The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life has been spreading across the state bringing communities together to stand up against cancer. The next stop on the map is the Relay for Life of Windham County, which is proud to host this year's Relay on June 11 from noon to 11 p.m. at Brattleboro Union High School's track.
With the 2016 theme of the Olympics, participants from all over southern Vermont and southwestern New Hampshire will join to start the festivities off with this life-changing event!
Please join us for this fun family event. All participants and teams can register online for free at bit.ly/relay_bratt_2016.
Relay for Life celebrates cancer survivors, remembers those we have lost, and gives everyone the chance to fight back against cancer. Relay is a community event where teams of friends, families, schools, businesses, and organizations take turns walking at a local track. Special activities, ceremonies, and entertainment make it a fun and moving experience.
Doulas are women who provide continual informational, physical, and emotional support to women during labor and childbirth. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital has been offering free doula support for more than 12 years. Every woman who has a baby at BMH is welcome to have a doula with her during her...
Nearly 600 employees at the Brattleboro Retreat have a new, three-year contract. The organization's deal with Local 5086 of the United Nurses and Allied Professionals Union covers employees in several departments and includes the facility's numerous mental health workers. It provides for raises and an increase in the Brattleboro...
Today, the Community College of Vermont (CCV) announced a new partnership with the Vermont Department of Libraries (VTLIB) to place CCV student interns in six Vermont libraries as job hunt helpers for Vermont residents. These interns will work with Vermont citizens who need assistance using computer technology to explore careers and online education, prepare resumes and search for and apply online for jobs at the town libraries in Barre, Brattleboro, Newport, Rutland, St. Johnsbury and Winooski. The project is designed...
Economic development is already front and center in Vermont's gubernatorial campaign. Much of what has been proposed won't happen or won't make a difference. Like it or not, our state is subject to the same macroeconomic forces as the rest of the country. And the discretionary resources of our state government are simply too small to make a difference to our economy. But where Vermont's next governor can make a difference - indeed, a big difference - is in the...
Every month, a small group of volunteers from Our Place Drop-in Center fans out around the Bellows Falls area to deliver food to homebound disabled people who can't get out on their own. Long-time volunteer Paul Sackevich will visit 14 homes in Bellows Falls with a bag of staples that may include fresh produce and, more recently, a frozen meal. The outlying areas are covered by Paul Soboleski, who visits 11 homes. At River View, Kathy Leo will make 10...
The Winston Prouty Center for Child Development staff will celebrate its new ownership of the Austine School campus with a mini golf tournament at Vermont Hall. Winston Prouty hosts its second annual indoor Mini Golf Classic on Saturday, March 5, and Sunday, March 6. All community members are invited. Adults are encouraged to wear their glamorous best to Saturday's tournament for grownups. The black-tie optional evening will feature light dinner fare and a cash bar. The tournament is from 6...
College news • Benjamin Dandrea of Brattleboro, an undergraduate student in Kansas University's School of Education, was named to the school's Honor Roll for the fall 2015 semester. • Kevin Ameden of Jamaica recently participated in the 2016 Elevator Pitch competition at Champlain College. The contest, which is put on by Champlain College's Build Your Own Business (BYOBiz) Program, requires students to give a 90-second “pitch” about a business idea to an executive. • Elkanah Linder, a doctor of pharmacy...
Two upcoming workshops are designed to help employers maintain a stable, positive workforce. Local employers challenged by sustaining a stable and productive workforce can attend an “Intro to Bridges Concepts” training provided by the Working Bridges Employer Workgroup, convened by United Way of Windham County. The class, facilitated by Prudence Pease, will be held on March 4, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Brattleboro Retreat Education Center. The cost is $35 per person and includes a copy of the...
Rabies clinic in West Brattleboro on March 5 WEST BRATTLEBORO - The Brattleboro Police Association will hold its annual rabies, micro-chipping, and dog licensing clinic on Saturday, March 5, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the West Brattleboro Fire Station, 16 South St. Open to pet owners from all towns, the clinic will offer $10 rabies vaccinations and $20 micro-chipping for dogs and cats. Brattleboro dog owners will have the opportunity to renew their pet's license for 2016. Dogs...
Vermont film director Jay Craven will host a casting call on Thursday, March 3, for his new film, Wetware, which will be partially shot in Brattleboro. The picture will be produced during March, April, and early May in Vermont and other locations. The casting call will take place from 6:30 to 8 p.m., at the Marlboro College Graduate School, 28 Vernon St., in Room 2E. Craven is searching for actors, ages 19-60 for various roles. Actors should bring headshots and...
“When are we going to use this stuff?” kids often ask of teachers in school. Compass School students will apply their learning to real world needs during Community Service Winter Term, held the last week in February. During winter term, students work in teams to apply their academic learning to help address real community needs. Compass' Community Service Winter Term is organized around requests for assistance from community organizations in the region. According to a press release, as students address...
