Deerfield Valley Communications Union District (DVFiber) has signed a construction contract with Sertex Broadband Solutions for the initial phase of constructing and installing a fiber optic network in southern Vermont. This marks a significant step toward making DVFiber's community-owned fiber network a reality, targeting the most underserved areas at the outset.
“We are proud to partner with DVFiber in expanding digital infrastructure in Southern Vermont,” Michael Solitro, CEO and founder of Sertex, said in a news release. “Gigabit connectivity is life-changing in rural areas, as it opens new doors for remote work, education, medical care, and economic opportunity."
DVFiber was established in 2020 to ensure that all on-grid households and businesses within the 24-member town district have access to reliable, high-speed Internet service. With this in mind, DVFiber has been working over the past three years to secure funding and establish partnerships with companies like Sertex to help it achieve its goals.
Sertex, founded in 1999, has as its mission “to deploy broadband infrastructures that are reliable, affordable, and built to last, focusing first in unserved and underserved areas.” Broadband Communities Magazine ranked Sertex as a 2022 Top 100 Fiber-to-the-Home Leader.
This month, The Walpole Players will bring Grumpy Old Men, The Musical (set in chilly Wabasha, Minnesota) to the Walpole Town Hall. Loaded with heartwarming humor and unexpected energy, Grumpy Old Men - The Musical is an unforgettable show that will remind us that “life is all about livin'!”
Created and energized in response to the 2016 national election, Southern Vermont Sister District Project's purpose is to empower local individuals in playing a role within our larger political systems. And to do so by supporting grassroots change on progressive issues in state legislatures across the United States. With...
Parks Place diaper drive now underway BELLOWS FALLS - Now through Wednesday, May 31, Parks Place, Edward Jones, and Chroma are conducting their annual diaper drive. The Parks Place “Time for a Change” Diaper Bank was established in 2016 to support local families. Diapers cannot be obtained with food stamps, and no state or federal child safety-net program allocates dollars specifically for the purchase of diapers. Buying diapers at a local convenience store rather than at a large retailer can...
The Sarasa Ensemble returns to the Brattleboro Music Center on Friday, May 12. The Season Guest concert, set for 7 p.m. at the BMC, is “Take Four! Music for Cello Quartet.” With a tip of the hat to Dave Brubeck's famous ground-breaking hit, “Take Five,” Sarasa brings the cello to the fore in music arranged and written for four cellos. It will feature a range of eras and styles, from Josquin des Prez and J. S. Bach, and Beethoven to...
The Brattleboro Concert Choir presents “Power: Music of Defiance and Strength” at Persons Auditorium in Marlboro, on Saturday and Sunday, May 13 and 14. Led by Director Jonathan Harvey, the group's performances will feature Joseph Haydn's Lord Nelson's Mass and Marianne Martines's Dixit Dominus with orchestra. “The Concert Choir is particularly excited for these concerts, since they will be our first performances with full orchestra since January 2020 - over three years ago,” Harvey said in a news release. “The...
School news • Several students at St. Michael's School in Brattleboro recently joined 100,000 students in 21 countries around the world taking the 2023 National Latin Exam and carried off an impressive list of prizes: Lily Tainter earned a cum laude (with honor) certificate. Dezrah Bills received a magna cum laude (with great honor) certificate. Anthony Bills, Sean Froula, Sam Buchanan, Hudson Buckley, Carter Buckley, and John-Paul Delabruere all earned maxima cum laude (with greatest honor) certificates and silver medals.
The Brattleboro Unified basketball team celebrated Senior Day and its regular season finale on May 1 in the BUHS gym with a 53-50 win over Hartford. With the win, Brattleboro enters the playoffs as the top seed in the Southern Division with a 7-0 record. As a result, the Colonels will have home court advantage for all of their playoff games. It made for a happy Senior Day for Joanie Tuttle, Janessa Jones, Timothy Galdamez, Marcy Galdamez, Silvia Galdamez, and...
Epsilon Spires and the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) will present a screening of Hilma by Swedish director Lasse Hallström, on Saturday, May 21, at 8 p.m. in Epsilon Spires' outdoor cinema. The film provides a nuanced portrait of the revolutionary female artist Hilma af Klint, only recently recognized as the earliest pioneer of modern abstract art. Thanks to a generous grant from the Ben & Jerry's Foundation, sliding-scale or pay-as-you-can tickets are available for those who self-identify as...
The New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA) Youth Performance Troupe presents their annual end of year show with CircusNext: the Underforest on Sunday, May 14, at 1 p.m., at their Trapezium facility, 10 Town Crier Drive. With displays of aerials, trampoline, group acrobatics and juggling, the troupe invites audiences to the Underforest, a dark and magical wood where mythological creatures creep out from ancient tales into existence. NECCA is a premiere circus educational center in the United States and...
F. W. Murnau's silent masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, 95 minutes) will be shown at Epsilon Spires on Friday, May 19, at 8 p.m. This screening will feature live accompaniment on the historic Estey organ performed by Jeff Rapsis, a New England silent-film accompanist. Sunrise tells the story of a farmer who becomes infatuated with a mysterious woman from the city and agrees to murder his wife and sell his farm to start a new life with...
The Vermont Jazz Center welcomes Renee Rosnes and Bill Charlap, who will perform on two Steinway concert grand pianos at the VJC on Saturday, May 13 at 7:30 p.m. A married couple, Rosnes and Charlap are considered among the finest jazz pianists of their generation. Charlap is an unparalleled expert on the Great American Songbook, and Rosnes is a five-time Juno Award–winning pianist/composer and artistic director of the Oscar Peterson Jazz Festival. Rosnes' and Charlap's devotion to the music and...
