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The Evolution of the Brattleboro Colonel

by cgrotke | History
Colonels 1958

The Brattleboro Colonels’ mascot is again being questioned. As it currently exists, it is a cartoonish characterization of a southern colonel, along the lines of something you’d see at a fried chicken franchise. It should be retired and replaced.

That said, the current version is not quite what was originally intended.

Joe Rivers, local history teacher and a president of the Brattleboro Historical Society, explained that for the first half of the high school’s existence there was no sports team name or mascot. “When the school was located in what is now the municipal center the sports teams were just known as Brattleboro. The sports editors assigned nicknames, often associated with the last name of their coach, but there was not an official name until 1950.”

BCTV Schedules – Week of July 20, 2020

by BCTVProg | Media

BCTV Channel 8 / 1075 schedule for the week of 7/20/20

Monday, July 20, 2020

4:15 am Somerville Museum – Reading Frederick Douglass Together
5:00 am Slow Living Summit – Sandra Steingarner 6/5/20
6:32 am Heartline Ministries – Adoption Part 2
7:30 am The News Project – Press Pass – 7/1/20
8:00 am Democracy Now! – Democracy Now! Daily Broadcast

FOMAG Cancels Guilford Labor Day Music Festival

by BusyMom | Music

Friends of Music at Guilford regretfully announces the cancellation of its annual Labor Day Weekend Festival due to the COVID pandemic.

Traditionally, the two-concert event includes a Saturday evening organ program, and a Sunday afternoon lawn concert at the Organ Barn in Guilford, featuring the Guilford Festival Orchestra. The organ concert highlights Friends of Music’s 1897 “tracker-action” pipe organ, which was installed in the barn in 1964 by late organist A. Graham Down, founder of the annual event.

In making the announcement, Friends of Music president Jenifer Ambler noted that this is the first time the event has been cancelled in its 55-year history. “The organ program, being indoors, has always gone ahead, no matter the weather,” Ambler said. “The barn is too small, however, for our 45-piece orchestra and the several hundred folks in our audience, so on a handful of occasions the orchestral program has been moved by rain to either Guilford Central School or Broad Brook Community Center. But this is our first-ever cancellation.”

The Business of America

by tomaidh | History

President Calvin Coolidge once said “The business of America is business”. He really meant it. Everything else is window dressing.

There’s an elite class of business people who control things (and have forever). Their interests dominate all others. They can’t be voted out. (Most of them work behind the scenes and hold no office at all). Money is speech. All we can do is roll with the punches.

VJC’s 45th Annual Summer Workshop Goes Virtual With Zoom Into Jazz!

by vtjazz | Music

The Vermont Jazz Center will celebrate its 45th season by offering an online version of its annual Summer Jazz Workshop from August 9-14, 2020. In the spirit of moving forward, the VJC has developed a structure to share the love of jazz and the wisdom of the faculty as a temporary replacement for its traditional summer jazz workshop in Putney, Vermont. This year’s program features an expanded faculty, a new take on masterclasses, plus two new features: “Hot Topics” and “Zoom Tunes,” as well as a composition course led by Helen Sung as part of our theory curriculum.

Called “Zoom Into Jazz,” 2020’s workshop welcomes a handful of new masterclass instructors on bass (Linda Oh, Genevieve Rose, David Picchi), drums (Clarence Penn, Corey Fonville), piano (Shamie Royston, Maya Keren, Miro Sprague), trumpet (Rachel Therrien, Ray Vega) and saxophone (Felipe Salas) to complement VJC’s stellar faculty (see below for a full list). The masterclasses will focus on different, daily topics – transcribing, comping, improvising, electric or acoustic instruments, note sets, etc. Each teacher will define the parameters of their own offerings.

Education Reimagined

by RDavis | Education

The challenges to re-opening the public educational system are rivaling the challenges of providing health care during the pandemic.

This country has a historical commitment to provide public education through grade 12. It has struggled with budget constraints and political pressure to provide the best education possible for students, but the pandemic has forced the system to the breaking point.

Some politicians want to open the public school system by September, but their plans lack detail and they will put a lot of people’s lives at risk. Despite the threats from one of the most ignorant and intellectually challenged presidents this country has ever seen, governors know that they will be able to move more carefully because ninety percent of their funding comes from local and state budgets. That provides a bit of a financial safety valve but little comfort for a safer future for this country’s students.

