To chronicle three decades of Seven Days, we dug deep into our archives and inboxes, finding meaningful and whimsical milestones along the way. The result isn’t just a timeline of our paper but also the evolving story of the place we all call home. As the saying goes: To know where you’re going, you gotta know where you’ve been. Enjoy this blast from the past.
1995
September 6: The first, 28-page issue of Seven Days is published with an essay by Peter Freyne, a short story excerpt by UVM prof Phil Baruth and a pizza survey headlined “The Pies Have It.” (The winner? Leonardo’s.) The calendar spotlights Rusty DeWees. The paper’s sole comic strip is dug Nap’s “Duane.”
September 13: Seven Days gets an email address, sevendays@together.net, and a classifieds section. The first of more than 1,000 mottos is: “Better read than dead.”
October 18: The cover story is prescient: “Fermenting Revolution: Vermont’s Beer Biz Hops to It” spotlights Long Trail, Otter Creek, Catamount and Magic Hat. Writer Irving Shelby Smith predicts: “The word ‘Vermont’ may soon also say ‘great beer’ to the rest of the nation.” Peter Freyne’s “Inside Track” debuts in Seven Days.
November 8: Paula Routly reports in “Back Talk” that Bob Denver, aka Gilligan of “Gilligan’s Island,” visited the Seven Days office. The paper publishes its first two iSpys, the better of which reads: “I spy with my little eye a M who’s sexy, sweet, caring, hairless, a morning person, huggable, has a fetish for cows and is keepable.”
November 15: Peter Freyne pens the cover story “Billy the Kid: William Greer, Football Folk Hero or Biggest Drug Dealer in Vermont?” The former Rice High School football star is accused of masterminding Vermont’s largest pot and hashish smuggling operation.
December 20: Tom Paine’s short story “From Basra to Bethlehem” appears in the first Reading Issue. A few months later, it earns the paper a prestigious Pushcart Prize.
1996
January 17: Seven Days launches its personal ads with a live “Dating Game” promotion. It runs every Wednesday night for 13 weeks above Nectar’s.
January 31: In “Winning Ticket,” Paula Routly gives a thumbs-up to Man With a Plan, John O’Brien’s mockumentary about dairy farmer Fred Tuttle and his campaign for office.
June 5: Seven Days publishes the first installment of its short-lived music quarterly, 4/4, with a story on the 15th anniversary of punk club 242 Main and a comic by James Kochalka.
September 9: In honor of the paper’s first anniversary, Burlington Mayor Peter Clavelle issues a proclamation and calls Seven Days a “must read.”
September 11: Seven Days’ first anniversary issue contains a local sex advice column by Lola the Love Counselor and a new monthly column: Peter Kurth’s “Crank Call.”
October 30: Kevin J. Kelley profiles developer Jeff Davis, aka “The Man Who Malled Williston.” Pamela Polston reports on the music scene in a new column, “Rhythm & News.”
November 6: Seven Days’ first Animal Issue debuts a reader-submitted pet photo contest called “Paw Prints.”
1997
January 29: The first Cyber Issue contains reviews of Vermont websites. In “Inside Track,” Peter Freyne notes that the Burlington Free Press doesn’t have a website. Turns out bfp.com goes to an S&M site called Bound for Pleasure.
March 19: Seven Days introduces “Webwise,” a monthly column about the internet, by Margaret Levine Young and Jordan Young, the Cornwall authors of Internet for Dummies.
May 14: “Webwise” explains how to write an email.
May 28: Pamela Polston interviews a 23-year-old Burlington woman in “What Happens After Rape? A Survivor of Sexual Assault Has Her Say.” (NENPA, 1st place, human interest feature)
July 16: Seven Days adds two new comic strips: “Dykes to Watch Out For” by Alison Bechdel and “Life in Hell” by Matt Groening.
July 24: Seven Days compiles its first Food Issue, with writers Molly Stevens and Marialisa Calta contributing.
December 3: Peter Freyne reports on Howard Dean in “Inside Track”:
“I’d say the guy’s got a serious case of presidential fever.”
1998
January 8: An epic ice storm paralyzes Vermont for almost a week.
February 4: Seven Days publishes the first monthly restaurant review by nationally known critic Marialisa Calta of Calais.
February 11: The weekly crossword puzzle makes its first appearance in Seven Days — along with the results of our first sex survey.
February 18: Seven Days gets its own domain name: sevendaysvt.com.
March 11: Vermont lawmakers vote Peter Freyne “Best Statehouse Print Reporter.” Says Sen. Peter Shumlin: “Peter Freyne is the only columnist in Vermont who is consistently intriguing. Legislators grab Seven Days every week like kids in a candy shop — mostly out of fear, of course.”
March 25: Pamela Polston reports in “Rhythm & News” that Agents of Good Roots will play the grand opening of Higher Ground on April 15 in Winooski.
September 8: Fred Tuttle defeats Jack McMullen in the Republican primary election for U.S. Senate.
October 21: Seven Days art critic Marc Awodey wins the John D. Donoghue Award for arts criticism. (VPA)
November 4: In “Back Talk,” Paula Routly notes Fred Tuttle’s appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” during which he held up a copy of Seven Days to show his sole campaign ad.
December 9: In “Rhythm & News,” Pamela Polston writes: “Now that Dennis Wygmans has confirmed the imminent sale of Club Toast to Club Extreme, everyone is getting all misty-eyed about their ‘last gig at Toast’ this month.”
December 19: The U.S. House of Representatives impeaches President Bill Clinton.
1999
May 12: Seven Days apologizes for the “vampire fangs” that appeared on the photo of Sen. Vince Illuzzi in the previous week’s cover story by Paula Routly: “It was a couple of ill-placed dust specks in the camera room at B.D. Press that made him look so ‘long in the tooth.’ Our apologies for the bizarre, but accidental, foul-up.”
June 3: Vermont Pub & Brewery honors Seven Days founders Pamela Polston and Paula Routly for “making Burlington a better place to live and play” with an award ceremony at the downtown brewpub.
