The new Vermont Trades Scholarship Forgivable Loan Program, proposed by Gov. Phil Scott to the Vermont Legislature and administered by Vermont Student Assistance Corp. (VSAC), will offer funding for tuition, initial licensing fees, and exam fees for qualified recipients who enroll in high-need trades training and certificate programs.
Funding for the $3 million trades scholarship program is part of the $84.5 million comprehensive workforce and economic development initiative enacted in June.
The new law invests both state and federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to address Vermont's workforce shortage and provide local businesses and municipalities with resources to grow in the years ahead.
In a news release, Scott called the program “an opportunity to change our course for the better, to grow our workforce and support our communities in their continued recovery and revitalization.”...
The Windham Natural Resources Conservation District (WNCRD) and the Windham Regional Woodlands Association are partnering to offer a series of chainsaw safety workshops this fall in Windham County. “Game of Logging” chainsaw safety workshops are scheduled for the weekends of Sept. 10–11 and Sept. 16–18. Instruction will be provided...
Stage 33 Live hosts singer/songwriter/guitarist Lenny Solomon on Sunday, Aug. 28, at 4 p.m. Solomon's style has been compared to early Bob Dylan, Guy Clark, and Jerry Jeff Walker. In the late '60s, say organizers, he “was a fixture at the fabled Idler Coffeehouse in Harvard Square in Cambridge,
The Backlot Cinema Series at Epsilon Spires returns with a screening of Fire of Love, a full-length documentary composed entirely of archival footage left behind by married volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, who died together in an eruption in Japan in 1991. The film is currently only available in theaters, and will screen outdoors in the lot behind Epsilon Spires at 8 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 26. The Kraffts continuously risked their lives to shoot some of the first up-close...
The Vermont Agency of Education and the Department of Health recently issued a joint memo to school nurses for the opening of school relative to COVID-19. The memo gives school nurses recommendations on how to manage symptomatic individuals and implement testing protocols. It also suggests communication strategies, including the need to work closely with local medical practices. “School nurses have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to keep students healthy,” Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said in a news release. “As...
Obituaries • Emmy Bascom, 42, of Guilford. Died Aug. 8, 2022. Born on Oct. 16, 1979, Emmy grew up in Guilford, and went to high school in Brattleboro. She had moved away for a number of years but moved back to the area to raise her family. She was an avid hunter, and loved fishing, boating, four-wheeling, watching NASCAR racing, and being outdoors. She loved animals, fostering many over the years. She loved her children and was very involved in...
Manitou healing walk is Aug. 26 WILLIAMSVILLE - The Manitou Project will hold its Healing Walk on Friday, Aug. 26, rain or shine, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. The walk will be led by Fred Taylor and will include poems or other readings and chances to share about the experience. Healing walks are held every second and fourth Friday of each month until October. For informtion, contact Taylor at 802-254-2675. 'Twin Tales' featured at Historical Society meeting NEWFANE - The...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present an evening of swing and Americana music by Zara Bode's Little Big Band and StompBoxTrio, as part of the 2022 Next Stage “Bandwagon Summer Series,” on Sunday, Aug. 28, at 4 p.m. on the lawn at the New England Center for Circus Arts. Zara Bode's Little Big Band performs classic American swing “to delight the ears, eyes, and feet,” say organizers. Inspired by the likes of Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt, and Ella...
The Town of Brattleboro is embarking on a new plan that will collaboratively develop recommended improvements to its bicycle and pedestrian facilities. According to a news release, the Walk/Bike Action Plan will draw on recent studies, including the 2018 Downtown Plan, Route 30 Multi-Modal Gateway Plan, Route 9 Continuous Bicycle Facility Feasibility Plan, and the Brattleboro Town Plan. It will weave together the pertinent recommendations from previous studies with local projects currently under construction or planned, and provide other solutions...
Greater Falls Connections (GFC), located in Bellows Falls, recently received a nearly $74,000 Health Disparities Grant from the Vermont Health Department (VHD) and Vermont Community Foundation (VCF). VHD partnered with the Vermont Community Foundation to assemble a community review committee who evaluated all proposals. VHD received 48 applications with a total request of more than $8.8 million, according to Song Nguyen, MPH, manager of health equity at VHD. “We were unable to award each applicant but are able to award...
The top vote-getter for Windham County Senate in the Aug. 9 Republican primary, disavowed by Vermont GOP leaders for displaying fascist and alt-right symbols, is relinquishing his party affiliation and running as an independent for one of two open seats in the November general election. Westminster logger Mark Coester received 542 votes, followed by Brattleboro tax preparer Richard Kenyon with 539 votes and retired Brattleboro bank employee Richard Morton with 528 votes, according to unofficial results posted on the secretary...
St. Michael's Episcopal Church of Brattleboro is gearing up for its leadership role in working toward an energy-sustainable future. Called “Building Hope for the Earth,” its project leaders will host an Open House on Thursday, Sept. 1, from 5 to 7 p.m., in the rectory yard adjacent to St. Michael's Episcopal at the corner of Bradley Avenue and Putney Road. The event will take place rain or shine. The Rev. Mary Lindquist, St. Michael's Rector, explains that the project “is...
Weston Theater Company presents what organizers call “the funniest play that will ever make you cry,” Steel Magnolias, now playing through Sunday, Sept. 4, at Weston Playhouse. Tough as steel. Exquisite as magnolias. Six friends gather for hairdos, manicures, juicy gossip, and witty banter in Truvy's salon. Anybody who's anybody is a regular. Through thick and thin, these women form friendships strong as steel - friendships they are forced to lean on when tragedy strikes. “Steel Magnolias is a story...
