SUCH A PLEASURE, UPPER VALLEY!
The front that passed through last night is pulling dry air along behind it. "Overall expect plenty of sunshine for today," the weather folks say. Oh yes. And temps in the 60s, maybe brushing toward 70. Other than maybe a few degrees warmer, what more could we ask for? And did I mention dry?Greg Bagnato to resign as principal of Strafford's Newton School. In a letter to the school community, Bagnato, who has been principal for six years, said he'll serve through the end of the school year. “While I have been proud of much of what we have accomplished as a community, our school continues to face challenges which are difficult to solve,” he wrote. The school has been grappling with 7th and 8th grade students leaving. (VN, subscription reqd)Dartmouth's Marcelo Gleiser fêted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as he receives Templeton Prize. A lot of luminaries were there, including Pulitzer-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson. Gleiser told the crowd, “The paradox of knowledge is that as you learn more, the boundaries between what you know and what you don’t know are always growing, which means that as you learn more, you are able to ask questions you could not have conceived of before.”Hanover's Pine Park came through the winter much altered, thanks to a widespread logging effort to clear out fungus- and beetle-infested trees. It's a mess right now, with slash littering the trails and forest floor (VN). The Hanover Conservancy and Pine Park Association have been trying to rally help to get things cleaned up, and tomorrow being National Trails Day, have plans for you if you care to volunteer.Springfield Hospital will likely declare bankruptcy next month. Interim CEO Mike Halstead told a meeting in Springfield that "[t]he filing of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy is probably what we’ve got to do to adjust and restructure our financial world so that we can survive going into the future." The hospital has lost $14 million over the last two years.Just a head's up that the Covered Bridges Half Marathon is on Sunday and a bunch of roads will be closed. The race runs through Pomfret, Woodstock, and Quechee. Various roads will be shut for parts or all of the morning. Details at the link.The Valley News followed up with the "hostage" of the man whom police shot and killed in Tunbridge. Though police haven't identified the woman who was with Jeremy Potwin when he was killed, 21-year-old Calen Vaine says it was her, that she was Potwin's girlfriend, and that she was a willing shield. “I think he kind of knew we weren’t going to get away,” she told reporter Jordan Cuddemi. (VN, subscription reqd.)Pressure's growing on Dartmouth to drop its challenge to the use of pseudonyms by women in the sexual-abuse lawsuit. A petition signed by 300 alumni, students, and professors calls on the college to relent on its insistence that the plaintiffs in the class-action suit go by their real names. Two of the signers are US Rep. Annie Kuster and state Sen. Martha Hennessey, who say they were assaulted as undergrads at Dartmouth.King Arthur Flour co-CEOs call on regional leaders to get on board with electric vehicles. In a commentary published by VTDigger, Karen Colberg, Ralph Carlton, and Suzanne McDowell say that the company's efforts to cut transportation emissions need to be reinforced by state and regional policies. "Increasing investment in electric vehicles and their infrastructure would provide myriad environmental and economic benefits for Vermont businesses and residents," they write.If you happened to be anywhere within hailing range of a news source yesterday you probably know this: NH has repealed its death penalty. It became the 21st state to do so -- and joined the rest of New England -- when the Senate overrode Gov. Chris Sununu's veto of the repeal measure it had passed earlier this year. Four Republicans joined all but two Democrats in voting to override.Drawing less attention, the NH Senate also put pot legalization on ice for the rest of this year. On a voice vote late yesterday, senators agreed to a move by Hanover's Martha Hennessey to refer the House-passed legalization bill back to committee. “We may disagree whether the prohibition of marijuana has been a success or whether we should remain an island within New England, but we all agree that this decision cannot be made lightly," she said. Hundreds protest former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at GOP fundraiser in Burlington. Inside, there were about 160 attendees who'd paid to see Walker and VT Gov. Phil Scott. Outside, 350 to 500 (depending on the news source) protesters scorned Walker for his anti-union record as governor. Scott, who at a press conference earlier in the day sought to distance himself politically from Walker, played down their differences at the event.Vermont is stalling demographically, and a lot of towns are losing population. Town-by-town Census estimates for 2018 show that half the towns in the state shrank between 2010 and 2018, says former state economist Art Woolf. WRJ, Woodstock, St. J and most other population centers lost ground. Chittenden County was the only county in the state in which every community grew. In all, only 11 of the state's 252 towns grew faster than the national average.Just in time for your weekend reading, Esquire's out with "The Secret Oral History of Bennington: The 1980s' Most Decadent College." Yes, it's about the privileged, druggy, louche Bennington of the '80s, but it's also about the rakish swath cut by three classmates who went on to become GenX literary stars: Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jonathan Lethem. Writer Lili Anolik talked to a bunch of quirky, interesting, tale-telling people, and you just know she had a very fine time stitching their recollections together. This is pure dish. (Thanks for the tip, Tom G.!)IT'S FRIDAY! GOT PLANS?For starters, there's "Thinking Like a Watershed: Community-Scale Climate Resilience Planning for the Upper Valley." This is a workshop on how landowners, communities, and municipalities can design for and adapt to the effects of climate change. It's sponsored by Resilient Hartford, Sustainable Woodstock, and the Center for Transformational Practice. 6:30-9:00 at the Bugbee Center in WRJ.Or you could go see a true Who's Who of Upper Valley acting and singing talent in "An Evening with May and Nichols and Porter." Tonight's the first of a three-show run this weekend of skits by the brilliantly comic Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and music by Cole Porter. It's all for a cause: to outfit a car for Sierra O'Leary, who as a 16-year-old in 2017 fell on an icy patch on her last run of the day at the Skiway, and has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since. She's determined to be as self-sufficient as possible. Starts at 7 at the Fairlee Town Hall Theater.And, of course, tonight's the whole White River Indie Festival kickoff. There's a gala on the rooftop terrace of The Village in WRJ, then a showing of Amazing Grace at the Barrette Center, and then an after-party (w/DJ and dancing) at Piecemeal Pies. The film captures two unbelievable 1972 performances by Aretha Franklin at a Baptist church in LA--but Sydney Pollack, the director, didn't do what he needed to synchronize the sound with the visuals, and only now do we get to see it as it was meant to be seen (and heard). Gala at 6, film at 7:30.Louche, adj: Not reputable or decent. Have a great weekend! See you Monday.
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