I do not want tax dollars going to private institutions to serve a select group of citizens/students. Many private schools are quality learning environments with caring individuals leading classrooms and institutions. However, they are in essence, if not by design, gated communities - not all students are welcome or accepted, and some who are accepted are kicked out for grades or behavior, even in open-enrollment schools. Tax dollars should not fund conditional acceptance to an educational community based on ability...
This should never happen. The violent death of Leah Rosin-Pritchard shook us to our core: Morningside House residents, Groundworks staff, board, and collaborators, the Brattleboro community. Our hearts have broken, for Leah and her family and friends, for all involved. And “all involved” expanded greatly on April 6, when the community partners of Groundworks came together to say “yes” to our ask that they carry so much of our workload. They said yes to stepping in, as invited, for three...
The torn-up miles of Vermont Route 30 between Brattleboro and Newfane is no mere repaving project, but a full-depth reclamation (FDR) of the road surface. FDR requires making several passes over the 10 miles that run from the corner of Cedar Street in Brattleboro to about a mile south of Newfane Village, just past Brook Street. During this first phase, the road is being milled and the asphalt pulverized, mixed with gravel, and compacted. This is also when the roadway...
Vermont lawmakers in both chambers have now given approval to legislation that would create an indefinitely operating universal school meals program, though it's unclear whether the governor will sign it. On May 5, the Senate voted to give initial approval to H.165, which would require schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to Vermont students. The legislation passed the House in March. “About a year ago, when I heard about universal school meals, I remember thinking to myself, 'That sounds...
As thousands of Vermonters experiencing homelessness stand to lose their state-funded emergency shelter come July, Secretary of Human Services Jenney Samuelson said she expects some of the estimated 2,500 people to “self-resolve” their lack of housing by the time the state winds down the pandemic-era program. “There are some of the individuals who we talked to in the hotels who have alternative plans, and they're waiting for the program to end before initiating those,” Samuelson told reporters at a May...
Within a mere few pages of his debut novel, Altar to an Erupting Sun, Chuck Collins of Guilford sets the stage for his heroine, Rae Kelliher, to carry out a well-planned murder/suicide. Kelliher sacrifices herself to a cause, taking out an oil baron for his role in delaying responses to climate change. Complicating the aftermath, two of the CEO's children are killed in the process. In Altar, a work of near-future eco fiction, Collins welcomes us into a world where...
Fragile as a moth's wing and vibrant as a sunset, democracy is a wonder of nature. When a nation is alive to its mysterious forces, when it allows various approaches to human flourishing and happiness, democracy feels as elemental as gravity. But when we stop believing in our capacity to handle complex issues from myriad points of view, then democracy dies. When we fear our political opponents more than we cherish democracy, we engage in behavior that undermines democratic rule.
The Marlboro Selectboard will hold a special meeting on recycling on Saturday, May 13, at 2 p.m. at the Marlboro Community Center. Residents can also attend the meeting via Zoom by going to marlborovt.us/boards-minutes/select-board, and following the link. The agenda is also linked there. In a letter to Marlboro residents, the Selectboard said that it “strongly supports recycling and the decision the town has made over the years to support a local recycling depot (drop-off area) currently located at the...
As the son of a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, I have never had a problem with the title “colonel.” I have had many a former student play for the Colonels, and I have cheered on “purple” from the stands many a time. In 2004, when the Brattleboro Union High School board ended any official use of the image of a Southern plantation–based slave-owning “colonel” as the school mascot image, it also ended the display of the Confederate flag...
Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Brattleboro, chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means, brought to the Legislature this session a bill that was very dear to her heart: a comprehensive paid family leave bill. It reintroduced a concept that is similar to bills that had been vetoed by the governor in past legislative sessions. But this year, with the Democrats having a super-majority, there would be enough votes to override a veto. And in the House, passing the bill became...
When Brattleboro Union High School rang in the Happy Days of 1950 with a new team nickname, the local newspaper warned that fans might face a potential hiccup. “The one fear of the student body in choosing 'Colonels' is that some sports-writing sharpshooter will make with the levity and call the B.H.S. athletes the Korny Kernels,” the Brattleboro Reformer wrote at the time. Few would foresee the name sparking a Civil War of sharper words. The Colonel moniker, unveiled to...
Zach Rounds, a paramedic with Rescue Inc. in Brattleboro, described his good friend Joe Thompson as “one of the hardest working people I've ever met.” Thompson, 63, died of pancreatic cancer on April 29 after an eight-month battle with the disease. He leaves a long legacy of service to the community. “I first met Joe because he did the driver's education for ambulance drivers. For over 40 years, almost every driver in our organization went through Joe's cone course. He...
America's radical right has chosen to target drag shows and transgender people in their latest assault on family values posing as a defense of family values. Shocked cries about grooming and child abuse are spewing from their mouths like pea soup from Regan in The Exorcist. The very folks who are trying to bring back child labor and want to take food out of the mouths of poor children, are now suddenly very concerned for those children's welfare. Strange that...
At the Brattleboro School of Dance (BSD), we've been in full swing, working on the final touches of our upcoming production, “Moons, Mirrors and Mirages.” This show takes the audience on a mysterious and otherworldly excursion into the past, present, and future of dance at BSD. We wander off the beaten path, guided by the light of the moon, and revel in what our reflections reveal. The moon shines light into darkness, always there to remind us of its cycles.