• Clayton Patrick Benjamin, 86, formerly of Hinsdale, N.H. Died March 12, 2022 at Applewood Healthcare in Winchester, N.H. Born March 17, 1935 in Ellenburg Depot, N.Y., the son of Halsey and Eva (Jarvis) Benjamin, he was raised and educated in Brattleboro, graduating from St. Michael's High School with the Class of 1954. In 1955, he enlisted in the Navy, serving on board the USS Randolph. In 1957, he was honorably discharged from active service and then worked as a bookbinder working at the former Book Press in Brattleboro. Clayton retired in 1998 following 43 faithful years with the company. For many years, he also worked part-time at the former Hinsdale Raceway. Born and raised Catholic, he was a communicant of St. Joseph's Church in Hinsdale. In 1959, he married Barbara Bouchie, who survives. Besides his wife of 62 years, survivors include daughters Cherie Benjamin of Keene, N.H., Cathy Benjamin of Bradenton, Fla., and Cindy (Ron) Caruso of Sabago Lake, Maine; sons Brian Benjamin of West Chesterfield, N.H., and Bradley (Sheila) Benjamin of Shermans Dale, Pa.; brothers David Benjamin of Westfield, Mass., and Gerald Benjamin of Brattleboro. Additionally, he leaves three grandchildren, Patrick, Tyler and Tara McGrath, and many nieces and nephews. Memorial information: A funeral Mass will be held Friday, June 3, at 11 a.m., at St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Brattleboro. Committal rites and burial will follow in Pine Grove Cemetery in Hinsdale. Donations to the Alzheimer's Association, Vermont Chapter, 75 Talcott Rd., Suite 40, Williston, VT 05495 or the Dementia Society of America, P.O. Box 600, Doylestown, PA 18901. To share a memory or send condolences to the family, visit www.atamaniuk.com.
• George A. “Junie” Bousquet Jr., 86, of Bellows Falls. Died unexpectedly and peacefully at home, with his wife by his...
The Vermont Fish and Wildlife (F&W) Department says warm spring weather and melting snows will cause bears to come out of their winter dens in search of food. The department recommends taking down and storing bird feeders until December to avoid attracting bears. “Although we typically recommend taking down...
The Vermont Theatre Company announces auditions for their upcoming production of The Servant of Two Masters, written by Carlo Goldoni and translated and adapted by Jeffry Hatcher and Paolo Emilio Landi. Auditions will be held Sunday, April 3, 10 a.m., at the Hooker-Dunham Theater and Gallery in Brattleboro, and...
The Brattleboro Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) is celebrating 70 years of academic financial assistance for women and girls by again offering scholarships of up to $1,000 each to qualified female candidates who have been legal residents Windham County for at least two years. Graduating high school seniors from area high schools, preparatory schools, or home schools and women who are considered college ready by federal financial aid guidelines are eligible to apply. Applications will be...
Multi-instrumentalist duo Dan and Faith return to Stage 33 Live, 33 Bridge St., for an intimate performance on Sunday, March 27, at 7 p.m. The husband-and-wife duo are old-school-folk singer-songwriter-storytellers whose writing and delivery have a direct line of descent from the earnest coffeehouse scene of the early 1960s - wholesome, progressive, and friendly, with a sound rooted in tight, interwoven vocal harmonies. Daniel Senie (guitar, harmonica, vocals) and Faith Senie (mandolin, bass, ukulele, dulcimer, vocals) have released five albums;
On Friday, March 25, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. via Zoom, Windham World Affairs Council in partnership with Action Corps will present a panel discussion to mark seven years of war in Yemen. Vermont peace activists, Yemeni Americans, and local leaders will come together to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the war that has caused it, and what Vermonters and everyday people around the world are doing to stop the U.S.-backed bombing and blockade of the country. Yemen has...
The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources is providing $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to support low- and moderate-income Vermont homeowners in repairing or replacing their failed or inadequate on-site water (well) or wastewater (septic) systems. Eligible homeowners with failed or inadequate wells, springs, septic tanks, leach fields, or wastewater systems are encouraged to apply by Friday, April 15 to be considered for the first round of funding. Applicants will be notified of first-round awards in May...
Boston-based Seven Times Salt joins Brattleboro Music Center regulars In Stile Moderno for what organizers are calling “a delightful new concert program,” Sunday, March 27, at 4 p.m. “Fair Phoenix: Tales of the Winter Queen” focuses on the story of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia. The program will follow her life story with music from England on the occasion of her wedding in 1613, music “borne of religious anguish during the Thirty Years' War, and finally music of mourning and...