What new business ideas might emerge if a group of local farm and food entrepreneurs explored ideas with a group of local technology experts? That's what Strolling of the Heifers and the Brattleboro Area Tech group intend to find out at “Tech Salad,” a farm-food-tech business workshop on March 3 at 5:30 p.m. at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden. The goal of the workshop is to explore opportunities for ways in which these sectors can collaborate and solve problems,
After nearly two years of research, surveys, meetings, and fundraising, the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. (BDCC) is launching a new workforce development program in collaboration with regional employers and education partners. The Fast Tracks to Success program is supported by an $18,000 grant from the Vermont Department of Labor. It will be implemented throughout all four Windham Region high schools, and is designed to increase youth engagement in and knowledge of the local job market. William Anton, incoming Superintendent of...
Bill Schommer's work will appear in the Crowell Art Gallery at the Moore Free Library, 23 West St., until March 30. The Wisconsin native lived in Newfane for many years and now lives in Townshend. “As a boy growing up in small town Appleton, Wisconsin, I had dreams of becoming a world famous artist,” Schommer wrote in the newsletter for Valley Cares senior housing in Townshend. “The 'world famous' part did not quite materialize, however the 'artist' part stuck with...
The Grafton Cornet Band welcomes band players near and far to the pre-season rehearsals. This traditional community band keeps its historic, 149-year-old name although all band instruments are now welcome, not just cornets. Rehearsal dates are March 6 and 20, April 3 and 17, and May 1 and 15. Rehearsals are all on Sundays, 2 to 4 p.m., with a refreshment break, upstairs in the Old Fire Station at 217 Main St. in Grafton. Sue Lemei has taken over as...
In light of emerging demographics within the U.S. electorate (including the growing youth vote and the young women flocking to Bernie Sanders) and in view of the brouhaha about recent remarks made by Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright, I’m concerned. I’m not so bothered by the Steinem and Albright remarks when taken in context, although I was shocked by both utterances. Anyone in a moment of frustration or fatigue can make thoughtless, insulting comments that they regret immediately. My cri...
The UMass Percussion Ensemble performs at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) on Saturday, March 5, at 7 p.m. Admission is $5 at the door, free for BMAC members and youth 18 and under. The concert includes traditional music for Ghanaian xylophone; an array of 20th century works by composers such as Maurice Ravel, John Cage, Paul Lansky, and others; and music composed as recently as 2015 by Argentine composer Alejandro Vinao. “We are in the business of nurturing...
Next Stage Arts presents the second themed series of films from On Screen: Elections. Following the series on “Neo Noir,” On Screen will explore films about elections, politics, and the democratic process. The second film series includes The Best Man, No!, and Wag the Dog, presented on Mondays in March, at 7 p.m., at Next Stage Arts on Kimball Hill. On Screen provides a relaxed place to view top films and explore filmmaking. Weekly screenings are followed by discussions about...
The Windham County Sheriff's Department says it will not pursue placing the proposed Liberty Mill Justice Center in the building formerly known as the Chemco building in Bellows Falls. In a news release on Monday afternoon, the department said the decision to not move forward with the location was based on various factors, including a recent engineering study. The announcement came the day before Rockingham voters went to the polls to consider a nonbinding question on their opinion about whether...
Strong winds, with gusts as high as 85 miles per hour, raced through Vermont Monday night, knocking down utility poles and cutting power to 18,300 homes and businesses. By Tuesday morning, winds were winding down and Green Mountain Power crews had restored power to more than 12,700 customers. GMP has called in support crews from around Vermont and restored power to nearly all its customers by late Tuesday night. “Crews have been working throughout the night restoring power to thousands...
Many different laws prevent discrimination in hiring. They limit potential employers from asking questions about things such as race, religion, age, and disabilities. They do so because those items aren't relevant to whether one can do a job. Employers can ask questions to confirm that essential duties can be performed. For example, we can ask if you are available to work on Saturday mornings. We can't, however, ask if you are Jewish and then make an assumption on how that...
A half hour before the polls closed Tuesday night, a line of people waiting to vote snaked along the Municipal Center's second-floor hallway. Town Clerk Annette Cappy and her fellow election workers rushed from one part of the polling area to another. “It's been steady all day,” said Cappy. “There's not even been any times for breaks.” As election workers sorted ballots and checked the write-ins in the background, Cappy read off the unofficial votes. The town's one contested race...
Voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly supported a proposed gas-fired power plant, paving the way for developers to push forward with a 600-megawatt facility that could be built in the shadow of Vermont Yankee. There were 677 “yes” votes and 153 “no” votes in response to a simple, non-binding referendum question: “Do you support a natural gas–fired electric generating plant being located in Vernon?” Winhall resident Don Campbell, who has been leading the plant-development charge, called the results “breathtaking,” given how many...
