• Graveside committal services for Philip Curtis Blum will be conducted Saturday, June 1, at 11 a.m., in Baker Cemetery in Guilford. A reception will follow at American Legion Post 5 in Brattleboro. Mr. Blum died on Jan. 15, 2024, in Sarasota, Florida, following an extended illness. To view his full obituary, visit atamaniuk.com.
• A celebration of life for Robert Wright will be held on Saturday, June 1, at 1 p.m., at 153 Meetinghouse Rd. in Hinsdale, New Hampshire. For more information, call 603-256-8037. Mr. Wright, 72, of Hinsdale, died on Dec. 23, 2023.
• Graveside services for Susan Limoges John will be held Saturday, June 8, at 11 a.m., at St. Michael's Cemetery, White Birch Ave., Brattleboro. Formally from Brattleboro, Susan died peacefully on April 16, 2023, in Roseville, California, surrounded by her family. A reception will immediately follow at The Marina restaurant, 28 Spring Tree Rd., Brattleboro.
• A barbecue pot luck to celebrate the life of Robert E. "Bob" LaFantano will be held on Sunday, June 9, from 11 a.m. until dusk, at the pavilion at Living Memorial Park in Brattleboro. Bring a dish and your favorite stories about Bob. On Saturday, June 8, in Calvary Cemetery in Rutland, a graveside service will be held, followed by a luncheon for the family at the Italian Aid Society on West Street. Mr. LaFantano, 61, of Brattleboro, died on Nov. 19, 2023, after a brief battle with cancer.
Memorial Day service in Dummerston DUMMERSTON - The town of Dummerston and Evening Star Grange will sponsor their traditional Memorial Day Program on Thursday, May 30, with the Brattleboro American Legion Band doing a mini-concert at 6:30 p.m. on the Dummerston Center Common. The rest of the program will...
BRATTLEBORO-On this damp and gray Memorial Day, the traditional service in front of the town's war memorial at the Town Common was moved indoors to American Legion Post 5 on Linden Street. For incoming Post 5 commander Jay Mills, it was the first Memorial Day service he was in...
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts and Twilight Music present singer-songwriter John Gorka at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill, on Sunday, June 2, at 7 p.m. "Few contemporary songwriters coax language as deftly as Gorka," note organizers in a news release. "With his uncanny ability to work every nuance of language, capturing a wide array of topics and experiences woven into memorable melodies, John Gorka's career continues to prosper and to garner ever-increasing attention." For over two decades, Gorka has incorporated stories of...
GUILFORD-On Friday, June 7, from 5 to 7 p.m., Guilford Free Library hosts its annual summer concert at the Guilford Fairgrounds to celebrate and fundraise for the Library's Summer Camp. The Rear Defrosters will play in the Cattle Barn at 163 Fairground Rd. This will be the event's third year featuring the honky tonk, country, soul, and rock 'n' roll band, whose players come from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Western Massachusetts. Concert-goers should bring their own picnic dinner if they...
GUILFORD-p>The Guilford Historical Society invites the public to attend the celebration reopening the 1837 Guilford Center Meeting House at 4042 Guilford Center Rd. (next door to the Guilford Free Library) on Saturday, June 1, from 1 to 3 p.m. Parking is available at the library, Broad Brook Community Center, and along Carpenter Hill Road. A short program will begin at 1:30 p.m. with an a cappella performance by the Guilford Chamber Singers. The program will be followed by light refreshments...
BRATTLEBORO-(1)Theatre Adventure has been named the 2024 recipient of a $5,000 grant from the Athena Giving Circle, a group of area women who pool resources to support one local nonprofit organization each year. This is their fifth annual award. Speaking for the group in a news release, Gail Nunziata said, "We are delighted to recognize Theatre Adventure for their dedicated work creating opportunities for people with disabilities to live meaningful and social lives, and find joy and growth through theater."
BRATTLEBORO-The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) invites the public to explore natural dye techniques in a workshop on Saturday, June 8, at the museum. In collaboration with the Brattleboro Food Co-op, BMAC Manager of Education Kate Milliken leads two introductory in-person sessions at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The workshops will take place outdoors, under a tent, in BMAC's front-lawn sculpture garden on 10 Vernon St. In case of rain, the workshops take place on Sunday, June 9. The...
BRATTLEBORO-It has been more than two years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Never before had a nation of Russia's size been subject to so many sanctions, from so many countries, so quickly, with seemingly so little result. The Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) will consider why sanctions have achieved neither their supporters' wildest dreams nor their greatest fears by hosting a "Members & Friends Salon" on Thursday, June 6, at 6:30 p.m. at 118 Elliot, 118 Elliot St. with Christine Abely.
