In Newport: New gallery features art reflecting social concerns

Posted on June 12, 2013 by nataliehormilla

Artists Sam Thurston and Abigail Meredith check out the artwork at the opening of the 99 Gallery Sunday afternoon. The gallery will also serve as a meeting place for NEK 99%, a grassroots organization for social change. Photo by Joseph Gresser

by Joseph Gresser

NEWPORT — A new addition to Newport’s art scene opened Sunday, offering an exhibit with a title — “Politically Incorrect” — that pointed out the path the gallery means to follow.

According to Diane Peel, its founder, the 99 Gallery is an outgrowth of NEK 99 %, an organization inspired by the Occupy protests of 2011 and made up of local activists. The gallery is tucked into a lovely old carriage house on School Street, just off Main Street.

On Sunday the space was filled with artists — some of high school age — and visitors. On the walls, a variety of works was displayed, most of them reflecting social concerns.

Abigail Meredith’s acrylic “Shockwave” shows a woman with her hair blowing back in a blast of intense white light. The North Country Union High School junior said the painting was meant to remind viewers that the peril of nuclear weapons remains.

She said she came up with the image when she heard that the energy of an atomic bomb can burn the silhouette of a figure into a nearby wall.

In Ms. Meredith’s image, though, the figure is not the result of a catastrophe.

“I put it in the middle of the explosion rather than the aftermath,” she said. “Movement is very interesting to me.”

Ms. Meredith, along with North Country freshman Ryland Brown, whose intricate pen and ink drawing of a skull and guitar also graced the new art space, is studying at the school’s Arts and Communications Academy.

One of their teachers, Natalie Guillette, also contributed a painting to the show, an eerie image of a face shrouded in a mask. According to her artist’s statement, Ms. Guillette was moved to create a series of similar paintings by a visit to a World War II museum where gas masks were on exhibit.

Other artists from the community also brought their works for the initial show. Jack Rogers showed a trio of pencil drawings, which included an image of a hand blocking the lens of a camera and Rodney King being menaced by the baton of a police officer.

In a very different vein, Sam Thurston of Lowell offered a drawing of a street life under a New York elevated train and a watercolor illustration of a verse by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

An improptu manifesto was chalked on the sidewalk in front of the 99 Gallery Sunday afternoon. In addition to presenting art shows, the gallery will also provide a home for NEK 99 %, according to its founder, Diane Peel. Photo by Joseph Gresser

The 99 Gallery, while it offers a home to artists living in and around Newport, was created in large part to display the work of a painter and sculptor who spent very little of his life in the area.

Ms. Peel’s father, Donald William Peel, was an active artist for most of his 89 years. He started making paintings in the magic realist style in the 1950s, moved on to abstract sculpture, and finally back to surrealist paintings in his final years.

Mr. Peel achieved recognition, especially on the West Coast, where he lived most of his life. His work is represented in museums and university collections in the Pacific Northwest.

Ms. Peel said that after her mother, a fashion designer, died in 2001 she wanted her father to move to Vermont and build a home and a studio that could handle the big painting he was making. Sadly, Mr. Peel died in 2010.

Left with a large collection of her father’s works, Ms. Peel said she had to make a choice. She could store the big surrealist paintings, but then they wouldn’t be seen and, without climate control, would suffer permanent damage. She decided on the alternative of creating a space in which her father’s work can be shown and, she hopes, purchased by collectors.

Her plans call for interspersing shows by living artists with displays of her father’s paintings.

Ms. Peel said she wants the new gallery to serve as a home for work that might not fit in at the MAC Center. Her gallery is not intended to compete with the more established art space, Ms. Peel said, but is meant to broaden the options available to artists and art lovers in Newport.

She said she hopes to offer “edgier” art than might be possible for a space that relies on sales to keep its doors open. The 99 Gallery, Ms. Peel said, is paid for out of her earnings as a nurse and can keep going whether or not any paintings are sold.

The gallery, like the NEK 99 % organization is nonpolitical, Ms. Peel said.

“We’re not involved with the political process,” Ms. Peel declared. “We’re involved with the people process.”

Pointing to Mr. Rogers’ drawing of the blocked camera, she said the image depicts the “surveillance state.” Government intrusion into the private affairs of citizens is not a political issue, but a people issue, Ms. Peel said.

She recalled criticisms of the original Occupy protests, which questioned the movement’s lack of leadership and formal structure. Those objections, she said, were based on a misunderstanding of the movement’s intentions.

“Occupy was trying to organize a horizontal system at the grassroots level,” she said. The 99 Gallery, Ms. Peel will embody the same principles.

Those who want to see how these principles look on the walls of a gallery can see “Politically Incorrect” through the end of July.

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

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At NCUHS: Choral director receives surprise send-off

Posted on June 5, 2013 by nataliehormilla

Retiring North Country choral director Anne Hamilton reacts to a musical tribute from present and former students. New words to the song “’Til There Was You,” were written by Adam (left) and Matt Podd, who have gone on to professional music careers in New York City. Photo by Joseph Gresser

by Joseph Gresser

copyright the Chronicle June 5, 2013

NEWPORT — The choral program at North Country Union High School has been successful long enough to have established traditions. For instance, the Christmas concert always ends with a performance of the “Hallelujah Chorus,” in which alumni of North Country are invited to participate. Similarly, the second part of the annual pops concert always features solos by graduating seniors set amid choral performances.

At this year’s concert, on May 29, the traditions were unexpectedly mingled. Anne Hamilton, retiring after serving as the school’s choral director for the past 13 years, planned a medley of Beatles songs for her final North Country concert.

During the performance, Ms. Hamilton said a few days later, she looked out into the audience and noticed that many of her former students were present.

“I didn’t want them to leave without getting to say hello to them,” Ms. Hamilton said. So shortly before the final selection, “Hey Jude,” she invited alumni in the audience to come down to the front of the auditorium and join in the final section of the song.

Ms. Hamilton couldn’t have prevented them from doing so. Unbeknownst to her, a conspiracy had been hatched by present and former students.

