Dec 24-30, 2014
Year in Review: News Updates, Best Eats, Film Ups and Downs, Top-10 Vermont CDs
Obituary: Robert L. Ayres, 1941-2014, Bethesda, MD
Robert L. Ayres, an internationally acclaimed political economist whose career spanned four decades in California and Washington, D.C., died on December 23 in Rockville, Maryland. He was 73. The cause was pneumonia following complications from frontotemporal dementia. Dr. Ayres began his career in the Department of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley.…
Obituary: Thomas John Rock, 1939-2015, Burlington
Thomas John Rock youngest of thirteen children went to be with the Lord on January 1, 2015. Tom was born on July 8, 1939 the son of Arthur J. Sr, and Nancy (Davis) Rock in Burlington, VT. He attended grade school in Burlington and high school in NY where he enjoyed four years of Seminary…
Obituary: Paul E. Dufresne, 1929-2015, Winooski
Paul E. Dufresne, age 85, a lifetime resident of Winooski, passed away on 01/03/2015 at home surrounded by his family. Paul leaves his loving, caring and devoted wife of 59 years, Rita (Thibault), as well as his children; Louise & Richard Mongeon of Winooski, Raymond of Burlington, Normand and Kelly of Hawaii, Richard and Mary…
Obituary: Leo P. Latimer, 1926-2014, Grand Isle
Leo P. Latimer, 88, of Grand Isle, VT passed away December 31, 2014. He worked as a machinist. He was born on May 23, 1926 to Edward and Rosanna Latimer. He married C. Ardell Herbert on March 25, 1946 who passed away December 12, 2001. Left to cherish his memory are his daughters Ginny and…
Obituary: Jannette Daignault, 1928-2014, Burlington
Jannette “Janet” (DuBrule) Daignault, 86, of Burlington, VT passed away peacefully on Sunday, December 7, 2014 with her family by her side. Janet was a loving and caring mother, grandmother, sister and friend who will be greatly missed. She enjoyed camping, fishing and never missed a garage sale! She traveled cross country many times with…
Obituary: John Robert Roos, M.D., 1953-2014, Hinesburg
John Robert Roos, M.D., age 61, died on December 24, 2014, at the VNA Vermont Respite House in Williston, as a result of esophageal cancer. John was born on April 30, 1953, in Fargo, ND, to Lillian Mercedes (Mickelson) Roos and Norman Carl (Herseth) Roos. He grew up in Hawley, Minnesota, as the youngest of…
Obituary: Kathleen Ondis Eardensohn, 1952-2014, Marshfield
MARSHFIELD, VT—Kathleen Ondis Eardensohn, 62, died at her home on December 19, 2014, with her friend and companion Gregory Sanford and their daughters Dosia and Emma Sanford by her side. Ondis was born on October 11, 1952, in Nashville, TN, the daughter of Albert (Gene) and Liddell Eardensohn. Ondis attended Trinity College in Burlington and…
Update: Burlington’s Changing Taxi Scene
The Queen City’s taxi industry has been in overdrive all year. Benways, the biggest and best-known cab company, shut down in July, leaving the roads open for competitors. Even before the shakeup, one Burlington airport commissioner compared the taxi situation to the Wild West, referring to an absence of city oversight. A new company called…
Vermont’s Drive-Ins: And Then There Were Three
In our 2014 Summer Preview issue (May 21), staff writer Ken Picard asked, “Is the Curtain Rising or Falling on Vermont’s Drive-Ins?” The owners of Vermont’s four drive-in movie theaters faced three choices, he wrote: convert to digital projection (at approximately $80,000 per screen), gamble on the continued availability of 35mm film prints, or close.…
Update: Private Prisons, Public Documents: A Magazine Gets the Inside Scoop
Prison Legal News is a national monthly magazine for incarcerated people and their families. More than two years ago, it set out to learn how Corrections Corporation of America, a private company that houses roughly 500 Vermont inmates at prisons in Kentucky and Arizona, handled complaints about inmate injuries and health problems. In May 2012,…
Update: South End Business Will Sell to CCTA
Officials at the Chittenden County Transportation Authority say it needs more room for a growing fleet of buses. More than a year ago, it expressed interest in buying property adjacent to its current garage on Industrial Parkway. Negotiations with Ryan Brothers Electric went nowhere. The family that owns the company, which has been in business…
Aptronyms 2014: Are Descriptive Monikers Coincidence or Fate?
