The Brattleboro Rotary Club recently awarded $16,500 in scholarships to six area students who will be attending college this fall. The scholarships are funded by The Gateway Foundation, an affiliate of the Brattleboro Rotary Club.
This year’s recipients include Steven M. Bruns of Hinsdale, N.H., who will attend Champlain College; Kailyn M. Fleury of Hinsdale, who will attend Keene State College; Trevor K. Parkinson of Hinsdale, who will attend SUNY-Morrisville; Nicholas C. Petronic of Townshend, who will attend Community College of Vermont; Jenna M. Powers of Putney, who will attend SUNY-Oswego; and Hope S. Thibault of Williamsville, who will attend UMass-Amherst. Each student received $2,750.
The Brattleboro Rotary Club established The Gateway Foundation in 1986 to create a fund to support scholarships awarded annually to local students pursuing college. The Foundation, a nonprofit and tax-exempt organization, has awarded over $550,000 in scholarships to area students. It is funded by Rotary Club and individual contributions.
Applications are accepted each spring from graduating seniors at Brattleboro Union, Hinsdale, and Leland & Gray high schools. Students are judged on academic achievement, financial need, and community service.
As we pay more at the gas pump and consequently more for everything else, let us remember that Joe Biden is only fulfilling his campaign promise. Over and over again, then-candidate Biden promised to “get rid of fossil fuels.” He made this promise to children on the campaign trail.
Vermont Theatre Company thanks the greater Brattleboro community for its support of our most recent production, The Servant of Two Masters, by Carlo Goldoni, translated and adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher and Paolo Emilio Landi. It was performed at The Retreat Farm, which was a wonderful venue, and we are...
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) announced the names of its 2022 Employee of the Year recipients. Both individuals were recognized in a formal employee gathering led by BMH president and chief executive officer Christopher Dougherty on Wednesday, July 27. Kristie Cardaropoli, nutrition associate in BMH's Nutrition Services Department, was named the 2022 Non-Clinical Employee of the Year, while Jeanette Perra, critical care float RN, registered respiratory therapist, and emergency department staff RN, was named the 2022 Clinical Employee of the Year.
Arguably, our large brains make human beings the most intelligent species on Earth. Yet only now are we coming around to a full scientific, and perhaps even spiritual, appreciation of the deep and interconnected relationship we have with the natural world. As we learn from Peter Wohlleben's 2016 book The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate-Discoveries from a Secret World, trees are actually smart! And not only do they play an invaluable role in maintaining the...
College news • James Surfus of Brattleboro earned Dean's List honors for the spring 2022 semester at Emerson College in Boston. Obituaries • Chris Andres, 72, formerly of Putney. Died peacefully on May 20, 2022 in Derby, Vt., after a period of declining health and well-being. Chris was born on May 23, 1949 in Cleveland, Ohio to Paul and Kaye Andres. Chris picked apples in Vermont and citrus in Florida in the 1970s. He then settled in Putney and worked...
The Children's Literacy Foundation (CLiF) has selected the Whitingham Free Public Library in Jacksonville as one of 12 public libraries across Vermont and New Hampshire as recipients of its 2022–23 Rural Libraries grant program. Each of the chosen sites will receive two storytelling performances hosted by CLiF's professional presenters, new books for the public library, new books for the local elementary school library, a mini-grant for library programming, and new books for children to choose and keep for themselves. The...
Siblings Christian Stromberg, owner of Saxtons River Distillery, and Kerry Secrest, Honorary Consul of Lithuania to Vermont, are holding a fundraiser and online auction to benefit those in crisis in Ukraine. The online auction is open now, and the event will be held on Thursday, August 25, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at Saxtons Distillery, 155 Chickering Drive in Brattleboro. “More than 10 million Ukrainians have been dislocated, more than 10,000 are dead, and it doesn't look like the war...
Canal Street Art Gallery, 23 Canal Street, presents The Vermont Salon, a new open-call exhibition hung in the floor-to-ceiling Salon style. The gallery brings this classical way of showing art into a contemporary time. The art show will be inclusive of all art, and the opportunity to exhibit is open to the public. The Vermont Salon celebrates the abundance and diversity of art created by artists everyday. It embraces some of the aesthetics and structures of the original salons, held...