BCTV Schedules – Week of July 13, 2020

by BCTVProg | Media

BCTV Channel 8 / 1075 schedule for the week of 7/13/20

Monday, July 13, 2020

4:50 am Slow Living Summit – Ben and Jerry’s – Reducing our Carbon Footprint
6:00 am Montpelier Happy Hour – And the Legislature recesses… thanks, COVID-19
7:00 am Montpelier Happy Hour – Racial justice and political courage
8:00 am Democracy Now! – Democracy Now! Daily Broadcast
9:00 am Community Forum – With VT State Reps Tristan Toleno, Emilie Kornheiser, and Mollie Burke 6/20/20

BCTV Schedules – Week of July 6, 2020

by BCTVProg | Media

BCTV Channel 8 / 1075 schedule for the week of 7/6/20

Monday, July 6, 2020

4:00 am Heartline Ministries – Jesus Came to Bring Peace
5:00 am Rotary Cares – Ep 27 – Passing the Gavel
5:20 am The Quarantine Sessions from Next Stage Arts – Scottish Harpist Rachel Clemente
5:25 am The Quarantine Sessions from Next Stage Arts – Akwaaba Ensemble – Traditional African Drum and Dance
5:30 am Brattleboro Rotary Club Speaker Series – Episode 6 – Josh Davis

Referendum Petition for Rescheduling the Windham South East School District 2021 Ballot

by Rikki Risatti | Education

Registered Voters can deliver Petition signatures in an envelope addressed to the Municipal Clerk’s Office into the black box at that says, “For Tax Payments” at the parking lot entrance of the Municipal building. 483 signatures, which is 5% of the current voter checklist of 9,651, are required.

Whereas the Municipal Secretary Jan Anderson and Clerk Hilary Francis were contacted on June 30th, 2020 to resolve the concern on proper responsibility of the WSESD 2021 Ballot Public Warning Notice listed on the official Municipal Calendar

BCTV Schedules – Week of June 29, 2020

by BCTVProg | Media

BCTV Channel 8 / 1075 schedule for the week of 6/29/20

Monday, June 29, 2020

4:00 am Heartline Ministries – Jesus Came to Bring Peace
5:00 am Rotary Cares – Ep 27 – Passing the Gavel
5:20 am The Quarantine Sessions from Next Stage Arts – Scottish Harpist Rachel Clemente
5:25 am The Quarantine Sessions from Next Stage Arts – Akwaaba Ensemble – Traditional African Drum and Dance
5:30 am Brattleboro Rotary Club Speaker Series – Episode 6 – Josh Davis

Sherlock Holmes Comes to the Latchis Theatre

by James Gelter | Entertainment

BRATTLEBORO, VT – The Baker Street Readers are bringing their Sherlock Holmes podcast series to a new home, the Latchis Theatre. The Readers formed in 2018 and began reading one of Arthur Conan Doyles’s original Sherlock Holmes stories every month at the Hooker-Dunham Theatre in Brattleboro, VT. Each story featured James Gelter as Sherlock Holmes, Tony Grobe as Dr Watson, and a rotating cast of guest performers. Once COVID-19 forced theaters to close, the Readers began their own Patreon podcast, allowing their followers to listen to their stories at home

“We’ve been recording in the same space as we performed our live shows,” said Gelter, the founder of the Readers, “but this was proving to be very difficult. The space was so small that, in order to maintain a proper social distance, we could only have one performer in the space at a time. This meant that everyone had to be recorded separately and then I would edit all the parts together later. This was proving to be very time consuming and the final product lacked the energy that comes when actors are able to respond to and play off of each other.”

Next Stage Drive In Theater Concert – The Vermont Jazz Center Sextet on Friday, July 3

by stobro | Music

Next Stage Arts Project presents two Drive In theater concerts by the Vermont Jazz Center Sextet on Friday, July 3 at 5:30 and 7:30 pm in the Basketville parking lot in downtown Putney, VT. Cars will be socially distanced, leaving a vacant space between cars for lawn chair seating (bring your own chairs). Rain date for the concerts is Sunday, July 5.

The Vermont Jazz Center Sextet is the VJC’s community outreach ensemble. The group has developed programs which are performed in schools, assisted-living homes and libraries, bringing live jazz into settings outside of concert halls. Through these performances and clinics, people who might not attend concerts at the VJC are given the opportunity to hear and learn about the music of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Art Blakey and others, with original music and arrangements often written by members of the ensemble.