The school bus routes customarily published in these pages each year were not available by press time. The delay comes as a result of the recent untimely death of Emmy Bascom of Guilford, who had worked as a scheduler for bus contractor F. M. Kuzmeskus, Inc./TravelKuz, of Gill, Mass. “They're trying to pull it all together,” said Barbara Nowakowski, executive secretary in the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union central office. According to Nowakowski, the bus company will post schedules online as...
A Landmark College professor - and longtime contributor to The Commons - pleaded not guilty on Aug. 23 to a charge of first degree aggravated domestic assault with a weapon. MacLean Gander, 65, of Jelly Mill Road in Guilford, was arrested by Vermont State Police on Aug. 22 after authorities received a complaint about him threatening a person known to him with a knife following “escalating abusive behaviors” involving alcohol and drugs, according to a police affidavit. As a general...
“Eggshells & Cheekbones,” a group show by a family in Halifax, opens Friday, Sept. 2, from 5 to 8 p.m., at 118 Elliot in Brattleboro. The show presents recent work by Alison Crossley, Tristan Roberts, and Felix Roberts, a family of three who make art together and who are all now showing their work for the first time. Alison shares a painting studio with Tristan's 10-year-old son Felix, while Tristan sculpts outside with rocks and boulders on the land, a...
The nonprofit arts venue Epsilon Spires will host two events on the evening of Friday, Sept. 2, during downtown's monthly Gallery Walk. Starting at 5 p.m., there will be an opening celebration for “Mundane Monsters,” a multimedia exhibit by Danish artist Kristoffer Ørum, followed at 8 p.m. by an outdoor screening of two early documentaries about skateboarding and surfing as part of the Backlot Cinema Series. Ørum, whose work has been shown extensively throughout Denmark and internationally, uses a combination...
While the national teacher shortage continues, and has affected - notably - rural Vermont, it's been a mixed bag in Windham County school districts as administrators prepare for the first day of school. For Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) Superintendent Mark Speno, the past year has been the most difficult in memory when it comes to hiring, yet Windham Central Supervisory Union (WCSU) Superintendent William Anton says it hasn't been out of the ordinary there. “We're doing a lot better...
Vermont State Police have confirmed they are investigating Patricia Duff, a former Windham County assistant judge who resigned earlier this summer. State police spokesperson Adam Silverman declined to address the reason for the probe. News of the investigation was first reported by the Brattleboro Reformer. Joyce McKeeman, an assistant judge in Orange County and the president of the Vermont Association of County Judges, told VTDigger in an Aug. 18 email that “the underlying allegations against [Duff] were related to financial...
Vermont State Police have confirmed they are investigating Patricia Duff, a former Windham County assistant judge who resigned earlier this summer. State police spokesperson Adam Silverman declined to address the reason for the probe. News of the investigation was first reported by the Brattleboro Reformer. Joyce McKeeman, an assistant judge in Orange County and the president of the Vermont Association of County Judges, told VTDigger in an Aug. 18 email that “the underlying allegations against [Duff] were related to financial...
It may seem like the stuff of fiction, but 50 years ago, before the interstate and internet brought Ben & Jerry and Burlington's Dealer.com, Vermont was such a Republican stronghold, it supported then-President Richard Nixon's reelection by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. “State residents voted true to tradition to give President Nixon an overwhelming victory against Democratic challenger George McGovern,” The Burlington Free Press, then the state's largest print news outlet, reported on its front page of Nov. 8, 1972. Vermonters...
Edward Kingsbury III's new paintings are on exhibit at Gallery in the Woods during the month of September with an opening reception on Friday, Sept. 2, from 5 to 8 p.m., during downtown's Gallery Walk. Kingsbury is a self-taught artist who works in many media. In 1998, he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and art became a part of his way of life. He says his work is created in an intuitive manner and is for him a mechanism for...
As long as formal schooling has been a part of our ethos, it has reflected the culture and bias of its time. U.S. schools are a unique institution because most everyone attends, so we have a basis on which to compare and contrast educational experiences through the decades. From the founding of our state to the mid-1800s, most schools were one-room schoolhouses built in villages throughout Vermont. Most often, they had 20 students (or fewer) and one teacher who taught...
Carson Rhodes, a four-year-old who lives in Wilmington with his parents, Jacob and Jacqualin, has been dealing with a condition known as non-ketotic hyperglycinemia (NKH) for all of his young life. This weekend, his family is presenting “Carson's 3rd Annual Tournament For a Cure,” a benefit softball tournament. It is being held Aug. 27 and 28 on the Upper Field at Living Memorial Park in Brattleboro to raise money to help fund research to find new treatments for NKH. Games...
More than 300 people began streaming onto the Retreat Farm and into a big white tent on Aug. 13 as Sam Waymon - brother to the late musician and civil rights activist Nina Simone - and two backup vocalists set the upbeat rhythms for the third annual NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner, with guests joining in to sing together. Cliff Wood, a retired college president and a member of the Windham County Vermont NAACP leadership team, had organized the organization's members...
Windham Southeast Supervisory Union The Windham Southeast Supervisory Union manages schools for students of all ages in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Putney, and Vernon. The WSESU also operates the Windham Regional Career Center, providing opportunities for vocational education to students in the region. All WSESU schools • Back-to-school fun: To celebrate the beginning of the new school year, the WSESU Office of Diversity, Equity and Social Justice has invited district students, families, and staff to a back-to-school outdoor event of fun,