GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Cool, dry, sunny. We started cold, with frost in places and temps just above freezing in others, but while some high clouds may linger during the day, mostly the sun will be out and temps will climb into the high 50s or lower 60s. Calm winds will shift to come from the north this afternoon, and with clear skies tonight, expect patchy frost again, lows either side of freezing.Checking out that fall light... UV photographers were out there this weekend! Here's...
A "smile rainbow" over Thetford Center, by Renata Watts;
The sun throwing prisms from Burke Mountain, by Janice Fischel;
And an expressive bank of clouds mirrored in Hanover's Occom Pond, by Jessica Londa.
The old Hatch's Store in Post Mills: Gone in an hour and twenty minutes. Last Tuesday, with a small crowd of onlookers gathered across the road, Canaan's Hammond C&D put two excavators to work demolishing the ramshackle building on Route 113 in the center of the village. Sidenote's Li Shen was there with her camera and documented the work, almost blow-by-blow. Old buildings like that are "tender," Justin Hammond says, and the work was quick but delicate. By the end of the week, the site had been graded, and EC Brown's Nursery will be planting trees.New arts high school to open in Lebanon. The private, non-profit New England School for the Arts, reports Susan Apel in Artful, aims to open next fall on the Leb Mall. It's the doing of Carl and Jennifer Chambers (she's also the choral director at Hanover High), who wanted to "create a school where arts integration was the number one priority and not second or third to other disciplines," Carl says. Collaborators include AVA, the DSO, JAG, the Hood, LOH, Upper Valley Music Center, and others; the board will be chaired by former Salomon Brothers CEO-turned-sculptor Miles Slater.SPONSORED: Join Visions for Creative Housing Solutions and Flame, the band, in a rockin’ afternoon at Lebanon Opera House! It's Sunday, October 9 at 4 PM, celebrating the power and potential of people with disabilities. This internationally-recognized band from upstate New York spreads hope and inspiration while demonstrating that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities can make significant contributions in their communities. Suggested donation: $5-10 at the door via cash, check, or Donorbox. Sponsored by Visions for Creative Housing Solutions.Randolph-area school district takes down website after weekend hack. The Orange Southwest Supervisory Union site was filled Saturday with “hate speech, symbols, and photographs targeting transgender invidividuals,” superintendent Layne Millington told the community. The hack appears related to ongoing turmoil at the high school involving the girls' volleyball team and a transgender team member, reports VTDigger's Auditi Guha. Millington criticized media reports for making it appear "the district refuses to comment for some nefarious reason when they know the law prevents us from doing so.”As Dartmouth mourns deaths, it grapples with how to respond. In the Valley News, Nora Doyle-Burr reports on the Sept. 23 gathering of hundreds of students following the death by suicide of Piermont's Sam Gawel, the death at home in Indiana—its cause "was not clear from his obituary"—of Joshua Watson, the June death from cancer of Alex Simpson, and several others. Most recently, the college Thursday announced the death of Thayer researcher Luke Veenhuis. Amid a national rise in student anxiety and in deaths by suicide, students are focusing on how the college might best support students' mental health. The college has organized an Oct. 21 "Day of Caring."Two longtime UV leaders step down.
On Friday, Van Chesnut retired from his post as executive director of Advance Transit after 35 years knitting the agency into the region's transportation fabric. Chesnut will remain on staff until mid-November, then fully retire. The move, announced via press release on Thursday, has been in the works since the spring, which is when AT brought on Adams Carroll as co-director; Carroll, who was director of operations for Pittsburgh Bike Share and a mobility planner for Nashville's metropolitan government, took over from Chesnut on Saturday.
Also on Friday, Lebanon Fire Chief Chris Christopoulos announced that he'll be leaving the post as of Oct. 28. He began as a volunteer firefighter in Wallingford, CT, in 1982, the Valley News writes, before eventually becoming Leb's deputy chief in 2002 and then chief five years later. City Manager Shaun Mullholland tells the VN that the city "is still developing a succession plan but expects to select a new fire chief prior to Christopoulos’s departure."
"It feels good to just hit that bag as hard as you can.” That's Hanover's Suzanne Serat, sporting blue boxing gloves, talking to Vermont Public's Nina Keck about CCBA's "Rock Steady Boxing" class for people with Parkinson's. Though intense activity can't reverse symptoms, the head of UVM's Parkinson's center tells Keck, it can slow them down or make them disappear temporarily. Keck spends time in the CCBA class, taught by physical therapist Samantha Duford, and finds the camaraderie is as important as the movement. "You don’t have to explain anything," Serat tells her.NH DES rejects Claremont Conservation Commission, approves wetlands permit for Ford dealership. You may remember that Ford of Claremont wants to build a second dealership and pave over about 26,000 square feet of meadow adjoining its current dealership. Last week, reports Patrick O'Grady in the VN, the state declared that, contrary to the conservation commission's opinion, the wetlands hold no value for plants or wildlife, or for handling runoff or flooding. City council member James Contois, who also sits on the conservation commission, on Thursday filed an appeal.Vermont: 8,600 miles of unpaved roads vs. 7,151 paved. That fun little factoid comes from Erica Housekeeper's Happy Vermont blog entry about scenic dirt roads to explore this fall. It's a reprise of a 2020 post, but with colors shaping up to be pretty darn vibrant out there, it's as good as new. Also, the names pretty much shout their backroad-ness: Mack Mountain Road out of Peacham, the three-mile-long Goat Farm Road in Pittsfield (which "has it all: quiet woods, horse pastures, red barns, and mountain views), Hazen's Notch up on Montgomery, Kelley Stand Road down in the southern Greens...The Monday Vordle. With a word taken from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
This evening at 6:30, Sharon Academy kicks off the rebirth of its lecture and discussion series on issues affecting adolescents and their families with comic storyteller and "social sexuality" educator Cindy Pierce. Of tonight's talk, TSA writes, "Combining research and stories in her presentations, Cindy Pierce will help us to increase awareness, equip us with talking points, and inspire us to engage kids in ongoing conversations. Most parents are concerned about the long-term consequences of excessive screen time and the content their kids consume, but challenging social norms takes incredible courage."
A brief music hiatus...I know a lot of you have come to count on the music in this spot to get your day going, so I don't do this lightly, but I'm going to take a break from it this week so that I can replenish the upcoming playlist. Don't worry: It's just a small pause. Head back here next week!See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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