The Vermont Standard – Vermont Weekly Community Newspaper

They packed the meeting room at Tuesday night’s Select Board meeting to complain that 4 a.m. is too early to sweep village streets. According to residents and bed and breakfast owners, the town sweeper is too loud to be operating at that hour, and it is negatively impacting their businesses.

Charlotte Hollingsworth, co-owner of the Ardmore Inn on Pleasant Street, received numerous complaints from guests about the street sweeper being too loud. She suggested the town change its sweeping time between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. so that their guests are not awoken early in the morning.

For more, see our print and/or e-edition May 23

May 24
8:00 am

Standard’s Phil Camp explains local journalism struggles

When your copy of The Vermont Standard arrives in your mailbox or you pick it up at the store, you’re focused on the news and what is going on in the community. You’re not likely thinking about how the newspaper was crafted, the people at the newspaper’s office, whether the paper is doing well financially or how it is trying to meet the big challenges of the newspaper business today.

On Saturday, Phil Camp, President and Owner of The Vermont Standard, shared how he is thinking about those things and all the other struggles that come with producing a small community newspaper as well as how the paper is seeking solutions to beat the odds during the third segment of Vermont Journalism in Turbulent Times.

See the full story in our May 23 print and/or e-edition

May 24
8:00 am

Rockets, trucks and more at Hartland Rec. event

Hartland — Families from around the region gathered at the Hartland Recreation Department on Saturday to enjoy the Truck Extravaganza featuring a Fun Run hosted by the Hartland Cooperative Nursery school, rocket launching, a BBQ lunch and several trucks to explore.

Vehicles available for visitors to explore included a Hartland Fire Department truck, construction trucks, an Army truck and a State Police of Vermont car.

The Hartland Boy Scouts Pack No. 235 launched the rockets they had built. Nao Tsukamoto, 6, of Lebanon, NH was the first to catch the rocket they had launched and received a prize. According to Tsukamoto’s mother, today “was the best day” for Nao.

May 24
8:00 am

Hartland reviews tax agreements with hydro companies

The Select Board of the Town of Hartland took up an issue relating to possible changes in the tax structures for its three hydro-electric power plants at its Monday night meeting, May 20. The owner of the smallest of the three plants, Hartland resident Jay Boeri, attended the meeting.

“I think the Select Board finds itself between a rock and a hard place. They are aware of the concerns and are fair-minded,” he said. “The State of Vermont Department of Taxes is now setting the standard for appraising hydro-electric power plants and other renewable energy sources, taking it out of the hands of Town Listers.”

For more on this story–see our May 23 print and/or e-edition

May 24
8:00 am

Lincoln Covered Bridge closed due to damages

The Lincoln Covered Bridge will be closed for the next few months after a pick-up truck with a long trailer carrying a backhoe tried to cross the bridge and caused major damages on Wednesday.

According to Captain Joseph Swanson of Woodstock Police, The backhoe was above the 10-feet height limit when it entered the bridge. Portions of wood at both of the entrances were ripped out and up to 10 collar ties that hold the bridge together were compromised.

According to Swanson, Gavin Ratliff, 23, of Sharon left his worksite and tried crossing the bridge to Route 4 to head home. After Ratliff went through the bridge, he pulled over and called 911.

Swanson could not put a dollar amount on how much the bridge sustained in monetary damages. An engineer will examine the bridge in a matter of weeks and determine when it should be safe to travel on again.

“Drivers can use the Mill Road Bridge if they want to access the other side [of the river],” Swanson said. “Drivers can also access Fletcher Hill Road via Carlton Hill Road and Riverside Park Road to cross over as well.”

May 24
8:00 am

Boy Scouts meet the Governor

Meeting the Governor. To earn a scout badge called Build a Better World, Woodstock Troop 220’s Webelo Scouts are asked to interview a government official. The boys decided they wanted to go right to the top and meet and interview the Governor. On Wednesday May 15 at the Governor’s every Wednesday morning coffee hour, at the State Capitol, in the Governor’s ceremonial office, Milo Farrington, Ian Coates, Kyler Eaton and Calvin Lehouiller, all eleven-year-old’s from Pomfret, met and interviewed Governor Phil Scott

May 24
8:00 am

OHC tile mural unveiled

Elementary school children and public art are an irresistible combination. On Monday, the new tile mural was unveiled at the Ottauquechee Health Center in Woodstock. Students at Woodstock Elementary School designed the tiles along with Robert Rossel, an artist in residence at WES. Rossel and the students who created the mural were at the unveiling as well as staff from the Ottauquechee Health Center.

May 24
8:00 am

School decision: renovate or build?

After two years of research, meetings and design work, the Windsor Central Modified Unified Union School District School Board will be deciding if the more than the 60-year-old Woodstock Union High School Middle School (WUHSMS) building will be renovated with additions or a new one built at their meeting on Monday, June 10, at 6 p.m., in the library at WUMHS. The meeting is open to all.

