Issue #682
Whitney leads, on and off the trail
Ava Whitney, a senior at Brattleboro Union High School, is a three-sport varsity athlete in cross-country, nordic skiing, and track & field. She is also a member of the National Honor Society. She's having an excellent season for the girls' cross-country team, including a win in the Pickering Invitational at Bellows Falls Union High School on Sept. 16.
She may be a runner, but Whitney knows when to stand her ground. That's why she is leading the roundup this week for something else she did - making a little “good trouble,” as the late Civil Rights icon John Lewis used to say.
Red Door Concert Series hosts a night of ‘Moon Tunes’
The Red Door Concert Series at St. Mary's in the Mountains, 13 East Main Street, continues on Saturday, Sept. 24, with a unique concert of “Moon Tunes,” featuring musicians from throughout the Deerfield Valley. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. “Harvest Moon” is a concert of music about or inspired...
State warns that business imposter email scams are on the rise
The Attorney General's Consumer Assistance Program (CAP) is warning Vermont business owners, nonprofits, and employees about an uptick in business imposter email scams. In the last two months, CAP says it has received five reports of business imposter email scams resulting in a total loss of $210,799. “Scammers are...
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BMAC presents sensory observation workshop with artist Roberley Bell
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) presents “Walking as Learning to See,” a sensory observation workshop with artist Roberley Bell, on Sunday, September 25, at 2 p.m. Bell says sight is the dominant sense with which most people take in the world around them. She will lead exercises designed to amplify the other senses: hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Participants will explore the physical characteristics of place. The aims of the workshop are to provide participants with a method for...
Learn how to make your backyard pollinator-friendly
Master Gardeners Susan Still and Peg Solon will be joined by Jane Collister, the founder of Putney's Wildflower Pollinator Project, at the libray on Saturday, Oct. 1, at 1 p.m. Still and Solon are UVM Extension master gardeners who have studied pollinators and the native plants on which they depend. In their workshop, participants will learn who, besides honeybees, the pollinators are and how to develop a backyard habitat that is not only beautiful, but also supports these important contributors...
Residents of Wardsboro, Windham, and Londonderry can insulate their windows for winter
Town energy committees in Wardsboro, Windham, and Londonderry in collaboration with the WindowDressers organization offer assistance to residents to winterize their windows. They will sponsor a Community Build event at the Windham Meeting House from Friday, Nov. 11 through Wednesday, Nov. 16. WindowDressers is a nonprofit organization that works to improve the warmth and comfort of interior spaces, lower heating costs, and reduce carbon dioxide pollution by producing low-cost insulating window inserts that function as custom, interior-mounted storm windows. The...
All Souls Church hosts multimedia arts exhibit
“Rock, Paper, Scissors,” a multimedia exhibit by six area artists, is on view at All Souls Church in the West Village Meeting House, 29 South Street, through Monday, Oct. 31. The public is invited to a reception on Saturday, September 24, from 2 to 4 p.m. The exhibit, curated by Stuart Copans, focuses on Vermont rocks, both actual ones and those portrayed in works of art by Copans, Maisie Crowther, Don Fitzpatrick, Kip King, Steven Meyer, and Charles Siggins II.
Around the Towns
RFPL hosts in-person genealogy meetings BELLOWS FALLS - Starting on Thursday, Sept. 22, from 10:30 a.m. to noon, Wayne Blanchard will host the first of weekly in-person meetings at the Rockingham Free Public Library to help people explore their family history. One of the best free resources is the FamilySearch.org website. Attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop computer or a tablet to do some hands-on research. Library computers are also available for those who might need one. This meeting...
Balint mishandled controversy over super PAC funds
If you want some insight into the problems that current campaign finance laws create, the Vermont Democratic primary for the U.S. House may prove instructive. Windham County state Sen. Becca Balint and Lt. Gov. Molly Gray squared off in what proved to be a lopsided race. Balint handily defeated Gray. If Balint wins the general election, she will be the first woman and first openly gay member of Vermont's congressional delegation. According to VTDigger, “the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which spent...
Milestones
Transitions • Jennifer Griffey has been appointed by Brattleboro Memorial Hospital to serve as chief financial officer. Griffey is a seasoned professional with more than 15 years of combined experience in the field of healthcare finance. She has held various positions including comptroller and CFO, and has served as the assistant comptroller of a Medi-Cal Managed Care Organization in Scotts Valley, Calif. Griffey comes to BMH from Encompass Rehabilitation Hospital of Bluffton, a 38-bed facility near Hilton Head, S.C. Prior...
Curtiss Reed Jr. to receive VBSR’s lifetime achievement award
Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR), the statewide, nonprofit business association with a mission “to leverage the power of business for positive social and environmental impact,” has announced the 2022 recipients for three awards that encourage and showcase the growth and impact of socially responsible business activity in Vermont. One of its awardees is Curtiss Reed Jr. of Brattleboro, who will receive the Terry Ehrich Award for Lifetime Achievement. Reed serves as president of the CRJ Consulting Group, L3C. He...
Theatre Adventure receives grant from Wolf Kahn Foundation
Theatre Adventure, Inc. is a nonprofit organization providing year-round performing arts programs for people with disabilities and strives to educate the public about disabilities, developmental differences, and the power of the arts to inspire social change. Theatre Adventure recently received a $5,000 grant from the Wolf Kahn Foundation, which will expand Art Literacy, its expressive arts program that, according to a news release, “uses painting, puppetry, and other artistic mediums in which students with a wide range of disabilities build...
Student art work now on display at Brooks Library
Students from three housing communities in Brattleboro have created accordion books of artwork and poetry that are currently on display at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro. The project, titled “Image to Page,” took place during outdoor classes sponsored by the Art in the Neighborhood program over the summer months. Staff from the program elicited descriptive words for poems from the students while the students painted and drew. Art in the Neighborhood, founded by state Rep. Mollie S. Burke, P/D-Brattleboro, has...
