Admit it: Sometimes, when you’re supposed to be scheduling out your week, you’re really daydreaming about a naked man with a really big fire hose.
Do both with the Men of the Mad River Valley 2026 Calendar, billed as a “cheeky little fundraiser” for the Waitsfield-Fayston and Warren fire departments, the Mad River Valley Ambulance Service, and Free Wheelin’, a free ride service for seniors and others without wheels in the Mad River Valley.
The project was, um, spearheaded by Waitsfield resident Nancy Emory, 83, a retired math teacher. She was visiting Vermont in 2002 when she stumbled across the famed Men of Maple Corner calendar, which pictured Calais community leaders au naturel with well-placed props. It raised more than $500,000 for the town’s community center and other local projects. Emory kept her calendar and was determined to do a similar project in the Mad River Valley, where she moved permanently in 2012. The idea finally hatched at her New Year’s Eve party last year, during which many locals suggested names of men who might be willing to bare it all for a good cause.
Younger readers may be unaware that it was once unremarkable to see calendars full of unironically naked women displayed in stereotypically male spaces such as mechanic’s shops or bars. It was so common that, in 1977, a group of women in Lincolnshire, England, decided to make a calendar of nude men as a feminist action, causing great controversy. They made postcards of nude images and sold them for charity; a different group of middle-aged British women later raised money for leukemia research with a nude calendar of themselves, inspiring the movie and musical Calendar Girls.
Many Vermont groups, starting with the Men of Maple Corner, have since taken on the mantle of taking things off for a cause. The town of Shoreham raised funds for the Platt Memorial Library with the 2009 Shoreham Uncovered calendar; scores of University of Vermont students posed for the Prudent Student and later the Water Tower calendars to raise money for extracurricular clubs starting in 2009; Chester women raised money for town Christmas decorations in 2018; and 13 authors and poets revealed more than their inner thoughts to benefit the Varnum Memorial Library in Jeffersonville in 2020.
Sparks literally fly in a portrait of metal sculptor Troy Kingsbury, whose welding apron seems … insufficient.
For the Mad River Valley’s iteration, Emory brought in photographers Kolleen and Bobby Kintz and Kolleen’s sister, designer Kristin Lauricella, whose eye for layout, along with the Kintz’ artful black-and-white images, give the calendar a surprisingly sophisticated feel.
Lauricella wrote a bio for each participant that complements the narrative in the photo. January brings us sign maker extraordinaire Sparky Potter, who delivers a relaxed pose mirroring his own painting of a scantily clad Tolkienesque fairy on a door at his house. March’s Gamal Buhaina, a musician and son of jazz icon Art Blakey and artist Diana Pumpelly Bates, poses at the piano, showing off his well-placed saxophone. For July, sparks literally fly in a portrait of metal sculptor Troy Kingsbury, whose welding apron seems … insufficient.
Kolleen Kintz said one of the challenges of the project was scheduling shoots, especially with farmers such as Doug Kenyon, who starts work at 6 a.m. Some also have farms in full view of Route 100 motorists, so many of their photo sessions happened in the early morning. “We had to work quickly,” Kintz said. “We had to laugh about it. We had to express a lot of gratitude.”
That attitude comes through in the images — not just gratitude for the models’ senses of humor but reverence for the work they do. Pete Defreest, 65, and Gordy Eurich, 85, have a combined 105 years of experience as volunteer firefighters in the Valley and are pictured together with a fire engine. Farmer Hadley Gaylord emerges from hay bales, chicken in hand. And builder Charlie Goodman flaunts all of his equipment, excavator included. More than old-school porn, this is competency porn.
“It was important that these were portraits that were really reflective of who these individuals are,” Kintz said. “It’s kind of like meeting legends in our town.”
Men of the Mad River Valley 2026 Calendar will be available at the Maker’s Market at Lawson’s Finest Liquids on Saturday, December 13, as well as at Kenyon’s Variety Store and Whippletree Designs, all in Waitsfield, as well as other Mad River Valley locations. $20.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Mad River Macho | Nude Calendar Features Men of the Mad River Valley”
This article appears in Dec 10-16 2025.
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