• Lawrence G. Brooks of Jamaica. Died April 13. He had many talents and admirable qualities, including a generous and selfless spirit. He was a hard-working man, with an early career at Stratton Mountain Resort followed by many years at C & S Wholesale Grocers. He was a doting son to his mother, Della, and a caring brother to his siblings David, Ronnie, and Shirley. He was predeceased by his much-loved wife of 50 years, Jean Brooks, and his brother, David. He leaves behind his sons, Larry and Robert, his daughter, Susan, and six grandchildren. MEMORIAL INFORMATION: Donations to honor his life may be sent to the Grace Cottage Hospital Foundation at P.O. Box 1, Townshend, VT 05353, or by calling 802-365-9109.
• Jan Paula Chamberlain, 63, of Wardsboro. Died April 7 at her home. She was born Jan. 16, 1953, in Mount Kisco, N.Y. In 1971, instead of graduating from high school, she decided to hitchhike across the country with her future husband, Arthur Chamberlain Jr. (she did eventually complete her degree from John F. Kennedy High School). After traveling 13,000 miles across the country and parts of Canada for a little over a year, they got married in 1972 and finally settled down in Atlanta, where she gave birth to her first son, Joshua. In Atlanta, she worked as a duo with Arthur cooking in a restaurant. Three years later, she gave birth to her daughter, Ivy, in Vero Beach, Fla., while studying to be a nurse. Her next move was to Kent, Conn., where she and her husband bought and operated the Bulls Bridge Inn. Zackary, her second son, was born during the renovation of this latest endeavor. After the sale of the restaurant, Jan and her family returned to Yorktown, N.Y., completing...
Sunday, April 24, will be a busy day for Windmill Hill Pinnacle Association (WHPA) devotees and lovers of forests and cellar holes. At 2 p.m., forester Silos Roberts and Andy Toepfer, who does natural-resource mapping and cartography, will lead a walk entitled “Whys and Hows of Forest Management for...
Retting Place closure in Brattleboro BRATTLEBORO - Effective immediately, Retting Place will be closed at Green Street for several weeks. This closure is part of the Green Street Wall Project. Access to Retting Place will be from High Street. Motorists are advised to use alternate routes while this project...
Two members of the Brattleboro Boys & Girls Club have been named to serve on the steering committee for the “diplomas 2 Degrees” (d2D), conference in June. Jordan Baldwin-Page and Derrick Harnish, both of Brattleboro, spent two days with youth from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut planning the three-day conference. The d2D conference is being hosted again this year by The Boys & Girls Club of Manchester N.H. d2D is the Boys & Girls Club's college-readiness program, providing a range...
The Vermont Small Business Development Center (VtSBDC) of Brattleboro is sponsoring a workshop, “3 Secrets to Successful Conflict Management,” at the Marlboro College Graduate Center, Room 2E, in Brattleboro on Tuesday, April 26, from 9 a.m. to noon. The workshop starts from the premise that while some conflicts are unavoidable, conflicts often present opportunities for growth and improvement. According to a news release, “effective conflict-management skills give people the ability to identify and handle conflicts wisely, objectively, and powerfully. How...
On Saturday, April 23, the Connecticut River Watershed Council (CRWC) will host Adair Mulligan presenting “The Connecticut: New England's Great River.” This free program is open to the public and will be held at the Keene Public Library at 1 p.m. CRWC staff will be on hand for questions afterward. The largest river in New England, the Connecticut rises in a small beaver pond near the Canadian border and flows more than 400 miles through four states, falling 2,670 feet...
Karen Becker will display her monoprints, watercolors, pastels and oils at the Putney Public Library at 55 Main St. during April and May. This collection contains some of Becker's favorite works from the past 25 years. The drawn and painted images primarily focus on themes involving nature. “My paintings celebrate the joy of seeing and beauty of nature,“ Becker says. Becker teaches watercolors to adults in her home and studio on Saturdays in Westminster West. She is a graduate of...
For the past three years, the Arts Council of Windham County has collected votes for “The People's Choice Awards” at each venue of the High School Student Art Show. This year, votes were collected for the 2-D show at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden and for the 3-D show at Vermont Artisans, both located on Main Street in Brattleboro. The Arts Council of Windham County has sponsored this show of student art from seven high schools across the county...
In an age where the long-promised “picture phones” are finally here via computer programs such as Skype, what does that mean for attendance at public meetings? The Selectboard debated this question at their March 30 regular meeting when they discussed adopting their rules of procedure. Board member Joe Cook brought up the item after noticing the Development Review Board had their rules of procedure posted on the town's website. “I thought, 'well, the Selectboard should have some rules,'” Cook said.
