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By JIM KENYON

Mohsen Mahdawi was looking forward to a break from city life and spending a long holiday weekend at the hilltop cabin he built a few years ago in West Fairlee.With foliage season nearing its peak, Mahdawi expected to do some leaf peeping. He...

By JIM KENYON

About a week ago, I got a call from Raelene Lemery, who had bittersweet news. The nonprofit thrift shop on South Royalton’s main street that she’s run for 40 years is closing later this month.I say bittersweet because Lemery has been a one-person...

By JIM KENYON

The parade of white men chosen to serve as town manager in Vermont’s wealthiest community marches on. Brennan Duffy makes seven. For his sake, I hope seven is a lucky number.Since Norwich switched — with voters’ approval — to a town manager form of...

By JIM KENYON

More Upper Valley communities — big and small — could use a public meeting like the one that Hartland held last week.The topic was policing. How many cops, if any, does the town need? Can police serve as an effective deterrent to crime? Other than...

JIM KENYON

On the way out of his first-floor apartment in Lebanon one afternoon early last month, 67-year-old Jesse Keenum came across a letter on the weathered deck leading to his front door.“This notice is to inform you of your landlord’s intent to evict you...

By JIM KENYON

I tend to lump hair salons into the same category as funeral homes. No matter how the economy is doing, their services are always in demand.With that in mind, it’s surprising to hear the New England School of Hair Design is shutting down next...

By JIM KENYON

When I stopped by the Carter Community Building in downtown Lebanon unannounced Friday, Jim Vanier had just finished sweeping the linoleum floor and tidying up before 25 kids were due to arrive for the free after-school program that he’s served for 50...

By JIM KENYON

Although we probably don’t need more examples of how adults can mess up youth sports and kids are left to pay the price, here’s a recent one that deserves public scrutiny.Since before she entered elementary school, 12-year-old Annabella Gordon has...

By JIM KENYON

The Upper Valley’s housing crunch is making it nearly impossible for many employers to persuade workers from other parts of the country to move here.But Dartmouth College has come up with a remedy.Granted, it’s no magic bullet. Only an ultra-wealthy...

By JIM KENYON

When the nonprofit Carter Community Building Association, or CCBA as it’s known, launched a fundraising drive last October, the good name of Jim Vanier and his half-century of service to Lebanon kids was used as a major selling point. “Following in...

By JIM KENYON

I never thought a price tag could be put on reading, but the Vermont Department of Corrections has found a way.On Aug. 1, the DOC implemented a policy change that in upcoming months will increase the cost of purchasing new books, among other items, by...

By JIM KENYON

When Lebanon High School teachers and administrators gathered in June to recognize their colleagues who were retiring or leaving for new jobs, one person was conspicuous in his absence.Kieth Matte, who spent 24 years at Lebanon High as a physics...

By JIM KENYON

NORWICH — Renee Manheimer’s husband and two children were aware that she had overcome great adversity and perilous situations early in her life. How much hardship was unclear.She spared them many of the details of what she endured growing up without a...

By JIM KENYON

Busy, busy, busy. New Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock anticipates being so busy, in fact, that the college is advertising for someone to pick up her dry cleaning, drop off packages at the post office and do her grocery shopping.Then there’s the...

By JIM KENYON

After losing her home and many of her belongings to Tropical Storm Irene’s floodwaters 12 years ago, Ethel Davis braced for worst as she made her way back to Riverside Mobile Home Park in Woodstock around noon Tuesday.“I told myself, ‘If the place...

By JIM KENYON

When Hartford Dismas House needed someone to tell its story, the nonprofit that provides affordable lodging and meals for people coming out of Vermont’s prisons often turned to Tommy Shea.Several years ago, Shea was dispatched to Montpelier to educate...

By JIM KENYON

With the first half of 2023 in the books, it’s time to catch up on what’s happening with some Upper Valley residents whose stories I’ve shared in the past.After two surgeries and a monthlong hospital stay, Daniel Diaz is back making pizzas and riding...

By JIM KENYON

An 18-year-old Pennie Armstrong had just started training to become a nurse in the early 1960s when she contracted polio, even though she’d been vaccinated against the debilitating, life-threatening virus.Armstrong spent the next few months at the...

By JIM KENYON

The choice was hers.Sanna McAuliffe could have the three-page victim impact statement that she’d written entered into the court record and left it at that. She could have someone else — a family member or an attorney — read it on her behalf as she sat...

By JIM KENYON

After this upcoming Friday, school will be out for the summer in Hanover and Norwich. For students, that is.Teachers and educational assistants have been told by their bosses that they need to continue working for another week or so. Never mind that...