At the beginning of May it looked like Bridport’s and Shoreham’s elementary schools would both remain open for the next school year, serving their own local children with multi-age classrooms. The ACSD was trying to figure out if some Shoreham kids would attend school in Bridport and some Bridport kids would go to Shoreham so that no one would need to be in a multi-age classroom. The plan was off for now, but a summer study committee would discuss future collaborations — including potentially having the students from both towns attending Bridport Central School beginning in 2026.

Middlebury was taking steps to make the town more attractive to business. The town, the Addison County Economic Development Corp. and Middlebury College announced they would join forces to make 200 acres at the northern edge of the town’s industrial park more attractive to entrepreneurs.

The property is close to the municipal wastewater treatment plant, Exchange Street and Route 7. Those are already attractive inducements for prospective developers, but the economic development corp. proposed making the lots more interesting through a $130,000 investment in pre-development services, like mapping and conceptual design work.

Speaking of entrepreneurs, Christian Bloom opened up a new store at the former Video King movie rental space on Washington Street in Middlebury. The new business, called Retro Realm, featured a ton of old style standalone video games that one might have seen in a video game parlor of the 1980s or 1990s. On offer were Miss Pac-man, Mario Brothers and Fast and Furious Drift, along with live action games like foosball, air hockey and skeet ball.

The Trump administration’s cost-cutting ways hit Addison County again, when the end of the AmeriCorps program seriously derailed some young adults’ dreams of public service while cutting the labor supply to local nonprofits like Middlebury Area Land Trust, Willowell Foundation, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Activity and half a dozen other agencies and programs.

The Vergennes City Council wrestled with what do about the loss of Boys and Girls Club. They signed two agreements regarding the Boys and Girls clubhouse on Armory Lane — municipal officials took control of the property for the time being and continued an after school program for youth that would be called the Commodore Club. City Rec Director Martha DeGraaf would run the program.

Another transition was taking place in Bristol, where the folks who had recently taken ownership of Main Street’s Dunshee Block said they would tune up the building’s exiting Bristol Suites hotel and Vermont Marketplace retail outlet. The 154-year-old, three-story building had hosted businesses like Peggy’s Beauty Shop, Bristol Cliffs Music Center, several clothing stores and a general store.

Gabe Hamilton took over as interim principal of Ferrisburgh Central School, after Rae Donovan resigned her position in April.

Alice Perine touched thousands of other lives — as an educator, union leader, community volunteer, and as a mom. In May the Middlebury resident celebrated her 100th birthday.

A different sport made our front pages in May when the Unified Basketball teams from Vergennes and Middlebury union high schools faced off in the VUHS gym. Students were released early to attend that afternoon, and many said they enjoyed the sense of community that the game engendered.

Starksboro voters in May OK’d a $1.1 million bond to create the Jerusalem Community Center and renovate the decrepit fire station in South Starksboro.

Vergennes Boy and Cub Scout Troop 539 saw a boom in Eagles as the school year wound down. The troop recorded its sixth member attaining the level of Eagle Scout this month — a remarkable number that likely wasn’t matched elsewhere in Vermont for the year.

Many of the roughly two-dozen Ripton children who would be attending Salisbury Community School this fall found out in May that they would see a familiar face in the principal’s office. Former Ripton Elementary School principal (and current Ripton resident) Tracey Harrington was picked as Salisbury’s new top administrator. She succeeded Principal Bjarki Sears, who was stepping down to resume his career as a Social Studies teacher at Middlebury Union Middle School.

Addison resident Sophia Parker in May was named Miss Vermont 2025. Parker holds a BSN in Nursing and works as a Registered Nurse in the Emergency Department at the University of Vermont Medical Center. She is also a sergeant/medic in the Vermont Army National Guard and rehabilitates injured wildlife.

Middlebury College faculty in the spring urged administrators to divest from the institution’s graduate school in Monterey, Calif., in the wake of recently-announced compensation cuts and other steps aimed at filling a projected $14.1 million deficit for this fiscal year. More than 200 people — many faculty and staff members — gathered on campus in mid-May to protest the compensation cuts and similar measures.

Coincidentally the Mount Abraham Unified School District and its teachers’ union in May settled on a new contract for professional staff that includes salary increases of 9%, 6.25% and 5.50% over the next three years. The contract will take effect July 1.

In a three-way race for two Panton selectboard seats, residents on May 15 strongly endorsed a family farm owner and a town business owner to fill the two newly created seats on the board. BJ’s Farm Supply co-owner Robert DeGraaf outpolled Debbie Brace, 81-13, for a one-year term on what will now be a five-member selectboard. Farm owner Kirsten De La Cruz defeated Brace, 80-14, for a two-year term. Brace had filed for both seats.

In other civic leadership news, former Ferrisburgh Selectboard Chair Jessica James was tapped by the selectboard to serve as Ferrisburgh’s new town clerk.

The Middlebury Area Land Trust in May announced it had selected Kevin Fox as its new executive director. Fox brings more than 25 years of proven leadership in conservation and sustainable development on a global scale. At the time he was serving as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer with USAID and was directing a $250 million climate and biodiversity portfolio across the Amazon rainforest and Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean from his post in Lima, Peru. Fox would officially join MALT in early July.