MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE FRESHMAN Lindsay Kraft eyes the finish line during the second run of the giant slalom during Middlebury’s winter carnival Saturday afternoon. Kraft finished in 13th place in the G.S. while the Middlebury team placed second in the carnival.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell

By CYRUS LEVESQUE

BRISTOL — For Barbara “Bobbie” Kennedy, quilting is about making art or creating gifts for family or charity work, not about making money. The 88-year-old Bristol resident has been quilting for more than half a century, but she said she has never sold a quilt. So much time and effort have to go into making one, she says she couldn’t put a price to them.

“You take a raw material and you make something out of it,” Kennedy recently told a visitor who came to see a dozen quilts. “It’s work, but it’s also enjoyable. They kind of become a part of you.”

In addition to the price of materials, quilting costs a large amount of time. A smaller quilt only a couple feet on either side meant for a wall hanging could take a few weeks to produce, but for a full-sized bed quilt, Kennedy toils for two to three months depending on how complex a piece she has planned and how much time she can devote to it.

Every one of her quilts is different. It’s hard to say whether Kennedy has any favorite quilts, but some have turned out more memorable than others, like a red and white quilt with simple pictures of 19th-century women stitched into each square.

“I’m especially fond of this one,” she said. “I just like the little ladies. They’re so pretty.”

Quilting is only one of the octogenarian’s creative outlets. She also knits, usually spinning her own yarn.

Kennedy doesn’t know exactly how long she has been quilting, spinning wool and knitting or how many quilts she has made. “I’ve always sewed a lot,” she said. Kennedy taught home economics in Bristol, Middlebury and Jeffersonville high schools in addition to raising a family.

By CYRUS LEVESQUE

MIDDLEBURY — Concerned Addison County residents voiced their fears about plans for a Staples office supply store in The Centre shopping plaza at a Middlebury Design Review Board (DRB) hearing Monday evening. A few at the hearing supported it, but most feared its impact on the neighborhood and on the Middlebury area in general.

Middlebury resident Paula Israel, who runs the Main Street store Wild Mountain Thyme, argued that whatever effect a Staples store might have economically, it would hurt the local small-town atmosphere.

“We live here for a reason, and I don’t think that reason is … so that we have great shopping,” Israel said.

Others among the about 40 people who attended the hearing supported the plan.

“If we don’t address the opportunity to create sales viability in Middlebury, you lose shoppers,” said John Tenny, arguing that a Staples would help the Middlebury area. Tenny is a Middlebury selectman, but at the meeting he emphasized that he was speaking only as a private citizen and the owner of Mill Bridge Construction.

The DRB scheduled the hearing so representatives of the developers could address concerns about the plan’s impact on Court Street traffic, the economic impact, and how well the proposal conforms with Middlebury’s town plan. Other concerns were raised as well, but the DRB said they were outside the scope of the hearing and another hearing will be scheduled for a later date.

The plan for a 14,600-foot Staples store next to the Hannaford supermarket is being pitched by Buffalo, N.Y.-based Myron Hunt Inc. Hunt, an alumnus of Middlebury College, owns The Centre. Tenny has worked for Hunt as a consultant in the past, according to Middlebury town planner Fred Dunnington. There was no representative of the Staples Corp. at the meeting.

By MEGAN JAMES

MIDDLEBURY — In the three weeks since Middlebury College freshman Nicholas Garza disappeared, search and rescue teams have overturned each inch of the college campus, finding nothing. The Middlebury Police Department has interviewed more than 100 people, but still their timeline for the night the 19-year-old went missing, Feb. 5, ends with an unanswered phone call at 11:06 p.m. 

Just this week, Middlebury police called in a Texas nonprofit search and rescue squad called Equu-search to scour the snow-covered grounds once again.

All the while, a woman named Anne Schulze has been closely following the case from her home in New Hampshire. The dearth of leads looks a lot like something she’s seen before: Her sister, Lynne, vanished from the Middlebury campus 37 years ago.

She was never found.

“Since my family and Lynne’s friends found out about Nick’s disappearance, we have been hoping and praying along with the Middlebury community and Nick’s family that he be found safe and soon,” she said in a telephone interview.

Later this week Anne Schulze plans to meet with Middlebury Police officer Vegar Boe, who is handling the disappearances of both Garza and Lynne Schulze, to discuss her sister’s still open case. She also hopes to offer her time to speak with Garza’s parents.

Boe is the sixth investigator to work on the Lynne Schulze case since she went missing on the way to a final exam in 1971. According to Schulze, Boe has shown a renewed interest in that case since Garza disappeared earlier this month.

The two cases are completely unrelated, Schulze acknowledged, but she couldn’t help but hear an echo of her sister’s disappearance when she first found out about Garza’s.