June 23: Burlington’s “already-sizzling housing market” is beginning to overheat — so says Kevin J. Kelley in “Gimme Shelter.” He writes: “Any Hill Section or South End home not requiring extensive renovations and priced for less than $175,000 will be snapped up almost overnight, local realtors report.”
August 11: In “Rhythm & News,” Pamela Polston notes that Burlington expat Eugene Hutz is taking New York City by storm as a runway model — and making mustaches cool. His new band, Gogol Bordello, is a big hit.
October 13: In “Inside Track,” Peter Freyne labels the controversy surrounding the selection of City Market as Burlington’s downtown grocery store “the biggest political food fight of the modern era.”
October 20: In “Back Talk,” Paula Routly reports on Harrison Ford’s Vermont visit during the filming of What Lies Beneath: “Nectar’s doesn’t take credit cards — not even from Harrison Ford. When the fun-loving star of What Lies Beneath found himself out of money at the end of a night of carousing in Burlington, he proffered the plastic. No go. Word has it one of his ‘body guards’ coughed up the cash.”
December 1: Notable Vermonters reveal how they plan to spend the last night of the century in “Dropping the Ball? Celebrating New Year’s Eve, the Y2K Way…” by Paula Routly.
December 20: The Vermont Supreme Court rules in Baker v. State of Vermont that same-sex couples are entitled to the benefits of marriage under the state’s constitution.
2000
January 25: Hundreds of Vermonters flock to the Statehouse for a public hearing on same-sex marriage.
March 15: Seven Days adds “Hackie,” a biweekly column by Jernigan Pontiac.
May 3: Tim Newcomb’s first editorial cartoon, showing Howard Dean signing the civil unions bill behind closed doors, appears in Seven Days.
September 6: Seven Days adds a second section for employment ads, personals and comics.
October: Business People Vermont puts Seven Days on its cover, noting how “Pamela Polston and Paula Routly have put in long hours to overcome tough odds.”
November 21:
The Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce names Seven Days Business of the Year.
2001
March 21: Paula Routly hangs out with an ex-con in “Street Smart: On Burlington’s Church Street, a Man Called ‘Highway’ Steers Troubled Kids in the Right Direction.” (VPA, 1st place, best feature)
May 24: U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords stuns the nation by leaving the Republican Party, handing off control of a closely divided Senate to the Democratic Party for the next 18 months.
September 11: Nineteen Islamic terrorists fly four commercial jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing almost 3,000 people.
September 12: In “Inside Track,” Peter Freyne analyzes the Bush administration’s chaotic response to the previous day’s attacks.
September 19: Seven Days art critic Marc Awodey writes about his architect father, who helped design the World Trade Center. The original blueprints for the towers accompany the story.
October 7: The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan begins.
2002
April 17: Pamela Polston passes the torch to new music editor Ethan Covey.
June 19: Paula Routly interviews part-time Vermonter Judith Levine about her radical writings and the national reaction to her new book, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex. Levine later becomes a columnist for Seven Days, writing about “the uses and abuses of emotion” in “Poli Psy.”
July 31: In “Inside Track,” Peter Freyne outlines an “Enron-style conspiracy” in financing major renovations at Fletcher Allen Health Care (now the University of Vermont Medical Center), overseen by CEO Bill Boettcher.
August 7: Paula Routly bares all to get the scoop on a nudist camp in Sheldon Springs. “Undercover Story” makes the cover.
September 25: Peter Kurth pens the final “Crank Call.”
November 5: Republicans win majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate. Jim Douglas is elected governor.
2003
February 13: In “Inside Track,” Peter Freyne reports that all but one of Fletcher Allen Health Care’s board of trustees resigned after Gov. Jim Douglas called on them to step down.
March 12: Ethan Covey profiles DJ A-Dog in “Vinyl Answer”: “A-Dog spins with casual, effortless grace. As the evening winds down, he remains on stage, chatting with well-wishers, demonstrating his techniques and pushing forth a smooth mix of funk-filled grooves.”
March 19: The U.S. invasion of Iraq begins.
April 2: In “Local Matters,” a new biweekly column, Ken Picard chronicles Vermont news.
June 18: Ken Picard documents the increasing presence of Mexican farmworkers in Vermont in “Green Mountain Campesinos.” (VPA, 1st place, best local story, non-daily)
June 23: Howard Dean announces he’s running for president.
June 26: Music editor Ethan Covey wins the John D. Donoghue Award for arts criticism. (VPA)
July 30: Flower power! Seven Days reveals the winners of the first Seven Daysies readers’ choice awards.
September 17: Before Facebook and MySpace, there was Friendster. Cathy Resmer explores the early social media site in “Best Friendsters?” Zephyr Teachout, Howard Dean’s director of online organizing and outreach, is “excited” about its potential: “It’s even better for organizing than it is for dating,” she says.
October 4: Fred Tuttle dies of a heart attack on the same Tunbridge farm where he was born.
October 22: Seven Days writers ask, “Whither Winooski? Is the Onion City Becoming Burlington’s Brooklyn?” “Downtown Winooski is essentially a parking lot,” Higher Ground co-owner Alex Crothers says, “and it has so much potential.”
October 29: Paula Routly retires her long-running “Back Talk” column and passes the arts and culture torch to contributing editor David Warner, whose new column is called “State of the Arts.”
2004
January 18: Former Fletcher Allen Health Care CEO Bill Boettcher pleads guilty to conspiracy charges.
January 19: Presidential candidate Howard Dean places third in the Iowa caucuses, gives a speech to supporters during which he pledges to keep fighting — and shrieks in what will become known as “the Dean scream.”
March 10: Paula Routly starts writing a monthly feature, “Edible Complex,” to cover Vermont’s growing food scene.
May: Seven Days publishes the first 7 Nights, an annual dining and nightlife guide with listings for every restaurant and bar in northern Vermont. The edition is 100 pages. (AAN, honorable mention, special section)
November 2: George W. Bush is reelected president.
November 10: The U.S. defense budget could surpass $500 billion in 2005. How much of that comes back to Vermont? Ken Picard and Cathy Resmer do the math in “War Gains: Vermont’s Pentagon Payout — What’s Our Bang for the Buck?” (VPA, 2nd place, best state story)
2005
February 9: Vermont musicians honor the late “Big Joe” Burrell in “Ode to Big Joe: Remembering the Man With the Mellow Saxophone” by Pamela Polston. Burrell died a week before.