When the final strains of “Hey Jude,” were sung, accompanist Vivian Spates turned over the piano to Mark Violette.

“When I saw Mark at the piano, I felt things were spiraling out of control,” Ms. Hamilton said.

They were, perhaps, but not in a bad way. Sheets of music were distributed as Mr. Violette played the opening bars of “’Til There Was You,” a song from the musical The Music Man, that was actually covered by The Beatles.

“There were notes on the page

But we never knew their meaning

No, we never knew it at all

’Til there was you,” sang students past and present. Meredith Wilson’s original words had been replaced with ones written for the occasion by brothers Adam and Matt Podd.

“You put songs in our lives

And you taught us all sight-reading

Do Re Mi Fa

Ti Ti Ta La

’Til There Was You!”

Ms. Hamilton, seated next to Ms. Spates in the front row, seemed overcome by what was happening before her eyes and ears. At the next verse…

“And there was All-State!

And other logistical nightmares

The drama of high notes and hormones,”

Ms. Hamilton burst into laughter. She kept smiling as the chorus concluded their serenade.

“So we thank you

For the time that we had

And the joy we found in singing

We’re so grateful for all those years

Singing with you.”

After their first time through the song, North Country graduate Phil Gosselin, an actor who usually resides in New York City, took the microphone and thanked Ms. Hamilton on behalf of his fellow alumni.

Ms. Hamilton and long-time accompanist Vivian Spates enjoy the witty lyrics and the enthusiastic performance. Photo by Joseph Gresser

He was followed by Joseph Cornelius who said he was taught by Ms. Hamilton in pre-school, a claim she later denied. Mr. Cornelius was one of Ms. Hamilton’s students when he attended elementary school in Island Pond and at North Country.

“I hoped that my two daughters would get to study with her,” Mr. Cornelius said, “but it was not to be.” He urged present North Country students to appreciate their good fortune in having the experience of Ms. Hamilton as their teacher.

After another chorus of “’Til There Was You,” the concert ended as present and former students surrounded and embraced Ms. Hamilton.

A couple of days after the concert, Ms. Hamilton reflected on the event and her time at North Country.

She said an all-Beatles concert was not a random choice.

“That’s the pops concert I wanted to go out on,” Ms. Hamilton said. The quality of the music and the opportunities it gave for her students to shine made for an ideal final concert, she said.

“I want the students to feel they can be successful, and that means to be truly successful,” Ms. Hamilton said. “Everyone’s a winner, doesn’t work.”

Ms. Hamilton said she was very pleased that the seniors who chose to perform solos all rose to the challenge of performing such familiar and beloved music.

She said she was caught completely by surprise by the tribute organized by her former students. The Podd brothers, she said, were at North Country giving a presentation to students on Tuesday.

“They were very coy about whether they would be able to make it to the concert,” Ms. Hamilton said. After the workshop with the students, she took them out to dinner and invited Mr. Gosselin, one of their former classmates, whom she knew was in town working with QNEK.

At dinner, the Podd brothers told Ms. Hamilton that Mr. Gosselin would be delayed by a rehearsal.

“They didn’t tell me that it was a rehearsal for their surprise,” she said.

Ms. Hamilton said she herself followed a popular choral teacher, Glory Douglass, when she arrived at North Country after six years teaching at North Country Union Junior High School and nine years cruising between Brighton, Morgan, Holland and Charleston teaching music to elementary school students.

Ms. Hamilton said she had 11 years between graduating college and beginning her teaching career. Although she was certified as a music teacher, Ms. Hamilton said, she felt she needed more training.

One of the benefits of going back to school, she said, was making the acquaintance of Sandi MacLeod, who today directs Music-Comp, a program that helps students learn to write music. Ms. Hamilton has been involved in the program since its inception and she said she plans to continue working with the organization after she leaves North Country.

Ms. Hamilton said she also plans to continue leading Northsong, a locally based chamber choir that performs around the Northeast Kingdom. Northsong will allow Ms. Hamilton to continue her collaboration with Ms. Spates, whose musicianship and generosity she praised.

Aside from that, Ms. Hamilton said she plans to take some time to think. She said she is “50 percent committed” to learning the violin. Her husband, Amos, after retiring from the Customs service, took up the clarinet seriously and frequently plays chamber music with friends.

After 13 years teaching at the school, Ms. Hamilton still has much good to say about North Country and the Newport community.

She said that the Rotary Club’s steadfast support of the annual music festival has translated into a general support for student artistic achievement.

“This community has always been supportive of the arts, it’s legend. People around the state can’t believe it,” Ms. Hamilton said.

She said that she has been very well supported by the administration and her colleagues at North Country.

“This is a very nice job,” Ms. Hamilton mused, “This is a very nice job.”

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

In girls basketball: Arlington Eagles beat CA Chargers in quarter-finals

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Posted on March 10, 2013 by BethanyMDunbar

Meghan Pennock (number 12), Craftsbury’s captain, answers the question posed by the sign behind her emphatically in the affirmative as she drives to the hoop. The junior and her teammates fell short Saturday in their bid to advance to the Division IV semi-finals in Barre. Photo by Joseph Gresser

by Joseph Gresser

copyright 3-10-2013

CRAFTSBURY COMMON—When it was all over Saturday afternoon Coach Rick Thomas was smiling. True, his Chargers team had been mauled by Arlington Memorial High School, 28-57, in the quarter-finals of the Division IV championships. But, he said, the Craftsbury women won the school’s tournament and league championship.

They also boasted a 16-4 regular season record.

Although they won’t play at the Barre Auditorium this season, the future looks bright for the Chargers, Mr. Thomas said. All of this year’s players will be back next year, and the scrappy team includes a pair of eighth graders, which suggests a long run of basketball success. A run of hoop good fortune would fit nicely with the glorious new World War II Memorial Gymnasium built by the people of Craftsbury last year.

On this Saturday, however the basketball gods smiled on the Arlington Eagles.

They fouled Janet Bohannon as she took her first shot, but paid no price when she was unable to make good either of her three throws. Back on defense, the Chargers played tight defense inside, but made the mistake of letting Arlington’s Rayleen Sherman get a look from outside.