‘Overflow the Opera House’ food drive benefits Our Place
It will be food instead of films when the Bellows Falls Opera House becomes the stage for the annual Overflow the Opera House food drive to benefit Our Place Drop-in Center Thursday, Sept. 22. Beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing to 4 p.m., board members and other volunteers will be on hand curbside to accept donations of food and funds to stock the food pantry at Our Place. Employees of Chroma Technology and Sonnax are also playing a role by...
Nature Museum hosts Fairy House Festival
The annual Fairy House Festival, an imaginative, nature-based tradition in the forests of Grafton, will take place on the weekend of Sept. 24 and 25, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, at The Nature Museum of Grafton, 185 Townshend Road. Volunteers create a fairyland of small structures built out of natural materials, and visitors are invited to walk the half-mile Fairy House Trail sprinkled with fairy houses, schools, boats, airplanes, libraries, carousels, and more. Participants may make their...
Jewish New Year begins on Sept. 25
Rosh Hashanah, which begins at sundown on Sunday, Sept. 25, ushers in the Jewish New Year 5783, and the sacred 10-day period known as the Days of Awe. Jewish people in Vermont - and all over the world - engage in a time of introspection. They make amends to those they have wronged, work toward forgiving others and themselves, and seek atonement (aka At-One-ment) for “missing the mark” during the year. On Rosh Hashanah, the Shofar (a ram's horn) is...
Water mains to be flushed for fall
Utilities Division crews from the Department of Public Works will start spring flushing of the town water mains on Friday, Sept. 23, at 10 p.m., and continue work through Friday, Oct. 7. Some daytime flushing will continue throughout the week of Oct. 11 through Oct. 14. Customers are asked to check the flushing schedule closely, as flushing causes water discoloration, low water pressure, and, in some areas, periods of no water. Water-main flushing will occur during both night (10 p.m.
Beth Galston to present talk, workshop at BMAC
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) will present two events in connection with the exhibit “Unraveling Oculus”: an online conversation with artist Beth Galston on Thursday, Sept. 22, and a workshop with the artist at River Gallery School on Saturday, Oct. 1. “With its seamless integration of time-based video and sculptural elements, 'Unraveling Oculus' is an immersive viewing experience,” BMAC Curator Emerita Mara Williams said in a news release. “The internal, pictorial logic and materiality of the sculptural elements...
BMAC presents concert with Roger Clark Miller on Sept. 30
Roger Clark Miller, co-founder and frontman of Mission of Burma and member of Alloy Orchestra, will present “Eight Dream Interpretations for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble” and perform songs from throughout his career at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) on Friday, Sept. 30, at 7 p.m. The first half of the concert will feature Miller's signature “Dream Interpretation” compositions, four of which he performed online in 2020 in connection with the BMAC exhibit “Transmuting the Prosaic.” At this in-person,
A multigenerational crisis
Annie Rose is driving home from visiting her son, who has been incarcerated for 15 months on a gun and drug charge. “He's in a minimum-security prison because he's never been in trouble before. I know that he's done illegal things before, but this is the first time he has been caught,” says the 75-year-old grandmother. Her son turned 54 years old the previous day. “We talked much longer than we usually do,” reports Rose, smiling. “It was a meaningful...
‘The City Without Jews,’ a 1924 satire, will play with live score
On Thursday, Sept. 22, Epsilon Spires will present the film The City Without Jews (1924) with a live soundtrack performed by klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals and the pianist and silent film accompanist Donald Sosin. Based on a bestselling dystopian novel of the same name, The City Without Jews is set in a fictional version of Vienna in the decade following World War I. The new leader of the government believes that the Jewish population has become a threat to the...
Brattleboro landlords who capitalize on a housing shortage: Shame on you
Dear Brattleboro residential landlords: I know things are tight for you these days. All those tenants who couldn't pay rent because they couldn't go to work because the entire world was on lockdown...it must have put a pretty hole in your pocket. Now there's this bloody war raging on the other side of the globe, one that has caused the price of heating oil to skyrocket. But this does not justify you capitalizing on a housing shortage. This does not...
BMH shares in federal grant money
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) is one of four rural health care providers in Vermont that will share in $2.72 million in federal funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Emergency Rural Health Care (ERHC) grant program. The announcement was made on Sept. 15 at Springfield Hospital during a gathering of health care experts, funding recipients, and congressional representatives for a panel discussion on the state of health care in Vermont convened by USDA Rural Development's Vermont and New Hampshire office.
No, it most definitely wasn’t Maggie
Of all the aspects of editing a newspaper, one of the most challenging - and rewarding - is coming up with appropriate art for the Voices section. If I do my job right, I'll find illustrations or photos that will draw readers into a piece, that will be editorially appropriate and compatible with the writing, and that, in short, will enhance everyone's perceptions and experience. When I was preparing to publish Rev. Lise Sparrow's outstanding paean to teachers - and...
WSESU board asks chair to step aside
Michelle Luetjen-Green remains chair of the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) School Board Chair - for now - but only after a chaotic meeting Sept. 14 where some board members looked to oust her from her role. The meeting erupted in shocked outcry from community members after Luetjen-Green, reading a statement, announced that she had been asked to relinquish her leadership. “Today, I received a phone call from [a supervisory union] board member asking me to step down as chair,”
When seconds count
CPR Therapeutics, Inc., a medical device startup company based here, has received a $1.6 million award of federal funding for a project to help save the lives of people who need cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. The funding is from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Direct-To-Phase II Small Business Innovation Research Award. It will go toward community efforts to build “A Multimodal Integrated System for Improved Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.” “We are over the moon!” says Dr.