Monthly free produce available March 24 PUTNEY - The Vermont Foodbank and the Putney Foodshelf will co-sponsor the next monthly drop of free produce and some nonperishables on Thursday, March 24, from 9 to 9:45 a.m. at Putney Meadows, 17 Carol Brown Way (the white building across from the Putney Food Co-op and the fire station). All are welcome. Because of COVID-19, remain in your car at pickup, and volunteers will bring out bags. Brattleboro seeks new WRC representative BRATLTEBORO...
Gordon Clark and his Vermont Comedy All Stars return for a night of stand-up comedy Friday, March 25, at 7:30 p.m., at Next Stage Arts. Featured performers will include several contest-winning and touring comedians most often seen in the Burlington area. “We all need reasons to laugh, and the Vermont Comedy All Stars do an outstanding job,” Keith Marks, executive director of Next Stage Arts, said in a news release. “Comedians will be coming from all around the state to...
A flurry of local internet-based activity in the recent online auction to benefit the St. Michael's Interfaith Refugee Fund has gratified all involved. “This auction had the modest goal of raising $2,000,” St. Michael's Episcopal organizer Liz Vick said in a news release. “In the end, it brought in $7,547, all of which will be used to facilitate the resettlement of families and single people from Afghanistan who have been arriving in Southern Vermont since January.” Vick said many local...
Windham Regional Commission (WRC) is set to receive funding through Congressionally directed spending supported by Sen. Bernie Sanders to help towns in southeast Vermont plan Resiliency Zones. This innovative work to increase resiliency in the face of climate change is a collaboration between WRC and Green Mountain Power (GMP). According to a news release, Resiliency Zones are a part of GMP's proactive climate plan “to work directly with partner communities to strengthen the grid, help prevent outages, and bounce back...
The Windham Southeast School District will belatedly join the rest of the state in making classroom masks a choice after a special meeting crowd of more than 500 people registered nearly three hours of complaint. At first, Brattleboro Union High School and elementary classrooms in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, and Putney told families they would adopt the Vermont Agency of Education's new relaxed Covid-19 recommendations beginning March 14. “We have followed the guidance set out by our local health professionals from...
Elected Town Meeting representatives spurned a call to feed themselves a $2,500 tax-funded lunch. But that didn't stop them from spending 12 hours on March 19 chewing over $20 million in municipal matters. “Democracy is messy, and it can be frustrating,” Prudence MacKinney, vice chair of the Planning Commission, told a Zoom audience at the start of Vermont's only state-sanctioned virtual Town Meeting. “It takes time and effort to work well.” It also requires fuel, according to a Town Meeting...
Vermont Everyone Eats (VEE), the unique COVID-19 recovery program that provides Vermonters impacted by Covid with prepared meals made by area restaurants using locally grown and produced ingredients, will continue through July 1. The program had previously been set to end on March 31, but will now continue due to FEMA's 100 percent cost share being extended for existing COVID-19 relief programs. Since August 2020, VEE has provided over 2.25 million meals statewide, entirely paid for with nearly $30 million...
On March 8, the newly seated Windham Southeast School District board heard from several parents who, with only six days before the school mask mandate was to be lifted, had still not been able to learn from administrators what plans would be in place to protect their children who are too young to be vaccinated, are immunocompromised, or are otherwise at high-risk for complications from exposure to COVID-19. These were not calls to keep everyone's mask on. Instead, these parents...
The vicious seven-year war on Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is an ongoing humanitarian crisis aided and abetted by the United States. The media and the U.S. Congress decry Russia's imperial destruction of Ukraine. Yes - but what about the atrocities in Yemen? The U.S. supplies the majority of weapons that kill the children, women, and men of Yemen. The military-industrial-media complex is thriving under Biden and the Democratic congressional leadership. Hypocrisy is also thriving. According...
On the day that the invasion of Ukraine began, there were 37 separate airstrikes on Yemen. Airstrikes are frequent there, day and night. The U.S. has backed this destruction for seven years. Our country supplies and supports the weapons, ammunition, and military intelligence that batters people on the other side of the world, out of our sight. We fund and facilitate those devastating airstrikes. The United Nations lists 17 countries in crisis, with millions of fellow humans around the world...
In the wake of the Federal Reserve Board's recent decision to raise short-term interest rates (and indications that they plan to further raise rates over the coming year), I am concerned that our national conversation about responses to inflation has been unduly constrained. Among the many possible responses to rising inflation (specifically, the demand-induced inflation we are currently experiencing because of excess liquidity, or “too many dollars chasing too few goods”), there are two main possibilities: Option A: Raise interest...