The first round of auditions for Southern Vermont Idol will occur on Saturday, April 23, at the event's new home in Bellows Falls at The Moose Lodge, 59 Westminster St. Participants should use the auditorium stage entrance on Henry Street, which will be marked. Youth and adults will audition in different time slots. Youth ages 6-12 are scheduled between 2 and 4 p.m., and adults and teenagers 13-and-over from 6 to 8 p.m. Contestants may perform a song of their...
Belly dancers from across Vermont and New England will come together Saturday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m., at the Vermont Jazz Center for the third annual Goddess Rising, a night of celebration and ritual honoring fertility, renewal, growth, birth, and the goddesses of spring. More than a dozen belly dancers will debut theatrical dance performances inspired by the blossoming of spring. The Goddess Rising roots were planted in the fall of 2013, when Kelsey Captolia Indziniak, a belly dancer and...
Two 11th-graders from Leland & Gray Union High School, Anthony Carona and Kelsey Hescock, are co-artists for the month of April at the Wardsboro Public Library. Both are Wardsboro residents. Carona started drawing dinosaurs at the age of three. In middle school, influenced by Japanese animation, he adapted his drawings to computers. Now he hand-draws and hand-inks his artwork, then scans and colors it with Adobe Illustrator, which he uses to animate it as well. Carona designed costumes for the...
United Way of Windham County's sixth annual Adult Dental Care Day takes place Saturday, May 7, starting at 7:30 a.m. Registration is at the Elks Lodge on Putney Road. Windham County residents in need of dental care they couldn't otherwise afford will receive dental care from local participating dental offices and their staff who donate their time and expertise. There is a suggested donation of $20 per person. Dental procedures provided include saving damaged teeth, extractions, and fillings, as well...
The public is invited to join Vermont educators to directly nominate teachers for the prestigious statewide distinction of Teacher of the Year. The winner will serve as an advocate for Vermont's teachers, students, and education system. Nominations can be completed through May 31. To encourage more submissions, the process has been simplified to require only the most basic information about the nominator, the nominee, and their school, as well as a short overview of what makes the nominee an extraordinary...
“Preachers and Poets,” the third collaborative poetry reading by Tom Ragle and Don McLean, will be presented on Thursday, April 21, at Guilford Community Church at 7 p.m. Admission is by a donation in any amount to benefit the work of the church. This program, the third in the series, takes its title from the fact that four of the poets were also ordained ministers in three different denominations, with Anglicans George Herbert and Robert Herrick, and, at nearly opposite...
Katy's Great Food in Putney is hosting an art show of student work from fifth graders at The Grammar School through April. The paintings are based on the work of Giorgio Morandi, an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still-life compositions involving everyday jars and bottles. “This project is one of my favorites because it captures so many elements of deep learning in such a straightforward form,” art teacher Hannah Richards said. Through the process of making these paintings,
On April 9, the Hatch, with its Storytellers on a Mission event, raised $30,000 to support Youth Services, this year's beneficiary. We thank the nationally celebrated storytellers who donated their talent to tell moving and hilarious stories: Bethany Van Delft, Ian Chillag, David Rees, Bill Torrey, Tom Bodett, and host Michelle Buteau. We are very grateful to the Hatch organizers, without whom this wouldn't have happened. We thank the event sponsors and the benefactors, whose contributions totaled more than $8,000...
Although Derrik Jordan doesn't particularly like being labeled a world fusion artist, he is pragmatic about it. “I'm like my good friend Will Ackerman, who is not fond of having his music being saddled with the label 'New Age,'” says Jordan. “But Will realized that however much he dislikes the term, and however inappropriate it seems to him to describe what he creates, that name is a way for people to come to his music, and [tells them] where to...
Brattleboro Utilities Division crews will start spring flushing of the town water mains on Thursday, April 21, at 10 p.m. and continue through Saturday, May 7. Some daytime flushing will continue throughout the weeks of May 9 and 16. Water main flushing will occur during both night and day. Customers are asked to check the flushing schedule closely, as flushing causes water discoloration, low water pressure, and, in some areas, periods of no water. Night flushing will take place from...
Strolling of the Heifers will present the “Walk for Amber StorySlam,” hosted by Hillary Boone of the Vermont Comedy Divas, on Saturday, April 30, at 7 p.m., at the River Garden on Main Street in Brattleboro. Based on the enthusiastic response to the 2015 StorySlam, organizers expect a large turnout. The StorySlam is a competitive storytelling “open mic” with a panel of six judges and a comedian host. Contestants are selected from audience volunteers to tell a five-minute, true story...
