Archive - 2009 - Page
December 30th
MIDDLEBURY — Seven years ago, the children of the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society (CVUUS) set off to do some charitable work inspired by a simple quote from Mother Teresa:
“We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”
Last week saw the payoff to a project that yielded a lot of small things — around 200,000 pennies, in fact — that collectively will do some great good for local and international charities.
Editor’s note: Part 1 of the Independent’s look back at the local sports scene in 2009 ran in the Dec. 24 issue.
ADDISON COUNTY — As the first six months of 2009 wrapped up, Otter Valley Union High School won the Division II softball crown, giving the area its first — and what would prove to be its only — high school sports team title of 2009. A number of athletes won individual championships in the year’s first half, including wrestlers from OV, Vergennes and Middlebury union high schools; two MUHS senior track stars; and a Mount Abraham junior golfer.
ADDISON COUNTY — This New Year’s Eve, thousands will watch the ball drop in Times Square. Here in Vermont, there won’t be police barricades or headlining pop singers, but there will be plenty of other events around the county to ring in 2010.
Bristol’s fourth annual Best Night celebration will feature a series of concerts and activities in three town venues — Holley Hall, First Baptist Church and the Walkover Gallery. Events will run from 3 until 11 p.m., starting with a fire organ on the Bristol Green and finishing with a dance party in Holley Hall.
I have a neighbor, an avid golfer, who a couple of years ago had the opportunity to play Augusta National Golf Club, and was absolutely thrilled. He would play on the course where the Masters Golf Tournament is held each April, the Valhalla, or Eden, of golf courses, sacred ground, where the immortal gods of golf have trod and reside.
I didn’t dare to tell him that you couldn’t pay me to set foot on Augusta National.
FOREST DALE — If Dave Rowden had filled out a Christmas list this year, it would’ve had only one thing on it — a new liver.
In 2005, Dave and his wife Sally were just going along in their lives like everyone else. Dave had retired from the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department after 33 years as the area game warden. He had recently started working with Brandon Police Department as an officer. Sally was working at Rite-Aid. Their kids were grown and married with kids of their own.
One day, Rowden wasn’t feeling well and went home sick from the police department.
December 28th
A siren cut through Monday morning’s gray, flurry-filled sky above the Champlain Bridge and suddenly the anticipatory chatter among the assembled masses waned to a collective murmur.
In an instant, the wintry tableau before them was shattered by a loud thud, punctuated by a series of brilliant yellow and red flashes. Like a sand castle hit by a tsunami, the bridge dissolved into Lake Champlain from beneath a rising plume of thick, angry smoke, debris and dust.
December 23rd
ADDISON COUNTY — It’s a busy time of year for Addison County residents — and a busier time still for the man of the hour, Kris Kringle, who is slated to swing by local homes late Thursday night on his annual Christmas rounds.
Kringle was unavailable for comment Monday at his North Pole workshop, but sources close to the man confirmed that Kringle, who also goes by “Santa Claus” and “Jolly Old St. Nick,” had spent much of December deep in plans for the big event.
ADDISON COUNTY — Loren Wood was 18 years old in 1972 when he and his family relocated from New Hampshire to Vermont, leaving a farm just outside of Manchester to set up shop in Shoreham.
At the time, Wood remembers, the farmland around Manchester was slowly beginning to be transformed by development — a house here and a house there.
“It’s not hard to see why we chose to conserve our land,” Wood said. “It bothers me to see good farmland go to houses.”
