retreats with the Center for Independent Documentary, East LA Interchange has sparked...
Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts presents Light and Air, an exhibition of new oil paintings by artist and gallery co-founder Petria Mitchell. The artist's reception and opening is Saturday, Aug. 3, from 5 to 7 p.m., and the show continues through Sept. 22. An Artist Talk is scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 25, at 5 p.m. Educated at an early age at The National Academy School of Fine Arts in New York, and The Vesper George School of Art in Boston, Mitchell has...
The Rock River Players present Nickel and Dimed, a play by Joan Holden, based on Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed: on (Not) Getting By in America. Performances are Aug. 1-4 and will be at the Williamsville Hall on Dover Road. Ehrenreich's memoir chronicles her journey across America as she tries to live on minimum wage. In the play, the author, played by Vicky Santiesteban, weaves in and out of the lives of her co-workers, who labor to fulfill job...
During the month of August, the Crowell Art Gallery at Moore Free Library, 23 West St., presents “Depth, Movement and Light,” an exhibit by artist Valerie Takvorian and poet Mary Scriber. An artists' reception will be held on Saturday, Aug. 3, from 1 to 3 p.m. This exhibit invites visitors to consider the relationship between the written word and the canvas as the images of impressionistic landscape painter Valerie Takvorian are combined with the words of poet Mary Scriber. Each...
In a new collaboration, Yann Falquet and Keith Murphy have blended open-tuned guitars, mandolin, and mandola for an exciting mix of traditional songs. They will perform at Sandglass Theater in Putney on Sunday, Aug. 4, at 7:30 p.m. Falquet and Murphy are both masters of contemporary Celtic guitar, presenting the textures, harmonies, and rhythms the guitar has brought to traditional songs and instrumentals since the Celtic music revival in the 1970s. As singers, they bring a rich blending of the...
During the regular season, there wasn't a lot separating the top three teams in the Southern Division of Vermont American Legion Baseball. Lakes Region (20-4), Rutland Post 31 (19-5), and Brattleboro Post 5 (18-6) finished 1-2-3 in the South, but once the state Legion tournament began in Colchester on July 27, Brattleboro quickly asserted itself by winning its first two games in the double-elimination tournament. Post 5 started the tournament with a 7-0 win over Essex Post 91, the defending...
New England Youth Theatre, 100 Flat St., presents a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's bewitching tale of faithful friends, feuding families, and lovers in disguise, As You Like It. Adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery, with music and lyrics by Shaina Taub, and directed by Rebecca Waxman, the show will be performed at 7 p.m. on Aug. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, and at 2 p.m. on Aug. 3, 4, and 10. Featuring an original folk-pop score...
From the 97 works being explored at Vermont's storied Marlboro Music retreat, the participating artists have chosen works by three of the most important and expressive voices of the 20th century - Alban Berg, Benjamin Britten, and Aaron Copland - and one of the most acclaimed of the current century - Caroline Shaw. The Beethoven Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Winds, Op. 16, and Dvorák's String Quintet in E-flat, Op. 97, also feature on the next-to-last weekend of concerts...
The public is invited to attend “Ripple Effects of the Opioid Epidemic,” a presentation by journalist Randy Rieland on Friday, Aug. 9, from noon to 1 p.m. at Strolling of the Heifers' Brown Bag Lunch Series at the River Garden, 157 Main St. Much of the attention of the opioid epidemic has been focused on the staggering number of deaths it has caused, particularly in rural communities. But it has also affected families, police, EMTs, health workers and local businesses.
This weekend marks the finale of Yellow Barn's 50th anniversary season. The penultimate concert of the season takes place on Friday, Aug. 2, and begins with Philippe Schoeller's Isis I, Brett Dean's Eclipse (String Quartet No. 1), and Edward Elgar's beloved Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47 - a piece that David and Janet Wells often programmed to bring Yellow Barn seasons to a close with musicians filling every corner of the original barn. Arnold Schoenberg's lighthearted Suite, Op.
Step back in time at the Seventh Biennial Windham County History Fair on Saturday, August 10th from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Held on Historic Newfane Common, the Fair is a festival of vintage exhibits, demonstrations and historic tours featuring Windham County's rich heritage. The Vermont Archaeological Society, the Vermont Historical Society, the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum, and the Vermont State Archives will join many of Windham County's Historical Societies with special exhibits for all ages. Learn how to...
Dover has long served as a popular winter getaway for skiers. Now, according to Economic Development Director Steve Neratko, the town wants to become a four-season destination. Among the efforts supporting this goal is increasing the outdoor recreation opportunities in town “to make it a more active community,” Neratko said. The town has just embarked on a Recreation Trails Planning Study. According to Neratko, the plan includes investigating the feasibility of purchasing 50 acres in and around downtown Dover to...
Hello and good day to you, southeastern Vermonters! The heat and humidity from earlier this week is in the process of being swept seaward as a more zonal (i.e. west to east) flow in the upper levels of our atmosphere is pushing into New England over the next several days. In this transition, Wednesday will feature scattered showers and thunderstorms as the incoming drier and cooler air converges with the outgoing warmer and more humid air. This activity will clear...
Steve Neratko has experienced the Deerfield Valley's housing troubles first hand. Dover's economic development director said that when he took that position a few years ago, he had a hard time relocating to the area. He had to take a short-term rental outside of town and then move a couple of times before finding permanent, long-term housing. “I definitely understand the difficulty people face,” he said. The rental and homeownership markets in Dover and Wilmington have struggled to have enough...
Marlboro College and the University of Bridgeport have unveiled the two institutions' intent to merge, with the intent of creating an education experience that bridges the Connecticut university's professional programs with the Vermont college's self-directed liberal arts education. The two schools have announced that the next incarnation of Marlboro will be as the Marlboro College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Bridgeport. As part of what Marlboro President Kevin F.F. Quigley describes as a true and equal partnership,
Next Stage Arts Project and The Apron Theater Company present Tartuffe by Molière, directed by Karla Baldwin. Tartuffe opens Thursday, Aug. 8, with performances on August 8, 9, and 10, at 7:30 p.m., Aug. 11 at 2 p.m., Aug. 15, 16, and 17 at 7:30 p.m., and Aug. 22 and 23 at 7:30 p.m. The cast features Michael Kennedy, Gay Maxwell, Christopher Coutant, Lionel Chute, Aiden Meyer, and Ha Huynh. Controversial and popular from the time of its release in...
Summer is in full swing in Vermont. Gardens are planted. Farmers are making hay. Neighbors, families, and friends gather for barbecues and head to swimming holes and rivers. Light lingers in the long twilights of our northern latitude. The green of the Green Mountain State seems especially intense this year, thanks to early rains and a recent rash of sun-filled days. It's easy to feel a sense of contentment and ease. And yet, beneath the surface of this paradise, or...
When I was a student there from 1994 to 1998, Marlboro College described itself as a “learning community unlike any other in the country,” one “distinguished by its philosophy of self-governance, its tradition of academic vigor and excitement, and by its curriculum, self-designed, tailored to the individual, and taught in very small classes and one-on-one tutorials.” For the first few months of my time there, I was an outcast in a community filled with outcasts. At mealtime, I would always...
The New England Marathon Paddlesport Championships is set to return to its Vermont roots with this Sunday's launch of nearly 100 canoes, kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and surf skis onto the Connecticut River. The event, started four decades ago in Putney, most recently took place in Westmoreland, N.H., until organizers there retired. “It's a big, popular race - we had to find a way to continue it,” says Sandy Harris, who is helping the Bellows Falls Rotary organize the 41st...