Archive - Nov 2, 2009
On Halloween, Sloan Weinberg had boxes of books for all reading levels lined up on her porch, ready for the wave of trick-or-treaters to come through Buttolph Acres. As each costumed visitor approached the porch, she chose a book of the right level, helped by her husband, Andy, and her two daughters, 10-year-old Grace and seven-year-old Jade.
"As a teacher, I thought it would be a great idea to give something to promote education and came up with the idea of a book," she said.
MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury Union High School football coach Dennis Smith said he remembered a game like his team’s 20-14 overtime win over visiting Otter Valley Friday — when he was a high school freshman in 1983.
OV coach Dennis Perry said of the wind-swept, rain-soaked battle that, “It was just a couple of big old heavyweights going at it in a slugfest, and they were the last man standing.”
MIDDLEBURY — Leaders of the Parent-Child Center of Addison County are saluting the organization’s 30th birthday with a $2 million fund-raising campaign to perpetually extend services to needy clients.
The local Parent-Child Center is widely considered Vermont’s model organization for giving young parents the counseling and support services they need to become independent and productive citizens.
RIPTON — Ensconced in a former farmhouse tucked away amid the tree-filled slopes of Ripton, one could already argue that attending classes at the North Branch School is akin to going back to nature.
But the more than two-dozen students and faculty at North Branch took that concept a step further last week, as part of their contribution to the more than 5,200 worldwide global warming action events that occurred on Oct. 24 through the efforts of 350.org.
ADDISON COUNTY — Tomato season has come and gone, but late blight — a fungal disease that infected many tomato and potato crops in Vermont this summer — is still on the minds of many gardeners this fall.
As farmers and gardeners put their plots to bed, they’re taking care to make sure the blight, credited with causing the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, won’t spread to next year’s crops.
MIDDLEBURY — On Sept. 1, family members and friends of the U.S. Army 8-1 Cavalry regiment set out to travel 10,239 miles.
This was the total distance that the troops in the unit had traveled to reach Afghanistan from their home base in Washington state, and their loved ones set out to travel the same distance — by adding up miles exercised — in the “Race to Afghanistan.”
VERGENNES — City Planning Commission Chairman Neil Curtis discussed at the Oct. 27 city council meeting two issues planners have dealt with in recent months: backyard chickens and off-site sandwich boards.
Essentially, Curtis said planners believe that all chickens are illegal under current zoning, but that new laws could offer room for compromise.
“That’s something we’d like to consider changing for smaller numbers,” he said, noting planners also believe aldermen should consider a “nuisance ordinance” for backyard fowl violations rather than harder-to-enforce zoning provisions.
VERGENNES — Vergennes aldermen on Oct. 27 inched closer to a decision to accept ownership of the land under the city pool and nearby recreation facilities and discussed a way to help finance long-term operation and maintenance of the pool.
City Manager Mel Hawley suggested that the city council should request that the Vergennes ID school board, which now owns the land but is scheduled to dissolve next June, sell an adjacent eight-acre parcel it also owns and turn the proceeds over to the city.
The take from the sale could create a fund to help Vergennes afford pool ownership, he said.