Williamsville Hall offers community breakfast WILLIAMSVILLE - Come and enjoy free baked goods, coffee, tea, juice, and Wi-Fi at Williamsville Hall, 35 Dover Road, on Thursday, Aug. 18, from 8 to 10 a.m. Eat-in or take-out; donations are welcome. Note that Depot Road remains closed while the Arch Bride is being repaired, so use the Grimes Hill Road detour. Williamsville Hall is on the left on Dover Road, just past the construction site. Brooks Memorial Library Sci-Fi Reading Group begins...
After taking a break for a few years, Brattleboro Savings & Loan says it is bringing back Community Appreciation Day on Friday, Aug. 26, at its Main Street and Bondville branches, and Wednesday, Aug. 31, at its Wilmington branch. “It's just an opportunity to bring people together outside and enjoy some hospitality and fun,” president and CEO Dan Yates said in a news release. “We're a community bank, and this is one of the ways we want to celebrate all...
On Wednesday, August 24, the proceeds from Whetstone Station's weekly charity bingo night will benefit a cross-cultural mural project spearheaded by the nonprofit arts organization Epsilon Spires. The mural, which will be designed and painted by local artists working in collaboration with recently resettled Afghan refugees, will transform a neglected concrete wall on High Street into a scene depicting the four seasons in Vermont. “The enthusiasm for this project so far has been really exciting,” Jamie Mohr, executive director of...
The race for the U.S. House seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Peter Welch is not as clear-cut as it looked on election night. While Becca Balint of Brattleboro easily won the Democratic nomination, the top two vote-getters in the Republican primary will be running against the Senate president pro tem under different banners. Liam Madden of Rockingham received 35 percent of the vote to win the Republican primary, but there was some question about whether he would accept the...
The Vermont Center for Photography (VCP) presents “Mark Shaw: Selections from the Archive,” a historical exhibition which features a variety of photographic subject matter by the late photographer Mark Shaw (1921–1969). Shaw is best known for his photographs of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy, which he shot originally for Life magazine, and later as the Kennedys' unofficial family photographer. He developed a strong friendship with the Kennedys and regularly visited the White House during their time there, state organizers of...
View photos and listen to audio stories of “The Gilded Cage: Mexican Migrant Workers on Vermont Dairy Farms,” on display now at the Rockingham Free Public Library until Thursday, Sept. 22. This exhibit is being presented in conjunction with Vermont Reads, a program of Vermont Humanities Council. The 2022 title, The Most Costly Journey (El Viaje Más Caro), tells the stories of 19 migrant workers in their own words. Illustrated by New England cartoonists in a variety of styles, each...
On Thursday, Aug. 18, from 7:30 p.m. onwards, Epsilon Spires in association with Vidhi's Bollywood Film Club will present the Bollywood film, Umrao Jaan (1981), the story of a 19th-century poet and courtesan. The film will be introduced by Vidhi Salla, host of the international radio show, Vidhi's Bollywood Jukebox. Also available for sale will be Indian handicrafts curated by Vidhi, and Indian snacks and refreshments. Umrao Jaan is considered one of the most aesthetically superior Indian films that recreated...
Now in its third season, the Backlot Cinema at Epsilon Spires will present an outdoor screening of the 2019 documentary Fantastic Fungi, following a five-course dinner catered by Collar City Mushrooms of Troy, N.Y., and the Brattleboro microgreen company Grateful Greens. The event will be held on Saturday, Aug. 20, and is the first in a series of film screenings at Epsilon Spires exploring sustainable food production. “Collar City Mushrooms grew out of the acknowledgement that our food supply system...
Following months of surveillance, authorities raided a Putney Road spa on Aug. 10 and charged one person with profiting from prostitution at the site, according to Vermont State Police. Three women, whom police described as victims of human trafficking, were identified as a result of the raid at the Rainbow Therapeutic Spa, located between other businesses in a strip mall at 801 Putney Rd. Authorities believe the women employed at the business also lived and slept inside the building and...