Sherman sunk a three-pointer to put the Eagles ahead for good. She proved a dangerous player to leave, dropping in 12 of her 16 points from downtown.

The outside shot was a potent weapon for Arlington. Almost half of their scoring — 27 points — came from the long ball.

While none of the Chargers could equal Sherman’s total, Aysha Hodgdon and Bohannon inflicted real damage on the Eagles, scoring 12 and 9 points respectively. They, along with teammates Sarah Dunbar, Meghan Brown and Meghan Pennock distinguished themselves with tenacious defense.

Craftsbury’s relative youth showed itself as the team fell behind. Players pressed hard on offense, rushing shots instead of relaxing and slowing the pace to make the most of their chances.

They harried the Eagles on defense and forced numerous turnovers, but were unable to take fullest advantage of those opportunities.

By the end of the first period Craftsbury had fallen behind by 8-17. The second period also began badly for the Chargers with the Eagles scoring a quick 5 points.

After that both teams bore down hard on defense. For the next three minutes neither team was able to score and it seemed as if Craftsbury was ready to make its move.

Unfortunately it was Arlington that broke the log jam, scoring an additional ten to Craftsbury’s two, ending the half at 10-27.

The third period went much as did the second, but Craftsbury also began to make defensive mistakes that put the team in foul trouble. The period closed with Craftsbury trailing 15-41.

By the start of the fourth period, with the outcome of the game was no longer in doubt, the Chargers showed their mettle. Playing for pride they swarmed the Eagles forcing turn overs.

It was in the fourth quarter that Craftsbury scored its only run of unanswered points, scoring three successive baskets. But a miraculous win was not to be.

During the after-game meeting with Mr. Thomas, the players looked anything but down cast. They had a fine season and never gave up, even when it was clear that victory would not be theirs. Such a spirit presages great things for the future.

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

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Book review: A practitioner looks at puppet theater

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Posted on January 29, 2013 by BethanyMDunbar

American Puppet Modernism: Essays on the Material World in Performance, by John Bell. Published by Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2013; 280 pages, softbound, $28.00.

Reviewed by Joseph Gresser

copyright the Chronicle 1-29-2013

When most people think of puppets the image of Jim Henson’s Muppets probably springs to mind, followed, if they live in northern Vermont, by the creations of Bread and Puppet Theater’s Peter Schumann.

Puppeteer and scholar John Bell wouldn’t disagree with those thoughts, but in American Puppet Modernism, first published in 2008 but just reissued in a softbound edition, he argues for a much broader view of the field. For Mr. Bell, puppets are a particular example of “object performance,” and his fascinating collection of essays examines the implications of the theater of things.

Object performance, Mr. Bell explains, encompasses all manner of familiar and unfamiliar theater, from masked performances to the balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and beyond.

The book starts with a description of a traveling show in the late nineteenth century that, by means of illuminated paintings and a spoken narrative, told the story of a conflict between native Americans and European settlers in Minnesota. As one might expect, the story reflects the view of the settlers, depicting Indians as savages.

That view is slightly modified when early ethnographers visit the Zuni Indians in the southwest several years later. There two observers record religious rites involving giant Shaklo figures, tall rod puppets who mediate between the human and spirit worlds.

Mr. Bell shows how the views of the two observers are to varied degrees clouded by the assumption that the Zuni people are barbarians, midway on the journey from being savages to being completely civilized.

Literary critic Edmund Wilson, seeing the same ceremonies a few decades after the ethnographers, though, is able to see the force of the puppets’ performance and its position as the glue that holds Zuni society together.

Mr. Bell argues that American society is bound together in a similar, if less pure, fashion by performing objects. The puppets that performed on a stage modeled after a giant medicine cabinet at the 1939 World’s Fair were there to tout the advantages of modern pharmaceuticals, and similar performances sought to persuade consumers that the world of the future would be one dominated by automobiles.

That future has come to be, and Mr. Bell takes a close look at how people use automobiles as performing objects. His chapter about hot rod culture casts a new light on the idea of performance cars, by showing how customizing an automobile to increase its speed and to give it a distinctive appearance makes the vehicle a player in the driver’s self-presentation.

In addition to exploring the byways of object theater, Mr. Bell gives a straightforward history of how puppets became a prominent feature of modern theater. From its introduction as part of the Little Theater movement in the Midwest, and eventually around the country, he traces outbreaks of puppetry in opera, theater and, eventually television.

In Europe, puppetry was seen as a less than respectable form of theater, Mr. Bell says. Puppeteers were able to satirize rulers and other important figures, often escaping punishment by insisting that it was the puppet, not the person, doing the mocking. That idea of object theater being a somewhat lower-status form was one that was carried over in puppetry’s journey to the United States.

The very word puppeteer was invented around 1917 by theater pioneer Ellen van Volkenberg. The term was modeled on the word muleteer, a very appropriate choice considering that puppets can be notoriously recalcitrant.

Although the Little Theater movement died out, a number of the puppeteers who got started in its productions went on to become major forces in theater and the commercial world.

The inflatable balloons in the early Macy’s parades were created by puppeteers who were always willing to investigate new materials for their creations. (One of the wonderful facts Mr. Bell drops into his story is that in the first years of the Macy parades, the puppets were released as part of the festivities, to the consternation of airplane pilots.)

Mr. Bell includes in his survey of object theater the cinematic puppetry that brought King Kong to life. Film, he argues, is analogous to shadow puppetry as practiced by Indonesian and Chinese artists. The technology of computer graphics and motion capture technology that is essential to the effects that animate films today is a further extension of puppetry, Mr. Bell argues.

He gives a list of the biggest moneymakers in film history, all of which include computer generated creatures. His book was written before the film Avatar broke box office records, but it would have taken his point further in that the human hero could himself be seen as a puppeteer, bringing an alien character to life in order to fit into a nonhuman civilization.

