Archive - Sep 17, 2007
TIFFANY SARGENT AND Bob LaFiandra make salsa in the basement of St. Stephen’s Church in Middlebury during last week’s United Way of Addison County Day of Caring. Sargent and LaFiandra and several other volunteers made the spicy condiment for a monthly dinner for immigrant farm workers in the county.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
September 17, 2007
By MEGAN JAMES
MIDDLEBURY — After a brief introduction by Ripton author Bill McKibben last Wednesday, Ross Gelbspan looked out at the crowd packed into Middlebury College’s new Hillcrest Environmental Center and told them they should probably leave now. He was about to talk about the American stalemate on climate change and it would only go downhill from here.
“Middlebury has changed much more, given these incredibly beautiful new digs, than the political battle over global warming in the last two decades,” he said.
Gelbspan should know. The veteran reporter and editor, formerly with The Washington Post and Boston Globe, has been working to uncover the connections between climate change deniers and the oil and coal industries for more than a decade. His book, “The Heat is On,” was published in 1996, bringing unprecedented national attention to the issue of global warming.
September 17, 2007
By ANDY KIRKALDY
VERGENNES — Back when Vergennes Union High School senior Katie Jordan was 9 years old, she made a decision that eventually will put her in front of a national radio audience later this fall.
On Sept. 29, Jordan, a 17-year-old Charlotte resident who is the daughter of VUHS choral teacher Karen Jordan, will take the stage at Randolph’s Chandler Hall for “From the Top,” a National Public Radio program that allows the nation’s top young classical musicians to showcase their talents. Vermont Public Radio broadcasts the show on Sundays at 6 p.m., and will air the Randolph edition at a date to be announced.
Jordan will bring her French horn with her to Chandler Hall to play the five-minute first movement of Richard Strauss’s First Horn Concerto, but the horn was not her first instrument. By the time she was a fourth-grader in South Burlington, Jordan was already a veteran piano player who had been giving public recitals for two years.
September 17, 2007
By CYRUS LEVESQUE
NEW HAVEN — Engines were roaring and smoke was billowing at the tractor pull held at the Addison County Field Days fairground in New Haven on Sept. 7 and 8. The 150 competitors and many more spectators where there to have a good time, but there was a serious purpose behind it all.
The second annual Addison County Benefit Truck and Tractor Pull raised at least $7,000 for a Middlebury teen with cancer and a widow with local ties who recently suffered a serious motorcycle accident.
The event, like the first annual event last year, was organized by friends and family of Donald and Kenneth Van De Weert, two local brothers who both died within the past five years.
“We decided to do something to remember them by and give back to the community a little bit,” said Tim Van De Weert of Ferrisburgh, a brother of Don and Ken. “If we can help people out, it just makes us feel good.”
