After a nationwide search, the Brattleboro Food Co-op decided to stick close to home for a successor to longtime General Manager Alex Gyori.
The co-op's board of directors announced Tuesday that Sabine Rhyne will be the new general manager, effective July 1.
She is currently the manager of shareholder and community relations for the co-op.
Rhyne was selected by unanimous vote of the board. She was recommended for the position by the General Manager Search Committee, comprised of board members, shareholders and co-op staff.
The Vermont Challenge, a European-style tour bicycle riding event to be held in southern Vermont this August, added two new beneficiaries to the list of nonprofits to which it donates: Grace Cottage Hospital and Stratton Mountain Urgent Care/Carlos Otis Clinic. This year, $25 of each rider's entry fee will...
Several years ago, a student in Middlebury was struggling in high school, unsure of her future. No one in her family had ever attended college. With encouragement, she took English composition at the Community College of Vermont (CCV) during her senior year of high school. The dual-enrollment course, for...
According to the governor in a recent letter, “putting together a budget is never an easy task,” he says, as he likens the state to families deciding between “groceries and medicine” as the way to “live within their means.” The Vermont Constitution requires that the state budget should “be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people,” and state law says the state must “recognize every person's need for health, housing, dignified work, education, food, social security,
Biographer Willard Sterne Randall will share the story of a deadly 1804 duel between two of America's Founding Fathers in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on May 6 at 7 p.m. His talk, “The Duel: Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open to the public. Was it murder or suicide when the vice president of the United States killed the first secretary of...
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), March 11, 2015, a daughter, Olive Marie (Boulrice) Grindlay, to Mindy Boulrice and Jeff Grindlay Jr. of Brookline; granddaughter to Rene and Paula Boulrice Jr. of Reading, Michelle and Dave Stanch of Chichester, N.H., and Jeff Grindlay Sr. of Reading; great-granddaughter to Sally Smith of Reading, Rene and Estelle Boulrice Sr. of Palm Coast, Fla., Joan Boulrice of Westfield, Mass., and Mary Nesci of Chichester. College news • Kerry A. Howard, a psychology major...
Strolling of the Heifers has announced its 2015 theme: “Love Your Farmer.” The annual Strolling of the Heifers Parade takes place on Saturday, June 6, at 10 a.m. It is the centerpiece of a weekend full of events including a Friday, June 5 evening street festival, the 11-acre Slow Living Expo on parade day, and on Sunday, June 7, the Tour de Heifer dirt-road cycling rides, a Farmers Breakfast at The Marina, and a Farm Tour. The mission of Strolling...
Michael Finkelstein, MD, also known as the “Slow Medicine Doctor,” will present his approach to healthy living at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden in downtown Brattleboro on Thursday, April 30, at 6:30 p.m. The session, entitled “Slow Living is Healthy Living,” is sponsored by Strolling of the Heifers. Finkelstein will be joined by Orly Munzing, founder and executive director of Strolling of the Heifers, and Linda McInerney, founder and artistic director of Old Deerfield Productions. Finkelstein teaches that most...
Brattleboro homeowners, business owners, landlords, and renters who are interested in going solar will now have even more incentive. Local nonprofits, solar companies, and a credit union are teaming up to launch Brattleboro Solar Summer, a program to assist residents in choosing locally generated solar power. The campaign will run from May 1 through Sept. 30, with the goal of increasing the overall number of solar electric installations and the total solar capacity in Brattleboro. The campaign aims to have...
May Day celebration on Friday BRATTLEBORO - On Friday, May 1, the public is invited to join the fourth decade of Brattleboro's annual commemoration of May Day, International Labor Day, on the Common, beginning at 2 p.m. and finishing at 7 p.m. Take to the “soap box,” and join in the maypole, music, face painting, and food. Political literature is welcome. Perennial Swappers to meet in Dummerston DUMMERSTON - The 2015 season of the Dummerston Perennial Swappers begins on Thursday,
The two-month-old community driven forums focusing on reversing homelessness in town have reached a new phase. While previous forums have focused on identifying issues and brainstorming solutions, an upcoming forum on Thursday, April 30, will focus on the work currently underway to address and end homelessness in the Brattleboro area and further develop action steps that the community can take. The forum will take place at The Works Bakery Café, 118 Main St., in Brattleboro from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
“We're freezin' for a reason!” says the announcement for The Marina restaurant's annual Plunge For Charity. This year, as they have done every year for the last decade, participants will jump into the West River to raise money for local charitable organizations. But, they will not wait until the summer sun warms the water. The Plunge takes place in the very beginning of May - this year on Sunday, May 3, at 3 p.m. - and event organizer Dierdre Baker...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present an evening of fiddle and cello explorations of Scottish, Celtic, and global music by Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas at Next Stage on Thursday, May 7, at 7:30 p.m. With a shared passion for improvising on the melody and the groove of traditional tunes, Fraser and Haas work together, swapping melodic and harmonic lines and trading rhythmic riffs. The musical partnership between Fraser and Haas is the fulfillment of Fraser's long-standing musical...
