Daybreak Thursday, 10/23/25

Mix of clouds and sun, faint chance of showers this afternoon. Low pressure’s still around for a few days, and there may be some renewed rain later, but basically, we’re looking at a partly cloudy day with highs in the mid or upper 50s and winds from the southwest. Down into the mid 30s overnight.

Look, down below! A drone shot of Grafton Pond, making it clear that the water’s low but, as Sheila Culbert writes, “still gorgeous.”

It’s time for Dear Daybreak! This week’s collection of short pieces from readers about Upper Valley life features Sally Duston’s exquisite photo of clouds in a Thetford sunset; April Ossmann’s gloss on last week’s video of acorns hitting roofs—a poem about acorns that, among other things, “shotgun metal roof”; and Lori Harriman’s description of walking the Cossingham trails in Norwich not long after her father had died. If you’ve got something to share, please send it in.

Robert Tulloch moves “step closer” to resentencing. The 41-year-old, serving a life sentence in prison since he was 17 for the 2001 murders of Half and Suzanne Zantop in Etna, has been trying for a new sentence based on his status as a minor when he committed the crime. In July, Superior Court Judge Lawrence MacLeod ruled the original sentence violated NH’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment—and now, reports Damien Fisher for InDepthNH, has reaffirmed his decision in the face of a challenge from prosecutors. The AG’s office has not said yet whether it will appeal the decision to the state supreme court.

Stateline Sports to relocate under new owner. The move to the old Lebanon Plumbing Supply spot on Mechanic Street from its current spot on the West Leb side of the bridge to WRJ is slated for this winter, reports Lukas Dunford in the Valley News. It comes after Tracy Pelletier, one of the stalwart sporting goods store’s first employees, bought it in September from co-founder Jon Damren. Pelletier signed the lease on its new digs the day he took ownership: “It gives us a little bit more space,” he says, and “a much nicer customer experience.” “I liken Stateline to Cheers,” says store veteran Dave Dupree. “You know, where you walk in, and everybody knows your name.”

SPONSORED: Remember the big screen in the Hopkins Center’s Spaulding Auditorium? It’s back! Come sink into its new and improved seats and experience movies the way they were meant to be seen: larger than life, with sound that pulls you in and surrounds you. Catch a mix of current hits, immortal classics and Met Opera in HD titles in their full glory at the newly reopened theater. Full fall lineup at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth.

New report details “the widening gap between what Granite Staters earn and what it takes to make ends meet.” Even though the typical household in the state now earns nearly $100K a year, writes the NH Fiscal Policy Institute in the report, a family of four making that income “still falls about $2,000 short of covering basic needs annually.” That’s due in large part to the rising cost of essentials: housing, health care, child care, food, and energy needs like heating and electricity. All of it, the report says, produces “acute cost-of-living challenges that Granite State families face which many families of previous generations did not.”

NH needs four new agency heads. A look at how those vacancies came about. As the Globe’s Steven Porter writes (newsletter, no paywall), on Tuesday Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s office launched a website highlighting the open positions and inviting applicants. For job seekers it’s always a good idea “to try and understand why the vacancy exists,” Porter adds, so he obliges: Longtime business and economic affairs commissioner Taylor Caswell stepped down this month after an Exec Council majority criticized his leadership; Ayotte refused to renominate Public Utilities Commission chair Dan Goldner; conservatives convinced former Gov. Chris Sununu to withdraw his choice for state librarian; and the old state parks director took a new job in CT.

SPONSORED: CHOIR! is coming to St. Thomas Church this November—a dynamic new singing and music program open to all children in the Upper Valley. Learn the art of choral singing in one of the world’s most well-known musical traditions, then perform in America’s oldest service of Nine Lessons and Carols. Designed for ages 8-18, the flexible 6-week sessions make it easy to take part in and be part of something unforgettable! Find out more about the program and how to register at the burgundy link. Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Hanover.

In VT, “a surprising number” of volunteer firefighters are tech workers. In fact, the head of the VT Technology Alliance tells Steve Goldstein in Seven Days’ tech issue, he’s met “at least 50 tech remote professionals who are also volunteer firefighters.” Remote workers tend to have flexible hours and can leave their desks when needed; and, writes Goldstein, their skills are in demand for an increasingly computerized job. “People think of the fire department as charging into a burning building with a 70-pound pack on your back and wrangling a stupefyingly heavy hose,” says Pawlet’s Jonathan Weiss, a freelance animator for streaming services. “That’s a small part of it.”