April 20: U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords decides not to run for reelection; U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders enters the Senate race.
April 28: Seven Days launches its first blog, 802 Online, by Cathy Resmer.
May 4: Music editor Casey Rea interviews rocker Grace Potter in “Grace Notes”: “It probably won’t be long before the rest of the world knows about Grace Potter & the Nocturnals.”
August 29: Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in New Orleans.
September 10: In honor of our 10th anniversary, Burlington Mayor Peter Clavelle gives Seven Days staff a key to the city. It doubles as a bottle opener.
November 7: The Vermont Press Association gives Ken Picard the Mavis Doyle Award for excellence in news reporting. Music editor Casey Rea and associate editor Margot Harrison tie for the John D. Donoghue Award for arts criticism. Seven Days is named the best non-daily newspaper in Vermont, winner of the 2004 General Excellence Award.
2006
March 1: Seven Days introduces readers to the concept of instant runoff voting by inviting them to pick which comics the paper should keep. Lloyd Dangle’s “Troubletown” is eliminated in the first round.
March 7: Burlington voters elect Progressive Bob Kiss as mayor in two rounds of instant runoff voting.
May 24: In advance of a reunion concert, the Pants talk with music editor Casey Rea in “Classic Fit: Vintage but Not Distressed, Burlington’s Beloved ’90s Band the Pants Roll Up Their Cuffs for One More Show.”
May 30: Alison Bechdel discusses her forthcoming book, Fun Home, in “Life Drawing.”
August 15: “Inside Track” columnist Peter Freyne launches a blog called Freyne Land.
September 28: Seven Days hires its first food writer, Suzanne Podhaizer, and establishes a weekly food section.
November 7: Democrat Peter Welch wins Vermont’s sole U.S. House seat; Bernie Sanders is elected to the U.S. Senate.
December 27: Burlington residents have discovered a new way to communicate, Cathy Resmer writes in “Neighbors Congregate in Front Porch Forums.” “The free service allows people to receive email newsletters containing announcements from their neighbors. Forum users write about everything from petty crime to politics to lost cats.”
2007
January 11: Seven Days publishes its first weekly email newsletter, Notes on the Weekend.
January 25: “Inside Track” columnist Peter Freyne is diagnosed with lymphoma and begins blogging about his impending chemotherapy on Freyne Land: “Let me tell ya, after all those years of writing about the bloody monster of an underground garage that Bill Boettcher and the Boys stuck four stories deep into Hospital Hill, I’m finally getting to become intimately familiar with it.”
February 4: The first episode of Eva Sollberger’s web video series, “Stuck in Vermont,” debuts on the Seven Days website. It spotlights a comics exhibit at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe.
May 30: Ken Picard documents abusive labor practices in “Hot and Soured: Slave Wages and Unsafe Housing — Exposing the Unsavory Side of Cheap Chinese in Vermont.” (AAN, 3rd place, investigative reporting)
August 1: Rusty DeWees takes off his clothes for the cover of the Daysies issue.
September 20: Seven Days theater critic Elisabeth Crean wins the John D. Donoghue Award for arts criticism. (VPA)
December 19: Suzanne Podhaizer sucks down seafood with oyster expert Rowan Jacobsen in “Shuck and Awe.” (AAN, 1st place, best food writing)
2008
January 26: Seven Days is a lead organizer of the first Vermont 3.0 Creative/Tech Career Jam, a “job fair on steroids” that draws 1,800 people to the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington.
March 19: Peter Freyne pens his last “Inside Track.” Seven Days launches Blurt, the staff blog.
April 9: The Burlington Business Association names Seven Days Business of the Year, citing the company’s financial success and contributions to the community and promotion of Burlington.
April 29: Seven Days introduces “Fair Game,” a political column by Shay Totten, founder and former editor of the Vermont Guardian.
August 27: Seven Days publishes the first edition of What’s Good: The Off-Campus Student Guide to Burlington. (AAN, 1st place, special section)
November 4: Seven Days hosts its first election-night live blog on sevendaysvt.com. Barack Obama is elected president.
November 19: Tiny-house builder Peter King of Bakersfield appears in Episode 105 of Eva Sollberger’s “Stuck in Vermont.” The video goes viral.
2009
January 7: Peter Freyne dies on the first day of the legislative session. Lawmakers recognize him with a moment of silence.
January 16: Pamela Polston and Paula Routly designate a Seven Days succession team: Creative director Don Eggert, online editor Cathy Resmer and sales director Colby Roberts become associate publishers.
January 28: “This is the wild, wild West media-wise, and nobody knows what the future holds,” says Brad Robertson, the 36-year-old publisher of the Burlington Free Press. Cathy Resmer takes on the competition in “High Noon for the Burlington Free Press.” (AAN, 2nd place, media criticism)
March 3: Burlington voters reelect Progressive Mayor Bob Kiss in the third round of instant runoff voting.
April 7: The Vermont legislature overrides Gov. Jim Douglas’ veto and legalizes same-sex marriage.
April 23: Pamela Polston and Paula Routly deliver a tech-related keynote address at the Women Business Owners Network conference in Burlington. Seven Days announces a media partnership with WPTZ Newschannel 5: Its reporters will appear on-air three nights a week.
May 20: Ken Picard asks a hard question in the cover story “Continuing Ed: Three and a Half Years After His Near-Fatal Car Crash, Is Sen. Ed Flanagan Still Up to the Job?”
July 24: After the June 25 death of pop star Michael Jackson, Seven Days hosts “One Glove: A Michael Jackson Tribute Night at Higher Ground,” with a “Who’s Bad” karaoke contest and a “Man in the Mirror” costume contest.
October 7: Seven Days switches to a short tabloid size with no fold. The move to Upper Valley Press allows for full color on all pages.
2010
January: Don Eggert, Cathy Resmer and Colby Roberts become minority owners of Seven Days.
January 25: Seven Days launches the Daily 7 — a weekday email newsletter featuring the top seven Vermont stories across all media.