Are people destined to a certain fate because of their given names? That question has been kicking around for centuries, at least since Samuel Alexander Mudd, a 19th-century physician and slave owner, was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Because Mudd was the doctor who treated Booth’s broken leg after…
A Shum-Dinger of a Year: 2014’s Top Political Stories
If you’d told us a year ago that Gov. Peter Shumlin would come within 2,500 votes of losing reelection and then abandon his signature policy priority, we wouldn’t have believed you. But that’s why we didn’t go into fortune-telling. Indeed, 2014 was a fascinating year in Vermont’s little political world — and a brutal one…
Update: New Chancellor, Same Struggle for Vermont State College System
The Vermont State College system, which educates about 10,000 Vermonters every year, has long suffered repeated strikes from a double-edged sword: declining enrollment and diminished state support. Vermont currently provides just 18 percent of VSC’s budget; the rest comes from the rising cost of tuition. Gov. Peter Shumlin signed legislation to increase the state’s contribution…
Letters to the Editor (12/24/14)
Fare Not With all the rancor about taxi laws, Uber, etc., it’s annoying — if not improper, inappropriate or illegal — that a Vermont state cop is allowed to live his civilian life by driving around in a retired-but-still-lettered New York yellow taxi that looks authentic enough to mislead the public [Off Message: “City Attorney…
Update: A Legal Quandary for Burlington and Planned Parenthood
In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the buffer zone that kept protesters away from abortion clinics in Massachusetts. By ruling that no-protest areas infringed on free speech, the justices effectively eliminated the 35-foot one that used to exist around Burlington’s Planned Parenthood. In response, the Queen City’s clan of pro-lifers crossed St.…
Opera Theatre of Weston to Stage The Secret Garden
It’s not often that a new opera premieres at the San Francisco Opera, then heads straight to Vermont. Yet the Opera Theatre of Weston has managed to accomplish just that with The Secret Garden, an SFO-commissioned 2013 opera based on the beloved 1911 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The OTW will produce a revised version…
Update: Sanders’ Forgotten Folk Album Was Bernie Beat’s First Viral Scoop
By now, almost everyone knows Sen. Bernie Sanders is mulling a run for president. Digging deep into the archives, Seven Days unearthed long-forgotten news that in 1987, while serving as Burlington’s mayor, Sanders recorded an album of folk hits, including “We Shall Overcome,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “This Land is Your Land.” Todd…
![Van Gogh Makes Friends [SIV381]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/episode381.webp?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
Van Gogh Makes Friends [SIV381]
12/8/14: Whether he’s warming laps at Pillsbury Manor South in South Burlington or learning how to read with kids at the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library in Williston, Van Gogh is one busy feline. A registered therapy cat, he is a European Burmese who is unusually calm with people. His handler Elizabeth Llewellyn is happy to…
Update: Vermonters Fight Ebola in Liberia
As Ebola raged across West Africa, a handful of Vermont health care workers quietly left for Liberia to help. One of them was Brant Goode, a nurse epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who’s been stationed at the Vermont Department of Health for the last five years. Goode left in September on…
News Quirks (12/24/14)
Compiler’s note: Chronicling human folly gets harder every year because as foibles proliferate, the odd seems commonplace. These unbelievable-but-true news stories, however, stand out as the year’s quirkiest. Caught Stupid When the police officer who stopped Douglas Glidden, 25, in Livermore Falls, Maine, found marijuana in his vehicle, Glidden insisted the pot couldn’t be his…
Update: A Hole in the Ground Was His Home
Over the course of three chilly fall days, nearly 80 volunteers fanned out across Burlington collecting information about the city’s homeless population. Part of the national 100,000 Homes Campaign, the goal was to identify the most vulnerable, including those not taking advantage of emergency shelter services, and, ultimately, to get them help. The organizers emphasized…
Hood Museum Receives Two Large Collections of Art
It was a very good year for the Hood Museum of Art. In 2014, the Dartmouth College institution received two major donations of artwork from alums. The college was already an art lovers’ destination, offering such attractions as the stunning “The Epic of American Civilization” mural by José Clemente Orozco in the Baker Library. Exhibits…
Update: Approval of School District Merger May Signal Trend
On Election Day, voters in the five towns that make up the Chittenden East Supervisory Union weighed in on a proposal to streamline the decision-making process for the district’s six elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school. The bid to reduce the number of Chittenden East education board members from 66 to 15…
