Global pandemics are nothing new. From prehistoric times to today, man has faced devastating diseases that have changed the course of history or, worse, ended civilizations altogether. What is novel, however, as local resident and historian Sarah Rooker discovered recently, is the telltale stories that accompany them. “Hanover High School rising senior Lauren Pidgeon and I had been researching the 1918 influenza epidemic in Norwich and realized there was very little information,” said Rooker, director of the Norwich Historical Society (NHS). “All we really had were newspaper clippings. Diaries and letters from the time casually mentioned it, but there weren’t enough to really gain insights into the community’s experiences.”… Read More

Publisher’ Note: I don’t typically publish profiles of people after they’ve passed for a number of reasons: that we’re only quarterly; that I like to ‘introduce’ people to the community in hopes of facilitating real-time connections; that we try to capture a person’s heart and soul in the moment.

I am making an exception for Ruth.

Ruth Sylvester, herself, was exceptional in every way. I can safely say that the Norwich Times would not be the time-honored publication it continues to be were it not for the articles she wrote for just about every issue since the very first one in September 1997.… Read More

Willing Hands’ new headquarters is on Church Street in Norwich. However, its impact reaches far and wide as it picks up nutritious food otherwise thrown away, and donates it to organizations and people in need across the Upper Valley.

Willing Hand’s history starts in 2004 with founder Peter Phippen. Phippen worked in the produce department of the Hanover Co-op and noticed that there was an inordinate amount of nutritious food going to waste. He resigned from his job and founded Willing Hands in order to be able to redistribute quality food into the community which would have otherwise gone into the landfill.… Read More

In the 1943 movie, Lassie came home to Roddy McDowell. In the 1996 song that won Shawn Colvin the Grammy, Sonny came home with a mission… and a vengeance. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, Phin Choukas and Noah Kahan came home to the Upper Valley with time on their hands and with music on their minds.

So why – with Choukas’ sophomore year at Middlebury College and with Kahan’s rising career as a touring musician and on hold for the foreseeable future – did the childhood friends limit themselves to a single week of mud season to record Cape Elizabeth, an EP of five acoustic-folk songs?… Read More

The road to becoming a Vermont gubernatorial candidate began a long time ago for Norwich resident Rebecca Holcombe whose childhood in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Fiji Islands, and Sudan had a direct impact not only on how she has perceived the world but how she has navigated through it. Even though her family “had the bad fortune of arriving in ountries just as political trouble was beginning,” Holcombe learned quickly from her mother that, in comparison with many global native inhabitants, she had a privileged upbringing. “In my own family, particularly on my mother’s side, access to public schooling gave her many opportunities,” said Holcombe.… Read More

LINDA COOK is the Norwich Women’s Club 2020 Citizen of the Year. The “Stewards of Norwich” are Ray and Anna Royce, Cheryl Lindberg, and Allison Colburn. Please come celebrate them at this year’s Women’s Club Gala on Saturday, March 21 at 6 pm.

It’s hard to believe there’s anyone who knows Norwich as well as Linda Cook. It’s not just that she was born and raised here and has been – other than college – a lifelong resident. It’s that over the course of her life she’s devoted herself to serving the town and helping its people meet whatever challenges face them.… Read More

There is something special about the taste of a freshly picked piece of produce from the garden, or beef on the grill from a locally raised, grass fed cow.  Not only the taste, but also the satisfaction one receives from eating locally produced food products is palpable.  Growing up in farm country, having foods, particularly produce, go directly from the garden to the dinner table seemed natural to me.  If some fruit or vegetable did not come from our gardens, surely a neighbor’s farmstand carried it.  Sure, all of our foods weren’t local, and the grocery store was a weekly stop, but having regular access to local foods was common.… Read More

The dreams harbored by many young people of running away with the circus dates back well over 100 years. Who would not dream of boarding the train that carried the Barnum & Bailey Circus around the country, visiting far off places and performing death defying feats in front of enthralled crowds? For most who fancied that dream, it remained only that – a dream.

Some who did take the plunge likely discovered the dream was not what they planned as they ended up with jobs such as raising the tents, packing and unpacking gear, and cleaning up after a host of assorted animals.… Read More

How do you combine responsible investing, concern for the environment, and a desire to effect meaningful change in your local community? Norwich resident Norm Levy may have found one answer that you haven’t considered yet.

After working as a physician at Dartmouth-Hitchcock for 25 years, Norm retired in 2013 and began wondering what to do next. Aside from “for fun” projects – including wine tastings – he wanted to focus his ability on good works that would yield results in Norwich and the Upper
Valley. Starting from a passion for increasing sustainability efforts especially among lower-income members of the community, Norm started looking for a way to support local weatherization programs.… Read More

From Norwich to Washington, DC: Working in a US Senate Office

It’s clear from the pages of the Norwich Times that Norwich youth have covered the world through trips, jobs, and adventures of all sorts. This coverage includes Washington, DC, where Norwich is well represented in many government offices. Consider three recent Hanover High School graduates who currently work or recently held an internship in the office of one of our Vermont congressional members, Senator Bernie Sanders. What inspired these recent graduates to work in the Senate and move from Vermont to Washington DC, and what have their experiences been working as civil servants in DC?… Read More