Post Oil Solutions is engaging the arts community to help expand the efforts to raise awareness about the growing climate crisis. “Post Oil Solutions needs to find different ways to raise consciousness and engage people in a more active involvement with the growing climate crisis, the major issue affecting everyone now,” founding director Tim Stevenson says. “Over the past 14 months, we have tried to begin a larger campaign to connect with people out of the reach of traditional activist...
The Butterfly Swing Band, featuring Jack Keil on vocals, makes a return visit to Saxtons River Saturday, May 9, at 7 p.m. The band will play music of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s at the newly renovated Main Street Arts building. Tables will be set up cabaret style so there will be plenty of room on the dance floor. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at MSA, on line at www.mainstreetarts.org, or at the door. Band member and percussionist...
Brattleboro pitcher Leif Bigelow may be a freshman, but he is quickly making his mark for the varsity baseball team. Bigelow threw a two-hitter as the Colonels shut out the Fair Haven Slaters, 6-0, in a quick and tidy game at Tenney Field last Saturday morning. He struck out five, and walked only two batters in his third straight dominating effort. He held St. Johnsbury to four hits in a 8-1 win on April 18, and threw a four hitter...
The Nields will be performing songs from their latest CD, titled XVII , in honor of their 17th CD release, which honors Pete Seeger, who served as their inspiration. Sisters Nerissa and Katryna will be performing at the All Souls UU Church on 29 South St., in West Brattleboro om May 1, at 7:30 p.m. The Nield sisters have generated a huge following in New England, especially in the Pioneer Valley, as performers, teachers, authors, and inspirational mentors. XVII is...
From April 16 to 18, six teens from the greater Brattleboro area joined more than 1,600 of their peers from all over the world in Orlando, Fla., at the 48th annual National Keystone Conference. Keystone is the Boys & Girls Club of Americas teen leadership group. As a Keystone Club, the teens locally do projects about career exploration, community service, and academic success, as well as a national project designed to address issues facing teens today. The group performed those...
The Joint Commission (TJC), the nation's leading accreditation and certification organization for hospitals and healthcare organizations, has renewed the Brattleboro Retreat's Accreditation status for a period lasting up to January 2018. The Joint Commission, an independent, not-for-profit organization, accredits and certifies more than 20,000 healthcare organizations across the country. “Ongoing accreditation by The Joint Commission is one of many goals we work toward as part of our ongoing efforts to improve the hospital's performance and ensure we are providing our...
On the first Sunday in May, Circle Mountain Farm on Lee Road will host Earth Gay, an event where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) volunteers “will get dirty and have fun planting organic potatoes,” according the event's press release. Earth Gay - an event celebrating the intersection of Queer activism and Earth-based consciousness - is a collaboration between the farm, Brattleboro's Green Mountain Crossroads (GMC), and Seattle's OUT For Sustainability (OUT4S). GMC Executive Director HB Lozito, met Gerod...
Vermont Jazz Center celebrates International Jazz Day 2015 with a concert featuring students from four of the VJC's student ensembles. On Thursday, April 30, at 7 p.m., at the Vermont Jazz Center on Cotton Mill Hill, performers will include the Youth Jazz Ensemble, the Women's Jazz Harmony Ensemble, the Latin Jazz Ensemble and the Vermont Jazz Center Sextet. Each group will play a set that lasts approximately 30 minutes. The concert is free and open to the public, but donations...
In January, the Dummerston Selectboard met with the Windham County Sheriff's Department to address perceived deficits in the Department's patrolling of the town. According to the reports the Sheriff's Department sent the town, they were only patrolling five hours per month, versus the 18 {1/2} the town requested, and paid for, in its contract with the Sheriff's Department. Because the Department was “consistently under the contract hours,” said Goodband, and the town needed what they paid for, they considered using...
