BRATTLEBORO-In 2006, after two years of planning and preparation by the founders of our fledgling nonprofit, Vermont Independent Media, the first issue of The Commons rolled off the presses.
That we are still here 20 years later is entirely due to the support and unprecedented generosity of our friend, Diana Bingham, who died on May 28 at the age of 91, after living a full life with character, subversiveness, and a glint of mischief in her eye. Her obituary appears in this week’s newspaper.
She was a scion of industrial tycoons and railroad barons, and her engagement notice described her as a debutante who was presented at the Boston Cotillion. By the time she arrived in Windham County four decades later, she was not so genteel, barreling through life with bluntness and raucous zeal, using her generational wealth as an opportunity to create the world that she wanted to live in: a world of justice, peace, equality, beauty, compassion, music, and really good food.
She believed in VIM and The Commons in our early days, even if we didn’t have a long track record of success or even know how that might happen. She was practical enough to know that we never would succeed if we couldn’t afford to exist.
And she helped our efforts to succeed in so many ways, up to and including her regular enthusiastic delivery of this newspaper throughout downtown Brattleboro. Quite literally, she walked the walk, with a wagon full of newspapers in tow.
Diana Bingham was a force of nature in our community. May her memory endure in the health and stability of all the organizations that she supported. May echoes of her signature cackle of joy resonate in everything we do and all that we become. We are grateful, and we dedicate this issue to her memory.
This Voices Editorial was submitted to The Commons.
This piece, published in print in the Voices section or as a column in the news sections, represents the opinion of the writer. In the newspaper and on this website, we strive to ensure that opinions are based on fair expression of established fact. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, The Commons is reviewing and developing more precise policies about editing of opinions and our role and our responsibility and standards in fact-checking our own work and the contributions to the newspaper. In the meantime, we heartily encourage civil and productive responses at voices@commonsnews.org.