Lawmakers from county offer progress report
Following the Legislature's annual hiatus for Town Meeting Day, local lawmakers are back on the job trying to keep a very full agenda on track.
Lawmakers in Montpelier last week were trying to tie up loose ends on budget bills in time for crossover day March 22, when the legislation in process would go from House to Senate or vice versa. The crossover deadline for policy bills had come on March 15.
Milestones
College news • Colton Butler of Whitingham was recently recognized at the Elmira (N.Y.) College Rho Mu Chapter of Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education induction ceremony for outstanding education majors. Obituaries • Phyllis A. Benay, 67, of Brattleboro. Died March 13, after seven years living with...
Around the Towns
Brattleboro dog licenses due April 1 BRATTLEBORO - Brattleboro dog and wolf-hybrid licenses are available for the 2019 licensing period. Vermont dogs and wolf-hybrids 6 months and older must be licensed on or before April 1. Renewal licenses may be obtained in person at the Town Clerk's office, through...
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Work of painter Stephen Redmond on display at 118 Gallery
118 Gallery welcomes painter Stephen Redmond for the month of April. His show at 118, “Sarasota Incognita,” brings together many of the paintings from Redmond's years working in Florida. There will be an opening reception April 5, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Otherwise, the gallery is open on Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m., and by appointment. Redmond began to paint in 1989, at the age of 40. Within a year, he had designed and begun construction of a 32-foot...
BMAC to host pysanky egg-decoration workshop March 30
On Saturday, March 30, from 1 to 4 p.m., acclaimed pysanky artist and instructor Jenny Santa Maria will lead a hands-on workshop at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center on the traditional Ukrainian folk art of egg decoration. Participants will leave the workshop with a beautiful decorated egg. Pysanky technique is similar to batik. Patterns are drawn on an egg with hot beeswax, which protects covered areas from subsequent applications of colored dyes. When the wax is removed, a multi-colored...
BUHS Chorus Concert set for March 28
The Brattleboro Union High School Music Department presents a choral concert, “Noteworthy,” on Thursday, March 28, at 7 p.m., in the high school auditorium. No admission will be charged for this event, and the public is invited to attend. “Noteworthy” is a play on words, as each piece selected for this concert contains lyrics of significance. The ensembles have analyzed the poetry, researched its historical significance, and discussed their personal connections to the text of each piece. Some of this...
‘Bayou party’ to benefit Brattleboro Women’s Chorus
To celebrate the coming of spring, and to benefit the Brattleboro Women's Chorus, the Vermont Jazz Center is hosting a Bayou-themed dance party with three local dance bands. The event on Sunday, April 7, from 5 to 8 p.m., will present music hailing from the Louisiana Bayou to the streets of Brazil and from points all over the Afro-Creole culture sphere. Featured will be two of Brattleboro's signature New Orleans roots music ensembles, Bayou X and the Celebration Brass Band,
Hilltop Montessori seeks to be the first fully-accredited Montessori School in Vermont
This month, Hilltop Montessori School welcomed three outside accreditors from American Montessori Society for a multi-day site visit. This was the final step of an initiative that supports ongoing commitment to achieving standards of excellence and is the highest level of recognition bestowed by the Society. Hilltop Montessori School has been part of the southern Vermont education community since 1972. Two years ago, the school decided to undertake the AMS accreditation process. Currently, only about 15 percent of AMS member...
Winter Sunshine series concludes at Sandglass Theater with 'The Pirate, The Princess, and The Pea'
Sandglass Theater's Winter Sunshine series concludes its 12th season of family puppet shows with The Pirate, The Princess and The Pea by Crabgrass Puppet Theatre on Saturday, March 30, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., at Sandglass Theater. Pirate lore meets fairy tale in “a swashbuckling pirate and princess adventure story,” according to a news release. A pirate and a princess are on a treasure hunt, searching for the same prize. The princess stays one step ahead of the pirate...
WSESU sponsors special showing of ‘Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age’
Windham Southeast Supervisory Union will be sponsoring a special screening of Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age on Wednesday, March 27, at 6:30 p.m. at Brattleboro Area Middle School. Screenagers has been screened more than 7,000 times to two million people in more than 60 countries around the world. With multiple screenings happening daily in communities across the globe, Screenagers is the first feature documentary to explore the impact of screen technology on kids and offer parents and families...
The cycle of attempts and failure is a part of education
Respecting the pupil means teaching each pupil how to learn based on what she or he wants to learn. If the mission of each school is to produce ethically sound, productive, lifelong-learning members of society, then we as educators must engage, inspire, and allow them the opportunity to discover the passion that lies within themselves. It has been said that one should not let schooling get in the way of one's education. Actually, schooling often means training; however, it also...
BDCC will host 'Sophomore Summit‘ to help students with career planning
On April 10, hundreds of high school sophomores from across Windham County will participate in the Sophomore Summit, the largest career awareness, exploration, and planning event of the year. With more than 30 different employers and organizations represented, students can see the variety of opportunity in their own backyards and the pathways to get there. According to a news release, the day-long summit is designed to help students better understand career options and the pathways to reach them. Students will...