A large country, armed to the teeth, entering into the dusk as a superpower, makes outlandish claims about another, much smaller and weaker country. The rest of the world's nations scratch their heads and wonder at these claims. The large country amasses troops and armaments near the smaller country. It gives the smaller country an ultimatum that cannot be met because it is based on a false premise. Very few other nations are interested in joining the bellicosity of the...
The topic of about 70 minutes of public comment at a recent Windham Southeast School District school board meeting was the future career of Interim Superintendent Mark Speno, who attended the meeting but said nothing. On March 16 - the night after 300 people jammed Zoom for the WSESD school board public forum to discuss masking [story, A5] - 175 people were again on Zoom. Approximately 50 people - mostly students and school officials - attended in person. Public comment...
March is traditionally a time for shamrock decorations and pints of green beer, but this year Epsilon Spires is offering an opportunity to celebrate the season of Saint Patrick's Day a little differently with a live performance of Lorkin O'Reilly's Irish-inspired original folk music on the evening of Saturday, March 26. Joining him on the bill will be Melanie MacLaren, a singer-songwriter raised in New York who moved to Nashville in 2020. “O'Reilly's breathy vocal delivery and hypnotically rhythmic guitar...
The annual North-South All-Star games, presented by the Vermont Basketball Coaches' Association (WBCA), were held March 19 at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg. It was the first time in two years that the games were played, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 editions. There were seven local seniors chosen for the South's all-star teams. For the girls, Brattleboro's Kiki McNary and Chloe Givens played in the Division I-II girls' game, while Julia...
While Windham & Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) has received a local zoning permit from the town to move forward and build a 25-unit affordable housing complex on Alice Holway Drive adjacent to the Putney Community Gardens, opponents are appealing the decision. The permit, issued by the Putney Development Review Board (DRB) on March 9, allows the land to be subdivided into two parcels. The southern parcel is dedicated to the new housing community with two energy-efficient, all-electric buildings with a...
On March 18, the Board of Directors of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) announced the appointment of Christopher J. Dougherty as the organization's new president and chief executive officer, effective May 9. Dougherty succeeds outgoing CEO Steven R. Gordon, who will retire in April after serving 11 years in that post. “We'd like to extend a very warm welcome to Chris Dougherty, who throughout his career has been known for his inclusive leadership style, impressive financial accomplishments, and the successful outcomes...
It is surreal. For weeks now I've been watching a war in Europe in the 21st century in real time. It's an utterly dystopian experience to witness the destruction of a modern, democratic country with more than 40 million people who simply want to live their lives, raise their children, do their jobs, love their families. A month ago, they were sitting in cafés, walking their dogs, hugging their kids, sleeping next to their partners, caring for their parents and...
April's First Wednesday event at Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St., is “The Poetics of Girlhood and Womanhood in America,” and takes place live, April 6 at 7 p.m. Poets and writers Diana Whitney and Shanta Lee Gander will join Christal Brown, associate professor of dance at Middlebury College, in a conversation that explores how girlhood and womanhood in America are manifested across the boundaries of poetry, dance, and lived experience. Diana Whitney's edited work, You Don't Have to Be...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) will present a free talk by artist M. Carmen Lane on Thursday, March 31, at 7 p.m. via Zoom and Facebook Live. Register at brattleboromuseum.org. Lane will discuss the BMAC exhibit “(í:se)Be Our Guest/Stolen,” an examination of the intergenerational trauma of Indigenous displacements and Black fugitive migrations, through the lens of the artist's Afro-Indigenous family history. Lane will explore the host/guest relationship, family fracturing and splintering, and the history of displacement of Black...
It's Vermont's fifth season - mud season - and it's in full swing this year like none other. “The annual mud season in Marlboro is especially bad this year,” resident Adrian Segar wrote on a public Facebook post on Monday in one of innumerable dispatches from residents on the social media platform. “The town's 60 miles of dirt roads are essentially unpassable,” he continued. “School is canceled today because the school buses can't get through. We got a car out...
Before my life began, I was already an immigrant. My family emigrated in 1996, during the time of the first government of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Day by day, the political, social, and economic situations - all the parts of the society that touched on our lives - were getting worse. As a result, lots of families couldn't live in Afghanistan anymore. My family was among them. My mom, one month pregnant with me, immigrated to Iran. * * *
Hundreds of Windham County residents - children, veterans, seniors, young adults, the employed and the unemployed, are living in a state of homelessness. An extremely disproportionate number identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). People are unable to find a place to live and when apartments do open up, they are often far beyond the price range of the average earner. Vermont has been underdeveloping housing for over 40 years. With the increase in demand during COVID-19 and the...