In Cavendish, VT, a water system operator teams up with an ex-FBI agent to stave off cyberattacks. It may seem like overkill, but as Colin Flanders writes in Seven Days, “Recent cyberattacks on critical U.S. infrastructure, including water facilities, have demonstrated the lengths that hackers will go to wreak havoc on American society.” Thanks to a grassroots effort to link people who run critical local infrastructure with cybersecurity pros, Cavendish’s Chris Hughes—his town is one of five pilot sites for the project—is working with former FBI cyberattacker profiler Tim Pappa to harden the town’s two plants. Flanders details what’s going on.

Romaine Tenney film lands VT Historical Society award. You might remember Travis Van Alstyne’s animated short last year, Love of the Land, and the story of Tenney—who, as workers building I-91 closed in on his Ascutney farm in 1964, put his dogs out, barricaded himself in the farmhouse, and set it on fire. Now, the historical society has recognized it for “humaniz[ing] an event often seen as a footnote to the mid-20th-century transformation of Vermont. In place of the former interpretation of the event as public protest, Travis Van Alstyne’s work instead shows Tenney’s actions as a requiem to a lost way of life.” Announcement at the burgundy link, film here.

Could Otter 841 be back? Remember that California sea otter who was raised in Monterey Bay Aquarium, released into the wild, and then suddenly began chomping on surfboards? The height of her infamy was two years ago, after which she went quiet. But on Oct. 14, reports Moná Thomas in Otter—er, People—mag, Isabella Orduna was surfing in Santa Cruz when, she later reported, an otter bit her foot, climbed on her board, and refused to get off for about 20 minutes. Sadly, we may never know if 841 has returned: her identifying tracker is no longer active.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
Poet Marie Howe at Dartmouth’s Sanborn Library. The 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry winner and former poet laureate of New York State, Howe will be reading from her works, talking with the audience, and signing books. 4:30 pm.

Avi Salloway & Friends at Fable Farm’s Rumney Sessions. The cold-weather indoor version of Feast and Field this week features “a luminous night of art-rock and global grooves that make you want to dance,” offered up by Salloway (Billy Wylder/Bombino), Rob Morse (Hadestown/Vorcza), Parker Shper (Leif Vollebekk), and Anthony Lafond (Billy Wylder). 5:30 pm.

The Traveling Sci-fi/Fantasy Festival at the Norwich Bookstore. It’s a panel of sci-fi and speculative fiction writers—Elaine U. Cho, J.R. Dawson, Emily Jane, Yume Kitasei, and Mia Tsai—talking about the point of speculative fiction, why they write it, what it reveals about the state of the world now and in the future, and more. 7 pm.

Polly Ingraham at Still North Books & Bar with Unconverted: Memoir of a Marriage. Ingraham, a Dartmouth grad and essayist, will be talking with fellow-writer Marjorie Nelson Matthews about her new memoir, which details 30 years of marriage as an “atypical pastor’s wife,” as Kirkus puts it, to a man who rose through the ranks of the Episcopal church to become, eventually, a bishop—all while she “stayed steadfast in her love of literature, sports, nature, and her family.” 7 pm.

Hanover High’s Footlighters debut their production of Twelfth Night. Directed by Terry Samwick, the production of Shakespeare’s classic comedy features original music composed by singer, songwriter, and actor Tommy Crawford. 7 pm tonight and tomorrow, 3 pm Saturday in the HHS auditorium.

Beetlejuice at the Lebanon Opera House. Yep, the original: Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder, and “Day-o” on the big screen. 7 pm.

Singer-songwriters Maia Sharp and Catie Curtis at the Flying Goose Pub. The New London venue brings in the accomplished pair, with a pile of recordings to their names, appearances with big names, songs on major tv shows, and more. 7:30 pm and you’ll need to make reservations.

Nosferatu in Rollins Chapel. It’s in Rollins, facing the Dartmouth Green, because you want that magnificent organ sound for what the Hop calls “the OG vampire film.” F.W. Murnau's 1922 classic starts with “a simple real-estate transaction [that] leads an intrepid businessman deep into the superstitious heart of Transylvania.” Cue celebrated organist Peter Krasinski, improvising live on the keys and stops. 8:30 pm, free, no tix.

And for today...

Two absolute masters at work. Back in 1979, jazz great Oscar Peterson sat down with Dick Cavett to talk not just piano, but the “stylistic trademarks of other pianists.” They start with the stride piano of Art Tatum—who, Peterson once said, “frightened me to death with his technique” and which, as Cavett jokes, could “put the rhythm section out of work.” Then they move on to Nat Cole, Erroll Garner, George Shearing, double octave melody lines, and more, with Peterson a generous, fluent, and funny authority and Cavett at his curious, quipping best. Honest, just sit back let them carry you along.

Thanks, AFG!

See you tomorrow.

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