As a former member of the Bread and Puppet Theater, Mr. Bell speaks of Peter Schumann’s work with insight and sympathy. Oddly enough, he chooses as an example a show in which I performed in 1995. Mr. Bell’s clear description was particularly interesting to me because, working behind large pieces of cardboard throughout the evening, I never could see even an approximation of what the audience witnessed.

Mr. Bell contrasts Mr. Schumann and Jim Henson, who once shared studio space in New York City. Mr. Schumann has sought freedom for his artistic and political vision by pursuing the least expensive means to create a spectacle.

Mr. Henson, whose vision of the world Mr. Bell suggests was sunnier than that of Mr. Schumann, was willing to accommodate himself to a commercial system in order to get his message across.

In his book Mr. Bell makes clear how this dichotomy has inhabited object theater over the past century or so, and how the practitioners of the art of puppetry have tried to overcome the physical and societal limitations to pursue their vision.

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

For more free articles from the Chronicle like this one, see our Reviews pages. For all the Chronicle’s stories, pick up a print copy or subscribe, either for print or digital editions.

North Country Union High School variety show

Posted on November 15, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

These photos are from North Country Union High School’s variety show in the fall of 2012. Photos are by Joseph Gresser

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Patrick Tetreault, Chandler Prue, Eli MacFarlane and Nick Perkins (left to right) clown around while singing “Four Chords.” Photos by Joseph Gresser

Jordan Howell, left, and Michelle Fenimore, soar through their dance, “Shelter.”

Erin Spoerl confronts Colton White, in a scene from What Happened?

Soloist Shannon Smith sings the Queen song “Somebody To Love,” backed by Jeffrey Stevens, Arden Leithead, Ollivia Jones and Meredith Beals.

Adele Woodmansee performans Niccolo Paganini’s “Caprice No. 16.”

Kira Moore, left, and Brittany Tetlow choreographed and danced “As Long As You Love Me.”

Mikayla LaPierre hits the floor in “Sail,” partially hidden behinder her is Samantha Dewing.

Gabby Fort balances gracefully.

Governor tours local high-tech businesses

Posted on August 1, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Jordan Medley feeds a maple board into a saw at Appalachian Engineered Flooring in North Troy as Governor Shumlin looks on. Photos by Joseph Gresser

by Joseph Gresser

copyright the Chronicle August 1, 2012

Governor Peter Shumlin visited two new high tech businesses that are bringing much needed jobs to the Northeast Kingdom last week.

Both are companies that take advantage of high-tech production methods. For one, Numia Medical Technology, a maker of infusion pumps used for administering medications in hospitals, that is not a startling discovery.

The use of precision technology at a forest products factory in North Troy, may be more of a surprise.

That plant, Appalachian Engineered Flooring, uses high technology to create top-of-the-line tongue-and-groove hardwood flooring, according to company officials.

The Governor was welcomed, on his July 25 visit, by Appalachian’s president, Jean Leduc and the company’s 18 employees. He asked how many had been unemployed before Appalachian opened earlier this year.

A couple of hands went up, and Mr. Shumlin appeared pleased.

He praised Mr. Leduc for opening his factory in North Troy. Appalachian Engineered Flooring is the sister company to one Mr. Leduc already operates in Cowansville, Quebec.

“You could have settled anywhere,” the Governor said. He added, Vermont can boast “the best workforce in the world in the Northeast Kingdom.”

“I promise to be a great partner as you grow, expand, create jobs and make money,” Mr. Shumlin said.

“This is what we intend to do,” Mr. Leduc replied.

He led the Governor and his entourage on a tour of the plant. These included Kiersten Bourgeois, a senior project manager with the state Agency of Commerce and Community Development, an aide who snapped pictures of the Governor with workers and immediately sent them by e-mail, and his State Police bodyguard.

Inside, Mr. Leduc showed off the production line, through which eight-foot long pieces of wood are transformed into flooring. The wood is, as far as possible, locally harvested, said Magella Levesque, the project manager for Appalachian.

The company makes its flooring from maple, red and white oak, birch and walnut, Mr. Levesque said.

While the raw material for most of the flooring arrives at the factory in the form of sawn lumber, the birch flooring is made from plywood.

Mr. Leduc explained that the only place he has been able to find the right quality of birch plywood is Russia. He lifted a sheet for the Governor and explained that the grain of the white birch — in the layers of veneer that go into the plywood — are glued together at right angles.

“We are trying to develop a local product. We’re close, but not enough,” Mr. Leduc told Mr. Shumlin. “It has to be very stable.”

Nearby Richard Lamb got ready to feed maple boards into a saw that would slice it to the thickness of the final piece of flooring. Before doing so, he measured its thickness with a set of calipers.

That is an indication of Appalachian’s drive for quality, said General Manager Robert Collette.

“Our objective is to be the best, not necessarily the biggest,” he said. “We want to be the beacon for the industry.”

As an example, Mr. Collette said that his company only uses diamond-tipped cutting tools.

The wear experienced by carbide tips leads to less precise dimensions in the final piece of flooring, Mr. Collette said. The cutting heads are changed on a regular schedule, he added, before they begin to show signs of wear.

Further down the production line, Mr. Collette pointed out a scanner that examines each piece of flooring produced by the plant. It quickly grades the piece and marks where it ought to be cut.

A clear section of flooring will be marked by the machine as class 1, a slightly less perfect section will be designated as class 2 or antiqued floor, and anything below that is class 3.

Mr. Collette said the scanner can divide the flooring piece into a section as short as one foot or as long as 84 inches, thus maximizing the value of every piece of wood, while maintaining the quality of the final product.

The last step in production is performed by a trio of human inspectors. A fourth quality control worker patrols the plant looking for any problems, Mr. Collette said.

Mr. Shumlin said his farewells and headed for Newport, where he paid a brief visit to the Pick and Shovel and to the Emory A. Hebard State Office Building before driving over to the old Vermont Teddy Bear factory on the banks of Lake Memphremagog.

