• James J. Boyd, 71, of Guilford. Died peacefully, under hospice care, on Dec. 4, 2021 at Thompson House in Brattleboro. James was surrounded by his wife, Brenda, and his daughters Gina, Jessica, Jennifer, and Lisa. Born in Brattleboro, Jim was the son of the late Carroll Leon and Mildred Boyd of Guilford and attended Brattleboro Union High School. Over the years, Jim was employed at Pepsi, Agway, Brattleboro Bowl, Rice Oil, and Circle K. He also was a driver for Brattleboro Subaru, Auto Mall, and Transcend Carriers. Jim's favorite hobbies included bowling, camping, spending time with family, and watching pro wrestling and westerns. He will be remembered by family and loved ones for his generosity, kindness, big heart, his smile, warm hugs, and a coffee cup in his hand. Anyone that knew Jim knows Brenda, “his girls,” his son Bryan, and his grandchildren were his entire world. He is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Brenda Boyd (Scherlin); daughters Gina Carrier (Richard Rousseau) of Belchertown, Mass., Jessica Boyd (David Rando) of Fort Mill, S.C., Jennifer Boyd-Fournier (Mandi Fournier) of Randolph, Vt., and Lisa Boyd-Giallella (Bob Giallella) of Dummerston. His son, Bryan James Boyd, died in 2011. He is also survived by his sister Eleanor Powers of Florida, his brother Kenneth Boyd Sr. of New Hampshire, and his lifelong best friend and brother by heart, Bryan Wood, who James and previous wife Wendy Barber named their son Bryan after; 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, and many cousins, nieces, nephews, and extended family. He was predeceased by siblings Leon Boyd, Kathleen Powers, and Linda Amidon, and his beloved dog, Oscar. Memorial information: Due to current COVID-19 restrictions, the family is planning a Celebration of Life to be announced at a later date. A memorial fund has...
On Feb. 4, 2021, President Joseph Biden committed to ending support for the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen, which he called a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.” But, on Nov. 4, he announced a $650 million arms sale to Saudi Arabia. This proposed sale makes no sense, flies in the face...
Local author and educator Deborah Lee Luskin will lead two sessions of a popular writing circle to benefit Moore Free Library. Participants will meet via Zoom on Friday, Dec. 31, and in person at the library on Sunday, Jan. 2. Both circles will meet from 1 to 3 p.m.
The Vermont Theatre Company (VTC) recently announced measures to address what board President Michelle Page and Vice President Cameron Cobane described as “the troubling allegations that came to light over the summer of 2021, and the roles that both the VTC and longtime board member and former President Robert Kramsky played in enabling the harm done to some of the most vulnerable members of the community.” The announcement took place in a discussion with public attendees at the VTC's recent...
Green Mountain RSVP (GMRSVP) is planning for the 2022 MLK Day of Service Sunshine Project. GMRSVP is recruiting volunteers aged 55 and older to help bring smiles to seniors who are confined to their homes by writing cheerful notes on postcards. Materials will be provided, and safe drop off/pick up/delivery of postcards will be coordinated by GMRSVP staff. Postcards will be delivered to clients of partner agencies in January 2022 to coincide with MLK Day of Service. “The pandemic has...
While attending a recent concert at Next Stage, I had a flashback to the wonderful outdoor concert series events over the summer. At one performance at the Putney Inn field on an early summer's day, I realized how much I missed live music after the long Covid winter and how being with other people was part of the experience. It was conducive to families as well as single people, and everyone could feel the joy we shared. People danced! They...
In “Community comes together to keep Rod's strong” [News, Nov. 24], The Commons mistakenly attributed to the wrong person one of the good wishes directed to Rod's Towing and Repairs and the Winchester family in the aftermath of a catastrophic fire. Elizabeth Lewis, quoted in the story, actually wrote, “You have a special place in my world. You will triumph!” The erroneous quote was removed in the online version of the story. Visit the Givebutter crowdfunding site for Rod's at...
A Next Stage seasonal classic - The GrooveBarbers' Holiday A Cappella Spectacular - will return on Saturday, Dec. 18 at 7:30 p.m. Each member of the all-vocal powerhouse quartet The GrooveBarbers is a bona fide star in his own right: Sean Altman, Charlie Evett, and Steve Keyes are former members of the pioneering contemporary a cappella group Rockapella, and Kevin Weist is “a renowned bald vocal guru,” according to the GrooveBarbers' biography of the group. Collectively, the musicians have established...
Next Stage to hold holiday cookie swap PUTNEY - On Saturday, Dec. 18, Next Stage Arts will hold a holiday cookie swap. Sign up to participate at bit.ly/NextStageCookieSwap2021. How does it work? Just bake your favorite cookies and drop them off at Next Stage on Kimball Hill on Saturday between 9 and 11 a.m. The Next Stage cookie elves (who will be masked and gloved) will then prepare a cookie box for you with a variety of cookies from home...
On Dec. 7, Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke powerfully to his fellow senators to block a $650 million weapons sale to Saudi Arabia. In Yemen, 230,000 people, many thousands of them children, have been killed by this war, largely because of Saudi Arabia and its partners, enabled by the United States. Why in the world would the U.S. reward a regime that's caused such pain? It was commendable that following Bernie's speech, 30 senators voted against the president's arms sale -
Discussion and debate about whether to wear a mask as a means to halt the spread of COVID-19 is traveling around Vermont like a wildfire - or, perhaps better said, like a virus. The matter comes up frequently at the governor's weekly press conferences. Selectboards up and down the state - Hardwick, Morristown, Stowe, Charlotte, Brattleboro, and Bennington - are grappling with the issue. The governor and many others say that mandating masks in public spaces and indoors would be...
