This Week in History February 5 - 11
10 years ago:
Thieves broke into the Whitingham Community Church. According to police, the burglars stole a number of items including two sterling silver cups and a silver baptismal bowl. Rev. John Brigham expressed concern for the person or persons who committed the act, say they must have acted out of desperation. The items, he said, weren’t used by the church, and likely would have been donated to the Whitingham Historical Society if not for the theft.
The Deerfield Valley News marked 25 years of ownership under Vermont Media Publishing, and 50 years since the newspaper was first published. Publisher Randy Capitani said that, at the time he and Bob Edwards purchased the newspaper from Don Albano, the national economy was “in the tank.” Whey did they buy it despite the economic outlook? Random opportunity and dumb luck, Capitani said.
15 years ago:
In the midst of a winter season with “relentless” snowstorms and temperatures in the low teens for weeks at a time, fuel assistance organizations and agencies were seeing an increase in requests for assistance. There had also been a decrease in federal funding for state-administered LIHEAP assistance, a poor national economy, and high fuel prices, compounding the need. Local heating assistance organization Deerfield Valley Community Cares had already disbursed 20% more to valley residents in need than they had the previous season, and were predicting their funds would run dry by March.
20 years ago:
Help appeared to be coming from different directions after Whitingham was handed a bill from the state for a temporary sewer bypass that was installed by the state when they were replacing a culvert on Route 100. Whitingham was also stuck with responsibility for repairing town roads that were damaged when they were used by the state as a detour around the project. The chair of the Wilmington Republican committee, hoping to raise his party's local profile, offered to broker a deal with officials in the Republican governor's administration. Local legislator Bob Rusten, a Democrat, scoffed at the notion, and said he was working with administration officials to reach an agreement in the town's favor, and would introduce special legislation as needed. Selectboard members decided to table the state's bill, and “put a priority of negative 100 on it.”
Local snowboarder and Olympic Gold Medalist Kelly Clark took a gold medal at the Winter X Games in Aspen, CO.
25 years ago:
Few Wilmington residents turned out for a hearing on an amendment to the town’s zoning bylaw that would allow planned unit developments. The measure was petitioned by supporters of a proposed community center at the former Green Meadows School on Higley Hill.
Crews at Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station were getting ready to remove spent fuel rods from the water-filled storage pool and put them into dry concrete casks for storage, as part of the plant’s decommissioning process. The plant is gone, but the casks of nuclear waste remain on the banks of the Deerfield River.
30 years ago:
The Wardsboro School Board was planning a $531,000 renovation and addition to their school. The project included asbestos removal, new office space, additional classrooms, and other upgrades. Financing included a $392,000 bond.
The Wilmington School Board approved a budget of $3,757,167, and Whitingham’s school budget was at $2,390,494.
35 years ago:
CJ McCauley, of Twin Peaks, and local firefighters made what they claimed was the world’s largest calzone. The calzone was indeed large at 6 feet, 10 inches long by 3 feet wide, but there was no word from the Guinness Book of World Records as to whether the giant pie was “the world’s largest.”
The Dover Selectboard placed a lien on the property of an East Dover man in an attempt to recover fines assessed as part of a court-ordered settlement with the town involving a junkyard on the property.
The town of Dover received a $13,661 windfall from assets seized under the Federal Drug Forfeiture Act. The money was Dover’s cut from the sale of a house in the old Kidder Village area of Dover that resulted from a drug bust. Police chief Robert Edwards said he didn’t have any details on the federal case, but noted that “if a person made just one phone call to a person dealing drugs from a home, the home could be seized under federal law.”
40 years ago:
Haystack celebrated its 20th anniversary with nearly 3,000 skiers who took advantage of the 1960s prices that were in effect for the day. The ski area parking lots were filled to capacity by 10:30 am, and some skiers parked their cars on Coldbrook Road and walked up to the mountain.
Representative Jim Jeffords applauded a federal decision to drop Vermont from a list of states being considered for a high-level nuclear waste dump site, but he said he was concerned that New Hampshire was still on the list.
Students at Dover School planned to hold a “clash day,” on which students were to wear “crazy mismatched" outfits to school.
45 years ago:
The Wilmington Parent-Teacher Club urged Wilmington voters to support a measure that would lift a limit of 8% interest on a school bond passed earlier for renovations at the high school. At the time the bond was passed the 8% limit appeared reasonable, but PTC members said that the interest on municipal bonds had risen to 9.6%. The change was estimated to cost about $4 more for a taxpayer with an average tax bill of $500.
Rep. Bill Hamilton lamented an “evil bus tax” and the “bloody tax department,” and promised to read with a fine-tooth comb tax legislation that was introduced a week earlier.
55 years ago:
Bob Grinold submitted a zoning application to create a 200-unit trailer park on 65 of 100 acres he owned on Ray Hill. An earlier application had been rejected when the ZBA found that the trailer park would increase traffic and would represent a fire hazard on an “unsuitable road.” Another application was withdrawn after officials attached a provision that would require “any non-local person” to be evicted from the park in the event that a local person desired to move in.
Hogback president John Dunham announced that he planned to install a new Doppelmayer electric T-bar lift to replace one that had been damaged in a fire earlier in the season. In jest, Hogback ski director Bruce Holman erected a memorial to the old lift, on which was written: “1946–1970. Here lies the remains of a tired old ski lift which, on its 25th birthday, thinking of many happy skier years past, brilliantly burned itself to the ground.”