MARLBORO-It's "Juno in June!" on Sunday, June 2, as the Brattleboro Music Center's Juno Orchestra takes the stage with a program for the coming of summer. The concert is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at Persons Auditorium in Marlboro. The program includes J. Mark Scearce's "Endymion's Sleep," commissioned in 1998 by the Nashville Chamber Orchestra; Haydn's Symphony 96 in D major, "The Miracle," first performed in London in 1791; and Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C major, which debuted in Vienna...
BRATTLEBORO-The Walk for Amber organizing committee announces the 18th annual Walk for Amber on Sunday, June 2. Registration begins at the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital parking lot at 10 a.m. Participants are offered a chance to contribute to the fundraiser. The raffle drawing takes place at 10:30 a.m., and the walk begins at 11 a.m. The course is a 5-mile loop, beginning and ending at the hospital. Over the years, hundreds of walkers have participated and many more have supported the...
MONTPELIER-Fourteen independent bookstores across Vermont - including Everyone's Books in Brattleboro, Village Square Booksellers in Bellows Falls, and Bartleby's Books in Wilmington - have teamed up to hold the second annual Pride Readathon to raise money for Camp Outright. Outright Vermont is a queer youth service organization and statewide advocacy center; Camp Outright is their residential summer program. Funds raised during the Readathon ensure that no camper is turned away due to financial need. Each bookstore is encouraging booksellers, customers,
GUILFORD-Five generations of the extended family of Shirley Squires of Guilford recently posed for photos. From left, Jennie Rhodes (holding Avani Lyric Santiago), Zachariah Santiago, Shirley Squires, and Donna Rhodes. (Your editor apologizes to the extended Squires family for not seeing that they proudly submitted photos of two separate groups of five generations - we published only one of the two in the May 1 issue.) This Milestones item was submitted to The Commons.
-The Brattleboro Bears Unified basketball team pulled off an impressive feat last week, winning four games in seven days to complete an undefeated season and win the program's second state championship. The Bears ran through a gauntlet of tough opponents in the playoffs, starting with a 47-40 win over Springfield on May 17 at the BUHS gym. With a couple of days to rest, Brattleboro then came away with home wins against Middlebury (43-38 on May 20) and Burr &
Nancy Braus, until recently an independent bookseller, is a longtime activist who contributes often to these pages. GUILFORD-For those of us baby boomers who grew up with dads (and a few moms) who fought in the European theater of World War II, or even those who fought in the Pacific, Nazis were always the unmentionables, the very embodiment of evil. Many of us had family who were in Nazi concentration camps themselves - I had a relative who survived Auschwitz.
WILLIAMSVILLE-That a village of only a few hundred people has sustained its own theater group for nearly nine years is pretty impressive; that it keeps going and growing is a testament to its tenacity - and to the vision, stance, and openheartedness of its leadership. Since its founding in 2015, the Rock River Players (RRP), with co–artistic directors Bahman Mahdavi and Amy Donahue, has offered comedies and dramas, new works and old chestnuts, a musical, many cabarets, improvisation workshops, and...
Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (D-Windham-3) is a second-term representative for Westminster, Rockingham, and Brookline. She is a teacher, gardener, forager, and grower of mushrooms. WESTMINSTER-Vermont has a new state symbol: Hericium americanum, also known as bear's head tooth, a white, long-toothed mushroom indigenous to Vermont. Students from kindergarten through eighth grade helped move forward this legislation to help Vermont become the sixth state with a State Mushroom. This new state symbol was determined after I made multiple school visits to middle...
The writer is owner and president of Silver Forest, Inc., a wholesale jeweler in Bellows Falls. BRATTLEBORO-As a proud business owner, I support a higher marginal tax rate on the top income earners, particularly at the $500,000-and-above rate. While some may see this as a burden, I firmly believe it is our responsibility, as successful members of society, to contribute proportionately to the well-being of our community. I understand the importance the role that businesses play in driving growth and...
SPRINGFIELD-At the Veteran Administration (VA) in White River Junction, a distinct memorial is dedicated to the submarine USS Flier (SS-250), lost during World War II in 1944. Ever-mindful of our lost shipmates, friends, and family who have served in the submarine service of our country, the United States Submarine Veterans Inc. (USSVI) has assigned each state one of the 52 lost submarines from World War II, with California and New York receiving two each of the lost submarines. Vermont was...