February 1: Some readers are confused by Cathy Resmer and Don Eggert’s Twitter parody cover of Seven Days’ first Media Issue, so Eva Sollberger makes a video explaining tweets, hashtags and trending topics. (AAN, honorable mention, innovation/format buster)
February 17: In a group reporting project, Seven Days writers fill an issue with stories about the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
February 24: The Vermont Senate votes to close Vermont Yankee.
March 3: On Town Meeting Day, Burlington voters repeal instant runoff voting.’
May 14-20: Seven Days organizes the first-ever Vermont Restaurant Week, during which more than 50 restaurants offer prix-fixe meals.
November 16: In “Three-Bird Night,” Alice Levitt gets a wrap on turducken, one layer at a time. (AAN, 1st place, food writing)
December 6: Seven Days purchases Kids VT, Vermont’s free monthly parenting magazine. “We have great confidence that we are leaving our ‘baby’ in the best possible hands,” Kids VT editor and copublisher Susan Holson says.
2011
February 1: The first issue of the redesigned Kids VT hits the streets. (PMA, 1st place, best cover illustration, newsprint)
April 27: Megan James and Margot Harrison analyze the state of local public broadcasting in “Boxed In: Can Vermont Public Television Survive in a Changing Media Landscape?” (AAN, 2nd place, media criticism)
May 2: Osama bin Laden is killed.
August 28: Tropical Storm Irene brings widespread, historic flooding to Vermont.
October 17: Shay Totten reports on the local Occupy Wall Street movement in “Two Days, Two Rallies Bring Hundreds to ‘Occupy’ Burlington.” “On Saturday, the roughly 500 protesters filled a city block as they moved, en masse, up Church Street.”
October 28: Seven Days organizes the fifth Vermont Tech Jam at the newly vacant Borders bookstore.
2012
January 16: Seven Days starts a media partnership with WCAX Channel 3. The evening newscast features new episodes of “Stuck in Vermont” and writers three nights a week.
February 1: Burlington Mac maker Jerry Manock remembers his old boss, the late Steve Jobs, in “iWitness” by Paula Routly: “Jobs wasn’t in favor of focus groups, which were very popular at that time. He’d say: ‘They’re going to base their knowledge on what exists now. I know what is going to exist five years from now, and they’re not going to understand that.’”
March 3: The Parenting Media Association honors Kids VT with six awards in its circulation class, including best overall writing and design.
March 6: Democrat Miro Weinberger is elected mayor of Burlington.
June: Seven Days publishes the first issue of BTV: The Burlington International Airport Quarterly, with articles in English and French to appeal to Canadian tourists.
June 27: Seven Days promotes Andy Bromage to news editor; Paul Heintz takes over “Fair Game.”
September 17: RIP Blurt, Seven Days’ staff blog. Writers now post to politics and news blog Off Message, food blog Bite Club, and arts blog Live Culture.
November 6: President Barack Obama is reelected.
December 5: BurlApp, Seven Days’ first mobile app, debuts.
2013
January 9: Legislators, lobbyists and reporters mingle at the Vermont Statehouse during the first Seven Days “Off the Record Mixer” in honor of Peter Freyne.
March 4: Editor & Publisher magazine selects Seven Days as one of “10 Newspapers That Do It Right.”
June 27: Seven Days, Kids VT and Birnam Wood Games create Runoff, an educational video game about water pollution. The arcade version lives for a few years at ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain.
July 3: Seven Days gets graphic. Writers and cartoonists collaborate on news and arts stories for the first-ever Cartoon Issue.
July 30: Seven Days begins printing paid obituaries, starting with that of Vermonter and “world citizen” Garry Davis, who died on July 24.
September 20: Atlantic writer James Fallows notes Seven Days’ unusual success in “Strange Tales From the North Country: A Profitable (Print) Newspaper.”
December 12: Seven Days wins the Vermont Press Association’s General Excellence Award in the non-daily category — for the sixth time. The judges praise the paper’s “huge sense of place” and “terrifically readable and well-presented articles.” “Kudos to the New Yorker of the North!”
2014
January 8: Musicians and friends reminisce about DJ A-Dog, who died of leukemia on December 26, 2013, in “Burlington Remembers Andy ‘A-Dog’ Williams” by Dan Bolles.
May 14: Seven Days publishes the first issue of Nest, a quarterly home, design and real estate supplement.
June 5: Ken Picard goes undercover to report the shocking exposé “Unhappy Endings: Getting a Grip on Vermont’s Asian Sex Market.” (VPA, 1st place, feature story, non-daily)
June 11: More than 3,300 pages of emails between the Burlington School Board and the district’s departing top administrators shed light on the city’s school budget crisis in “Emails Reveal Tensions, Doubt as Burlington School Budget Deficit Emerged” by Alicia Freese. (VPA, 1st place, best local story)
September 17: In “‘Run, Bernie, Run,’” political editor Paul Heintz follows U.S. Sen. Sanders to Iowa to gauge support for a possible presidential run. Seven Days launches Bernie Beat, an online repository of archival materials from Vermont’s alternative media spanning Sanders’ political career, from 1972 to the present.
September 18: Seven Days gets a shout-out on “Hardball With Chris Matthews” for unearthing U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 1987 recording, We Shall Overcome.
November 26: Seven Days hires veteran Burlington Free Press Statehouse reporters Terri Hallenbeck and Nancy Remsen.
December 13: Kids VT produces the first-ever “Spectacular Spectacular: A Talent Show for Vermont’s Rising Stars” at Higher Ground in South Burlington.
2015
February 20: Pamela Polston and Paula Routly are inducted into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame.
April 15: Seven Days publishes the results of its first “Weeders Survey.”
April 24-May 3: More than 100 restaurants participate in Seven Days’ sixth Vermont Restaurant Week, which raises more than $20,000 for the Vermont Foodbank.
June 8: On the Live Culture blog, Pamela Polston reports that “Fun Home Wins Big at the Tonys!” The musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir earns five Tony awards, including Best Musical.
July 17: Says Gawker: “The best site for following [Bernie] Sanders and his career is that maintained by Vermont’s alternative weekly Seven Days.”
