GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Daybreak is brought to you this week with help from White River Indie Festival, March 1-8, 2026. Tickets are now available for independent film screenings, live performances, workshops, and all-ages events that spotlight the creative pulse of the Upper Valley. Learn More Here
Clouds to start, then snow. A decent winter storm is headed this way, and while snow totals look to be in the 5-8 inches range, the Weather Service says, “this event will feature a combination of intense snowfall rates and fairly wet snow to become very hazardous for travel.” And also for power lines. Though it may start as a rain/snow mix, the snow should become drier and lighter as this evening wears on. Timing’s a little uncertain, but it all looks to start up in mid afternoon, then last into tomorrow. Highs today in the mid 30s, down into the mid 20s overnight. And just in case you’ve been keeping an eye out, that Sunday-Monday nor’easter is now expected to be well to our south and east.
Gray foxes. As Ted Levin writes about Erin Donahue’s latest video, “Marking is a highly evolved mammalian language that guides social structure and behavior. As February brightens and days lengthen, gray foxes become amorous. To satisfy an urge to pair, males post notices everywhere, with every option available. Up to 70 drops of urine per hour, silent yellow memos. Rub the discharge of facial glands on stumps, sticks, rocks ... anything, really. Glands on foot pads whisper, helping either sex track a potential mate. And the violet gland, at the base of the tail, named for its floral odor, leaves the longest-lasting note—like a post pinned on Dan & Whit’s bulletin board, but muskier.”
Did you catch Dear Daybreak yesterday? If not, you missed Madeleine LaPenta’s striking photo of the Ledyard Bridge between Norwich and Hanover at dusk, Bob Totz’s wintertime sculpture “garden” (he calls it Icehenge); the return of Danny Dover with a poem; and Perry Allison’s story about the power of a good woodstove—even when it’s mostly a memory. If you’ve got a good Upper Valley anecdote or entertaining story or bit of local history, please use this form to pass it along or email me at [email protected].
Chris McKinley, fixture in WRJ and around the rail tracks, dies. McKinley, who was 68, was walking yesterday to the historic train depot that “his life had revolved around for three decades,” Eric Francis reports for Daybreak, when he suddenly collapsed. He was pronounced dead at the scene after a sustained effort by Hartford’s emergency services failed to revive him. McKinley “was born interested in trains,” says his younger brother, Fairlee’s Glenn McKinley; by the 1980s, train crews accustomed to seeing him pop up around the tracks with a camera and a logbook, had given him the nickname “The Yardmaster.” In photos and words, Eric pays tribute to a WRJ icon.
Hanover Improvement Society gets new executive director. Jennifer Rickards, a longtime administrator at the Montshire Museum and, more recently, at The Dartmouth Institute, started up on Tuesday. She takes over for Jeff Graham, who’s been general manager and then executive director for the past decade. The improvement society owns and operates the Storrs Pond Recreation Area, Campion Rink, and the Nugget Theater. Rickards will be responsible for overseeing those, running the organization, and “building and maintaining community relationships and strategic partnerships,” says the press release.
SPONSORED: Support Local Farms. Feed Your Neighbors. Willing Hands makes it easy for you to strengthen the local farm economy while ensuring fresh, local food reaches families facing food insecurity. Your donation through the Give Local Food program purchases food directly from Upper Valley farmers and is delivered to more than 85 social service organizations across the region. Take action today: Donate directly to your favorite farm or give online through Willing Hands. Sponsored by Willing Hands.
Corinth man in shooting was military vet with PTSD. Jeremy Kawalec, 25, died by suicide “in the midst of a mental health crisis” last Saturday, his partner, Donna Guillette, tells Sofia Langlois in the Valley News. Guillette was with Kawalec, she says: “He wasn’t in his normal state of mind. He wasn’t himself,” she tells Langlois. After a minor argument became a mental health crisis, she called 911 to report a medical emergency, Guillette says—not a “domestic altercation,” as the initial VT State Police report said. Langlois details his struggles and his “loving, kind, brave and honorable” character. In crisis? Dial or text 988 (press 1 for the veterans’ crisis line).
Weathersfield cancels contract with Windsor County Sheriff’s Dept., wants to form joint police force with Reading, Cavendish. Last week’s move by the selectboard “comes in the wake of the arrest of Windsor County Sheriff Ryan Palmer on seven criminal charges,” writes Mike Donoghue in the Vermont Standard. Weathersfield town manager Brandon Gulnick tells Donoghue that the initial idea is to create “a regional police force with five sworn officers — a police chief with two full-time patrol officers and two part-time officers. They would cover the three towns for about 150 hours a week.” Officials in the three towns are still hashing out details and funding.
For King Arthur Baking, Virginia’s just the start. As you probably know, Norwich will no longer be the company’s only permanent brick-and-mortar store: It’s opening another retail outlet in Alexandria, VA later this year, with all the flours, mixes, and kitchenware it sells here, as well as a baking school. That move follows a series of pop-ups that were “jam-packed,” marketing director Bill Tine tells VT Public’s Derek Brouwer—and that proved KA could attract “the baking experts needed to uphold King Arthur’s reputation,” Brouwer reports. It’s expected to announce another new location outside VT later this year, and more in future years. Brouwer outlines what’s to come.
High construction costs force Lebanon to step back on workforce housing plan. As Clare Shanahan writes in the Valley News, the idea was to build housing that’s affordable for city and school district employees on two vacant lots on Barrows St. And in the past couple of years, the city’s moved forward with site work and designs for a five-cottage cluster of homes. But initial contractor bids this fall came back at $500K per, mostly for prepping the lot and building utilities and infrastructure. Even scaled-back homes would be $430K. “That, I am concerned, is also not workforce housing,” City Councilor Tim McNamara says. The project team is looking at other options.