American Cancer Society hosts Relay For Life kickoff celebration
The American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Southern Vermont will hold a free kickoff for the annual event on Saturday, March 30, at American Legion Post 37, 42 Rockingham St. Doors will open at 1 p.m. and the event will end at 4 p.m. The kickoff is free and open to the public and serves as opportunity for the community to learn about how to help the American Cancer Society save more lives from cancer. “Kickoff is a great...
Marlboro College celebrates season with Sugar Rush 2019
Marlboro College is pleased to announce Sugar Rush 2019, an Annual Fund challenge celebrating the sugaring season and culminating with a sugar-on-snow event on April 3. With a total goal of reaching 225 donors, the college stands to unlock $350,000 in challenge funds donated by generous trustees and friends. “We are really putting the 'fun' into fundraising with this campaign,” said Rennie Washburn, director of advancement at Marlboro, in a news release. “The snow is melting, the birds are singing...
Helen Sung brings her ‘Sung With Words’ project to VJC
The Vermont Jazz Center welcomes Helen Sung and celebrates her Chamber Music America-sponsored project, “Sung With Words” on Saturday, March 30, at 8 p.m. This show is a rescheduled date from a snowed-out event on Jan. 19. The pianist/composer will present a new body of work that embodies the alliance of poetry and jazz and then takes it to new places. The performers in the octet are Helen Sung (piano and composition), Jason Palmer (trumpet), John Ellis (woodwinds), Charenée Wade...
On the front lines
Members at this year's Annual Representative Town Meeting approved a 1-percent local-option sales tax, a measure projected to add more than $600,000 to the town's coffers. That decision prompted a spirit of generosity in some of the Town Meeting members - one that sometimes began to seem like a spending spree. After considering suggestions that included doubling the allotment for human services and even putting all the new revenues into that budget line, members also approved a 15-percent across-the-board hike...
Representative Town Meeting takes sharply progressive turn
After several years of nickel-and-diming the municipal budget to reduce spending, members at this year's Representative Annual Town Meeting took a notably different direction. In a marathon 13-hour session on March 23, members ended up with a $17.5 million budget for the 2020 financial year, including an increase in spending for human service organizations and for measures to address energy efficiency and climate change. Meeting members also authorized an additional 1-percent local-option sales tax, championed as a new revenue stream...
The Woods Tea Co. returns for concert at Stone Church Arts
Like maple syrup, fall foliage, and baked bean suppers, the Woods Tea Company has been synonymous with New England since the early 1980s, when the band was formed. On Saturday, March 30, at 7:30 p.m., the trio of Howard Wooden on bass and guitar, Patti Casey on guitar and flutes, and Pete Sutherland on fiddle will perform at Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St. In various permutations, Woods Tea Company has been entertaining audiences throughout the U.S. since 1981 with...
Soup Fest will benefit West River R.R. museum
The Historical Society of Windham County's fifth annual Soup Fest and Silent Auction fund raiser will be held on Sunday, March 31, at the NewBrook Fire Station on Route 30. The event will help raise funds for the Historical Society of Windham County's West River Railroad Museum. These restaurants along the West River Railroad's “36 Miles of Trouble” from Brattleboro to South Londonderry will offer samples of their homemade soups: Whetstone Station, Brattleboro; Top of the Hill Grill, Brattleboro; Rick's...
Riparian buffer plantings along Saxtons River to address erosion, flood plains
The Windham County Conservation District, with the support of a grant from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, has identified and is working on installing vegetative buffers along the banks of the Saxtons River to address erosion and improve flood plains. Riparian buffers are vegetated strips of land along rivers that support a healthy stream system. Buffer plantings with native grasses, shrubs, and trees provide organic material to the river for habitat and food for aquatic species. A vegetated bank...
Marlboro College, WWAC resume ‘Engage The World’ series
April brings another opportunity for Brattleboro-area community members to “go to college” for two Wednesday evenings and find out what students at Marlboro College are learning. On April 3 and 10, the partnership between Marlboro College and Windham World Affairs Council, which brought two distinguished speakers in February to participate in the seminar course designed by Marlboro College President Kevin F.F. Quigley, will resume with two new talks. Given the critical and turbulent times in which we live, Quigley has...
Dr. Thomas Lewis exemplified the best among physicians
I owe a debt of gratitude to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital Surgeon Thomas H. Lewis, who died unexpectedly earlier this month while on vacation. I first met Dr. Lewis in the old emergency room. The on-duty physician - an out-of-the-area doctor on loan to BMH - was verbally abusive. I was in distress, facing emergency surgery, which I understood would be under the knife of that horrible individual. Then, Dr. Lewis showed up. He had left a family picnic on a...
Kudos to the Putney road crew
I want to give a giant shout out to the Putney road crew! All of us who travel the gravel roads know that this has been one of the toughest mud seasons in the last 10 years. We've seen even high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicles get completely stuck in the mud just a couple of hundred yards up the road. But our incredibly dedicated road crew gave it their everything, all over town - even coming out on a Sunday to dump...