July 16: The Vermont Press Association gives its John D. Donoghue Award for arts criticism to Pamela Polston and its Mavis Doyle Award for news reporting to Paul Heintz, for his series of stories on the influence of money in politics.
September 6: Seven Days turns 20 and celebrates with a party during the South End Art Hop.
September 30: Future Burlington mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak models a locally designed T-shirt in a story by Mark Davis about the popularity of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders merch.
October 14: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders debates Hillary Clinton on live TV.
October 21: For the Tech Issue, Seven Days creates Vermont emojis for a farm, a growler, Bernie Sanders and the phrase “Jeezum crow.”
November 4: In “Becoming Christine,” Terri Hallenbeck describes transgender Vermont Electric Co-Op CEO Christine Hallquist’s very public transition. Hallquist later becomes the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor.
November 25: Dan Bolles pens “It’s All Gravy: Nectar’s, Burlington’s Landmark Nightclub, Turns 40.”
December 23: In “Soundbites,” Dan Bolles notes the opening of Vermont Comedy Club. Server Martha Snyder looks back on 39 years at Bove’s in “Last Supper,” published on closing day for the Italian eatery.
2016
January 13: Marc Nadel’s caricature of Donald Trump as Elvis commemorates the Republican presidential candidate’s January 7 rally in Burlington. An estimated 3,000 fans and foes gathered on either side of police-patrolled Main Street. “For one night only, the Queen City’s main artery was a political DMZ,” Paula Routly writes in “Trump Roast.” (VPA, 1st place, general news photo)
February 10: Presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders qualifies for a Secret Service detail, and agents move into Burlington’s New North End. In a news story, Alicia Freese writes: “The agents introduced themselves door-to-door, handed out business cards and encouraged people to let them know about any suspicious activity.”
March 19: Seven Days presents “Spotlight on Journalism:
A Media Movie Marathon” at the Main Street Landing Film House in Burlington.
April 20: In “Fair Game,” Paul Heintz reports on the federal raid of Jay Peak and Q Burke Mountain Resort. The massive EB-5 visa fraud investigation would eventually land Ariel Quiros and Bill Stenger in prison.
May 1: Kids VT earns three gold Parenting Media Association awards, including one for overall writing — for the fifth year in a row.
June 15: In “Fair Game,” Paul Heintz pays a stranger $500 for an AR-15 in a Five Guys parking lot, showing just how easy it is to get a gun in Vermont. See page 38. (VPA, 1st place, best state story)
June 22: In “To Hadestown and Back,” Pamela Polston explains how Anaïs Mitchell’s Vermont-made update of the Orpheus myth became a Tony Award-winning musical. See page 38.
July 13: Alicia Freese profiles Burlington’s new top cop, Brandon del Pozo, in “Scholar in Chief”: “Burlingtonians might not have fully understood what they were getting: a chief with big ambitions to position this small city at the vanguard of American policing reform.”
July 20: Paul Heintz elegizes U.S. Sen. Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid in “After Bern: How Bernie Sanders Stunned the Establishment.” We publish the winners of Feel the Bern: An Adult Coloring Contest.
August 3: The Daysies issue coincides with the August primary elections. Depicted as flowers, the gubernatorial candidates say, “Pick Me!”: Matt Dunne, Sue Minter and Peter Galbraith for the Dems; Bruce Lisman and Phil Scott for the GOP.
November 8: Donald Trump is elected president. Phil Scott is chosen as Vermont’s next governor.
November 9: Sally Pollak writes “Last Word,” about being laid off from the Burlington Free Press by an HR flunky. She’d worked there for 25 years. In 2017, she joins the staff of Seven Days.
2017
January 11: Blogger John Walters takes over “Fair Game” from political editor Paul Heintz.
January 23: After 10 years as front man of Seven Days’ music section, Dan Bolles passes the mic to Jordan Adams and becomes assistant arts editor.
January 25: Seven Days finds that 100 Vermonters died of fatal opioid overdoses in 2016, and Mark Davis memorializes them in a moving piece, “Death by Drugs.” (NENPA, Publick Occurrences award, 1st place, crimes and courts reporting)
February 22: In “Lucky Bums,” Sasha Goldstein profiles some of the people who put the “mad” in Mad River Valley. They came, skied and stayed to create something unique. See page 38. (NENPA, 1st place, human interest feature)
February 20-26: Seven Days hosts Vermont Yoga Week, offering $7 drop-in classes at 12 participating studios.
March 1: Seven Days wins 10 first-place awards from NENPA, including for general excellence. Kymelya Sari is named Rookie of the Year for her “crucial” new beat on immigrant and refugee communities.
May 31: Katie Jickling pens “Ghost-Town Center: The Dying Days of Burlington’s Downtown Mall.” Demolition of the mall begins in December.
July 29: AAN honors Seven Days with a free-speech award for stories by Terri Hallenbeck and Paul Heintz. They wrote about the paper’s decision to fight subpoenas issued to news staff involved in covering the sexual assault investigation of Sen. Norm McAllister.
August 18: Eva Sollberger throws a premiere party at Hotel Vermont for the 500th episode of “Stuck in Vermont.”
October 13: Paul Heintz is named AP Sevellon Brown New England Journalist of the Year by the New England Society of News Editors for his political reporting and successful efforts to pass a media shield law in Vermont. Heintz and Seven Days also receive the Morley L. Piper First Amendment Award.
December 4: The VPA hands out journalism awards for work dating back to 2015, and Seven Days wins 30 of them. The paper’s arts staff sweeps the John D. Donoghue Awards for arts criticism. Jordan Adams wins Rookie of the Year for 2016, and Alice Freese gets the Mavis Doyle Award for her Statehouse reporting two years prior.
2018
February 21: Alice Freese profiles Vermont House Majority Leader Becca Balint, a “Woman on the Rise.” In 2023, Balint becomes the state’s first U.S. congresswoman.
February 26: Seven Days wins 14 first-place awards in NENPA’s New England Better Newspaper Competition, including best feature video, for “Stuck in Vermont 471: Muslim Girls Making Change,” and best illustration, for Harry Bliss’ cover drawing of President Donald Trump, inspired by the classic Attack of the 50 Foot Woman film poster.
