Active community member worked in state government and human services
Richmond officials ordered that the fluoride level in the town’s drinking water immediately be raised to recommended levels on Monday, two weeks after the public revelation that its water superintendent cut the level in half nearly four years ago without telling anyone. The unanimous decision by the town’s five-member Water and Sewer Commission followed an…
Bronze Star Medal-awarded veteran loved travel and wildlife
Saint Michael’s College professor enriched the lives of students and inmates through education
Navy veteran was a talented drummer and history buff who loved spending time with family and friends
British-born guitarist Richard Smith is swinging through Vermont on his current tour, playing the Champlain Valley Union High School Theater this Friday night. Smith began his career as a child prodigy, joining his idol, guitar legend Chet Atkins, on stage when he was only 11 years old. Atkins was quoted as saying that Smith “can…
Proud 35-year U.S. Navy veteran was also a longtime Champlain College employee and lifelong lover of music
In her 2018 book-length poem The Lumberjack’s Dove, chosen by Louise Glück for the National Poetry Series, GennaRose Nethercott of Brattleboro offers “three rules of storytelling”: 1. Only tell a story if you have to. If you can survive without telling it, keep mum. 2. A story is a two-way mirror. Don’t think the characters…
Last year, Stowe’s annual outdoor sculpture show, “Exposed,” talked at visitors: Text-based works expressed specific messages, often regarding ongoing social justice issues. At this year’s version, people can write their own messages in chalk on one of the sculptures: “Dream Home Dream,” a colorfully painted plywood playhouse-like structure by Montpelier artist Rob Hitzig that’s sited,…
Their title brings to mind someone in a suit, aviator sunglasses and a big black SUV. But Vermont’s new cannabis compliance agents lean more toward flannel shirts and baby blue Priuses. Michael DiTomasso, an unassuming 32-year-old with an environmental science degree, is one of four people whose job it is to inspect cannabis businesses and…
When Vermont’s adult-use cannabis market opens on Saturday, October 1, so will the state’s first nonmedical, recreational cannabis dispensaries. Mountain Girl Cannabis in Rutland will be among them. Seven Days took a tour of the store last week, just 10 days before its grand opening. At that time, picturing Mountain Girl ready for business took…
As a total solar eclipse darkened the skies on August 21, 2017, composer Danielle O’Hallisey found herself in front of her computer. “The light got weird, my mood got weird, I started googling [outer space] and I came across the lost cosmonaut recording,” O’Hallisey recalled recently by phone. She was referring to the unverified 1963…
Respectful Reporting I’ve been reading Seven Days for a couple of decades now, and I have to say “Upward Mobility” [August 17] is one of the very best stories I’ve seen. The writing and the photographs were a fantastic humanistic portrayal of some people living in the trailer parks. There are so many stereotypes out…
How often does a film with a Black woman director and stars win at the box office? A couple of weekends ago, The Woman King did just that. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and starring Viola Davis, the action epic about an elite cadre of woman warriors in 19th-century Africa clearly appealed to moviegoers in search…
When people can finally buy weed legally in Vermont, beginning on October 1, their precious buds will arrive in glass, metal or cardboard containers — but not plastic. That’s how state lawmakers wanted Vermont-grown grass to be sold, given the bad environmental rap the cannabis industry has earned in other states. That laudable goal may…
new in theaters BROS: Finally, a big Hollywood bromance that’s also a romance? A museum curator finds love while writing a gay rom-com in this comedy from Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors), starring Luke Marfarlane and Billy Eichner. (115 min, R. Capitol, Essex, Marquis, Palace, Roxy, Sunset, Welden) THE GOOD HOUSE: Sigourney Weaver plays a real estate…
Dear Reverend, I’m 70, my BFF is 50, and we have a good relationship. She’s trying to stop drinking, and the last couple of days, she hasn’t drank. Is it natural for a person who has been trying to stop drinking to get depressed and sleep all day? I’m worried about her mood, but she’s…
When Jahala Dudley sought a permit in the spring to convert a barn on her flower farm in Plainfield into a cannabis nursery, she recalled, a Development Review Board member asked her an interesting question: How did Dudley think the town should classify cannabis cultivation in its zoning bylaws? To Dudley, the answer seemed obvious.…
In the back room of Higher Elevation, a soon-to-open adult-use dispensary in Morrisville, registered nurse Jessilyn Dolan asked her students to sniff lavender, cloves, cinnamon and rosemary. She was teaching them to recognize the smell of caryophyllene, a terpene found in such cannabis strains as Sour Diesel, Bubba Kush and Girl Scout Cookies. Just like…