See the full story in our May 23 print and/or e-edition

Features

May 24
8:00 am

Learning to fly fish

QUECHEE — While the weather is warming up again, outdoor activities are awakening from their slumber. There’s hiking, boating, swimming and a there’s a whole lot more to do in the Quechee-Woodstock area. But one activity that flies under the radar every now and then involves a slow and graceful movement with a fishing rod.

On Saturday, May 11, the Quechee Trails Committee organized a fly-casting seminar for beginners on Lake Pinneo at the Quechee Club. Word got out fast of the special event and the 10 spots that were available quickly filled up according to the organizer Ron Dull.

See the full story in our May 23 print and/or e-edition

May 24
8:00 am

Supercavitation: swimming fast….very fast

A few years ago, while swimming in the Kedron Valley Inn’s pond, my wife was pursued by an angry hornet. Nothing she tried could rid her of this hellish hymenoptera, but if she could have invoked the principle of supercavitation she might have escaped by just swimming exceptionally fast.

Supercavitation is a phenomenon that can potentially allow objects to travel underwater near the speed of sound (in water), about 3,350 mph. Supercavitation occurs when a thin layer of air surrounds an object traveling underwater so that the greatly reduced drag allows it to attain speeds it could achieve in air. At ‘water-Mach-1’ speed, an underwater trip from Liverpool in the U.K. to New York would take about 1 hour. Is such travel within the realm of scientific possibility? The answer is a qualified ‘yes’.

Read all about supercavitation as explained by our scientific columnist, Robert Zamenhof, this week in our print and/or e-edition May 23

Entertainment

May 24
8:00 am

Life in a Jar

Long before Jack Mayer heard of Irena Sendler, he was fascinated with “rescuers.”

Rescuers, he said, are extraordinary people, who go out of their way to save others from certain disaster, often putting themselves at risk.

Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker and nurse, risked death or imprisonment rescuing 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War II.

“It is a mysterious thing about what makes people rescuers and what makes people perpetrators,” said Mayer, author of “Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project,” his second book and first non-fiction work.

On Monday, Mayer shared Sendler’s story of personal courage as one of an estimated 25,000 “holocaust heroes.” The hour-long program was sponsored by the Woodstock History Center and drew more than 20 people in attendance.

See our full story in our May 23 print and/or e-edition

May 24
8:00 am

Junior Prom a unique success

In years past, the Woodstock Union High School junior prom always featured a unique theme — something meaningful, reached by consensus that defined each class for itself and posterity.

Not so for the groundbreaking Class of 2020.

On Saturday, it was the first junior prom in school memory that did not have a theme. It also was the first prom that did not have a traditional court of king and queen.

This year’s prom was gender neutral, decided by student consensus.

See the full story in the May 23 and 30th editions, print and/or online

Obituaries

May 24
8:00 am

Margaret Chadwick McCracken, 1952-2019

Margaret Chadwick McCracken died peacefully early in the morning of March 10, 2019 at Woodstock Terrace. During the last week of her life, she had a constant stream of visitors, family and friends, who came to say goodbye to her.

Margaret was born in Oberlin, Ohio in 1952 to W. Chave and Mary Tyler (Chadwick) McCracken. She grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and graduated from Laurel School in Shaker Heights. After graduation from Pine Manor College, she attended Boston University, studying Fine Arts.

Margaret moved to Vermont in 1975 and married Theodore S. (Tim) Turner in 1978. They had two sons, Caleb M. Turner and Frederick L. Turner.

Margaret was an artist. She learned to make stained glass with Linda Ethier when she first moved to Vermont, and went on to create many beautiful stained glass pieces. She also drew and painted, made intricate beaded earrings and necklaces, and created and maintained beautiful and extensive flower gardens and stone walls. She was a photographer who generously documented and shared the important moments in the lives of many. She was creative and productive.

Margaret was also a storyteller. She always had an outrageous story to tell, and had a gift for making people laugh. She was vibrant, engaging, and had a fun-loving personality.

During the last years of her life Margaret was diagnosed with Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy, an uncommon brain disorder, which ultimately causes a person to lose the ability to speak and to control the body. She eventually lost her ability to draw or do any kind of artwork, and her ability to tell stories, but she continued to love and appreciate her friends and family. She never lost her radiant smile, or her ability to connect with people through means other than talking.

Margaret’s artwork will be featured in a show at ArtisTree Gallery in Pomfret in June, focusing on three artists with dementia and how their disease affected their art.

Margaret was pre-deceased by her husband, Tim Turner. She is survived by her sons, Caleb Tuner and his wife Meghan (Thompson) Turner, and Fred Turner and his partner Briana Haugh, and by her grandson Jackson Lion Turner. She is also survived by her sisters, Adelaide McCracken and Sara Norcross and by her siblings in-law: Steve Killam, Kenny Norcross, George and Jodi Turner, Roger Turner and Linda Rood, and Jonathan Turner, as well as by her McCracken and Turner nieces and nephews, all of whom adored her.

Donations in her honor can be made to Bayada Hospice and CurePSP, an organization that studies and provides support to those with neuro-degenerative brain diseases.