March 23: Seven Days begins accepting donations from Super Readers who want to help pay for the journalism we give away for free. “To those of you who understand the essential role of local media and want to help, our response is: Thanks, we’ll take it!”
May 25: Seven Days and Kids VT launch the Good Citizen Challenge, a youth civics project, with a tripartisan press conference at the Vermont Statehouse.
June 20: “Give and Take,” a five-week series on the state’s nonprofit economy, launches with a cover story on “How Vermont’s Nonprofit Sector Became a $6.8 Billion Industry” and a list of the highest-paid nonprofit executives. (VPA, 1st place, best state story; NENPA, Publick Occurrences; AAN, 1st place, innovation/format buster)
June 27: Cecil Adams dispenses the final “Straight Dope,” his syndicated question-and-answer column with a cult following.
December 5: Seven Days publishes “Our Towns,” an entire issue devoted to the plight of the state’s rural communities, many of which are in critical condition. New Yorker cartoonist and Brookfield resident Ed Koren draws the cover.
October 14: Kate O’Neill was a copy editor and proofreader at Seven Days from 2008 to 2012. When her sister, Madelyn Linsenmeir, died on October 7, O’Neill wrote an obituary and submitted it to the paper. Her candid account of the young woman’s struggle with opioid-use disorder goes viral, attracting more than 1,000 heartbreaking comments from around the globe.
2019
January 9: The year’s first cover story, “Thorever and Ever,” remembers staff photographer Matthew Thorsen, who died of cancer on January 1 at age 51.
February 20: Seven Days hires former proofreader Kate O’Neill to write a yearlong series on Vermont’s opioid crisis and kicks it off with “Hooked: How So Many Vermonters Got Addicted to Opioids.” (NENPA, Publick Occurrences; AAN, 1st place, health care reporting)
March 13: To test the theory that dairy farmwork is too grueling for Americans, Chelsea Edgar spends a week milking cows in Panton and writes all about it — and her Mexican colleagues. (NENPA, 1st place, business/economic reporting)
June 19: The Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation honors Seven Days’ five owner-publishers with the C. Harry Behney Award for economic development, lauding the Vermont Tech Jam and the creation of “Hooked” — “a catalyst to help Vermonters come together as a community to find meaningful ways to address the challenges of addiction.”
June 27: At the Democratic presidential debate, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow questions U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders about his record on gun control, citing a quote from Paul Heintz’s cover story that week: “Stickin’ to His Guns? The NRA Helped Elect Bernie Sanders to Congress. Now He’s Telling a Different Story.”
August 6: John Walters pens his final “Fair Game” column.
August 21: Seven Days introduces All Our Hearts, an online memorial documenting lives lost to the opioid crisis. BuzzFeed covers the project, sharing Frank Cioffi’s devastating account of losing his daughter, Alexa Rose Cioffi, in 2016.
September 18: For “Pit Happens: How Readers Would Fill the Hole That Is CityPlace Burlington,” nearly 300 Vermonters send in creative solutions for the gaping void left by the demolition of the Burlington Square Mall.
November 27: Seven Days publishes the first story in a new series: “Worse for Care: When Elder Homes Stumble, Frail Vermonters Get Hurt” by Derek Brouwer, Andrea Suozzo and Emily Corwin of Vermont Public Radio. The series later wins the national Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting.
December 12: A bombshell from Queen City reporter Courtney Lamdin, “Burlington Police Chief Admits He Used an Anonymous Twitter Account to Taunt a Critic,” forces Brandon del Pozo to resign. See page 40.
2020
January 6: Seven Days adds 13 veteran employees to its ownership team, giving them stock in the company as cofounder Pamela Polston relinquishes her shares.
January 21: Sasha Goldstein reports that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ felted mittens made an impression at the Women’s March in Portsmouth, N.H., and spawned their own Twitter feed, @BerniesMittens. He interviewed mitten maker Jen Ellis — a year before her creations went truly viral.
February 12: Seven Days and Kate O’Neill receive the Jack Barry Communications Award from Recovery Vermont for All Our Hearts and “Hooked,” which “inspired, educated, and brought awareness, compassion and stigma-free information to help the state of Vermont grapple with substance-use disorder, loss and recovery.”
March 2: For the second time, Editor & Publisher recognizes Seven Days as one of “10 News Publishers That Do It Right.”
March 17: Four days after he declared a state of emergency, Gov. Phil Scott orders all bars and restaurants to end in-person dining to slow the spread of COVID-19.
March 18: The entire Seven Days editorial staff shifts to covering the pandemic. The first group cover story is “Vermont’s Defensive Line: These COVID-19 Fighters Wield Information, Medicine and Disinfectant.”
March 23: Seven Days lays off seven employees, five temporarily. The number of Super Readers doubles, from 250 to 500.
March 25: Paula Routly pens her first “From the Publisher” column, noting how Seven Days is responding to the pandemic on multiple fronts. One is the creation of a takeout directory called Good To-Go Vermont. Routly reminds readers: “Supporting local businesses is the best way to ensure the return of the community we all love.”
April 8: The April issue of Kids VT is all about adapting to the pandemic and school closures — and it’s inserted in Seven Days for the first time to save on printing and distribution costs. In 2023, the magazine goes quarterly.
April 9: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders drops out of the presidential race and backs Joe Biden.
April 14: Circulation deputy Jeff Baron borrows a bike and a trailer from Burlington’s Old Spokes Home, loads it up with stacks of Seven Days, and hits the Queen City streets with art director Rev. Diane Sullivan for the first two-wheeled pandemic paper delivery.
April 19: Seven Days receives a $443,547 Paycheck Protection Program loan.
May 13: Seven Days launches the Register, a guide to shopping locally online.
May 25: Minneapolis police restrain and murder an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, sparking nationwide protests.
June 24: In response to travel restrictions, Seven Days creates Staytripper, “the road map to rediscovering Vermont,” edited by Carolyn Fox and filled with local things to do and places to visit.
July 22: The one and only Pandemic Primary Voters’ Guide helps voters understand how to cast a mail-in ballot.