Selectboard candidate inspired by campaign
After I lost the Selectboard race, many people reached out with condolences. I told them all the same thing: I wasn't disappointed or discouraged. I was inspired. I met so many new people through my campaign. Their ideas fired my imagination, and their knowledge and experience stoked that fire. My desire to contribute to town government and to help shape our town's future is even stronger now than it was before I ran. Thank you to Franz Reichsman, Elizabeth McLoughlin,
Candidate humbled by election to Brattleboro Town School Board
I was truly humbled by the show of support that I received on March 5 in my election to the Brattleboro Town School Board. Prior to being sworn into office, I attended school board meetings, talked with individual members of of area school boards, and had the chance to testify as a citizen before the Senate Education Committee. Many people are working on finding a suitable compromise that would allow some form of delay to forced school mergers, while the...
Being real when our house is on fire
As Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg has so accurately identified our crises, climate-induced social collapse is not something that might happen in our children's or grandchildren's time. It is occurring right now. People typically don't respond well to attempts to frighten them into being actors in their lives. It only further exacerbates their sense of powerlessness and hopelessness. That being said, there is also nothing to be gained by either ignoring or denying the current dire state of our...
Community Center announces partnerships in Guilford
Broad Brook Community Center in Guilford has just finalized partnership agreements with Guilford Cares, Inc., and the Town of Guilford, in addition to an earlier such agreement with Broad Brook Grange. In announcing the agreements in a news release, Don McLean, chair of the Center's Programs and Partnerships Committee, noted that these relationships both provide support for the Community Center and guarantee that there will be plentiful ongoing activities in the building. “Our Partnerships are intended as two-way relationships with...
Unlike sales taxes, property taxes are progressive
Based upon the letters from Selectboard members responding to the Viewpoint from the board of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, it appears they felt personally criticized by the comments. That was not my intent; there are real problems with Vermont's economy that create challenges for our towns. The piece was trying to advocate for policies that build our commercial grand list rather than depress certain economic segments that are already in decline. BDCC and SeVEDS own those economic problems, but...
Thanks to Thompson House for rescue of passengers stranded in Massachusetts
Brattleboro Housing Partnerships publicly thanks the people at Thompson House Rehabilitation and Nursing Center for their collaboration and generosity. On March 21, BHP Support and Services at Home staff took a group of 10 seniors and adults with disabilities to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory in Deerfield, Mass. Several people in the group had limited mobility. After enjoying the conservatory, the group was ready to head home, only to find that the BHP van was not working properly. The wheelchair lift...
Town school budget passes despite uncertainty of Act 46
Representative Annual Town Meeting members considered seven school-related articles and 24 municipal-related articles during their 13-hour annual meeting on March 23. In addition to the human services articles, the 1-percent local-option sales tax, and energy/environment/climate change spending [see main story], members of the body made a number of other decisions. School funds approved - just in case Members started their day by approving all school-related items. The $15,368,219 budget for fiscal year 2020 was approved, after some discussion and much...
One day of wonder and heartbreak
The Ides of March gave us the most dire and wonderful contrast of living in the present. I attended two amazing, inspiring and well-peopled actions in Brattleboro organized by youngsters who are terrified of the potential of climate change to derail their future lives. There, children as young as 6 were speaking out clearly and with understanding about the need for radical change in the way we produce and use energy and goods. I am a mother and a grandmother,
Murder and mayhem in ‘Chicago’
The stage is set as Main Street Arts prepares to raise the curtain on murder and mayhem at the Cook County jail when its production of Chicago opens Thursday, March 28. The longest-running American musical in Broadway history will have a two-weekend run at the Bellows Falls Opera House, with shows Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, March 28-30 and April 4-6, at 7:30 p.m., with Saturday matinees both weeks at 2 p.m. The Jazz Age setting in Chicago's Cook County jail...
Warming trend through Saturday leads to showery Sunday
Good day to you, fine folks of southeastern Vermont! As high pressure tracks east of our region for the second half of the week, we will be placed into a warming, southerly flow. Aside from some scattered showers Thursday night into Friday morning, we will enjoy fair and increasingly mild weather conditions through Saturday, by which time we could crest 60 degrees in some towns! Sunday looks showery as a cold front works through the region, with cooler, seasonable and...
Local nordic skier brings home the gold at Masters World Cup
It's not that often that a coach draws inspiration from their athletes to get back into high-level competition. It's even more unusual that the return to a sport after a long absence results in medals. Dave Johnston has been a co-coach, along with Amanda Dixon, of the Brattleboro Union High School nordic ski team for the past four years. A retired teacher who has lived in Brattleboro since 1981, the 65-year-old Johnston used to race competitively until about two decades...
Ten years later, still a hole in our hearts
Ten years ago on March 23, my wife, Kathy, and I lost our 21-year-old firstborn, Will, to a heroin overdose. He was a competitive skier who graduated from Carrabassett Valley Academy at Sugarloaf, Maine in 2006, a successful third-year molecular genetics major at the University of Vermont, and a caring, affectionate, and attentive son. We noticed absolutely no manifest signs of opioid use. Will was extremely bright and was beginning to investigate applying to medical school. His goal was to...