Issue #542
Amid uncharted waters, the 2020s begin
The season is Advent, when we turn toward the dark of the year and prepare for holiday rituals, a Christian gloss laid over deeper beliefs and ways of knowing that extend further into the past.
Not long ago, we experienced the longest night of the year, and the light is slowly starting to return. But it is a dark time right now.
High bailiff sees potential in an old position
John Hagen, of Guilford, sees more in his job description than being prepared to arrest the sheriff
The ceremony was brief, the witnesses were few, but an oath of office still means business in Vermont. And even though he describes the position as a “historical artifact,” John Hagen is primed to use his new position - as the high bailiff for Windham County - to shine...
Downtown Brattleboro: What's not to like?
What's not to like about downtown Brattleboro having so many renewed and new apartment, commercial, and cultural buildings? Is any other downtown hereabouts as fortunate? Welcoming the proposed Brattleboro Museum & Art Center expansion beside Whetstone Brook and the Amtrak station, Brattleboro has additional opportunities: • Transit-oriented development, by...
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Fireside chats to feature gunsmiths, theater, and Wagyu beef
Main Street Arts and the Saxtons River Historical Society are again pairing for a series of Fireside Chats to highlight the area's history and nature three Sundays in January from 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. in the dining room of the Saxtons River Inn. This year's series features talks on early gunsmiths, theater in the area, and Wagyu beef. This series begins Jan. 5 with a talk by Eric Bye of North Springfield, the former editor of Muzzle Blasts magazine, a...
Rockingham community members set to meet Jan. 8 to set priorities for action
All members of the Rockingham community are invited to participate in the second phase of the “Let's Take Action Rockingham” process to set direction for the future of the town. The meeting, put together with the help of the Vermont Council on Rural Development, will be Wednesday, Jan. 8, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., at the Lower Theater at the Town Hall in Bellows Falls. According to a VCRD news release, it will be a follow-up on the initial session...
Retailers recognized for spurning promotion of tobacco products
According to the Centers for Disease Control and CounterBalanceVT.com, tobacco companies in America continue to use most of their marketing budget to place ads in the stores where their products are sold, often targeting children. To celebrate local stores that have reduced advertising in 2019, Building A Positive Community (formerly Brattleboro Area Prevention Coalition) and West River Valley Thrives have completed the 2019 “Star Store” program. This program recognizes retailers for protecting youth in local communities, either by not selling...
Multi-instrumentalist Owen Nied to perform in Bellows Falls
After appearing as an opening act in August, multi-instrumentalist Owen Nied returns as the main event to the Stage 33 Live listening room, 33 Bridge St., on Jan. 5. Nied's original music spans edgy pop, jazz, blues, rock and hip hop, and his influences include artists as diverse as Wes Montgomery, Les Paul, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jack White, Jeff Beck, Brian Wilson, B.B. King, Dick Dale, Tony Bennett, Dave Brubeck, Chet Atkins, and Ella Fitzgerald, according to a news release.
Sheriff's Dept. presents awards at annual ceremony
The Windham County Sheriff's Department recently announced the recipients of numerous awards given on Dec. 14 at its sixth annual awards ceremony. Sheriff Mark R. Anderson presented the awards to recognize the actions of his staff: • The Sheriff's Merit Award was presented to Sergeant Dana Shepard who has demonstrated unusual devotion to duty in his assignment performing prisoner transports across the country, within Vermont, and as the supervisor responsible for fleet management between April 2017 and December 2019. •
Governor’s Institutes seeks applicants for winter sessions
The Governor's Institutes of Vermont is accepting applications for its popular Winter Weekends. Motivated Vermont high school students are welcome to dive deep into advanced study in any of 10 topics, all while having fun and meeting new and like-minded peers. Applications are considered on a rolling basis. Spots can fill quickly, so students are encouraged to apply early at www.giv.org/apply. The 37-year-old, award-winning nonprofit Governor's Institutes is best known for its many affordable residential summer Institutes throughout the state,
WCSU’s business manager receives professional certification
Windham Central Supervisory Union recently announced that Chief Financial Officer Laurie Garland was certified as director of school business management and finance through the Vermont Association of School Business Officials. “Once again, the team at the Central Office has shown their dedication and commitment to the student, families, and Boards of Windham Central [with] this certification,” WCSU Superintendent William Anton said in a news release. Anton said Garland “has been a dedicated member of the Windham Central Team since 2003,
Hospice receives grant to support community services
Brattleboro Area Hospice received a $1,000 grant from the Crosby-Gannett Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation. The grant will help further Brattleboro Area Hospice's work to provide a broad range of volunteer-based services for living and dying well, focusing on end-of-life, bereavement, and advance care planning. This support will further ensure that advance-care-planning support services can continue to be available free to the community. “As an organization integrally involved with our community, we are particularly delighted to partner with this...