Bob Spear’s Legacy Lives on at Birds of Vermont Museum
Bob Spear, cofounder of Huntington’s Birds of Vermont Museum, always considered his remarkably lifelike wooden bird sculptures to be purpose-built. A lifelong conservationist and educator, Spear maintained that his 500-plus sculptures were designed to inform museum visitors — especially young ones — about the natural world, and to instill in them an appreciation for it.…
Update: Bull Market for Ye Olde Vermont Documents
Several documents related to early Vermont history were recently offered for sale at Swann Auction Galleries in Manhattan. The items came from the collection of Milton R. Slater of Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., who died earlier this year. Swann’s experts judged the most significant piece to be a 1791 declaration by the United States Congress certifying…
Lyric Theatre to Buy $1.3 Million Home
Lyric Theatre Company, a pioneer in Burlington’s theater scene, has produced biannual musicals on the Flynn MainStage for more than 40 years — since before the Flynn existed as a nonprofit entity and performing-arts center. Now entering its fifth decade, the community-theater group has staged 85 musicals and has hundreds of volunteers on its roster. Though…
Update: Family Wants a South End Deli With the Works
In the service of journalism, we spent a day hanging out at the bustling Pine Street Deli, trying to fight off hunger pangs as we watched the lunch-hour chaos unfold. A South End institution, the deli is run by Michael Alvanos, whose Greek parents established a toehold in the area by running the old Parkway…
Update: South End Apartments Project Has Been on Hold
Last spring, a proposal to build a four-story apartment complex on a quiet plot occupied by the St. Anthony Church stirred panic among Burlington’s South End residents. Neighbors worried that a 52-unit project — which one person described as a “big, ugly monstrosity” — would disrupt their neighborhood, towering over the area’s mostly single-family homes.…
Update: In the Pipeline Battle, a Temporary Ceasefire
For more than a year, Jane Palmer had been a vocal critic of the Vermont Gas pipeline that would carry natural gas from Chittenden County south to Middlebury — through the farm where she and her husband, Nate, live in Monkton. Like other pipeline critics, she felt the company wasn’t treating landowners fairly, and that…
The Big Not-So-Easy
“Well, this might be forward of me,” I said to my customer, Brenda White, who was sitting beside me and enjoying the ride, “but your hair is simply fabulous. There’s no other word for it.” I knew that compliment might come across as stereotypically gay, and I was fine with it. Under the right inspiration,…
Update: An Iconic Mad River Valley Inn Has New Owners
For more than 25 years, Waitsfield’s Inn at the Round Barn Farm has been a cultural magnet and economic driver in the Mad River Valley. In 1986, Jack and Doreen Simko, longtime visitors to Vermont from Somerset, N.J., purchased the 19th-century farmhouse and 12-sided barn from local dairy farmers. After investing more than $300,000 in…
Update: Feds Push for Cleaner Lake Champlain
The problem? Too much phosphorus is running into the lake, both from so-called “nonpoint” sources — think roads and farm fields — and wastewater treatment plants. At this point, cleanup is no longer optional. In 2011, the EPA revoked the state’s plan to manage the flow of nutrients and pollution into Lake Champlain because it…
Locals Weigh in on the Best Music of 2014
We here at Seven Days spend a lot of time listening to local music. It often makes us wonder what the musicians who make that music tune in to. So each year we email local musicians, club owners, booking agents and other assorted scenesters to find out what music, local and otherwise, rocked their worlds…
Update: Health Problems Plague Jailed Winooski Drug Dealer
U.S. Customs and Border Protection provided Winooski police with a helicopter in the predawn raid that busted Deirdre Hey, 47, on charges of selling heroin. The cops also claimed that Hey had allowed New York City dealers to use her apartment as their HQ. A few weeks later, Hey admitted to Seven Days that she…
Remembering Vermonters Who Died in 2014
More than 5,100 people died in Vermont in 2014, according to the Vermont Department of Health. Some of them — such as former senator Jim Jeffords, Vermont Law School professor Cheryl Hanna and poet Galway Kinnell — made headlines. Most didn’t, living largely out of the public eye. But each one had friends, loved ones…
Kisonak and Harrison at the Movies 2014
I have seen the future and it is wet. It smells a little like burning rubber, too. I’m sure you’ve been keeping up with the latest trends in movie theater design, so you’re well aware that 3D is yesterday’s news. The multiplex of tomorrow will feature seats that shake you like a moviegoing martini, scent…
Update: Time for Burlington’s ‘Bicycle Moment?’
