Archive - Apr 2010
April 26th
MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury artist Kate Gridley’s work can be found adorning the walls of some pretty prestigious places, including courthouses, major corporate offices, Middlebury College and some lavish estates.
She will soon be able to add the Vermont Statehouse to that list.
ADDISON COUNTY — Air traffic over Europe slowly picked up late last week after a giant plume of volcanic ash brought airports across the continent to a standstill, stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers and wreaking economic havoc to the tune of more than $1 billion.
The massive flight disruptions overseas — the largest since Sept. 11, 2001 — reached all the way to Addison County. Local travelers found their spring break trips disrupted when the unexpected disaster grounded them in airports from Germany to Ireland.
ADDISON/AFGHANISTAN — Sgt. 1st Class Michael Wojciechowski left behind his wife, Elizabeth, and their three children in Addison last Jan. 8 when he joined his Vermont Army National Guard colleagues in the first stages of their deployment to Afghanistan.
Officials in the U.S. armed forces last week shared photos of Wojciechowski on duty in Afghanistan, and Elizabeth Wojciechowski reports that her husband has settled into his mission there.
“He’s doing great,” she said. “The family is doing good.”
MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury College students Ben Wessel and Pier LaFarge had a lot on their minds one recent afternoon. There was finding on-campus housing, choosing classes for next semester — and, of course, coordinating a statewide campaign to get the gubernatorial candidates talking about clean energy plans.
VERGENNES — Vergennes officials said it was with unusual regret that they accepted the April 13 resignation of Neil Curtis from the city’s planning commission after almost seven years of service, the past three-and-a-half as its chairman.
Curtis, 42, oversaw the first full rewrite of the Vergennes city plan in decades, an effort that consumed most of his tenure, and also served those seven years on the Vergennes Development Review Board.
MIDDLEBURY — An early-season high school track and field meet at Middlebury College on Friday featured some fine individual performances by athletes from Middlebury, Mount Abraham and Vergennes, but the fourth team on hand, Lyndon, walked away with first place when they tallied up both the girls’ and boys’ team scores.
The Lyndon girls scored 120 points, with MUHS (89) and Mount Abe (81) not too far behind and VUHS (27) trailing.
It’s news of the “soft” sort when a company is recognized for its excellence. The story has a life span measured in nanoseconds and the distinction is normally formalized with a plaque that quickly begins to gather dust. The award and a buck will still buy a cup of coffee.
April 23rd
It seems as if Brandon’s quarrying history has been reborn with the Route 7 road work just south of town. Unlike in the 1800s, when Brandon enjoyed its heyday as a marble quarry center, the work is now being conducted with enormous excavators and front-end bucketloaders, the kind my young boys love to watch in videos. The dump trucks lined up and waiting to be loaded are size of those we see at Omya’s open house each year.