The new town clerk is a familiar face. Voters on Tuesday elected Tim Arsenault to serve a three-year term as town clerk, giving the longtime public servant the nod over clerk candidates Melissa Ferris and Nancy Gassett. Current Town Clerk Susan Miller did not seek re-election. Arsenault has served as town moderator for 17 years and as a justice of the peace for 13 years; for the past seven years, he has chaired the Board of Civil Authority. Using the...
If the Democratic nomination for president were a football, Hillary Clinton would be poor old Charlie Brown. This time, it was New Hampshire Democrats playing the part of Lucy van Pelt. Or did they? Clinton's problem connecting with Democrats is nothing new. This time around, the trouble began with a word she thought was rightfully hers: “progressive.” She wasn't entirely wrong to assume that. On paper, Clinton's an intelligent and thoughtful woman who - when we as a country first...
Never underestimate the power of momentum when it comes to playoff basketball. After an eight-game losing streak at the start of the regular season, the Brattleboro Colonels girls' basketball team won six of their last eight games. In the process, the Colonels - particularly the underclasswomen - started to play with more confidence and coalesced as a team. And that roll has continued in the Division I playoffs. The Colonels became the first No. 14 seed to advance to the...
The Vermont Jazz Center welcomes legendary pianist Fred Hersch to its Cotton Mill venue on Saturday, March 12, at 8 p.m. Hersch will be performing with his working trio of Jon Hébert (bass) and Eric McPherson (drums). Hersch is one of the leading jazz pianists in the world. Through his commitment to originality, embrace of romanticism, mastery of the bebop language, and chameleon-like ability to blend genres Hersch has carved out a unique niche that is - as Duke Ellington...
A deformed humanoid creature with the features of a bat is discovered in a cave in West Virginia. The stuff of musical comedy? Hardly. But that is the premise of Bat Boy: The Musical, which opens Friday, March, 4 for a two-week run at Main Street Arts. Not for the faint of heart, this show is an edgy exploration of the themes of hypocrisy, acceptance, forgiveness, racism, revenge, and scapegoating, with a not-so-healthy dose of vampirism, botched experiments, potential incest,
Visual artist Robert McBride, the founding director of the Rockingham Arts & Museum Project (RAMP), says he does not like to think of Bellows Falls as an artist community. He prefers to see his adopted hometown as a community where artists live. Even if the mission of RAMP may be “to integrate the arts in the long-term sustainability of the community,” McBride does not want to suggest that such a championing of the arts has any hierarchal implications. “I am...
There likely won't be any school-merger votes in the near future for one of Vermont's biggest supervisory unions. At a meeting on Feb. 24 held at Guilford Central School, most members of Windham Southeast Supervisory Union's (WSESU) Act 46 Study Committee said they believe it is no longer feasible to pursue an “accelerated” merger of all of the union's school districts. Instead, they advocated taking more time to pursue other merger options. The committee didn't take a vote on the...
The first truck containing contaminated groundwater has departed from Vermont Yankee, and many more will follow. At a Feb. 25 meeting in Brattleboro, Entergy administrators disclosed that they have begun shipping the fluid - which is flowing with unexpected intensity into the plant's turbine building - to a disposal site in Tennessee. Officials have said the water is contaminated with relatively low levels of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. But as the liquid leaves the Vernon plant in quantities...
If you find yourself appreciating the austere beauty of Vermont's mountains and valleys in this pseudo-winter, but are desperate for spring color, search no more. There is color and form to spare in Myles Danaher's new collection of landscape paintings at the Dianich Gallery in the Hooker Dunham Building. The exhibit will open with an artist's reception on Friday, March 4, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Curated by Catherine Dianich Gruver with Dan Sherry, the paintings, representing “a little over...
How do you extract a 40,000-pound road grader from a 6-foot deep sink hole? According to Public Works Director Steve Barrett, in the case of Black Mountain Road, the driver of the grader used the vehicle's steel underblade to push the whole machine back to solid ground. Last week, heavy rains damaged a portion of the road. Because the stream beds were full, DPW crew members couldn't see the extent of the water damage until a hole 6 feet wide...
It's safe to say Louis Josephson has his hands full. As the Brattleboro Retreat's new president and chief executive officer, Josephson is in charge of more than 800 employees and an array of programs including 122 inpatient beds for children and adults; multiple outpatient offerings; a school; and a busy “hub” for treatment of opiate addiction. Josephson has taken the reins of a community institution with 182 years of history, along with a more-recent history of difficulties with federal and...
Aside from a few scattered power outages, Town Meeting Day in Windham County on Tuesday was relatively tranquil. Here's a look at some of the highlights in a number of Windham County towns as reported by press time on Tuesday night. School budgets approved without much debate • In Dummerston, voters approved a $3,475,661 school budget in under an hour, and gave the School Board a round of applause for decreasing education spending by under 5 percent. The drama instead...