BRATTLEBORO-Windham County Retired Educators will begin its series of spring meetings at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 10, at Holton Hall on the Winston Prouty Center campus.
Following a brief business meeting, those in attendance will hear from a representative of the Vermont State Teachers' Retirement System regarding the work of the state on behalf of retirees in the system. Attendees are free to bring a lunch or reserve one. Beverages and dessert will be provided.
Membership in the association is open to anyone who worked in a public, private, pre-school, or post-secondary education role.
The Windham County Retired Educators Association is an affiliate of the Vermont Retired Educators Association and supports its activities which include lobbying to promote legislation benefiting all older Vermonters.
Town requires Excavation and Trench Permit before digging BRATTLEBORO - Beginning this construction season, anyone performing excavation work in the town of Brattleboro right-of-way or on systems involving town infrastructure must have an Excavation and Trench Permit. The permit will allow the Public Works Department to have greater communication...
Obituaries • Margaret M. "Greta" Burke, 66, of Taos, New Mexico. Died March 30, 2024, after a brave fight with cancer. Greta was the beloved sister of State Rep. Mollie S. Burke and the stepsister of Anne Cloutier Montgomery of Guilford. The seventh child in a large brood of...
BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro-based band Eloise & Company is joined by Rachel Aucoin in a performance at the Brattleboro Music Center Friday, April 12, at 7 p.m. Eloise & Co. is a shifting ensemble - often a duo and, at other times, a trio with piano or guitar. With Becky Tracy on fiddle, octave fiddle, and vocals and Rachel Bell on accordion and vocals, Eloise & Co. plays a range of music including French folk groove tunes, Celtic reels, waltzes, and Quebecois tunes.
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts and Twilight Music present an evening of acoustic folk music from far and near by Louisiana-based Ordinary Elephant and Putney-based Early Risers at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill, on Friday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. Folk duo Ordinary Elephant has spent the better part of the last decade on a never-ending tour that's earned Crystal and Pete Damore critical acclaim and made fans of luminaries like Tom Paxton and Mary Gauthier. In 2017, the couple took home...
BRATTLEBORO-Author Cat Bohannon will talk about how the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution at this month's free online Literary Cocktail Hour, a virtual event presented by the Brattleboro Literary Festival, on Friday, April 12, at 5 p.m. Bohannon's new book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, is described as "a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body...
A note on process: In the interests of the reader, text has been edited for clarity and concision in a way that intended to preserve the participants' meaning, ideas, and fundamental self-expression. In the interest of readability, this is not a full transcript. We encourage readers interested in engaging with these issues to view the original Voices Live! forum video at brattleborotv.org. As always, we want this not to be the last word on any of these issues - just...
MONTPELIER-The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is seeking applicants for the Environmental Careers and Opportunities (ECO) AmeriCorps program. The program provides ECO AmeriCorps members with opportunities to explore conservation careers and gain technical skills to protect Vermont's environment. "Since 2015, 243 ECO AmeriCorps members have helped partners with projects across the state," DEC Commissioner Jason Batchelder said in a news release. "These rising environmental leaders have committed over 400,000 hours of service to improve water quality, increase climate resiliency,
WEST BRATTLEBORO-The Brattleboro Area Jewish Community invites everyone to join them on Tuesday, April 23, from 6 to 9 p.m. at West Village Meeting House, 29 South St., for their community Passover Seder. Rabbi Amita Jarmon will co-lead this seder with community members. As always, there will be questions for contemplation and discussion and plenty of singing. Dinner will be catered by Chef Gretchen Hardy from The Porch. Wine, grape juice, matzah, matzo balls, chicken soup, gefilte fish, eggs, and...
BRATTLEBORO-The Julian Gerstin Sextet will be in concert on Friday, April 12, at 8 p.m., at 118 Elliot. The sextet formed in 2016 and has performed all over New England. "It is a powerhouse of local creative musicians," say organizers, featuring Anna Patton on clarinet, Don Anderson on trumpet, Eugene Uman on piano, Wes Brown on bass, and Ben James on drum set in addition to Gerstin's percussion. They will present a preview of their upcoming recording, Songbirds of the...
BRATTLEBORO-Pianist Lio Kuok-Wai performs at the Brattleboro Music Center Monday, April 15, at 1 p.m. in a concert benefiting BMC Music School scholarships. Admission is by donation. The program will include Robert Schumann's "Kinderszenen," Op.15; "Kreisleriana," Op.16; and "Fantasie," Op.17. "Praised by the Vancouver Sun as a 'musician's musician,'" organizers write in a press release, "the Macau-born pianist's dedication, intelligence, and artistic accomplishments have already earned him a splendid reputation in the classical music field." A graduate of the Curtis...
DUMMERSTON-The Dummerston Historical Society announces a new arrangement of exhibits for its openings the first and third Sunday afternoons, April 21 - June 2, 1 to 3 p.m. The site is the Society's schoolhouse located in Dummerston Center next to the Town Office. The Society's recent Dummerston Artisans Exhibit was so popular that contributors have been invited to submit new material for a second display. Similar exhibits were mounted years ago, and organizers say they "are pleased to find once...
