

Cover Story
From State Ward to the Statehouse: Meet Sen. Dick Sears
Route 2 runs directly from Montpelier to downtown St. Johnsbury, requiring little in the way of navigation as it passes through small towns and farms….
Obituary: Elizabeth V. Conte
Elizabeth V. Conte passed away Wednesday evening, June 18, 2014 at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington. Mrs. Conte was born in St. Albans, February…
Obituary: Guy Mongeon, 1924-2014, Colchester
Guy Mongeon, 89, passed away peacefully June 19, 2014. He was born September 3, 1924 to August and Alice (Patenaude) Mongeon. He served in the…
WTF: Georgia’s Unfinished Castle?
Nestled in the hills of Georgia, Vt., along a rolling country road sits a mansion of medieval proportions. It requires no stretch of the imagination…
Sodbusters Horseshoe Club Tournament [SIV357]
6/15/14: The Sodbusters Horseshoe Club held their Father’s Day Tournament on Sunday in Bristol. Winners included three-time World Horseshoe Champion Brian Simmons and his protege,…
Inaugural Herb Lockwood Prize Goes to Steve Small
On Tuesday, June 17, local officials, artists and media gathered at Burlington’s BCA Center to announce the winner of the first annual Herb Lockwood Prize…
Bread and Puppet Looks to Its Legacy
Peter Schumann has a hole in his sweater. On a Sunday morning in May, the founder and artistic director of Bread and Puppet Theater ushers…
Short Takes on Film: “Queen Dad” on DVD
Here’s a post-Father’s Day conundrum: Can a homophobic Texas teen grow to love the gay drag-queen dad he just met? And one for all seasons:…
Free Will Astrology (6/18/14)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): If you were alive 150 years ago and needed to get a tooth extracted, you might have called on a barber…
I’m a Transgender Woman and Looking for Love, Now!
Dear Athena, I am a transgender woman in my late twenties who just came out last summer. Living as a man, I was so confused…
News Quirks (6/18/14)
Curses, Foiled Again Andrew James Joffe, 24, called 911 to report that he was lost and being chased by wild hogs in Pasco County, Fla….
22 Jump Street
Got a minute for a metaphor? Just for fun, let’s think of movie comedy as a universe and consider the ways it’s expanded since 2007….
Opinion: Considering Baby Killings, and Justice
These last few months Vermonters have been anguished over the deaths of two of their youngest citizens — Dezirae Sheldon, just shy of her second…
How to Train Your Dragon 2
The key factor that lifts DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon series above other cute-animal kiddie animations is its reluctance to anthropomorphize. Sure, it’s fun…
Vermont Folklife Center and Brewer Link Past and Present
The Vikings fermented honey into mead. Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians were avid brewers of beer. The Incas turned maize and cassava into the powerful drink…
Book Review: Bittersweet
It’s easy for readers to empathize with a fictional character who wants to find love, solve a mystery or save the world. But a protagonist…
Something With Strings, Unfurled
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Something With Strings have been pickin’ and grinnin’ around Burlington for the better part of the past five years. Trading in…
Healthy Debate: Shumlin’s Republican Foe Calls Himself “Agnostic” on Single-Payer
In a typical election year, the recent spate of setbacks at Vermont Health Connect might spell trouble for Gov. Peter Shumlin and his fellow Democrats,…
Bob and the Trubadors, Child Inside Be Heard
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Is there anything more boring than someone telling you about their weird dreams? We all do it. But we all also…
Queen City Brewers Cop Old-World Styles
Two weeks ago, Queen City Brewery (703B Pine Street, queencitybrewery.com) sprang to life in Burlington’s South End after a lengthy incubation period. Helmed by a…
Restaurants Introduce Specialty Meat Nights
In February, we announced that chef Douglas Paine had commissioned a custom parrilla, or Argentine open-fire barbecue, built for asado nights at Hotel Vermont. Those…
Vermont’s Famous Fossils Get New Exhibit
Take a walk through Isle La Motte’s Goodsell Ridge Preserve, and you’ll have to make an effort to avoid treading on the fossilized remains of…
Oil Trains Along Lake Champlain Are a Concern
The first railroads that snaked north into the Adirondacks carried iron and lumber. Later, they accommodated tourists. Today, the tracks that follow the western shore…
Hubbard at the Hop
A dancer may be considered “old” at 35, but a venerable company can live on and on. That’s the case with the Hubbard Street Dance…
An Interview with Vibraphonist Arthur Lipner
In the recently released documentary film Talking Sticks: A Musical Journey, world-renowned vibraphone and marimba player Arthur Lipner travels the globe, exploring the roots and…
Letters to the Editor (6/18/14)
$ame Old Health Care The Affordable Care Act and the state exchange were supposed to lower premiums, not raise them by 15 percent or more…
Soundbites: NoHo Comes to BTV
It’s been refreshingly quiet on the music front over the last week or so. Following the jazz fest blitz and before we delve into the…
Group Seeks Better Help for Former Offenders
An unusual thing happened last Thursday night inside a fortress-like church on Cherry Street in Burlington: A retired priest stood before an audience at the…
Switchback Brewery Opens New Tasting Room
On Thursday morning, June 19, Burlington’s Switchback Brewing (160 Flynn Avenue, 651-4114) will open a new-and-improved tasting room to the public. The expanded room will…
Champlain College President Recounts His Term
As president of Champlain College for the last nine years, David Finney has shepherded the small school through rapid growth and sweeping change. The school’s…
Art Review: Bruce MacDonald, Havoc Gallery
Reproductions seldom do justice to original works of art. No matter how high its resolution, a photograph like that accompanying this review can’t capture the…
Obituary: Betty Jeanne Michaels, 1922-2014
Betty Michaels, (born Meyers) the little energizer bunny, ran out of batteries, and left us early in the morning on June 17, 2014. Her uncooperative…
Vermont Cheesemakers Wait as Feds Consider Aging Regs
A post on Wisconsin’s Cheese Underground blog on Sunday, June 8, began with these alarming words: “A sense of disbelief and distress is quickly rippling…
Taste Test: Pascolo Ristorante
We’re all familiar with the pasta dish known as carbonara, but not necessarily with its inspiration, an Italian secret society called the Carbonari. Formed early…