I thank the Town Arts Committee for bringing forth an idea that has been floating around for a while: utilizing some of the funding from the meals and rooms tax for marketing our town, to bring in more visitors, and thereby increasing revenue from that tax. It's an important concept, whose time has come for discussion. I also recognize the Town Arts Committee's attempt to “unite the efforts of local arts and business groups.” While another committee is not necessary...
Though some are worried that Entergy could run out of cash before cleaning up Vermont Yankee, the company is projecting a significant - and growing - surplus at the end of its obligations in Vernon. Entergy's latest Nuclear Regulatory Commission filing shows $190.6 million left in the plant's decommissioning trust fund at the end of Vermont Yankee's decommissioning in 2075. That's $9.3 million more than the surplus the company estimated a year ago. “What's being borne out now ... is...
We unloaded the kids from the minivan after our weekly family date night at the pizzeria. After we shuffled them all inside and started to wash the tomato sauce off them, we sat them in front of the TV to watch their favorite show: America's Funniest Home Videos. My 2-year-old calls it “People Falling Down” and my 1-year-old calls it “Cats.” Both are accurate. With them snuggled in and clean, I thought I could make a rare pre-bedtime escape. “I'm...
It has been a century since Vermont redistricted schools into our present configuration. In fact, the state used to have more than 2,700 school districts prior to reorganizing into a structure very similar to what we currently have. I am not familiar with all of the history surrounding this long-distant reorganization. It was likely very contentious; change is always hard. Act 46 attempts to reorganize Vermont's existing 267 districts into something more efficient and better suited to produce better results...
Thank you to Mia Feroleto for this thoughtful, well-written, and persuasive essay. Many share her frustration with the Legislature's failure to support cannabis cultivation. With leadership by Jeanette White, Windham County's delegation has voted in favor of the bills. However, fearmongers have convinced the majority of other legislators that Vermont isn't “ready” for legalized cultivation. Perhaps they judge their fellow Vermonters to be less responsible than folks in Alaska, Colorado, Washington state, and Washington, D.C. Though there have been a...
The changing of the guard continued at the April 12 regular meeting of the Planning Commission, with a welcome to two new members and a resignation from one of the incumbents. Citing family and work obligations and a sense of fatigue after 12 years of service, Brian McNeice announced at the meeting's close that he was stepping down, effective immediately. His term was set to expire in 2017. The meeting began with Turner Lewis and Kaitlin Stone being welcomed onto...
On April 5, the Selectboard appointed Turner Lewis and Kaitlin Stone to the Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA), following its final closed-door interview with incumbent Linda Lyon. The nominations prompted a tense discussion about why the board chose these candidates over Lyon and Stephan Chait, the two board members who were seeking reappointment. The shakeup in the board composition followed months of local controversy over the ZBA's denial of an application for a conditional use in the...
The Planning Commission has moved one step closer to a town vote this summer on whether to repeal all town zoning bylaws, issuing a state-mandated report about the consequences of such an action and setting May 10 as the date of its public hearing to discuss the proposal. A public petition signed by approximately 130 voters was presented to the Selectboard in February with an expectation that it would be voted on at Special Town Meeting. The report, which will...
In expressing interest in two open seats on the Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Adjustment [“Board vets candidates for Planning Comm./ZBA,” Town & Village, March 30], Linda Lyon and Stephan Chait wrote short letters of interest to the board; Turner Lewis and Kaitlin Stone spoke to Selectboard Chair Lewis Sumner at Annual Town Meeting. In addition, owing to an editing error, the public hearings on the conditional use permit for the quarry were conducted over five months, not 18...
Mondo Mediaworks 139 Main St., Suite 701, Brattleboro 802-451-0828 • Website: mondomediaworks.com • Faceboook: facebook.com/mondo.mediaworks.vt • Twitter: twitter.com/mondomediaworks • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/mondo-mediaworks • Founded: 2010 • Corporate structure: Closely held Vermont domestic profit corporation • Employees: 13 • Services: Video production, social media, public relations, email marketing, advertising. • Some clients: The Putney School, Landmark College, Vermont Performance Lab, Marlboro College, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Windham Regional Career Center, RideVermont, Hyde, Professional Association of Innkeepers International, Oak Meadow Curriculum and...
On Tuesday morning, a big part of Vermont Yankee's footprint vanished. That's because the shut-down nuclear plant's 10-mile emergency planning zone, which touches 18 towns in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, expired due to a license change approved last year by federal regulators. The EPZ's demise means there will be no more sirens or tone-alert radios to warn residents of an incident at the Vernon facility, where radioactive spent nuclear fuel is expected to remain until 2052. But Entergy administrators...
