Eleven teenagers and six adults of the Brattleboro Area Interfaith Youth Group spent the Fourth of July holiday week at the Cheyenne River Reservation working with an organization called Simply Smiles that is building community in the impoverished town of Laplante, South Dakota.
The group departed July 1, and flew to Minneapolis before renting vehicles to journey on to volunteer at the Reservation, working on projects to improve housing and provide a week of summer camp for the Lakota tribe that lives there. They will return Aug. 11.
Many members of the Guilford Community Church, Newfane Congregational Church, Dummerston Congregational Church, and Brattleboro Area Jewish Community, and family and friends of those going have contributed funds to make the trip possible.
Lise Sparrow, the pastor at Guilford Church, provides leadership for the trip, along with other adult volunteers.
Brattleboro property owners have an extra month to make their first fiscal-year 2017 tax payment. Although first-quarter property tax payments are historically due in August, Selectboard Chair David Gartenstein announced at a recent board meeting that this year they are due Sept. 15. The remaining quarterly payments will come...
Fire Dept. reaches out to residents with disabilities BRATTLEBORO -The town of Brattleboro is interested in knowing the needs of the town's citizens with disabilities so that, during an emergency, local public safety personnel can perform their jobs more efficiently and provide special assistance as needed. If someone in...
The Brattleboro branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) has awarded six college scholarships of $1,000 each to Windham County students - five to high school graduates and one to an older student continuing work towards a college degree, according to a news release. Susan Francy and Ashley Hescock, both of Wardsboro, graduated from Leland & Gray Union High School and plan to attend Lawrence University and Franklin Pierce University, respectively. Francy hopes to become a neuroscientist, musician/composer,
The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) will hold its third, and last, major session in the Vernon Community Visit process on July 7; all residents of the town are welcome to help line up action plans to move priority projects forward. The meeting will be held from 6:30–9 p.m. at the Vernon Town Office building, according to a news release. At the Community Meeting Day in June, more than 50 Vernon residents came together to set core priorities for...
Rock star Prince died in April without a will, and he left the disposition of his several-hundred-million-dollar estate up to the laws of intestacy in Minnesota. Last month, a 39-year-old inmate in federal prison in Colorado claimed that he is the son of the music legend, and therefore the sole heir who is entitled to Prince's entire estate. When he died without a will, Prince was in good company. Most of those who die in our country each year also...
College news • Whitney Marie Lynde of Guilford earned an M.S. in Education from the School of Social Work at Simmons College in Boston. • Jacqueline Elliott of Brattleboro earned the distinction of Faculty Honors for spring 2016 at the Georgia Institute of Technology. • Jacob Castine of Vernon has been named to the spring 2016 Dean's List at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. • Stevie M. Cunningham-Darrah of Brattleboro was named to the spring 2016 Dean's List at...
Robert Lind, 30, of Brattleboro was the men's winner of the annual Bill Powers Memorial Firecracker 4-miler on July 4. He covered the four-mile course from Memorial Park to the Common in 22 minutes, 43 seconds. It was Lind's third victory in this race. He won in 2010 and 2013, and came in second in 2015, despite running a minute faster than his 2016 winning time. While the pace this year was slower, Lind was nearly a minute faster than...
After three audition cycles, contestants have been chosen to compete in the first of five elimination rounds for Southern Vermont Idol on Saturday, July 9. The 13th annual premier amateur singing competition encompasses five weeks - July 9, 16, 23, 30 and Aug. 5 - and will be held at the BF Moose Lodge, 59 Westminster St. According to a news release, contestants age 20 and over will perform all five weeks and will be joined by youth contestants in...
I got to the Write Action vendor's table for Strolling of the Heifers on the Retreat grounds a little before 9 a.m., and I was relieved to see that our tent had already been set up. I'd known that Tom would be there at that time, too, but I had worried that even the two of us might not be able to manage our organization's booth. But there it was, in all its vinyl glory, protecting the table full of...
On Thursday nights, the Lounge at Duo Restaurant on Main Street in Brattleboro transforms into “The Book Lounge,” where poets, writers, and readers mingle and lean into “this beautiful profession,” according to a news release. The Book Lounge is curated by the editors at Green Writers Press, an independent publisher located in Brattleboro, to foster a social community around the creative arts in southern Vermont. Outside writers also will be invited to participate. The group meets every Thursday from 7...