September 9: Seven Days is “25 and Stayin’ Alive!” Paula Routly writes in “From the Publisher.”
September 14: In the New Yorker, Ripton writer Bill McKibben salutes Seven Days for continuing to cover the news — and for its April 6 decision to suspend online comments to avoid spreading misinformation.
September 23: Chelsea Edgar spends almost a month reporting “Battery Power,” an unvarnished inside look at the Black Lives Matter encampment that has occupied Burlington’s Battery Park all summer.
September 24: To protest Chelsea Edgar’s Black Lives Matter exposé, activists gather papers from downtown Burlington and burn them in a demonstration on Main Street.
September 25: Readers chip in to reprint that week’s paper, and Seven Days redistributes 5,000 copies around Burlington. Says publisher Paula Routly in a statement: “Clearing out newsstands because you don’t like what a paper is reporting is a disturbing tactic that has no place in a free, democratic society. The individuals carrying out these retaliatory actions are exhibiting the very authoritarian behavior they are protesting.”
November 3: Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump to win the U.S. presidency; the counting of absentee ballots delays the final results until November 7.
December 23: Seven Days announces that Paul Heintz is leaving to become the managing editor at VTDigger.
December 28: The Boston Globe highlights Seven Days and VTDigger in a story titled, “How Two Nontraditional Newsrooms in Vermont Are Winning Readers: Could Their Examples Hold the Keys to Fixing ‘the Expanding News Desert’?”
2021
January 6: Supporters of President Donald Trump storm the U.S. Capitol building.
January 13: Former Associated Press journalist Dave Gram revives the “Fair Game” political column.
January 21: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders wears a surgical mask and a pair of Vermont-made felted mittens to Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, spawning a million memes.
March 3: The pandemic and the discovery of PCB contamination shut down Burlington High School in 2020. When students return to school, it’s a makeshift operation in the former Macy’s downtown. Alison Novak reports the story, and BuzzFeed, People magazine and the Daily Mail pick up images and video by freelancer Cat Cutillo.
May 26: Dave Gram reveals he’s stepping down from “Fair Game” to focus on his health and announces his successor, Mark Johnson.
June 2: Kids VT managing editor Alison Novak shares in her final “Editor’s Note” that she’s joining the Seven Days staff as its first K-12 education reporter.
June 9: Instead of the Daysies, which are on hiatus, Seven Days publishes an issue recognizing Vermont’s “Pandemic All-Stars.”
June 23: Freelance music reviewer Chris Farnsworth takes over as music editor.
July 7: In a cover story with art riffing on Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” Colin Flanders reports on how Vermonters’ lives have changed since the F-35s came to town. Paula Routly writes in “From the Publisher” about having to wait 10 months to see a neurologist after an April trip to the ER — and asks readers to share their own stories of trying to see a specialist. Responses poured in.
September 1: Chelsea Edgar and Colin Flanders weave together crowdsourced stories from patients who report waiting months for treatment at the UVM Medical Center in “The Doctor Won’t See You Now.” The day it’s published, the Agency of Human Services announces an investigation into the problem of long wait times for medical appointments across the state. (NENPA, 1st place, health care reporting)
September 15: The Vermont Arts Council announces that Seven Days cofounder Pamela Polston is the recipient of the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts. While semiretired, Polston continues to assemble the visual arts section until 2024.
September 22: Mark Johnson writes his final “Fair Game” column.
October 23: After a pandemic pause, the Vermont Tech Jam returns — to Hula, Burlington’s brand-new lakeside tech campus. For the keynote presentation, Chelsea Edgar interviews Beta Technologies founder Kyle Clark and Sirius XM Radio inventor and Beta board member Martine Rothblatt.
October 27: Photographer James Buck compiles a photo essay on homeless Vermonters evicted from an encampment at the end of Burlington’s Sears Lane. (NENPA, 1st place photo story; AAN, 1st place, photography) Of “‘We’re Nobodies,’” the judges said: “Powerful photojournalism that tells an important story, humanely, with dignity for photo subjects.”
December 1: In “Memorial Days,” Chris Farnsworth recaps the illustrious history of Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium. Six days later, in a special election, the bond measure to fund building repairs and improvements fails.
2022
January 18: Seven Days inks an agreement with a nonprofit fiscal sponsor, Journalism Funding Partners, that allows the paper to accept tax-deductible donations of $2,000 or more.
January 31: Derek Brouwer and Colin Flanders tell the story of a Vermonter involved in the January 6 riots in “Capitol Offense: Nicholas Languerand’s Quest for ‘Belonging’ Led Him to QAnon, the Insurrection — and Now Prison.” (AAN, 1st place, right-wing extremism coverage)
March 9: News editor Matthew Roy launches a yearlong “Locked Out” series on Vermont’s housing crisis — 12 stories ranging from a survey of efforts to bolster the state’s construction workforce to a look at how land-use regulations impede development. (NENPA, Publick Occurrences)
April 7: Eva Sollberger publishes “Stuck in the Mud,” a video about the East Barnard Village Crier, which helps residents avoid perilous routes during mud season. (AAN, 1st place, multimedia) Said the judges: “The storytelling, photography and editing make this story suitable for a PBS special.”
May 6: Seven Days wins 23 first-place NENPA awards — including top honors in investigative, climate change and religious issue reporting, as well as the prize for general excellence. Staff writer Chelsea Edgar is named Reporter of the Year. Publisher Paula Routly’s weekly column wins in a new category: “Combatting Misinformation and Restoring Trust.”
June 1: Rachel Hellman joins Seven Days as its first Report for America corps member; the national service program places reporters in newsrooms and subsidizes them for three years. Hellman begins her beat covering Vermont’s rural communities.
July 28: Seven Days wins six first-place AAN awards. Honorees include food writer Melissa Pasanen, senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger and cartoonist Tim Newcomb.
August 3: A mythical creatures-themed All the Best heralds the return of the Seven Daysies after a pandemic pause.
October 22: Boston Scientific cofounder John Abele and CoreMap CEO Sara Kalil headline the Vermont Tech Jam.
