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Your support powers every story we tell. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
BELLOWS FALLS-Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark will meet with Vermonters at the Rockingham Free Public Library on Thursday, June 25, starting at noon.
Clark will be hosted by two candidates running for Windham-3 state representative seats, incumbent Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun, from Westminster, and first-time candidate Chris Lundberg, from Bellows Falls.
Clark has joined attorneys general across the nation in challenging unconstitutional executive orders as well as other federal policies. She is eager “to protect the sovereign state of Vermont against unconstitutional and illegal acts,” as she said in her news release announcing her own candidacy for re-election.
This is an election year, and all statewide officers are up for re-election. Voters are welcome to come meet Clark and learn about her role and accomplishments.
College news • The following local students at Community College of Vermont (CCV) earned associate degrees at CCV’s 2026 Commencement on Saturday, June 6: Karissa Mae Pavlovic of Bellows Falls, Moussoumakan A. Diallo Peharrie, Jessica A. Farquhar, Bethany Diane Kriger, Daelyn R. Lynn, Iyla Marie Neikirk, Carina Chelsea Reinsel,
RANDOLPH-The Board of Directors of the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ was deeply saddened and concerned over recent, widely publicized remarks about gender identity made during a Vermont Senate discussion. These remarks represented anachronistic, misinformed, and hateful views toward transgender persons, denying their dignity and humanity.
Fair and impartial policing policies to be discussed in Putney PUTNEY — The town of Putney Equity and Inclusion Advisory Committee will host a community conversation about Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy, its effects on the community, and what it means for local law enforcement and immigration Wednesday, June 17, at Putney Center School. A free dinner will be served from 5 to 6 p.m., followed by the forum from 6 to 8 p.m. Guest speakers will include Windham...
BRATTLEBORO-The Downtown Brattleboro Alliance (DBA) has received a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation to pilot a new Community Ambassador Program that will bring together local youth and young adults to welcome residents and visitors to downtown Brattleboro during major events and busy weekends. According to the DBA, the Community Ambassador Program will run from July through December 2026 and will recruit a diverse cohort of volunteers ages 15–35 to serve as friendly, visible ambassadors downtown. “Community Ambassadors will greet...
BRATTLEBORO-Vermont Theatre Company presents Macbeth, this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park production. Macbeth will run from Thursday, June 25, through Sunday, June 28 (rain dates June 29 through July 1), at Living Memorial Park in Brattleboro. “‘Macbeth will be King!’ Or at least that’s what he was told by three strange women in the forest,” said Director Liam Johnson in a news release. “But how exactly will that come to be? Surely his wife has a couple of ideas. With...
SOUTH NEWFANE-Rock River Artists (RRA), a collection of fine artists and craftspeople whose studios span Brookline to South Newfane, have welcomed three new area artists into the fold: Ed Jekot, painter and sculptor; Nancy Libby, painter; Noelle VanHendrick and Eric Hendrick, clay artists of ZPOTS. They join eight other artists on the 2026 studio tour: Brittany Bills-Coleman, painting; Chris Darrow, clay; Richard Foye, raku pottery; Gayle Robertson, painting; Gianna Robinson, painting; Deidre Scherer, thread on fabric; Matthew Tell, pottery; and...
BRATTLEBORO-As Brattleboro commemorates America’s 250th birthday, 118 Elliot presents “I Lift My Light,” a month of events including a gallery show and puppet building along with other artistic activities. The events also include community puppet building and a march at Gallery Walk, July 3, celebrating people’s visions of hope for America, symbolized by the Statue of Liberty. As part of “I Lift My Light,” 118 Elliot is working with other community groups and Bread & Puppet Theater alum Uriel Najera...
BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) representatives say it has reaffirmed its commitment to providing high-quality local maternity care while addressing the financial and workforce challenges that are affecting rural healthcare systems across the country. “Obstetric care supports the health and well-being of families and strengthens the future of our communities,” Dr. Elizabeth McLarney, acting co-CEO of BMH, said in a news release. “Our goal is to ensure that local families continue to have access to compassionate, high-quality care throughout pregnancy, delivery,
PUTNEY-A powerful reinterpretation of a classic myth comes to Sandglass Theater this June as part of the New Visions Summer Series. Penelope in First Person, performed by Keely Eastley and directed by Eric Bass, will be presented Friday and Saturday, June 19 and 20, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, June 21, at 5 p.m. Adapted from the book by Canadian poet Sue Goyette, the performance gives voice to Penelope, a character traditionally portrayed as the faithful wife waiting at home...
The Vermont Women’s Fund at the Vermont Community Foundation announced the organization has awarded $411,650 to 46 nonprofit organizations across Vermont this year. Foundation representatives say grants support programs that “advance economic security, opportunity, and health and well-being for women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals statewide.” Grant recipients in Windham County include: • Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center, Expanding the BEEC Early Career Environmental Educator Training Program; Brattleboro, $11,250. • Community Asylum Seekers Project, General Operating Support; Brattleboro, $7,500. • Ethiopian Community...
BRATTLEBORO-Looking ahead to a colorful summer, the Retreat Farm announces “Harvesting Hues,” a natural dye workshop series led by artist and educator, Kate Milliken, and featuring fiber artist Gail Callahan. The series invites participants of all ages and experience levels to explore the remarkable colors hidden in food scraps, garden plants, and the natural world. The Saturday workshops unfold with the season: start by turning onion skins and avocado peels into rich dyes in “Compost Dyeing” (June 20), then explore...
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts presents Tone Forest, a contemporary jazz trio featuring pianist Miro Sprague, guitarist Jason Ennis, and bassist Marty Jaffe, Saturday, June 20, at 7:30 p.m. at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill. Tone Forest, whose three musicians have deep roots in western Massachusetts, creates music that blends jazz, world music traditions, and spontaneous improvisation. Longtime friends and collaborators, Sprague, Ennis, and Jaffe approach the trio as a true collective with an improvisational spirit that ensures no two performances are...
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts presents a screening of New Clothes, the feature film debut from Vermont Suitcase Films, Friday, June 19, at 7 p.m. at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill. Based on the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” New Clothes re-imagines the fable through the inventive lens of Vermont Suitcase Company, a troupe “known for creating fast, funny, and accessible theater throughout Vermont,” wrote event promoters in a news release. Shot in just seven days on the...
BRATTLEBORO-The Windham County Democratic Committee will host a forum featuring Democratic gubernatorial candidates Amanda Janoo and Aly Richards. The free forum takes place Friday, June 26, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., in the International Center on the campus of the School for International Training. It will be moderated by Cindy Jerome and David Gartenstein, the town moderators of Dummerston and Brattleboro, respectively. "We look forward to a lively forum that offers meaningful opportunities for engagement and thoughtful discussion about the...
BRATTLEBORO-Performers led by Bob Marcus, artistic director of Tiny Theater, will play authors and historical figures featured on the Brattleboro Words Trail Wednesday, June 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. The performers will indulge the audience in a live interaction and play-act historical figures including Rudyard Kipling, commune leader John Humphrey Noyes, Lucy Terry Prince, Saul Bellow, Royall and Mary Tyler, Madame Sherri, Dr. Robert Ferdinand Wesselhoeft of water-cure fame, and others whose stories span 250 years of the American...
-When the spring high school baseball season started in early April, Bellows Falls head baseball coach was unsure about his team’s chances. With only two seniors and lots of sophomores, he said his team “had a lot of learning to do.” Ten weeks later, the Terriers showed they learned well, winning the Southern Vermont League B Division championship, earning the No. 2 seed in the Division III tournament and grinding their way through playoff wins against Fair Haven and Woodstock...