The Putney Fossils won their second straight Connecticut River Valley Baseball League (CRVBL) title with a tidy 5-1 win over the Connecticut River Iron Men in the championship game played Aug. 14 at Gouin Field in Dummerston. Founded in 2002 by furniture maker Richard Bissell of Putney, CRVBL is a wood-bat summer baseball league for ballplayers age 20 and up. Teams hail from southeastern Vermont and southwestern New Hampshire, but it was tough finding enough players to field more than...
A celebration marking the 200th anniversary of the Marlboro Town House will be held throughout the weekend of Aug. 20 and 21 at the Town House in Marlboro Center, 510 South Road. A group of citizen volunteers - in cooperation with the Historical Society, Marlboro Alliance, Town government, and the Marlboro community - have organized a two-day exhibit featuring the many facets of this beloved historic building. The Historical Society's Archive will provide photos of the Town House on its...
I would like to thank the voters of District 8 (formerly District 2) for your support in this year's Democratic primary election. I am grateful for your vote and honored to be a candidate for this legislative district. I do not have an opponent in the general election on Nov. 8, but I plan to campaign door-to-door nevertheless. Since I was not able to do so in 2020 due to Covid, I am particularly interested to meet with old friends...
I am sitting on my back porch in the 95-plus degree weather, having just read headlines stating that Spain has put a restriction on air conditioning, and I feel like I am seeing a near future where heat becomes inescapable and more deadly. And I imagine hearing people say, “Why didn't anyone tell us? Why didn't anyone do anything to stop this?” A huge portion of our emissions - 27 percent nationwide, up to 40 percent in Massachusetts and Vermont...
Pore over the meticulously detailed court filings of the recent law enforcement action against the Rainbow Therapeutic Spa, and several things will jump out at you. For starters, it becomes obvious that a sting like this one is part of a larger law-enforcement effort - a fact that Detective Lieutenant Michael Studin of the Vermont State Police readily confirmed to The Commons on Aug. 15. “Vermont is just one stop amongst many in the country, and Brattleboro is just one...
More than 4,800 people moved to Vermont between 2020 and 2021, the highest net migration total the state has reported in at least a decade, according to Census population estimates. The trend represents a complete reversal of the previous decade, when domestic migration meant people left Vermont to move to other states, while most migrants to Vermont came from outside the country. Instead, about 4,500 of the state's new arrivals in the past two years came from other areas of...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present an evening of brass-fueled, swinging music of New Orleans by the Soggy Po' Boys, as part of the 2022 Next Stage “Bandwagon Summer Series,” on Saturday, August 20 at 6 p.m. at Cooper Field, 41 Sand Hill Road. This jazz septet brings “The Big Easy” to street corners, clubs, festivals, and concert halls, celebrating the sounds and stories of New Orleans. “The Soggy Po' Boys have spread the good news of New...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) presents famed pseudonymous art activist “Frida Kahlo” of the Guerrilla Girls on Saturday, Aug. 27, at 7 p.m., in person at Epsilon Spires (190 Main Street) and livestreamed via Zoom. Wearing her trademark gorilla mask, Kahlo will share “Trade Secrets” from the Guerrilla Girls' decades of exposing gender biases and discrimination in the worlds of art and culture. She will reveal how the activist collective creates posters, billboards, books, and actions that use...
Let's begin with what the Age of Enlightenment was. It was a time when objective thought, science and math, reason and structure, and evidence-based conclusions were a radical departure from the previous world of the tyranny of belief systems as the sole authority in one's life. The hope was that humanity had a reset, a more productive path toward understanding the world and creating a better civilization. And for a while, the premise seemed to make good on its promise.
J. Parker Huber, who died in July, was by any measure an extraordinary individual who lived, as much as anyone could live, according to his values, even when they ran contrary to much of what pass for values in 21st-century society. For decades, Parker lived a quiet life of Thoreau-like simplicity in Brattleboro. And this was quite appropriate because he was one of the country's leading scholars and researchers on the life and times of Henry David Thoreau. I came...
“World peace and friendship is not just the work of politicians; it is the work of everyday people and the founding principle of the Peace Corps,” says Peace Corps CEO Carol Spahn, visiting Brattleboro from her office's home base in Washington D.C. this past Saturday. “It is also very much a founding principle of the School for International Training (SIT) and World Learning,” said Spahn, who became the leader of the Peace Corps in 2021 as an appointee of the...