2023
January 18: In the Wellness Issue, Paula Routly documents the decline of Burlington’s former YMCA building: “Once a symbol of a healthy community, the building is now a glaring illustration of what ails Burlington: uncaring property owners, stalled development, rampant homelessness, unchecked vandalism and a growing sense that this beautiful small city has lost a step.”
April 5: Chelsea Edgar profiles “Rumble Strip” podcaster Erica Heilman in “The Conversation Artist.” (NENPA, 1st place, local personality profile)
May 3: Sally Pollak retires from Seven Days. Paula Routly recaps her “40 years on deadline” in “From the Publisher.”
May 10: Seven Days wins 20 first-place NENPA awards, for arts and entertainment, business, education, environmental, and food writing, as well as election coverage and government reporting.
June 21: Now that Vermonters are free to travel to Canada again, Seven Days publishes a Québec Issue, guiding them north.
July 11: Flooding devastates homes and businesses across Vermont. Seven Days responds by pulling together a last-minute cover story, “‘Historic and Catastrophic’: Unrelenting Rain Swamped Vermont’s Cities, Towns and Hamlets. The Recovery Is Just Beginning.” (NENPA, 1st place, best spot reporting, best photography)
September 6: After months of reporting, Derek Brouwer and Colin Flanders share the tragic saga of former high school athlete Mbyayenge “Robbie” Mafuta in “From Room 37 to Cell 17: A Young Man’s Path Through the Mental Health Care System Led to Prison — and a Fatal Encounter.” (NENPA, Publick Occurrences, 1st place, crimes and courts reporting)
September 28: Eva Sollberger of “Stuck in Vermont” wins the Margaret L. Kannenstine Award for Arts Advocacy, one of the Governor’s Arts Awards.
October 25: Seven Days devotes 16 pages to “The Loss of Grace,” Joe Sexton’s staggering exposé on abuse at Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center. (NENPA, Publick Occurrences; AAN, 1st place, investigative reporting)
2024
February 14: Derek Brouwer delivers “The Fight for Decker Towers”; see page 45. (NENPA, Publick Occurrences; AAN, 1st place, long-form news story, Excellence in Journalism Award) Seven Days introduces Cardy-o-grams, love notes from readers on Valentine’s Day. Mary Ann Lickteig captures the passing of a torch: “Last Drag: Before a New Host Steps In, the House of LeMay Throws Its Final Drag Ball.”
March 6: Colin Flanders launches “This Old State,” a yearlong series on Vermont’s aging demographic, with a cover story: “Getting On: An Aging Population Is Transforming Vermont’s Schools, Workplaces and Communities.” (NENPA, Publick Occurrences)
April 3: Seven Days publishes Where the Sun Don’t Shine, a guide to the 2024 solar eclipse on April 8.
April 10: Seven Days reporters fan out across the state to document a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence in “Totally Transfixed: A Rare Eclipse on a Bluebird Day Dazzled Crowds in Northern Vermont.” (NENPA, 1st place, general news story; overall design and presentation; 1st place, spot news video for “Stuck in Vermont During the Eclipse”)
April 17: In “Born for Broadway,” Mary Ann Lickteig profiles Vermonter Shaina Taub, creator of the musical Suffs. The show goes on to win two Tony Awards.
April 24: New proofreader and visual art editor Alice Dodge joins Seven Days, finally allowing Pamela Polston to retire. Mostly.
July 21: Joe Biden drops out of the presidential race and endorses Vice President Kamala Harris.
July 31: For the Daysies’ 21st year — Blackjack! — we took our chances with a Vegas theme. Illustrator Sean Metcalf envisioned it with “Welcome to Fabulous Las Daysies.” (AAN, 1st place, illustration)
August 21: In “Reel Drama,” Mary Ann Lickteig reports that Burlington is about to lose its only first-run movie theater, Merrill’s Roxy Cinemas. (AAN, 1st place, long-form arts feature)
September 26: NENPA names Seven Days Newspaper of the Year among large-circulation weeklies in the region.
November 6: Donald Trump defeats Kamala Harris to win the presidency a second time. Colin Flanders produces an “Urgent Scare” of a different kind in his deep dive on Vermont’s soaring health care costs.
November 25: The New York Times publishes a fun feature, “Dating App Fatigue? In Vermont, Personal Ads Still Thrive,” about Seven Days’ personals, iSpys and Love Letters. See page 7.
2025
January 8: Seven Days introduces a new series: “Ways and Means,” a yearlong, in-depth look at the efficacy of the Vermont legislature.
January 29: Joe Sexton’s “Year of the Dogs: Stories of Grit and Grace From UVM Men’s Soccer’s Championship Run” reminds readers how good sports writing can be.
February 26: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is back in the national spotlight. Kevin McCallum follows him on a Midwestern tour and comes back with “Bern Rekindled: In a New Trump Era, Bernie Sanders’ Crusade Against Oligarchy Is Resonating With Americans Once Again.”
March 12: Vermont has just 70 remaining general stores; in “If We Don’t Have It, You Don’t Need It,” Seven Days reporters examine how communities are working to revitalize them. Also: Ken Picard writes about Life Became Very Blurry, an oral-history book recounting the pandemic experiences of more than 110 Vermonters — including Seven Days’ Paula Routly and Cathy Resmer.
April 16: Seven Days’ first Vermont Cannabiz Guide helps readers find their best buds.
April 23: Twenty-five years after the signing of the civil unions bill, Mary Ann Lickteig revisits the contentious debate in a comprehensive cover story, “From This Day Forward.” Stan Baker (pictured left), one of the plaintiffs who sued the state for the right to marry, dies two months later.
July 11: AAN presents Paula Routly with its Publisher of the Year Award and gives Seven Days five first-place prizes, more than any other outlet.
July 22: Two weeks after starting at Seven Days, new Report for America corps member and immigration reporter Lucy Tompkins gets a big scoop: Winooski’s superintendent has been detained and questioned by border officials after a recent trip — part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Within a week, the story is viewed more than 40,000 times on the Seven Days website.
July 30: The day the music died. Chris Farnsworth reports that, after nearly 50 years, Nectar’s has closed for good.
This article appears in 30th Birthday Issue.
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