DUMMERSTON-Cameron Matthews, a 15-year-old from Dummerston Center who just completed his sophomore year at Brattleboro Union High School, has joined the 4% of Boy Scouts who have achieved the highest rank of Eagle Scout. Matthews was flanked by his parents, Rev. Shawn Bracebridge and John Dunham, as he stood before family, friends, and fellow Scouts from Scouting America Troop 405 to receive his award at a Court of Honor ceremony at Dummerston Congregational Church on June 7. The requirements to...
BRATTLEBORO-No one is more passionate about independent media than the fearless broadcast journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Over the past 30 years, while covering stories, Goodman has been beaten, arrested, threatened with arrest, charged with criminal trespass, and detained at borders, among other fearful things. Yet the focus of this high-energy and deeply admired woman remains single-minded: protect the First Amendment, protect free speech, tell truth to power, and, most of all, get the news out. And with Democracy...
Bill Holiday, a retired veteran social studies teacher of 48 years, believes in exposing students to primary sources in history and would introduce his students at Brattleboro Union High School to people who could tell them firsthand about their lived history. He notes that the United States Supreme Court recently weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965. DUMMERSTON-On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, declaring that...
-Last year, the young Grammy-nominated Georgia blues singer/guitarist Jontavious Willis played a concert at the Stone Church in Brattleboro. This year, blues singers Corey Harris and Sunny Lowdown gave a concert at Next Stage Arts in Putney. For multiple years, there has been a blues component to the Discover Jazz Festival in Burlington. What these shows and others have had in common is that they were co-sponsored by the Vermont Blues Society (VBS), a recognized tax-exempt non-profit that is dedicated...
BRATTLEBORO-Town Meeting season has wrapped up, and communities across Windham County continue to demonstrate strong, collective commitment to regional economic development through municipal investment in the Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS) initiative. Each year, staff from BDCC attend Selectboard meetings and Town Meetings across the region to update Selectboards on regional activity and programs that have previously received municipal investment. Staff speak to a funding request of $3 per full time resident of each town in the Windham Region...
BELLOWS FALLS-A multimedia exhibit on how rural communities across the country have creatively responded to economic and social challenges, created by the Smithsonian Institution, had its soft opening at the Rockingham Free Public Library (RFPL) on June 16. A grand opening and open house will be held Saturday, June 27. After its start in Bellows Falls, the exhibit moves on to five other libraries, historical societies, and museums throughout Vermont and New Hampshire. Three sites in each state will host...
Michael Mrowicki represents the Windham-4 district (Putney, Dummerston, and Westminster) in the state Legislature and is a longtime Putney resident. He can be reached at mike.mrowicki@vtleg.gov. PUTNEY-Hello, Equal Rights Amendment. Bye-Bye, Paraquat. Hello to CESAs. So long to forced school consolidations. These are just a few headlines from the just-concluded 2026 legislative session, one that at times felt like trying to drive a vehicle with one hand while with the other trying to ward off the current president as he...
PUTNEY-Since early May, Amanda Janoo has visited Windham County several times to deliver a message focused on local control, maximizing resources, and listening to the community. To that end, the 39-year-old Democratic gubernatorial candidate likes to start the dialogue at her meet-and-greet gatherings with an invitation to audience members to share what makes them proud of their community. At recent gatherings in Guilford and Putney, an outpouring of responses - food assistance, the local school, senior gatherings, and so on...
BRATTLEBORO-Property taxes are really high in Vermont, anda lot of folks struggle to pay them, either directly or in rising rents. One solution is to shift the cost of government to income taxes, which are a much better measure of ability to pay. Unfortunately, the D.C. insiders make sure that the heaviest burdens actually fall well below the top. A second alternative is to tax all property. The property tax arose when land ownership was a good measure of ability...
BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro poet Naima Wade joins Kwartetto Mambo for a special collaboration of poetry and music at Marigold Sunday, June 21. The local group, whose original works feature Latin, jazz, and free improvisation among other styles, consists of French horn, bass, percussion, piano, and trombone. The event features the quartet’s usual fare with the addition of Naima Wade’s work. Wade, founder of Wade Consulting Teaching Services, first came to Vermont from New Jersey as a high school student, then moved on...