Tober, Hendrickson are featured artists at Crowell Gallery
Bricolage is the construction or creation from a diverse range of available things - something constructed or created from what is at hand. The word suggests collage, the medium of Jim Tober's artwork, while Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the word in anthropology, the disciplinary background of Carol Hendrickson. The Crowell Gallery, 23 West St., is showing the work of these two educators, whose love of creative reconstruction has coexisted with a life in academia and comes to the fore in their...
Around the Towns
New Year's closings in Brattleboro BRATTLEBORO - All Brattleboro town offices will be closed on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020, with the exception of emergency services. Brooks Memorial Library will close at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 31. It will be closed on Jan. 1. No Recreation & Parks programs are scheduled after 5 p.m. on Dec. 31. The Nelson Withington Skating Facility will be open normal hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. Parking is free at all metered spaces and in...
Milestones
College news • Bradie Harris of Bellows Falls has been named to the Dean's List for the fall 2019 semester at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y. • Corey Nystrom, a forestry major from Brookline, and Sean Malloy, a recreation major from Bellows Falls, were both named to the Dean's List at Paul Smith's College for the fall 2019 semester. School news • Wesley Capitani of Dover, a senior at Middlesex School in Concord, Mass., was recently awarded the William D.
BMC Chamber Series presents the Heath Quartet on Jan. 12
The Brattleboro Music Center's Chamber Series continues with the Heath Quartet Sunday, Jan. 12, at the BMC. The 4 p.m. concert will feature three monumental string quartets by Beethoven. Heath Quartet members include violinists Oliver Heath and Sara Wolstenholme, Gary Pomeroy on the viola, and Chris Murray on the cello. As the quartet looks forward to its residency at Middlebury College, the artists recently performed a five-concert series at Wigmore Hall in London featuring Jörg Widmann's quartets, presented a complete...
NECCA to host an open house
On Saturday, Jan. 4, from noon to 2 p.m., New England Center for Circus Arts will offer a free opportunity for interested students to try activities out before committing to a session of classes. Youths and adults can play on aerial silks, learn to juggle, balance on a wire, hang on a low trapeze, and explore New England's only custom-built circus facility. The open house is free with activities for youth 18 months and older as well as for adults...
Act 46 action needs to be paused
Act 46 was originally written to cut administrative costs, which had run rampant. Instead, community schools are being forced to close. This goes against the original intent of the act. Something has gone amok. Before the education of students is further negatively impacted, before families are stressed unnecessarily, before more local control is taken, there needs to be a moratorium against any further action. It is not necessary to eliminate schools in order to cut administrative costs. Businesses adjust spending...
Rabid Democrats have pushed the public beyond reason
Impeachment by the House of Representatives is one thing; holding onto the articles until such time as Nancy Pelosi deems appropriate is quite another. To what purpose? To try to influence an election? That is rich. Having gone this far, we need the impeachment of the president to go quickly to trial. Doesn't the Constitution say accused are entitled to a speedy trial? Or maybe they are waiting until they can threaten enough Senators into submission? A handful of rabid...
Audio project seeks information on Harper Lee's connections to Brattleboro
At the 2019 Brattleboro Literary Festival, Casey Cep, author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee (2019), intrigued the audience with stories of her discovery that Harper Lee spent time doing research and writing in West Brattleboro. Through the good detective work of many local historians (Robert and Irene Burtiss, John Carnahan, Maisie Crowther, Tom Ragle, Joe Rivers, Sandy Rouse, Jeanne Walsh, and others), Cep was able to piece together that Lee originally came to...
With compost law, anticipate unintended, unpleasant consequences
There are a lot of questions regarding the Vermont mandatory composting law that starts July 1. First: What is the goal? To change the location of methane gas emission? Because that will be the result. There will be the same amount of waste; it will just be spread around. And I do mean spread around. I composted for years and stopped due to the proliferation of wild animals attracted to my property to partake of my generosity and out of...
Mixed showers for New Year’s Eve; milder showery weekend follows
Hello and good day to you, residents of the peaceful and picturesque windy hamlets of southeastern Vermont! I imagine a number of you west and north of the Brattleboro area are waking up to a messy aftermath from our late December ice storm. Some may be without power as well. Luckily, that sloppy storm departs Tuesday. We will see an upper level system swing through with some scattered snow and rain showers Tuesday night and into Wednesday. Thursday looks like...