For VT landlords, no shortage of tenant horror stories. Sharon’s Kevin Blakeman, who owns properties in Sharon and Vershire, has plenty, writes Maryellen Apelquist in The Herald: “Overflowing cat-litter boxes. Used needles and spoons and half-loaded syringes. Sewage and baby wipes rising up a drainpipe into someone’s shower, the result of a neighbor tenant’s use of toilet as trash can…” In the first of a series on rental housing in the state (next week: tenants tell their stories), Apelquist looks at the laws that make it tough to evict problem tenants, and a potential legislative fix aimed at helping smaller landlords get quicker evictions.
Hiking Close to Home: VINS Nature Center Trails, Quechee. Need February break plans? The UVTA points you to VINS, which is hosting their Winter Wildlife Celebration tomorrow to celebrate trails and winter wildlife. Walk 1.4 miles of easy, accessible trails through 40 wooded acres with river views and interpretive exhibits on insects, meadows, bird rehabilitation, and wetlands. The trails are designed for all ages and abilities. Combined with an indoor nature center experience and special winter activities, it's a fine full-day outing. Note: Admission required. Trail info at the burgundy link, wildlife celebration info here.
Daybreak’s Upper Valley News Quiz. Were you paying attention this week? Because we’ve got questions! Like, what’s Dartmouth planning to charge in rent for the new two-story homes it’s building for employees opposite Sachem Field? And just what is VINS’s new high-def camera pointing at for a future livestream? Meanwhile, you’ll find NHPR’s New Hampshire quiz here, and Seven Days’ Vermont quiz here.
NH House votes down anti-vaccine-mandate bill, shuts down effort to reinstate death penalty, passes new attempt to regulate teaching of race, LGBTQ+ issues. It was a busy day yesterday.
“New Hampshire has the lowest vaccination rate for measles in New England,” Democratic Rep. Jessica LaMontagne said during debate before the vote. “Do you want to be the legislature that ushers in the next outbreak of measles?” In the end, reports NH Bulletin’s William Skipworth, the chamber voted 192-155 against the bill to end all vaccine mandates in the state. Thirty-four Republicans voted with Democrats against it.
There was no debate on the death penalty bill, which would have brought capital punishment back six years after the state did away with it. As NHPR’s Josh Rogers reports, the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee had unanimously recommendeded that the full House reject the legislation, citing widespread opposition its belief that, as GOP Rep. Terry Roy put it at the time, the US justice system “is not perfect and it does make mistakes.”
Meanwhile, reports NH Bulletin’s Ethan DeWitt, the chamber voted along party lines in favor of the “CHARLIE Act,” named for the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. It would “prohibit schools from engaging in ‘indoctrination’ of ‘critical theories or related practices that promote division, dialectical world-views, critical consciousness or anti-constitutional indoctrination,’” DeWitt writes, in an effort to revive the so-called “divisive concepts” law, which was struck down in 2024 as unconstitutionally vague. DeWitt explains how this effort differs from the last one. The bill now moves on to the finance committee.
VT legislature names new National Guard adjutant general. As VTDigger’s Shaun Robinson notes, Vermont “is the only state in the country where the head of its National Guard is elected by lawmakers rather than appointed by the state’s governor.” Henry “Hank” Harder, a retired Air National Guard general, has been deputy adjutant general since 2024; he’ll replace Maj. Gen. Gregory Knight, who’s retiring. His election “comes as Vermont’s Air Guard has been under close scrutiny in recent months for its deployment under federal orders to the Caribbean and, more recently, to the Middle East,” Robinson writes.
After spending $5 million on the old Green Mountain College campus, owner now wants to give it away. When WhistlePig founder Raj Bakhta bought the 115-acre property in Poultney back in 2020, he “had a big vision for housing, hotels and a school,” writes Seven Days’ Sasha Goldstein, but “little has come to fruition.” So now, Goldstein reports, he’s trying to find a “Catholic organization with the vision and capability to use it for good — to serve people, purpose, and faith,” in the words of a press release from a PR firm. It’s not clear whether Bhakta plans to give away the entire property or just a part of it.
Where in the world solar system is the best skiing? Snow’s been falling at the Winter Olympics in the Italian Alps, creating dramatic backdrops and impressive conditions. But, writes Daisy Dobrijevic on Space.com, “skiing depends on more than just snowfall.” Gravity and temperature have to be just right as well. Earth has all that (plus chair lifts and cocoa!), but if you wanted to ski another planet? Maybe the moon, if you count dust as a good base (astronaut Harrison Schmitt skied it in 1972). Not Mars—its dry ice isn’t skiable—or Pluto, with its -387 degree temps and weak gravity. Nope, just one planet has it all …
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak. This one will be easier than yesterday’s, promise. Just use the same link tomorrow and Sunday for new words from publications around the region.
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HEADS UP
As always, there’s plenty going on this weekend in the Upper Valley. Daybreak’s Weekend Heads Up has it all. And just a reminder: Given today’s weather, if you’ve got plans for tonight, double-check before you head out.
And for today...
Hey, it’s the weekend. Hernando’s Hideaway in Memphis, the Black Keys on stage, you got to let loose.
Have a fine weekend! See you Monday for CoffeeBreak.
Looking for all of the hikes, Enthusiasms, daybreak photos, or music that Daybreak has published over the years? Go here!
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt
