Hungry Middlebury-area children take note: The community’s federally subsidized Free Summer Lunch program kicks off on June 25 and will last through Aug. 10. The meals will be available at noon at the front entrance of the Memorial Sports Center. Children ages two to 18 years old are eligible for the program. Please take note: The lunch location will switch to the town green from July 9 to 13 to coincide with the annual Festival on-the-Green. Anyone ages 2 through 18 is welcome; no registration necessary — just show up!
 
Those who want to weigh in on potential locations for a future Middlebury passenger rail platform are invited to a public input meeting on Tuesday, June 19, from 7 – 9 p.m., at the municipal building at 77 Main St. Come learn more about the new Amtrak passenger rail service planned for 2021 or 2022, and share where the platform should be located. This project is funded by VTrans and is being led by the Middlebury Planning Commission and Addison County Regional Planning Commission.
 
The Sodbusters Horseshoe Club will host the oldest sanctioned horseshoe pitching tournament in Vermont this weekend at its playing courts near the Bristol Recreation Park off Airport Road. The local club has 97 entries, with pitchers from Quebec, New York and several New England states, who will play a half-day on Saturday and all day Sunday. Competition on Sunday afternoon will feature five former world champions, including former world junior champ Brianna McCormick, women’s champ Debra Brown and three-time men’s champ Brian Simmons.
 
The annual Reach for the Stars Golf Tournament honoring the memory of longtime Addison County educator Ray Pellegrini will be held at Cedar Knoll Country Club this Saturday, June 16, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The tourney raises money for the Reach for the Stars Scholarship, established in 2006 after Ray’s sudden death. The scholarships, 18 of them so far, have been awarded to students who will be the first in their family to attend college. The $1,500 grant is provided to students enrolled in their sophomore year of college, and recipients are selected based on their involvement in their school, need, and commitment to the larger community. Ray was an admittedly lousy golfer but was passionate about education. His lengthy career included stints as an educator and administrator at Middlebury Union Middle School, Mt. Abraham Union High School and Monkton Central School. For more information and to sign up, go online to RayPell.com
 
So you’ve seen the orange road-construction signs around the Middlebury downtown bridge construction site in the Marble Works Business District alerting everyone to turn off their two-way radios (does anyone have one these days?) and cellphones. Cellphones?! Yes, cellphones. They’ve got to be kidding, right? Right. The skinny, as reported by Jim Gish, is that the restriction on cell phone and two-way radio usage is specific to electronic detonation systems, which Maine D&B is not using on any blasting planned for the Middlebury project. Yet, the United States Department of Transportation specifications still require those signs be posted. “Bottom line,” Gish says, “you can safely use your cell phone downtown, even during a blasting event.”
 
Classroom teachers from 12 Vermont schools — including several from Addison County — will join in an intensive five-day workshop that will bring together educators and artists beginning June 25. The Teacher Institute pairs classroom teachers in subjects across the curriculum with some of the state’s most accomplished teaching artists to create projects to help students think creatively and critically and develop skills that enhance learning and life. Working together, the teachers and teaching artists select a theme or question that their students will pursue using the creative process as a means of inquiry, exploration and discovery. Participating schools represented in this year’s Teaching Institute will include Mount Abraham Union High School and Salisbury Community School. Among the participating teaching artists will be Middlebury’s Lindsay Pontius, a theater performer, and Lisa Condino, a visual artist.