The Vermont Interpreter Referral Service (VIRS) and the Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL) are pleased to announce the 11th Annual Yolande Henry Community Fund Fundraiser. This year's celebration will take place Saturday, April 23, at 3 p.m., at the Bethel Town Hall, 318 Main St. Crom Saunders from Chicago will perform his one-man show, “Cromania!” His website (www.thecromsaunders.com) describes it as a “one-man show featuring skits that incorporate pop culture, impersonations, improvisation, American Sign Language, puns, and physical feats...
Packing in as much as I could during 2013 (my final year at the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce), I attended my first Vermont Travel Industry Conference - an upbeat, buzzy affair for any- and everyone concerned with travel and tourism. There, I ran into Luke Stafford, who'd opened an Internet marketing agency in Brattleboro a few years before. Having heard that his company, Mondo Mediaworks, had won an annually given conference award, I congratulated my homeboy and went on...
Last week, the Vermont House of Representatives passed a bill that will raise additional funding to expand Internet to approximately 30,000 unserved and underserved Vermonters. H.870 will increase the universal-service fee on phone bills by half a percent, raising roughly $1.6 million per year. The language was approved 96–31 in the House. A resolution, also approved by the House last week, underscores the urgent need for that preliminary funding. House Resolution 19 asks the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities...
Andy Bichlbaum, half of the culture-jamming activist duo The Yes Men, brought his skill for storytelling and “making meaningful mischief” to Landmark College last month as part of the college's Academic Speaker Series. Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano (né Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos), as they are known when acting as The Yes Men, bring performance art to political activism, using much-needed humor to draw attention to dehumanizing government and corporate practices. As their website says, part of their mission is...
Fire crews were called shortly before 1 p.m. Monday to contain a brush fire ignited by power lines brought down by a fallen oak tree in a wooded area off Hitchcock Road in Saxtons River. The fire was contained until Green Mountain Power crews could assess the suspected “live” electrical line that was the cause of the fire. “We were extremely lucky,” one firefighter said, gesturing to the heavily wooded area around the downed power lines. “In this kind of...
Reprising his role as the creator of everything that ever is, was, or will be, Rich Potter will present “God: The One-Man Show” April 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Hooker-Dunham Theater in downtown Brattleboro. According to a news release, the show reveals Potter's take on what “Our Supreme Being” was doing in the moments before the big bang. The show has garnered strong reviews, including a nod from the DC Metro Theater Arts calling it “a comedic hurricane.” According...
In high school softball, a team is only as good as its starting pitcher. For a young team like Bellows Falls, they are depending on their ace, senior Murphy Hicks, to again lead the Terriers to the playoffs. “We've put a lot of pressure on her,” said BF coach Pete Fry. “She knows we're leaning on her, and she's strong enough to carry us a long way.” Hicks did her part by pitching a complete game two-hitter as the Terriers...
Now in its 50th season, Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) presents its seventh Women in Music Celebration, an annual house-concert gala, on Sunday, April 24, at 6 p.m. “This fundraiser for our concert season includes three important elements,” administrator Joy Wallens-Penford said in a news release. “A bounty of good food, some delightful music, and a special Silent Auction with a few gift certificates to restaurants and merchants as well as a wide range of 2-for-1 tickets to arts...
At the first meeting of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (VNDCAP) in 2014, there was lots of talk about the need for openness and transparency. Lately, though, a dispute has arisen about how far the panel has to go to meet those goals. Some members have proposed limiting press and public use of a call-in feature for those who cannot attend meetings in person. Panel Chairwoman Kate O'Connor is pushing back against such changes. After an April 12...
They sat in small groups called Story Circles. They told tales of their own wounding behavior and revealed moments of humiliation, admitting the pain of injustice. They listened - really listened - to one another. They were actors, police officers, a theater executive, a board member, and founders of a renowned puppet theater. And they, along with community members, were deeply moved - and changed - by the experience of witnessing stories performed at a local high school. A training...
Just as complicated Act 46 merger talks begin in earnest, three key administrators are leaving Windham Central Supervisory Union. In addition to the previously announced, pending departure of Superintendent Steven John, the union also is losing Chief Financial Officer Victor “Bud” DeBonis and Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School Principal Dorinne Dorfman at the end of this fiscal year. John is retiring after 46 years in education, while DeBonis and Dorfman are taking new positions in northern Vermont.
The annual Point-In-Time count of homeless people in Vermont came with good news: the state saw a 28 percent drop in homelessness. The state also experienced a 25 percent decrease in chronic - 12 months or more without stable housing - homelessness. The number of people homeless because of domestic violence fell by 10 percent compared with the previous year. Another bit of news worth celebrating is data showing a 22 percent drop in the number of homeless families compared...