Features
Hartford culinary arts students ready for Jr. Iron Chef competition
By NICOLA SMITH
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — On a gray morning this week, a team of young cooks from the Culinary Arts program at the Hartford Area Career and Technology Center gathered around a countertop and stared intently at a plate, as if it were a work of art going...
Out & About: Parks Service trains volunteers to identify hemlock pest
By LIZ SAUCHELLI
CORNISH — The National Park Service is looking to train volunteers at the Upper Valley’s two national parks to identify an invasive insect that poses a risk to hemlock trees.Staff will lead workshops about the small aphid-like insect at 9 a.m. Friday,...
Over Easy: Oats could be the answer
By DAN MACKIE
This inflation thing has gone too far. Not only are supermarkets working toward a $5 minimum for essentials such as cookies, the cost of something near and dear to my heart is inching ever higher.I refer to often overlooked old-fashioned oats. They...
New Dartmouth research shows how permafrost shapes Arctic rivers and what that means for climate change
By MARA HOPLAMAZIAN
Thick, frozen soil — or permafrost — is the driving force that shapes Arctic rivers, according to new research from Dartmouth. And the lead researcher says that’s key to understanding how climate change might affect, and be affected by, carbon stored...
A Life: Bertha Brown ‘was a quiet backbone in so many areas’
By PATRICK O’GRADY
THETFORD CENTER — From her early years at Norwich Elementary School to her ministry later in life, Bertha Brown lived her faith of service every day and never wavered from her principles of dignity, acceptance and compassion for all.Brown felt a...
Out & About: In honor of Day of Remembrance, woman shares late husband’s story of internment
By LIZ SAUCHELLI
LEBANON — Dorothy Whitney Yamashita pointed to black-and-white photographs of her late husband, Kanshi Stanley Yamashita, on screen.There he was, as a child on Terminal Island off the coast of California. There he was with his siblings. Their idyllic...
Art Notes: Longtime Lebanon photographer ‘doesn’t want that kind of exposure’
By ALEX HANSON
Larry Vanier started taking photographs as a hobby. He already enjoyed hiking and being outdoors, so it was natural to him to start taking a camera along.This was in the 1970s and early ’80s, the apex of film photography. The Upper Valley had a robust...
Over Easy: No mail today
By DAN MACKIE
The U.S. Postal Service seems to think it can get mail to us more quickly by sending it far away and hauling it back. It is hatching a scheme — for all I know named Project Hither and Yon — to ship mail from Hartford, Vt., to Hartford, Conn., where it...
Art Notes: Upper Valley filmmaker’s debut premiering at WRIF festival
By ALEX HANSON
Loren David Howard started making movies the way a lot of teens do, by recording concerts his dad took him to and making videos of friends out skateboarding.He didn’t expect to make much out of it, but after a school counselor advised him to think...
Rare bird that caused stir in Vermont died of natural causes
By K. FIEGENBAUM
Late last September, a large, migratory shorebird alighted in North Hero, causing a stir among birders who recognized it as a marbled godwit — a species not known to live or migrate through the state. News of the sighting spread quickly, with people...
A Life: Fran Hanchett ‘wanted more information’
By LIZ SAUCHELLI
LEBANON — Whenever Frances “Fran” Hanchett walked through cemeteries, she’d keep an eye out for neglected stones.“She had a little kit in the back of her trunk all the time,” Hanchett’s daughter, Lisa Wentworth, said in a phone interview. Hanchett...
Woodstock High grad returned home to open comedy club
By MARION UMPLEBY
In Paulo Coehlo’s novel “The Alchemist,” the protagonist Santiago embarks on an arduous quest to find buried treasure that appeared to him in a dream only to discover that the bounty lay where his journey began.Comedian and native Vermonter Collen...
Out & About: Bradford singalongs remind participants that everyone can sing
By LIZ SAUCHELLI
BRADFORD, Vt. — Before leading the first Bradford Bringalong Singalong, Mallory Graham was admittedly a little terrified.Graham plays roughly 150 shows a year along with her partner, Scott Tyler, as part of the folk duo The Rough & Tumble. But the...
Art Notes: Weekend performances to benefit Junction Dance Festival
By ERIC SUTPHIN
The wheels are in motion for the third edition of the Junction Dance Festival (TJDF), planned for July. The festival was founded by choreographer Elizabeth Kurylo, affectionately known in the dance community as Babette.“We are promoting artists from...
A Look Back: That Golden Age of ski jumping
By STEVE TAYLOR
Erling Heistad came to Lebanon from Norway in 1923 and in a matter of a few months he set off a half century’s worth of excitement that would eventually establish a local Golden Age of what had been an obscure Scandinavian sport, ski jumping. For...
Out & About: Series for older adults celebrates creative play
By LIZ SAUCHELLI
WOODSTOCK — Three longtime Upper Valley performers are teaming up to bring more play into the lives of the region’s older adults.Friends for decades, Marv Klassen-Landis, Ham Gillett and Michael Zerphy have been been mainstays in the region’s creative...
Over Easy: Outlook uncertain for love outbreak
By DAN MACKIE
We recently voted in the New Hampshire presidential primary — you may have heard of it. I went to the polls in low spirits, but I am always cheered by the friendly poll workers in West Lebanon who have to make sure I’m not trying to steal an...
Art Notes: Lebanon Opera House, Chandler Music Hall reopen following renovations
By ALEX HANSON
A pair of the most venerable and active Upper Valley performance venues, Lebanon Opera House and Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall, are reopening in the next week after renovations.The opera house, which will reopen with a refreshed lobby and new seats...
Theater Review: Shaker Bridge’s ‘The Cake’ juggles humor and pain
By CAOIMHE MARKEY
Oscar Wilde wrote in his play “A Woman of No Importance” that “after a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” Replace “dinner” with “dessert,” and you’ve nailed down the sentiment of Shaker Bridge Theatre’s newest showpiece,...
Hanover High drama club to stage play about Ukrainian teens during invasion
By ALEX HANSON
HANOVER — During a rehearsal at Hanover High School a couple of weeks ago, a handful of young actors recited lines an Upper Valley audience wouldn’t expect to hear spoken on a high school stage.“That’s when I had my first panic attack.” “The scariest...