David Emery Sr. appointed as town EMD VERNON - The Selectboard unanimously voted to appoint David J. Emery Sr. as the town's Emergency Management Director, effective July 1, at the June 20 regular Board meeting. Board Chair Christiane Howe, who recently resigned as Emergency Management Director, said in a news release that she courted Emery for the position. In accepting, Emery noted Vernon has “a very healthy” emergency management system, “and I just want to enhance it. I welcome the...
Springfield Paving wins bid DUMMERSTON - The Selectboard awarded Springfield Paving the bid for this year's summer paving projects on town highways, at a cost of $59.90 per ton for about 1,100 tons. At the June 22 regular Selectboard meeting, Board member Steve Glabach told his colleagues that Highway Foreman Lee Chamberlin, who wasn't at the meeting, said he was “pretty comfortable” with Springfield Paving, who had done work for the town in the past, and Chamberlin “was hoping we'd...
Having rejected Act 46 merger talks in Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, Vernon officials now are asking voters whether the town's school district should strike out on its own. On Aug. 9, Vernon voters will consider pulling out of the regional Brattleboro Union High School District. If the measure is approved, the town would be exiting a five-town educational union that has existed for more than a half-century. Officials say the change wouldn't impact Vernon Elementary School students, as they would...
Cooperman Company 1007 Route 121, North Westminster (Bellows Falls, VT 05101) 802-463-9750 • Website: cooperman.com; historylives.com • Facebook: Cooperman Rope Drums (facebook.com/cooperman.drums); Cooperman Frame Drums (facebook.com/cooperman.drum) • Twitter: twitter.com/coopermandrum • YouTube: youtube.com/user/CoopermanVt • Founded: 1961 • Corporate structure: Incorporated in Vermont as a foreign profit corporation. (The company was headquartered in Connecticut in 1987, the year of incorporation.) • Employees: 12–15 • Products/services: Musical instruments (rope tension drums, hand drums, drumsticks, fifes, banjo rims, parts). Also, “we manufacture a line...
Excellent; well done. Truth is hard to pinpoint these days. Keep up the good work, both to the author and to the publisher! I will be checking back for more. Could you write about the 12 states with documented fraud and the legal efforts to redo those primaries, please? I am kind of an expert on the worst of them, New York, and the snake pit of uncorrectable corruption that Albany has becoming as it lapses forward into the 21st-century...
Wow, thanks for dismissing Jill Stein. The populist movement doesn't have to wait to move forward - Jill Stein is a candidate. Thanks for ignoring her. Why did you even bother to mention her name?
I am puzzled that The Commons decided to print this bigoted letter. “I am exploring with great fascination Vermont culture, specifically that of the white Anglo-Saxon protestant, or WASP. Your actions fit my cultural stereotypes too well. I was stung by a WASP again.” If these three sentences do not appear bigoted to you, substitute “African-American” for “WASP,” and you will see it more clearly. I understand that The Commons tries to print most letters it receives, but this kind...
It's a new week, folks, and if you're reading this, you're above ground, and if you're above ground, you get to experience more life and more weather! Starting Wednesday and lasting into at least Thursday, the hottest and most muggy air of the season will be foisted upon us, whether we're ready or not. High pressure will dominate our weather and foster a mostly sunny Wednesday, with highs in the mid-80s in the mountains to the lower 90s in valley...
If you believe that climate change is caused by man, then the shutting down of nuclear power plants in the recent past may have validated that assumption. The year 2015 has gone down as the hottest year on record. A large number of nuclear plants worldwide were temporarily or permanently removed from service in 2014. These closures resulted in an additional 100 to 200 tons of carbon emissions in 2015. The huge increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to the...
While all nurses are heroes for the caring work they do, we must give some well-deserved public recognition to a specially trained few: those who step up to care for victims, and gather forensic evidence, after a sexual assault. Sexual assault is a profound violation of a person's body, sense of safety, and autonomy, and each survivor's needs are unique. We're fortunate in Windham and southern Windsor counties to have emergency rooms that provide critical services to victims. These sexual...