There Numia’s employees were in a festive mood, waiting for the Governor to arrive. Numia’s president Eric Flachbart had laid out refreshments to welcome Mr. Governor and a group of legislators, and representatives of organizations that helped in his company’s growth including the Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA) and the Northeastern Vermont Development Association (NVDA).

Numia designs and produces infusion pumps, the devices that drip medications into intravenous lines connected to hospitalized patients.

“We stand here today, because Eric came up here from Massachusetts and saw a better place to live,” Mr. Shumlin said. He said that Mr. Flachbart originally expected to be the only employee of his company, but now has 35 workers and thinks he may be up to 50 within 18 months.

He added that Numia is bringing the Northeast Kingdom “one step closer to making sure no Kingdom kid who wants to stay here has to leave for lack of a job.”

Along with Appalachian flooring, Mr. Shumlin said Numia is bringing “a slow but steady improvement in the lives of the people of the Kingdom, creating jobs one job at a time.”

One of those jobs is held by Kaytlyn Darling, a Lyndonville native. While leading a tour of the plant, Ms. Darling told how she was hired by Numia as temporary worker after she graduated from Lyndon State College in 2009.

She is currently the lead lab technician for the company.

Ms. Darling showed a small group of visitors into her domain, where several cream-colored boxes stood attached to the kind of upright stands normally seen in hospitals.

Each box had a screen and control buttons and each box was attached to a device into which a nurse might fit a hypodermic syringe. The boxes can be programmed to administer continual doses of medication from the needle into an intravenous line, or to provide a measured dose at scheduled intervals, said Rolf Zuk, the company’s principal software engineer.

He said Numia has a patent on the very accurate motor that controls the dosage. Another company wanted to license that technology for its own product.

After looking over the Newport operation the company asked Numia to take over other aspects of product development, until Numia was finally hired to see the project through to completion.

That process involves seeking approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Ms. Darling said. That can be painfully slow, Mr. Zuk added saying that documentation was sent to the FDA in September and no decision has yet been made.

Ms. Darling pointed at a bookshelf that was filled with a dozen thick loose-leaf binders. That, she said, is the paperwork that is required of manufacturers of medical devices.

The need to make safe products that can be used without error, is a big issue for Numia, Mr. Zuk said. He said that a substantial portion of the price of a pump goes to pay for liability insurance.

Ms. Darling led the tour into a dimly lit room. On one wall was a two-way mirror looking into what appeared to be a hospital room. A moment’s glance showed that the patient was actually a medical mannequin.

Nurses and other medical professionals visit the room for instruction in how Numia’s products work, Ms. Darling said. After a few days they return and operate the equipment without supervision as Numia workers look on from behind the mirror.

They note errors that can be corrected by better design and make changes to the pumps, Mr. Zuk said.

He said that one group of nurses tried to insert syringes backward. The pumps were redesigned to make that impossible.

Another nurse was seen struggling to open another pump. That machine was reengineered to require less force to open it.

Numia’s products have yet to take over the medical universe. Mr. Flachbart said hospitals buy large amounts of pumps on a regular schedule. The market is considerable, though.

While a small hospital like North Country in Newport may have an inventory of about 150 pumps, a large teaching hospital such as Massachusetts General in Boston, may have a fleet of 10,000, Mr. Flachbart said.

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

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Freeman short stories tell small town tales

Posted on July 26, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

copyright the chronicle July 25, 2012

Round Mountain, by Castle Freeman Jr. Published by Concord Free Press, Concord, Massachusetts, 2012; 182 pages, softbound.

Reviewed by Joseph Gresser

Castle Freeman is an economical writer. His characters are stingy with their words and his descriptive passages are spare.

Economical readers, too, will be delighted with Round Mountain, a collection of 12 short stories set in Vermont, not just because it is beautifully written, but because it has an appealing price — free.

Actually, free doesn’t tell the entire story. Although the Concord Free Press does not charge for the book, the reader must promise to donate to a charity and to pass the book on to another reader with the same obligation.

Round Mountain is a book that a reader might well want to share. The stories center on Homer Patch, an unexcitable man of a distinctly practical bent.

The tales give glimpses of Homer’s life and the life of his community. They cover different periods of his life, from boyhood to early middle age.

In Round Mountain, though, the stories are not arranged chronologically. The reader has to reconstruct the sequence of events that, for instance, led to Homer’s complicated marriage to the much-younger Angela.

The couple has a son, Quentin, who, for unknown reasons, does not speak. The boy, who is not obviously disabled, wanders off in the title story. Townspeople join together in a search effort that, in a burst of magic realism, reveals to Homer his town’s real place in the world.

During the course of several stories, Homer serves his town as constable. Like the lawmen in Mr. Freeman’s other recent books Go With Me and All That I Have, Homer is not a by-the-book officer. He is the kind of person others call on when they need help solving a problem.

In “The Women At Holiday’s,” a call to expel a trespasser from a summer person’s shed is handled effectively, but in a way that satisfies neither the property owner nor Homer’s boss.

A more serious problem, in the person of a threatening stranger, appears in “The Montreal Express.” Homer’s instinct, as always, is for inaction and the apparent danger goes as mysteriously as it appeared.

For Northeast Kingdom readers, Mr. Freeman’s Vermont will have a real resonance. Although the stories are apparently set farther south, the community he creates is more typical these days of Orleans or Essex counties.

As in the Kingdom’s small towns, everyone gathers a history that is quietly registered in his neighbors’ memories.

Certainly, people talk about Homer, but also about Makepeace, a city lawyer who finds a place in the community — not without making some hard discoveries along the way.

Two people who find no welcome in Homer’s town are a retired police officer, whose burglary prevention efforts prove too effective, and one of the thieves who see them as a challenge. By the end of “Bandit Poker,” both men have found leaving the area to be the wisest course of action.

In addition to being a cat-and-mouse story, “Bandit Poker,” is a gritty meditation on how society deals with young men whose level of energy far outstrips their judgment.

Round Mountain is worthwhile both as a work of literature and an effort to inspire generosity. Those who wish to participate in both aspects of this project can do so by going to the Concord Free Press’ website at www.concordfreepress.com/roundmountain.

