Archive - Aug 20, 2007 - Page
HANNAH ZIMMER OF Middlebury stretches for a ripe blueberry from her shaded spot under the bush’s canopy. Four-year-old Hannah and her mom, Alison, picked six quarts at the Lower Notch Blueberry Farm in Bristol on Thursday afternoon.
Independent photo/Kevin Lehman
August 20, 2007
By CYRUS LEVESQUE
BRISTOL — Bristol selectmen have created a volunteer energy committee to address concerns about energy efficiency and to cut energy use in the community.
In recent years, some Vermont towns, notably Montpelier, have established separate positions or committees to spotlight energy issues, but Bristol appears to be the first in Addison County.
Bristol’s five-member energy committee will be chaired by energy coordinator John Elder and will work mostly in an advisory role to the selectboard and town administrator on energy efficiency. Elder, a Bristol resident and professor of English and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, said he has high hopes for the group.
“I hope we can move really fast to get back to the town with some specific proposals,” he said.
The idea for the group originally came from planning commission member Bunny Daubner, who shared it with Selectwoman Carol Wells. Although a separate position to handle energy is relatively new, the responsibility itself is not.
August 20, 2007
By JOHN FLOWERS
MIDDLEBURY — Brent Bjorkman developed a passion for history and folklore as a young child who would listen, spellbound, as his grandfather told him stories about his Scandinavian ancestry.
Years later, Bjorkman is the person delivering the stories, as the new executive director of the Vermont Folklife Center (VFC) in Middlebury.
Bjorkman, 42, has been on the job for around five weeks now. He recently took over for the legendary Jane Beck, who retired after more than two decades at the helm of the VFC, which she founded. It was Beck’s legacy and the skilled staff that remains at the VFC that prompted Bjorkman to apply for the top job at the organization, which has moved into new digs in the historic John Warren House at 88 Main St. in Middlebury.
“It was Jane’s vision this whole time that I will be carrying out far into the future, with the help of a staff and board that has always been such a part of the visioning process,” Bjorkman said on Thursday.
August 20, 2007
By MEGAN JAMES
MIDDLEBURY — Before hanging a new breast cancer awareness quilt in Porter Hospital’s mammography suite last week, mammographer Joan Guertin felt around in one of the quilt’s 12 brightly colored bras for a mock breast cancer.
“She put in a mass,” Guertin said, referring to Dorothy Anguish, the Vergennes resident who sewed and donated the quilt late last year as a light-hearted reminder that women should check their breasts regularly for cancer.
Guertin moved her fingers around the quilted breast until she located the dried pea tucked into the batting. “This really is what a (cancer) mass feels like,” she said. “It’s what you might feel if you were doing a self breast exam.”
But Anguish couldn’t feel it in her own breast last year. Just as she was about to finish the quilt, a mass, which is the most common indicator of breast cancer, showed up in her mammogram. Porter did a second mammogram and determined a biopsy was needed.
“I had to get (the quilt) out of my house because … not finishing it was bad news,” Anguish said.