Stone Church Arts will present the New England Mandolin Ensemble and participants in the seventh Festival of Mandolin Chamber Music with special guest conductor, Jacob Rouven of Israel, in concert on Sunday, July 10, at 3 p.m. The concert takes place in the air-conditioned Chapel at Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St, according to a news release. Founded by August Watters, a Boston-area teacher and composer, the Festival of Mandolin Chamber Music is designed for the classical mandolin community and...
I've had a fascination with fife and drum music and ceremony for as long as I can remember. So when I was put in touch with Patrick Cooperman and Patsy Cooperman Ellis - president and vice-president, respectively, of the Cooperman Company, which manufactures fifes and a variety of drums - I was reminded immediately of a July Saturday in 2008. At the request of the state Department of Whatever, the three chambers of commerce along Route 9 - Bennington, Mount...
When photographer Chris Triebert moved to Vermont from Boston, she fell in love with the river that ran through her new hometown of Newfane. She soon learned that she wasn't the only artist attached to the Rock River, which begins in East Dover and meanders through South Newfane and Williamsville. In 1993, having connected with local like-minded artists, she and Carol Ross, with whom Triebert had opened a design and photography studio, launched the Rock River Artists, which now includes...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present singer, songwriter, and guitarist Michael Johnson, plus the Vermont-based Americana duo Laura Molinelli and Ben Campbell, at Next Stage on Friday, July 8, at 7:30 p.m. Michael Johnson began playing guitar at 13 and, over the next 10 years, he won an international talent contest, recorded for Epic Records, studied classical guitar with Graciano Tarrago at Liceo Conservatory in Barcelona, Spain, and joined the Chad Mitchell Trio for a year, spending some...
Local author Jodi Paloni's debut story collection, “They Could Live With Themselves,” set in the fictional town of Stark Run, Vermont, was inspired by 25 years she spent living in Windham County, according to a news release. She will read her prize-winning story, “Deep End,” from her new book on Friday, July 8, at 6 p.m., at Everyone's Books on Elliot Street. “What began as a few stories written at Vermont College of Fine Arts grew into a fictional town...
During the weekend of June 25 and 26, a group of amateur - or “ham” - radio enthusiasts gathered on a hillside for Windham County's participation in the international Amateur Radio Relay League's (ARRL) Field Day. The location may not have been the highest in the county, but at about 1,530 feet elevation, the field outside the house on Simpson Brook Road offered beautiful views and far-flung connections with other ham radio operators. Nearly all attendees were members of the...
Visual artist Jon Gregg doesn't want to spend a lot of time explaining to people what his work is all about. “If people do not respond to what I do, I don't want to try to convince them,” Gregg says. “I find being an artist incredibly thrilling, and I think painting is too much fun to ruin it with explanations.” Perhaps because of this, Gregg doesn't publicly show his art all that much. Consequently, his upcoming show in Brattleboro promises...
As a contractor, David Ross is used to relying on his carpenter's level. But on his latest job - transforming the historic Newfane Railroad Station into a new West River Railroad museum - Ross is learning to live with all the idiosyncrasies of a 136-year-old building. Preservation, he believes, requires a light touch. “I hope that we can get back to the feeling that the building had when it was used,” Ross said. “In the ideal world, [future visitors] wouldn't...
At a gubernatorial debate here June 28, Republican Phil Scott declared that the economy “should be the issue of this campaign.” He likely didn't need to convince an estimated crowd of 170 jammed into Brattleboro American Legion Post 5. Three Democrats and two Republicans spent most of their morning here talking about economic initiatives, affordability, and small businesses. They pitched some specific ideas for southern Vermont in light of a recent report on the area's economic problems. And they jostled...
The 43rd annual “By the People: Brattleboro Goes Fourth” celebration took place Monday under sunny skies and comfortable temperatures. Several thousand people lined Main Street for the annual parade, which featured the American Legion and Brattleboro Union High School bands and about 50 other veterans, civic, and youth groups marching along Canal and Main streets to the Common. After the parade, a series of public concerts, sporting events, and family activities took place at Living Memorial Park before the day...
New York-based real estate firm Time Equities Inc. (TEI) in April purchased the two buildings that house Sam's Outdoor Outfitters, Sam's Too, and 48 apartments. Brad Borofsky said his family's business, Sam's, will remain open and operating. The business has signed a long-term lease with TEI, he said. “We have no plans of leaving any time soon,” Borofsky said in the midst of writing inventory orders for next spring and summer. “We'll be here longer if the sales environment can...