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

For more book reviews, visit the Reviews page.

In Greensboro: Cow power produced from a medium-size herd

Posted on July 25, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Peter Gebbie checks the readings on his new methane generator. Although he admits to being slow with computers, his wife, Sandra, said Mr. Gebbie turns out to be very good with the high-tech system. Photos by Joseph Gresser

copyright the Chronicle July 25, 2012

by Joseph Gresser

GREENSBORO — On Sunday morning Peter Gebbie had finished milking. The truck from the St. Albans co-op was loading and his hands were moving out to get the second cut of hay in.

But there was more for him to do. He and his wife, Sandra, headed toward a new building behind one of his barns. A sign on the door wisely warned against entering without hearing protection. Inside an engine roared.

Mr. Gebbie grabbed a clipboard and walked around the room checking readouts at various points along a complicated series of pipes.

He looked pleased at the results. “Eighty kilowatts,” he said. When they first started the generator about two weeks ago, it produced only 20 kilowatts.

When it is running at full speed the methane generator will produce 150 kilowatts of power.

Switching the generator on was the culmination of a process that began in Newport a little more than five years ago at a meeting sponsored by the state Agency of Agriculture. That meeting at the East Side Restaurant brought together dairy farmers who were interested in the process of turning manure and other organic matter into methane and eventually electricity.

At the time the Gebbies were milking 200 cows at Maplehurst Farm. The farmers who were getting into the electricity business had herds ten times the size of his.

On Sunday, Mr. Gebbie recalled that when he first started calling firms that design and install methane digesters he was turned away.

“The guys who sold digesters laughed at you,” he said, “unless you were at least a 1,000-cow farm.”

Mr. Gebbie persisted and eventually his calls started getting returned. He said that it seemed to him that the digester builders had worked their way through the big farmers and were ready to deal with someone his size.

While they were investigating the possibility of building a methane digester, the Gebbies doubled the size of their herd to 400 cows.

They were fortunate in having long before set up their barns with slatted floors through which the cows tread their manure and bedding. Gravity was enough to move this fuel into the digester, a round tank with a flexible cover.

Manure will produce methane with or without special equipment, but left to nature the volatile hydrocarbon will go into the atmosphere where it is a potent greenhouse gas.

Mr. Gebbie said he has heard it has a 24 to 25 times greater effect than carbon dioxide.

The Gebbies knew that things were going well when they saw the cover on the digester begin to balloon upwards. That indicated that gas was beginning to build up a head of pressure.

From the digester the gas goes into a scrubber which removes impurities to protect the engine of the generator. Mr. Gebbie said he is lucky because the gas produced by his manure is low in sulfur.

From the scrubber the gas goes to the generator or, if for some reason the generator is down for a while, through an upright pipe which is set up to burn extra gas to keep it from going into the atmosphere.

Once the manure is run through the digester, it could be spread on fields. The Gebbies have chosen to separate the liquids from the solids, spread the former and use the latter as bedding.

Levels need to be checked throughout the system. Peter Gebbie stands in front of the tank that cleans the methane before it is fed into the generator.

Sawmills used to give away sawdust, Mr. Gebbie noted. Today they use everything, and the price of bedding is a major cost of doing business. By producing his own bedding, Mr. Gebbie said, he can save as much as $20,000 a year.

Studies show the bedding produced by digesters reduces the incidence of mastitis and results in a lower somatic cell count, an indicator of a healthy cow, Mr. Gebbie said.

Of course, electricity is the main product of the system. The Gebbies have a contract to supply 150 kilowatts of power to the Hardwick Electric Company through the state’s Sustainably Priced Energy Enterprise Development (SPEED) program.

They are guaranteed a price of 14 cents a kilowatt-hour, well above the current market price of four cents. In addition they can sell Renewable Energy Credits (REC) through the Cow Power program started by Central Vermont Public Service and now under the auspices of Green Mountain Power.

Mr. Gebbie said the REC credits bring in an additional three to four cents a kilowatt-hour, less a small brokerage fee.

The system cannot operate at full capacity with only the manure produced on his farm, Mr. Gebbie said. To get to the full 150 kilowatts, he will need to find an outside source of carbon.

Typically that means a liquid such as whey, he said.

The 150-kilowatt limit is convenient in one regard. Power from the system can be moved on a simple single-phase line, the sort that typically serves a home.

Large scale generators on the farms in Franklin and Addison counties may generate more than a megawatt of power and require a very expensive three-phase service to move electricity off the farm.

In addition to power and bedding, the generator can also provide heat for the Gebbies’ home and milking parlor, and hot water, Mr. Gebbie said. The potential savings could be as great as those from the bedding, but they will require substantial investment in underground pipes, he added.

The digester cost “$1.5-million and climbing,” Mr. Gebbie said. Grants from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Department of Energy and the state Department of Public Service’s Clean Energy Development Fund helped pay between half and three-quarters of the cost, he added.

“Most people would like to see things paid in five years,” Mr. Gebbie said.

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

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Parker Pie plans airport expansion

Posted on July 5, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Parker Pie will open a new branch of its restaurant in Coventry in this hangar at the airport. Photo by Joseph Gresser

by Joseph Gresser

COVENTRY — Newport State Airport here may see a big increase in traffic by the end of the year. But most of the people won’t be trying to catch flights. Instead, they’ll be after pizza, beer and music.

Cavan Meese, one of the owners of Parker Pie in West Glover, plans to open a second branch of his restaurant in a hangar at the airport. Construction workers are readying the building for occupancy, he said in a telephone interview Monday, and will hand it over in a couple of weeks.

The state, which manages the building, has put in insulation, windows, sheet rock, fire safety improvements and a radiant slab heating system.

After that a crew will move in to build a bar and mold the space into a comfortable gathering spot.

Mr. Meese said he is not depending on air travelers or other aviation-related visitors to fill his new establishment. Instead he said he hopes that the Coventry version of Parker Pie will attract patrons from nearby Newport, as well as Coventry, Irasburg and Orleans.

He said he would like to see the airport restaurant become a community center just as the original West Glover edition has.