We see stories written daily about the supposed outraged far-right partisans. They are in high dudgeon about the audacity of wearing a piece of cloth over their mouths and noses, as well as the terrible unfairness of being asked (and, in some cases, pressured) to accept a vaccine that will protect the public from a terrible disease. They are furious about the nonexistent stolen election of their god, Donald Trump. The rage extends to the terrible injustice of trying the...
I write to share one person's perspective on the proposed brewery/distillery, and the likely final death knell of the Maple Valley Ski Area. At a time of supposedly increased community and personal awareness for agritourism, health, nature, creativity, innovation, and community, the “Vermont brand” bar is set extremely low. We're getting a focus on more booze, a place without any apparent positive contribution other than $250,000 to an otherwise-quiet town's coffers, and what appears to be very little vision or...
Elayne Clift stated in her column about abortion that a Supreme Court justice said that women don't need abortions “because they can easily dump their newborn babies into adoption or foster care like so much detritus.” The definition of “detritus” is waste of any kind, or organic matter produced by the decomposition of organisms. Is she seriously stating that adopted/foster children are simply waste products? I call upon the author to clarify her truly horrifying statement.
Vermont Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint, D-Brattleboro, made it official on Dec. 13: She will be running for Congress in 2022. At her campaign kickoff event at the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier, Balint said that she is running for the Democratic nomination “because we're facing huge challenges. Working families are struggling, the pandemic is raging on, real climate action can't wait, and our democracy itself is at risk. The future feels perilous. We can't tackle these challenges if...
The girls' basketball season got off to a rough start for Brattleboro and Leland & Gray. The two teams were in the Leland & Gray Tip-Off Tournament and both lost their opening games in the tourney on Dec. 10. The Burr & Burton Bulldogs nipped Brattleboro in a 36-35 squeaker, while the Arlington Eagles topped Leland & Gray, 38-20. In the tournament's consolation game on Dec. 11, Brattleboro slogged its way to a 32-27 win over Leland & Gray. •
On Friday, Dec. 17, at 8 p.m., the multimedia arts venue Epsilon Spires will screen a touchstone of early cinema, Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), accompanied by a live score performed by cellist and composer Lori Goldston. Goldston has worked with musicians such as Terry Riley (an avant-garde composer) and David Byrne (of Talking Heads), but she is most widely known for her performance with Nirvana on the band's 1993 episode of MTV Unplugged. “Now...
The hardest thing for a new writer is sharing your work with another writer, and hoping they think the words you put on the page are worth reading. You might think that Brattleboro Police Capt. Mark Carignan, a man with a 25-year career in law enforcement, would not be that shy. But he admits that it was difficult to reveal what he was writing. “I'd been writing for about 15 to 20 years, but I never let anyone else see...
At some point when I wasn't looking, the clunky, consonant-riddled word haptic - which has nothing to do with being “happy” - started appearing in system settings for phones and computers. I will share the definition, but clearly, it's a word that only a linguistically passive-aggressive techno-geek could love - the kind of word that people make up when they want to convince people that they are thinking or doing something important (like “pivot,” “leverage,” and “core competency”). Many years...
The Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) board has collectively spoken for the first time at any length publicly since learning of allegations of repeated sexual abuse and grooming by former Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS) teacher Robert “Zeke” Hecker. The statement integrates a number of ideas that have emerged, including issues of process, procedure, the board's responsiveness, the independence of an investigation, sensitivity to and confidentiality of survivors in the process, and examination of the current school climate. However, nowhere...
Do voters here want a larger Selectboard? To find out, a petition to include an article on the March 1 Annual Town Meeting warrant to increase the Selectboard from three to five members is being circulated and signed. Vermont statute states a town may vote at an annual or special Town Meeting to elect two additional Selectboard members for terms of either one or two years each. It goes on to say that if two additional Selectboard member positions are...
Censorship. It's a word, an idea that ignites the ire of people who care about the arts. We all know censorship is bad - it's the stuff of fascists, or worse: of prudes and numbskulls. Rejecting censorship is righteous. It reveals a person's high-mindedness and sophistication. Defending artistic freedom is easy, but defending your right to work with an alleged “child molester” (as former Brattleboro Union High School teacher Zeke Hecker described himself in a letter to a survivor)? Not...
It took a couple of amendments and a defeated paper ballot request, but 65 voters who turned out for Special Town Meeting Dec. 7 have agreed to buy about 21 acres of land for $450,000 to use as a town gravel pit. Voters also agreed to borrow up to $600,000 to cover the purchase price and attendant costs for the parcel, owned by Paul Belogour, at Radway Hill and River roads. Selectboard member Ann Golob explained that the option to...
As Dec. 18 turns into the 19th - at the stroke of midnight - the creators of Sonic Blanket invite us all to tune into WVEW, 107.7 FM, as three local artists launch a yearlong multimedia collaboration designed, according to a recent media release, to address pandemic-spawned “themes of isolation, community, history, and place.” Conceived by Brattleboro artist Jonathan Gitelson and including poet/writer Diana Whitney and composer, performer, and sound artist Weston Olencki, Sonic Blanket sprang from pandemic living. The...
Drew Hazelton has devoted his life to emergency medical services and has seen a lot at Rescue Inc., “but emergency services are different in the middle of a pandemic from the way things used to be.” Rescue Inc. was asked by the Vermont Department of Health to bring vaccines to the elderly and those who have difficulties getting out of their homes when they first became available in January this year. The nonprofit was happy to help, and what started...