Cara Cheyette lives in Halifax, where, "as much at home as I felt in Cambridge, I've never felt more gratefully rooted than I do here, now," she says. HALIFAX-I fled a suburb of Boston in 1979, midway through senior year, and headed directly to Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was home. I lived or worked near the Square for the next 30 years, and I raised my daughter there,
PUTNEY-Nearly two months after the fire department collapsed, the town has a plan - and the department is back in action. On May 24, the Selectboard held a special meeting to discuss the strategies outlined by the town and the interim fire chief and voted unanimously to un-suspend the fire department side of services at noon on May 25. The town has been without an active fire department since the Selectboard voted on April 3 to suspend activities of the...
BELLOWS FALLS-This June is going to be quite a month for Bellows Falls, and it starts off with a bang. Bellows Falls has been chosen to host Vermont's Downtown and Historic Preservation Downtown Project Conference of 2024 on Wednesday, June 5, and on Thursday, June 6, the village will host the Vermont Arts Council's Creative Convening Summit. The two conferences will bring hundreds of visitors to the village. Also on Wednesday, June 5, at 5 p.m., there will be a...
TOWNSHEND-Local veteran Richard Jackson's World War II stint in Europe was 80 years ago and 3,500 miles away. And yet, it's still on the top of his mind. "I became the gunner on a mortar squad, which by definition is not on the front line and instead 100 yards behind, so I felt blessed," Jackson said in a recent interview. "But of course, whenever you got shelled, you knew the potential of getting hit." Jackson, who celebrated his 100th birthday...
SANTA FE, N.M.-The noted journalist Thomas L. Friedman once observed that "when it comes to discussing the Middle East, people go temporarily insane." That quote came to mind after reading the volcanic reactions to Tim Wessel's essay about the politics of local protests [Voices, March 20], which I didn't read but got the drift of. I guess so-called Progressives in Windham County respect opposing viewpoints as much as the MAGA crowd, meaning not at all. In condemning Wessel, his detractors...
BRATTLEBORO-The middle and high school students of Saint Michael School recently reenacted Raphael's painting The School of Athens as part of the school's Ancient Greece Night. Each student role-played a different philosopher, so there was a lively discussion about the value and pursuit of truth and the role of argument in creating a good citizenry. While Socrates didn't mention using social media to sharpen the mind, a Skeptic did say something applicable to the local conversation about the war in...
BRATTLEBORO-I want to walk down the street again and not be perceived and solicited. This is Brattleboro, for God's sake, not the inner hood. This was not the first evening I've walked alone, without my husband, in downtown Brattleboro that I've not only been solicited as a prostitute but also harassed when I respond, "No, I do not want a ride." People may say that how I dress means I want the attention. But shouldn't a woman have the right...
DUMMERSTON-I have followed Rep. Emilie Kornheiser's work in the Vermont Legislature since 2019. I am increasingly impressed with her intelligence; she understands the crucial issues affecting all Vermonters and is able to advance policies and legislation to improve the social, economic, and environmental quality of our lives in this state. Emilie has hit her stride and is well respected among her peers in Montpelier. It is in everyone's best interest to support her bid for re-election. Judy Fink Dummerston This...
BRATTLEBORO-Watercolors and oil paintings by Art Among Friends - Connie Evans, Alice Freeman, Kathy Greve, Laurie Klenkel, Louise Zak, and Lynn Zimmerman - will return to the Brooks Memorial Library in June. Unlike past Art Among Friends shows, this one does not have a theme, with more than 40 pieces of the local artists' recent work reflecting a variety of styles. "We have buildings, fruit, vegetables, animals, shells, boats, skies - just a really nice mix. And our styles are...
DOVER-Vermont stands as a beacon of community values. Yet beneath this facade, our education system has harbored inequities for decades that undermine these very principles. Enter Act 127-a legislative commitment to Vermont's constitutional guarantee of equity, opportunity, and fairness for every child in our state. However well-intentioned, Vermont's education funding system has inadvertently perpetuated inequities across our diverse landscapes. Rural, impoverished, and diverse districts have borne the brunt of this outdated model, and have struggled to provide the same level...
BRATTLEBORO-As local and global understanding of Israeli genocide against Palestinians has grown over the past eight months, and opposition to the actions of Israel builds, there have been many words printed in these pages expressing a feeling of Jewish unsafety. One writer objects to hearing the term "the Zionist project" - a term long used by historians to describe the modern political and demographic movement that created the Jewish-majority state of Israel - as antisemitic, and somehow "trickling down" to...
MARLBORO-The famed Marlboro Music Festival is not the only musical event happening on the former campus of Marlboro College - now called Potash Hill - this summer. From May 31 until June 9, world-renowned concert harpist Yolanda Kondonassis brings the American Harp Institute to Potash Hill, along with six concert harps and six harp students ages 14 to 24, for an intensive training experience. Kondonassis held similar retreats the past two summers in Ohio and Maine for larger groups. Participants...