BRATTLEBORO-In celebration of the art and craft of poetry, a group of organizations led by Write Action has filled downtown with poems submitted by poets living in the area, throughout the state, or in the tri-state area of southern Vermont. Commemorating National Poetry Month in April, "Poems Around Town" is co-sponsored by Brooks Memorial Library and the Brattleboro Literary Festival, with the participation of numerous downtown businesses in whose shop windows the poems will appear through the entire month. Poets...
BRATTLEBORO-Windham Regional Career Center Culinary II students Quin Forchion, T Contakos, Orion Knowlton, and Blaize Weiss won second place in a New York State Restaurant Association Regional Competition at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York, over the weekend of March 23–24. The students competed against five other Vermont teams preparing a three-course modern Italian meal consisting of antipasti (caprese salad, grilled zucchini, and pickled carrots), main meal (salmon piccata with creamy polenta and shallot-sauteed asparagus)
-I can't recall ever seeing a coach wearing the colors of their team's opponent, but Brattleboro Unified basketball coach Tyler Boone likes to do things a little differently. Twin Valley is offering Unified basketball for the first time this year. The Wildcats played their debut game at home against the Burr & Burton Bulldogs on April 1, and on April 5, played their first road game against the Bears at the BUHS gym. Boone wanted to make the Wildcats feel...
BRATTLEBORO-There are times when Vermont likes to go all in, so in 2022, when it decided to send its first female to Congress, it chose Becca Balint, an idealistic lesbian politician, a progressive Democrat, a Brattleboro resident, a mother of two, a former teacher, and the former president pro tem of the Vermont Senate. "It's been an incredible joy and a privilege," Balint told The Commons when she announced her re-election campaign late last month. "And it feels like an...
BRATTLEBORO-With the launch of an online fundraising campaign and two main events - a Smash Party this Saturday and a Co-creation Celebration on Saturday, April 20 - an initiative to create a mosaic mural on the vacant wall of a downtown park is becoming a reality. The Pliny Park Mosaic Project began as the brainchild of Greg Lesch, the executive director of the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce, and Jamie Mohr, the executive director of Epsilon Spires, a not-for-profit organization...
ROCKINGHAM-Town Meeting voting on April 1 and 2 brought several changes to school boards and the Selectboard. It was a particularly rough night for those seeking reelection. The incumbents — Rockingham School Board chair Priscilla Lambert; Deborah Wright, who was also running for a one-year Selectboard seat; and Bellows Falls Union High School board chair Jason Terry — were all defeated by large margins. Dunbar added that he felt the election results showed that the voters also want people in...
BRATTLEBORO-Five years ago, Groundworks Collaborative - a nonprofit whose tagline promises "basic needs met with dignity" - hoped to help a rising number of people sleeping on the streets by unveiling plans for a $3.3 million drop-in center and overnight shelter. "Thinking back to that moment, we thought, 'This is the way,'" Libby Bennett, then in charge of the organization's development and communications office, recalled of the overall trajectory. No one foresaw the seismic shift that would come with the...
NEWFANE-The Crowell Art Gallery at Moore Free Library will present an annual exhibition of art by K–5 students from NewBrook, Townsend, Jamaica School, Dover, Wardsboro, and Marlboro schools. The free exhibit will run until Monday, April 29. The art teachers involved are Suzanne Paugh, from NewBrook, Townsend, and Jamaica schools; Katy Hughes, from Dover and Warsboro schools; and Jamie Schilling, from Marlboro School. Librarian Fiona Chevalier reads them a book - this year's choice is Listen by Shannon Stocker -
BRATTLEBORO-The Brattleboro Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) is continuing 72 years of academic financial assistance for women and girls by again offering scholarships of up to $1,000 each to qualified candidates who live in Windham County. Both graduating high school seniors from area high schools, preparatory schools, or home schools and women who are considered college ready by federal financial aid guidelines are eligible to apply. Applications will be judged on academic performance, community involvement, and...
BRATTLEBORO-In 1999, when her daughters were young, Nancy Heydinger says she "wanted to find a way to ensure that they would grow up loving themselves, feeling complete." "I wanted them to celebrate and embrace their natural gifts, to know that what they communicated was of value, and to believe that they could make an important impact in their communities and in our world," the Vernon resident told The Commons. So Heydinger looked at opportunities for her daughters and found that...
BRATTLEBORO-Theresa Glabach, Girls on the Run Vermont board member, coaches the program at Putney Central School alongside physical education teacher Maddie Harlow. Glabach spoke with The Commons recently. Here is an excerpt from the conversation: Victoria Chertok: What was it about GOTRVT that drew you in initially? Theresa Glabach: I first came to Girls on the Run as a SoleMate [described on the GOTR website as a "community made up of passionate people raising money for Girls on the Run"].
BRATTLEBORO-A state pandemic-era program aimed at encouraging "mom-and-pop landlords" to create affordable housing is set to launch a second round of grant funding this spring. With millions of dollars to be awarded statewide, the Vermont Housing Improvement Program (VHIP) provides these local housing developers up to $50,000 per unit for the rehabilitation and construction of rental apartments. VHIP was launched in 2022 to address the state's declining quality of rental units and to provide suitable housing for Vermonters experiencing homelessness.