Grafton County officials and top judicial officials around New Hampshire have found a fitting honor for the late William Johnson of Hanover.

A courtroom in the Grafton County Courthouse in Haverhill was dedicated to Johnson at a ceremony last month, and a framed photograph of the former justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court now hangs in the courtroom.

Attendees at the Oct. 13 ceremony included retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, former Gov. Walter Peterson, and several sitting or former New Hampshire Supreme Court justices, including Chief Justice John Broderick.

Johnson, a Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School graduate who also served in the state Senate, was also a chairman of the state Republican Party in the mid-1960s. He served on the high court in Concord from 1985 to 1999.

Johnson died last May at age 78.

Look for a political tinge to the annual Environmental Action 2009 Conference to be held Saturday at Vermont Technical College in Randolph.

Several Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Vermont are expected to discuss their views on energy and the environment, including former state Sen. Matt Dunne of Hartland, Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, state Sen. Susan Bartlett, and a likely candidate, Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin.

The keynote address will be delivered by “climate movement” backer Jonathan Isham, a Middlebury College professor and author of Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement.

The event is sponsored by such left-leaning groups as New England Grassroots Environment Fund, Vermont League of Conservation Voters, Toxics Action Center, Vermont Natural Resources Council and Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

Call it the Jim Kim effect. Dartmouth College this week said it is seeing an uptick in applicants for its binding early decision admissions program this year.

The Ivy League school has received more than 1,600 early-decision applications from high school seniors, about a 3 percent increase over last year.

Dean of Admissions Maria Laskaris said there is a 5 percent increase in applications from students of color, including “record numbers” of Asian American, Latino and international students, according to a Dartmouth news release.

Laskaris attributed the increase to “enthusiasm” about Kim, who was born in South Korea but grew up in the United States and was a leader in the global health field.

“There has been a great deal of media coverage around the world about President Kim's appointment, and this has raised awareness and popularity of Dartmouth to bright and talented students around the country and around the world,” she said.

Dartmouth also has a need-blind admissions policy and recently agreed to provide free tuition to families with household incomes below $75,000.

Speaking of Dartmouth, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch will be on campus tomorrow to participate in a panel discussion on “Governing a State During a National Recession.”

The event will be held at 4:30 p.m. at The Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth, and is free and open to the public.

Give U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., credit for being ready and willing to talk to his constituents on health care. Welch held a statewide “Telephone Town Hall on health care reform” Monday night.

And he even robocalled Vermont residents, inviting them to hang onto the line and listen in on the call. (A certain weary reporter, finally home, listened for a minute, then decided to see what beer was in the fridge).

But a lot of Vermonters stuck with it. More than 2,400 residents listened for between 5 and 20 minutes of the forum, and 520 hung with it for more than 40 minutes. Twenty of the callers asked questions on the call, according to Welch's office.

Welch spokesman Paul Heintz said the Hartland Democrat held the forum after the unveiling of House leaders' final health-care reform bill last week.

“The Congressman wanted to provide an additional opportunity to discuss the changes and answer any last-minute questions that folks have,” Heintz said.

Welch has held six telephone town halls since health-care reform became a live issue in the House this year, and he's also held well-attended forums in person, including a session last month in White River Junction.

* U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is playing cyber travel agent for Vermont. Leahy last month unveiled a “touch screen” information kiosk at his office in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. It's the same technology found at Welcome Centers in Vermont and links to the state's official tourism site.

* Fans of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., take note: His son, Levi, is also proving to be a slow political starter. Levi Sanders, a paralegal, finished seventh in a field of nine for four at-large seats on Claremont's City Council in Tuesday's election. The 40-year-old Sanders ran a bit of a mixed-metaphor campaign. He described himself as a “progressive in nature,” but was allied with anti-tax candidates in favor of a spending cap, which was soundly defeated. Sanders is now 0-3 in Sullivan County races.

John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com