It’s finally here. Vermonters have waited years — hell, decades — for the state’s regulated, adult-use cannabis market, which is scheduled to “open” on Saturday, October 1. By the time you read this, sales may have already begun. But the opening will not be as grand as once hoped. Industry-wide delays in licensing, growing and…
A chilly wind blew across the deck of the restaurant, a vanguard of autumn’s arrival. Dustin Byerly sat upright in his chair across the table and zipped up his jacket. His dreadlocks were bound up beneath a cap, making him seem distinctly different from MC Sed One, Byerly’s onstage nom de guerre with the Montpelier-based…
On the way to Burlington’s Intervale Center — a 360-acre campus of farmland and trails — one can expect to pass bikers, farmers, hikers and the occasional tractor. But this summer, visitors passed something less expected: a small wooden structure on a trailer near the center’s entrance. What appeared to be a tiny house is…
(Self-released, CD) In the modern era, what constitutes an album release can be a little confusing. The death of the LP has been massively exaggerated — artists from Beyoncé to local pop-punk acts are still producing well-crafted, full-length albums — but there’s no doubt that the single is king. In reviewing the latest music by…
The current exhibition at Mad River Valley Arts in Waitsfield shows what can arise from the alchemy of natural elements, heat and human imagination. “Earth & Fire” — underscored with the subtitle “formed in earth, forged in fire” — is an exhibition of works in clay and glass by a dozen area artists. Curated by…
(Self-released, digital) The first time I had the pleasure of seeing the Wormdogs play a show was outside at Moogs Joint in Johnson during mud season, when the pretty snow was gone but green hadn’t yet covered the hills. I showed up without knowing any of their songs. But thanks to the confluence of a…
Once a year for a month, a historic home in the coolest corner of Calais becomes a pop-up art gallery. Fleeting as the fall, the Art at the Kent show features 20 Vermont artists working in all manner of media. Selected by a trio of expert curators, their paintings, prints, sculptures, handblown glass and other…
It’s been almost six years since residents of Royalton fought off wealthy Utah businessman David Hall’s plan to build a utopian city in rural Windsor County. Now, they’re contending with a more familiar outsider: Dollar General. The ubiquitous discount chain says it hopes to break ground soon for a store on Route 14 outside South…
LIBRA (Sep. 23-Oct. 22): Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh was born under the sign of Libra. He said, “The root word ‘Buddha’ means to wake up, to know, to understand; and he or she who wakes up and understands is called a Buddha.” So, according to him, the spiritual teacher Siddhartha Gautama who lived in…
Related Stories
In 2017, Scott Sparks needed help developing the brand identity of his Brattleboro-based CBD store, Vermont Hempicurean. Though his hemp-derived products were legal to sell in Vermont, they weren’t legal at the federal level. “In those days, it was … a felony every time I sold CBD,” Sparks explained. “When I opened, I didn’t know…
Cofounder and artistic director of the Vermont Mozart Festival had passions for music, reading, travel and jokes.
Skilled cabinetmaker and jazz enthusiast lived an unhurried life of purpose
Cannabis edibles get a bad rap. Homemade versions with unknown dosing and delayed effects have caused enough unfortunate experiences to keep many folks away from unmarked trays of brownies at parties. But, as Vermont prepares for the legal retail cannabis market to launch on Saturday, October 1, it’s no surprise that some of the state’s…
Nephi Craig is White Mountain Apache on his mother’s side and Diné (Navajo) on his father’s. He grew up mostly in Whiteriver, Ariz., on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, where he baked cookies and brownies with his mother from a young age. “We didn’t have a lot of money,” Craig, 42, said in a recent…
Get out your ugly sweaters and vintage snowsuits. Stowe’s Field Guide Lodge has a new bar concept, and it’s a celebration of 1980s ski culture. The redesigned bar at 433 Mountain Road is called Après Only. Last winter, it was home to a seasonal pop-up tasting space for Stowe- and Grand Isle-based Ellison Estate Vineyard.…
Remix It Up Monday 3 Vermont Humanities kicks off its Where We Land Fall Festival with an appearance by best-selling young adult author Jason Reynolds at Wilson Hall in Middlebury College’s McCullough Student Center. Reynolds speaks about the process of collaborating with author and activist Ibram X. Kendi on Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, a…
In a press release billed as “big happy news,” Burlington’s shuttered Off Center for the Dramatic Arts announced this week that it will open a black box theater in November, carrying on its mission to encourage theatrical risk-taking by providing affordable space. “We’re just thrilled,” Laura Roald, president of Off Center’s board of directors, told…
Ed Koren is best known for his distinctive cartoons in the New Yorker — well more than 1,000 over six decades — featuring hirsute, long-nosed characters and gently satirical punchlines. He’s contributed numerous cover illustrations to the magazine, as well, and has graced Seven Days with a few. In Vermont, where Koren and his wife,…