Members from the private and government sector are hosting a public forum about financing for local small business owners on Thursday, April 30, from 9 to 10:30 a.m., in Room 2E of the Marlboro College Grad Center at 28 Vernon St. “If you are looking to start or grow a business, this is a rare opportunity for entrepreneurs to learn about a wide variety of financing options from subject matter experts,” said Vallerie Morse of the U.S. Small Business Administration...
The Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) Board of Commissioners committed $2.55 million in federal low-income housing tax credits and $432,500 in state housing tax credits to expand Vermont's stock of affordable, energy-efficient housing. The Windham & Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) will be using some of this money to rehabilitate and improve 29 one-, two- and three-bedroom units in Brattleboro. All WWHT buildings will receive comprehensive air sealing increased insulation and window replacement. Buildings at WWHT's Green Street site will also...
Town roads 'pretty good,' road boss says NEWFANE- According to the Road Foreman's and Road Commissioner's report submitted to the Selectboard for its April 20 regular meeting, 90 percent of the roads in town “are pretty good,” said Todd Lawley, Selectboard chair and road foreman. “As the roads dry out we will shape them up,” Lawley's report said. Otis Lane was closed to all but local traffic, Lawley said, explaining, “water went under the road all winter, and once it...
During the April 20 regular Selectboard meeting, the condition of the Newfane town office's roof made itself readily apparent when rainwater started dripping on Selectboard member Michael Fitzpatrick's head. “Mike's getting dripped on. It's an emergency situation,” said Selectboard Chair Todd Lawley. Selectboard member Rosalind Fritz noted the slates from the roof have been falling down, and “there's quite a collection of them.” Selectboard Administrative Assistant Shannon Meckle said she will contact roofer Asa Goodband for his expertise. Meanwhile, the...
Pansy Festival will be held at Singing River Farm in Rockingham on Saturday, May 2, from noon until 4 p.m. The community celebration of spring will happen rain or shine. “We believe that our true security lies in relationships and so we are working to build a strong and sustainable community,” said Laurel Green, who with Steve Crofter, own the farm hosting the festival. “The Pansy Festival is a place for neighbors to talk and play with each other and...
A few weeks ago, I went with my friend Stacey to pick up her daughter from school. As my friend's daughter, Elizabeth, and two of her friends, Sarah and Lydia, piled into the back seat, Stacey told her daughter that the stuff they'd ordered for her hair had come in the mail. Elizabeth excitedly opened the box, inspecting the contents. “Mmm, this smells good,” she said as she passed the bottle of hair product around for everyone to take note...
In the summer of 1983 - I think the date was Aug. 8 - I flew from Manhattan to Boston to interview Benigno Aquino Jr., an exiled Filipino politician, for a piece in Newsweek's international edition, for which I worked at the time. I was quite young - only 26 - but I knew Boston, since I had gone to college and graduate school there, and I had worked as a researcher and reporter on a couple of stories about...
The state has refined application guidelines for the fledgling economic development program designed to help businesses and nonprofits create jobs. Created last year, the Windham County Economic Development Program looks to help revive the county's economy in the wake of losing high-wage jobs from the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. At a Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon on April 15, Gov. Peter Shumlin made his goals for the program funding clear - jobs, jobs, and more jobs.
“On My Journey,” the spring concert of the Brattleboro Women's Chorus, will be presented on Mother's Day weekend, May 9 and 10. Under the direction of Becky Graber, local women of a variety of ages will be accompanied by Lisa McCormick on guitar and Cathy Martin on piano. The repertoire includes songs of travel. An arrangement by Susan Brumfield is a combination of two traditional camp songs, “Rise, Oh Fathers, Rise” and “No Time,” that speaks of going home. “Arise...
As part of Brattleboro's First Friday Gallery Walk and May Day festivities, The Root Social Justice Center hosts the opening reception for its new Radical Lending Library at 5:30 p.m. on May 1. Organizers say people will be able to become members, borrow books, or donate books to the collection at the all-ages reception, and there will be refreshments and music. The Root Social Justice Center, located in the Whetstone Studio for the Arts on Williams Street, “provides a physically...
Dr. Robert E. Simpson Jr. has decided not to renew his contract offer and will step down from his position as president and chief executive officer of the Brattleboro Retreat on Dec. 31. Simpson, the president and CEO at the Retreat, the largest psychiatric facility in Vermont, since 2006, will accept an offer to become CEO of the World Purpose Forum in January. He will join “a new venture with a mission to empower individuals to achieve their purpose through...