Mr. Meese opened the original Parker Pie seven years ago with the idea of creating a gathering place for his community. That idea has been far more successful than he could have imagined at the beginning of the project.

That success can be seen in a couple of expansions of the original dining space and kitchen, and the creation of Village Hall, where performances and community gatherings are held.

It can also be seen in a lack of parking space, long waits for pizzas and grumbling neighbors.

Mr. Meese said he would have liked to open the Coventry space for the summer season “to take some of the heat off Parker Pie in West Glover.”

He said it made sense to open another restaurant. “Rather than expanding our kitchen, we’ll expand 15 miles north. I wouldn’t mind if business in West Glover dipped off.”

The new space will have a menu that is “a mirror image” of that offered in West Glover, he said, although he did hedge a bit by suggesting that Coventry may feature some signature dishes of its own.

“We’ll be able to do bigger shows there,” Mr. Meese said. The converted aircraft hangar that the new Parker Pie will occupy will retain its huge front door, he said.

Once a way is figured to lock the big door open so as not to endanger patrons, Mr. Meese said, “we’ll end up with a setup that will allow us to do special events there.”

The new restaurant will hold “quite a bit more people than fit in Village Hall,” he said. But Mr. Meese joked that he doesn’t expect that any of the bands he plans to present in Coventry will rival the crowds brought in by Phish at the town’s largest-ever concert.

Opening day for the second Parker Pie hasn’t been set, but Mr. Meese said he hopes to start operations sometime this fall.

The larger space will give the restaurant an opportunity to pursue some of its long-term ambitions on a larger scale. Mr. Meese said Parker Pie has always tried to use as much local produce in its dishes as possible.

In summer months when growers in the area have plentiful supplies of plum tomatoes and jalapeño peppers this is no problem, he said. So far, though, the Parker Pie kitchen crew has not been able to put up enough local produce to last through the long winter.

The exception has been basil, Mr. Meese said. Parker Pie’s chefs freeze enough pesto that every diner is served a local product at any time of year.

With a larger facility this will not only be true for the restaurant’s patrons, but Parker Pie will also be able to offer canned marinara and barbeque sauces as well as salsa for sale. Plans also call for freezing pizzas for home baking.

Mr. Meese said he is looking forward to working with local growers to supply Parker Pie’s increased demand for tomatoes and other produce. One of those could be a near neighbor, if Pete’s Greens realizes a plan to build large greenhouses on nearby land owned by New England Waste Services.

That project calls for the growing area to be warmed with waste heat from a power plant owned by Washington Electric Cooperative that burns methane gas produced by the landfill to run generators.

Mr. Meese said it would be fitting if that connection were made, because he heard that the project was originally conceived at Parker Pie.

The location of the new restaurant could be made more valuable if development plans for the state airport come to fruition.

In January Guy Rouelle, Aviation Program Administrator for the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans), outlined plans for the airport. At that time Mr. Rouelle hinted at Parker Pie’s plans, without naming them.

He also said that a company is in negotiations to build a 50,000-square-foot plant to manufacture airplane parts and aircraft out of composite materials.

Mr. Rouelle said composite materials, such as carbon fiber, are both lighter and stronger than aluminum and titanium, which are currently used in aircraft construction.

According to Patricia Sears, director of Newport City Renaissance Corporation (NCRC), discussions are still proceeding with the aircraft manufacturer who, she said, is not yet willing to be identified.

Mr. Meese said he now has a connection to NCRC, having been appointed the chairman of the organization’s transportation committee. He said this position will give him an opportunity to push ideas he has had about transportation options for the Northeast Kingdom.

These, he said, include reestablishing passenger train service between Newport and White River Junction. Mr. Meese said he would like to see early and late runs between the two towns every day, with stops in Lyndonville, St. Johnsbury, Wells River and Bradford.

He hopes to see round-trip midday runs between Newport and St. Johnsbury for shoppers, workers and people seeking medical treatment.

Mr. Meese said he also expects to see an increase in air traffic in the area.

He said he has other plans to improve the way taxi, shipping and delivery services work in the area. These may, he said, eventually involve home delivery of Parker’s pies.

“It’s the kind of innovation we need more of in the Northeast Kingdom. We have to think out of the box.”

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

Victim testifies in attempted murder trial

Posted on June 27, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Deontae McNeil at his trial in Orleans Superior Court in Newport. Photo by Joseph Gresser

by Joseph Gresser

Editor’s note: On June 27 after six and a half hours of deliberation, the jury declared that it was unable to reach a verdict in this case. We will have full coverage in next week’s Chronicle.

NEWPORT — Donelle Morin, a resident of West Charleston, identified Deontae McNeil as one of two men who attempted a year and a half ago to rob her and, in the process shot and stabbed her. Mr. McNeil, who is 25 years old and a resident of Putnam, Connecticut, has pled innocent to charges of attempted second degree murder and aggravated assault with a weapon.

Ms. Morin’s testimony Tuesday afternoon commanded the full attention of the 11 women and three men who, including two alternates, make up the jury. She was the last prosecution witness in the trial which began Monday morning in the Orleans Criminal Division of Superior Court.

On the morning of October 14, 2010, Ms. Morin said, she was disturbed in her shower by a knock on her door. She put on a robe and answered the door, thereby meeting “two gentlemen who changed my life.”

Ms. Morin said Andrew Ladouceur, who has already pled guilty to charges in the case, was at her door asking to use her telephone. The man, she said, told her that his truck had broken down and that he wanted to call for help.

After handing him the phone, Ms. Morin said she closed her door and went to get dressed. Once clothed she looked out and saw a gray truck parked nearby on Route 5A, near her Charleston home.

She said that she also noticed an African American man, who was with the caller. The second man asked to use the bathroom, and Ms. Morin, who said she was beginning to be suspicious of the pair, refused to allow him to come into the house.

Instead she directed him to the lawn around the side of the house.

Ms. Morin said she was worried because of a rash of burglaries in the area and suspicious because the story the men told about their truck kept changing. She phoned the State Police dispatcher, but was told that no troopers were in her area.