Abhorrently cruel hounding should be regulated
I recently heard about a couple and their puppy who were attacked by bear-hound hunting dogs this past October on public land. I hope that the Legislature will take up the hounding issue this coming session. Sadly, hounds can be run all year and training seasons occur when bears, raccoons, bobcats, and other animals are tending to and nursing their young. For those happily unaware about what hounding involves, it's where a hunter allows a pack of hounds to run,
Project Feed still $15,000 from goal
Organizers of Project Feed the Thousands say the annual campaign that raises non-perishable food items and cash to assist those less fortunate in our area is short of its goal. “While it appears that we will meet our food goal, it is critical that we meet our monetary goal as well,” Project Feed Co-chair Kelli Corbeil said in a news release. Because the fundraising campaign runs only for a short time, once each year, the charity needs funds to sustain...
All Souls begins 'Climate Sundays' series
All Souls Church will kick off the New Year with a service featuring the Rev. Jim Antal, the author of Climate Church, Climate World, on Sunday, Jan. 5, at 10 a.m. The service will be the first in a series the church is calling “Climate Sundays.” The day includes a discussion with Antal after the service. There will be light refreshments. Antal's sermon is titled, “Defiant Hope: Our Faithful Response to the Climate Crisis.” Antal is a denominational leader, climate...
Transparency can help mend rifts over Marlboro/Emerson plan
The proposed Marlboro College/Emerson College merger has generated a lot of concern about what might happen to the college campus, and at some point, on the various Facebook pages and groups that have been discussing the merger, I heard someone say it was hard to keep track of all the possibilities being floated. So I put together this flow chart on the options for the campus. There are a lot of different conversations happening around the merger proposal. Some are...
Wyld Nightz to play benefit concert for Brigid’s Kitchen
Wyld Nightz, a local classic rock band, will play at the Stone Church in Brattleboro on Friday, Jan. 3, at 8 p.m. Admission is $10 at the door and the band will donate all its proceeds to Brigid's Kitchen and Pantry, which has served over 20,000 free meals this year in downtown Brattleboro. Wyld Nightz is a six-piece band founded in 1999 by Jeff Brewer and Michael McKinney, according to a news release. Prior to that, Brewer, now lead singer...
WSESU superintendent reflects on a long career
School Superintendent Lyle Holiday loves education. Politics? Not her happy place. “It was a very hard decision,” said Holiday of her recent decision to retire from the role of superintendent after three years serving the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU). She leaves her job on June 30. “I want to be right up front: I love my job and I love the people that I work with - the teachers, the administrators, and the staff - that has really been...
The minefield and the maze
My New Year's resolution for 2020 is to pay down my credit cards. Notice that I didn't say “pay off” my credit cards. A mere year would not suffice for that Herculean achievement, since I'm so strongly averse to taking on a second job robbing banks. My debt and I go way back. The first credit card I ever had was a department store card, which I got because I wanted a sweater, since it was winter and I was...
Colonel boys stop Wolves in OT
With a final score of 90-87, it might seem odd to call the Brattleboro Colonels boys' basketball team's overtime win over the South Burlington Wolves a great defensive effort. But the Dec. 27 victory at the BUHS gym came courtesy of strong defense, particularly in the overtime period. While both teams combined for 25 three-pointers - 14 for the Colonels, 11 for the Wolves - the deciding factor in the game came at the free throw line. The Colonels were...
‘I’ve never looked at a kid and not seen a glimmer of hope’
It's the end of the school day at Brattleboro Union High School. The halls are quiet. A few teachers compare notes from the day. Students wait in the lobby for rides; a few talk about the weekend, while others are quiet, their heads bent over cell phones. In Ricky Davidson's new office, the sun-faded corkboard over his desk shows the shapes of the previous tenant's papers: a heart-shape document here, a few small squares in the corner. Davidson sits comfortably...
Art in a new light
Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts is moving on up. Literally. After more than five years down below Candle in the Night, this gallery of contemporary art has moved to its renovated space upstairs in the same building at 181 Main St. Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts features innovative works by mid-career and established artists in a variety of media. The beautifully designed new gallery consists of three spacious rooms, as well as ample office and storage space so it can accommodate much more art...
The need is tremendous
When I co-founded Project Feed the Thousands 26 years ago, I never imagined that our mission would be so incredibly necessary all these years later - that the need would have increased so exponentially - that we would be supporting nine area food shelves and community meal programs. This year, I sought to visit all of the food shelves that Project Feed the Thousands supports, and to write about them so that we can all have a better understanding of...