Archive - May 7, 2012
VERGENNES — It’s known as the “Little City.” But Vergennes, unbeknownst to many, played a huge role two centuries ago in a major U.S. Navy victory that protected the Champlain Valley from British invasion and helped end the War of 1812.
The story is succinctly acknowledged on a plaque adorning a stately, stone-pillared monument standing in the city park.
FERRISBURGH/VERGENNES — “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” the old Chinese proverb eloquently says.
University of Vermont professor David Raphael may not teach his students how to fish. But the Panton resident and owner of LandWorks — the Middlebury outdoor design firm — is equipping UVM students in his “Sustainable Landscape Architecture and Construction” class with skills for life.
VERGENNES — Back in January, guitar-playing 16-year-old Vergennes resident Matteo Palmer knew several things that turned out to be related.
Those were that he enjoys attending and volunteering for events at the Vergennes Opera House, the theater had in recent years found it more difficult to make ends meet, and Grammy-winning southern Vermont resident Will Ackerman had become one of his guitar idols.
MIDDLEBURY — Two years ago, Middlebury playwright and teacher Dana Yeaton and his former student, Andy Mitton, saw their play My Ohio staged at Town Hall Theater and at the FlynnSpace in Burlington.
This July, they will see their creation performed under the new title Swing State at the world’s largest musical theater festival in New York City.
VERGENNES — At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8, Vergennes officials and residents will take what could be one of the final steps on what has been close to a five-year journey.
Then, in the city fire station’s basement meeting room, aldermen will convene a public hearing on new zoning regulations proposed by the Vergennes Planning Commission. A copy of the laws is posted at vergennes.org.
Planners have been working on those zoning laws since Vergennes adopted its award-winning city plan in October 2009.
MIDDLEBURY — Harper Smith of Middlebury liked drawing and painting and she has been doing it since she was very young. So it was not surprising when last year, as an eighth-grader at Middlebury Union Middle School, she entered one of her drawings into a contest.
What was surprising to Smith, now 14 and a freshman at Middlebury Union High School, is that her drawing is now being sold all over Vermont.
MIDDLEBURY — In the early 20th century, no resource was left unused on a Vermont farm. The very end of a year’s sap run, when the maple flavor is the strongest, was no different. That sap was boiled down halfway, then tossed into a barrel with other ingredients to make sap beer.
“I doubt if there’s a barrel of sap beer in the state today, but I must say, it was a pretty good drink for haying,” said Edgar Dodge on a Vermont Folklife Center recording from the 1990s. (Hear Edgar Dodge's interview below)
MIDDLEBURY — The Addison County Republican and Democratic committees want to hear from people interested in filling the balance of the term left by the late Sheriff James Coons, who died April 16.
Party officials have been instructed to submit lists of candidates for the job to Gov. Peter Shumlin by June 15. Shumlin will then appoint an individual to serve as the county’s sheriff until Coons’ most recent four-year term expires in February of 2015.