After making that call, Ms. Morin said she photographed the two men with her cell phone. That upset the African American man, she said.

Ms. Morin said he asked why she had taken his picture and when she told him, he said it made him nervous.

She said that she replied that his presence made her nervous.

Ms. Morin said she had to go out to an appointment and didn’t want to leave the men in the vicinity of her empty home. She said she offered to give them a ride to the truck and help them jump start their car.

Ms. Morin said she got into the driver’s seat of one of her two cars, an Audi, while Mr. Ladouceur seated himself in the front and the African American man got into the back on the driver’s side.

Before she was able to start the car she said she felt a gun at the back of her head and heard the man in the back seat say, “you’re dead meat.” Ms. Morin said she was ordered to take the men into her house.

As she raised her hands, Ms. Morin said she threw her keys away. At the same time she grabbed hold of the gun and tried to keep it pointed at Mr. Ladouceur.

Ms. Morin said Mr. Ladouceur seemed terrified by the gun pointing his direction. The man in the back seat fired two rounds from what police described as a nine-shot .22 caliber revolver.

Neither of them hit anybody, Ms. Morin said. She said the man in the back seat told Mr. Ladouceur to “get your knife out and cut the bitch.”

Ms. Morin said Mr. Ladouceur stabbed her arms and slashed her hand in an attempt to keep her away from the gun. In the meantime, the man in the back seat fired four more shots, hitting Ms. Morin in the leg and foot with two of them.

Finally Ms. Morin stopped struggling and the men dragged her from the car. They took her purse and started going through, taking her money and her cell phone, which they smashed.

While their attention was occupied, Ms. Morin said she ran to her other car, a BMW, and climbed in thinking that its keys were inside. She was mistaken and the African American man shot out the window, spraying Ms. Morin with broken glass.

The two men grabbed Ms. Morin and dragged her toward her house. They stopped when some traffic passed and Ms. Morin broke free and ran down her drive toward Route 5A. She said Mr. Ladouceur tackled her, punched her in the face and, with a knife to her neck, dragged her toward the house again.

When another burst of traffic caused the men to stop their efforts, Ms. Morin broke free again and ran toward the road. The African American man shot at her, hitting her twice in the arm, Ms. Morin said. This time she reached safety and flagged down a passing truck.

She said the men ran into her house, and while motorists were trying to help her she said she spotted two people climb into the gray truck.

“I wanted to give chase,” Ms. Morin said. But she was persuaded by her rescuers to lie down and be taken to the hospital.

The 26-year-old Mr. Ladouceur of Charleston, pled guilty to a single charge of attempted burglary of an occupied dwelling in April. That charge was reduced from those of aggravated assault, first-degree unlawful restraint with risk of injury, and attempted assault and robbery with a weapon, to which Mr. Ladouceur pled guilty in 2010.

The lower charge and the four-to-ten-year sentence that accompanied it were offered by Orleans County State’s Attorney in exchange for Mr. Ladouceur’s testimony in Mr. McNeil’s case.

Mr. Ladouceur preceded Ms. Morin to the stand. He said that he had spent a lot of time in Putnam, Connecticut, where he had run up a tab with a drug dealer he knew as D-Rock.

He said he returned to Vermont to raise money, where he was told by a friend, Jamie Chateauneuf, that Ms. Morin had 300 pounds of marijuana in his basement.

Mr. Ladouceur said he called D-Rock who wanted to take part in the robbery. Mr. Ladouceur said he borrowed a truck from John Willey and drove to Connecticut where he picked up D-Rock.

After a detour to Providence, Rhode Island, Mr. Ladouceur said he returned to Vermont, borrowed some guns on the pretext of going rabbit hunting from Arthur Blouin, and with Ms. Chateauneuf went to Ms. Morin’s house with the idea of burglarizing it.

Mr. Ladouceur said he acted only on the orders of D-Rock, and claimed to have let Ms. Morin escape in order to save her life. He acknowledged punching Ms. Morin, but said he did so “instinctively” when he thought Ms. Morin was going to hit him.

At the end of his testimony, Mr. Ladouceur said that D-Rock was Mr. McNeil.

In his cross-examination, Mr. Katims treated that claim with scorn. He mocked Mr. Ladouceur as being the “hero” of the story, and tried to get him to admit tailoring his testimony to gain a favorable outcome of his own case.

Mr. Ladouceur resisted that charge, but admitted going into Ms. Morin’s house and into her basement after she escaped.

Ms. Morin said she missed $500 that she had set aside to pay taxes when she got home. There was no testimony that claimed marijuana was found in Ms. Morin’s house.

Mr. Katims was much gentler in his cross examination of Ms. Morin, who he acknowledged in his opening statement had been robbed, stabbed and shot by a white man and an African American. He instead focused on eliciting testimony that contradicted Mr. Ladouceur’s claims of helping Ms. Morin.

In that he was only partly successful. Ms. Morin testified that Mr. Ladouceur punched her more than once, and attributed her escape solely to her own efforts. She did say that Mr. Ladouceur seemed to act in response to the African American man’s orders.

Mr. Katims’ strategy in the case, so far, has been to challenge the identification of Mr. McNeil as the African American man who shot Ms. Morin. Judge Robert Bent, who is presiding over the trial, has already refused to suppress Ms. Morin’s identification, which Mr. Katims challenged on the grounds that an initial photographic lineup was improperly conducted by State Police Detective Sergeant Darren Annis.

Sergeant Annis testified on Monday and Tuesday as to his conduct of the investigation and admitted making several major errors in the case. They included mislaying evidence and failing to ask witnesses for a detailed physical description of the African American man they saw.

Sergeant Annis testified that two people who had an opportunity to see the African American man for an extended period of time, including Ms. Chateauneuf and Mr. Blouin, failed to pick him out of a photographic lineup.

Mr. Katims is expected to call a psychologist who has conducted research on the problems of eyewitness identification to the stand on Wednesday. He told Judge Bent he hopes the case can go to the jury in the early afternoon.