Cyclists roll cautiously along Burlington’s North Avenue, one of the city’s few main, north-south thoroughfares that is bikeable year round. The suburban section north of the Route 127 intersection is a series of accidents waiting to happen, but we confined our “WTF” query to: “Why is there an intermittent bike lane on Burlington’s North Avenue?”…
Update: ‘Barbaras’ Lawsuit Drags On Amid Lakeshore Drama
In early March, Barbara Ernst and Barbara Supeno filed a lawsuit in Addison Superior Court alleging discrimination and outright harassment on the basis of sexual orientation by town officials and neighbors. The couple, known as “the Barbaras” by many in town, alleged that selectboard chair Jeff Kauffman and others had repeatedly made prejudicial zoning decisions,…
Recapping the Top Local Records of 2014
Top Vermont-made recordings of 2014 Anders Parker, There’s a Bluebird in My Heart Barbacoa, Italian Medallion Caroline Rose, I Will Not Be Afraid The DuPont Brothers, Heavy as Lead Invisible Homes, Song for My Double Pours, Pours The Precepts, This Is How It Must Be Swale, The Next Instead Waylon Speed, Kin The Write Brothers,…
Soundbites: 2014 Music News in Review; Locavore NYE
Welcome, friends, to the last Soundbites column of 2014. With New Year’s Eve looming, there is certainly a lot to get to. But before we look forward, let’s take a moment to look back and close the book on some of the stories that shaped the past year in local music. 2014 was the year…
Update: First Seeds in Vermont’s Budding Hemp Industry
Hemp activists scored a big victory in 2013, when Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law a bill that legalized the cultivation of cannabis sativa, a relative of marijuana that can be used to make food, fuel and fiber. The problem is that the state law regulating hemp — which lacks tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, in the…
Art Review: ‘Preoccupied’ at Vermont Metro Gallery
There’s no devil in the details that abound in “Preoccupied,” a show at the BCA Center’s Vermont Metro Gallery. Instead, there’s beauty and bedazzlement in the 40 works by four artists who share an affinity for intricacy. Attention to detail is so fastidious in some of the pieces on display that they bear the hallmarks…
Update: Sen. Dick Sears Protects Vermont Children
The Political Is Personal: Sen. Dick Sears Protects Vermont Children Sen. Dick Sears was born in prison to a mother he never knew. The Bennington County Democrat lived in three foster homes before he was adopted. Later in life, he spent decades searching for his biological family. He eventually found a long-lost sister living in…
Update: Smart Parking? New Meters, New Ideas for Queen City Spaces
When Nate Wildfire, assistant director of Burlington’s Community & Economic Development Office, began asking people in 2013 how they felt about parking in the city, he soon learned that “parking is emotional.” Tourists got frustrated when they couldn’t find public garages. Business owners got annoyed about constantly having to make change so motorists could feed…
Free Will Astrology (12/24/14)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Hell is the suffering of being unable to love,” wrote novelist J.D. Salinger. Using that definition, I’m happy to announce that you have a good chance of avoiding hell altogether in 2015. If there has been any deficiency in your power to express and bestow love, I think you will correct…
What Are the Long-Term Effects of Anal Sex?
Dear Athena, I’ll cut right to the chase. My husband and I really enjoy anal sex. I need a lot of foreplay, and it always kind of hurts at first, but once we get going, it feels really good and makes me climax. I have two questions for you, though. The first is, why does…
The Best Things to Happen to Vermont Food in 2014
What are you eating this year? To some of our readers, that may seem like an odd question. Dinner is dinner, right? But Seven Days’ food writers spend hours in search of stimulating sustenance, probing from fine dining to greasy spoons for news you can use about what to eat in Vermont. We put our…
Best Bite of 2014: Pascolo Ristorante
For years, when readers asked me where to stop for a meal on Church Street, I told them to keep walking. It’s no surprise that Burlington’s main drag generally hasn’t been inspirational to me; as a critic, I’m most excited by the undiscovered spots that exceed my expectations and offer something I can’t find anywhere…
