The town of Weathersfield has a new chief for its new police department.

Craig Watrous Jr., most recently a patrol corporal with the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department, took the oath of office Tuesday evening as the leader of the newly rebuilt town police department. He started on the road Wednesday.

His father Craig Watrous Sr., a longtime Vermont police officer, pinned the gold badge on his son during the ceremony at the Town Hall. His father is a part-time officer currently with Fair Haven Police in Rutland County.

The new chief offered some brief comments and said he was looking forward to building the new department.

Two-man delegations from the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department, Bellows Falls and Springfield Police Departments were on hand for the ceremony. 

Watrous, 37, will be paid $87,500 a year, Weathersfield Town Manager Brandon Gulnick said. 

The new department will be dispatched through the Woodstock Emergency Dispatch Center. Weathersfield has agreed to pay about $40,000 a year to Woodstock. 

Attempts to obtain comments from Woodstock Municipal Manager Eric Duffy or Interim Police Chief Chris O’Keeffe were unsuccessful. 

For at least the time being, Weathersfield Police can be reached through the Woodstock Police phone number, Watrous said. 

Gulnick said Watrous was one of six candidates for the job, including two with experience as police chiefs. The six were whittled to three by a local screening committee, who conducted interviews and eventually recommended Watrous as the lone finalist, the manager said.

Watrous told the Vermont Standard he is state certified as a Level II police officer, which limits the types of crimes he can investigate. He said he hopes to become certified as a Level III fulltime police officer through the Vermont Police Academy so he can investigate the more serious crimes. The fulltime academy course is normally 17 weeks. 

He said for the time being in some serious cases, like homicides, untimely deaths, aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, he would need to rely on an outside agency. 

For more on this, please see our May 7 edition of the Vermont Standard. 

By Tom Ayres, Senior Staff Writer

The co-founder, owner, and executive chef of Blake Hill Preserves last Friday dismissed social media speculation that the award-winning specialty food producer shuttered its doors in March. 

The manufacturer of sweet, spicy, and savory jams and preserves, currently based in a recently enlarged facility at Artisans Park in Windsor, has been producing and distributing its products locally and nationwide for the past 13 years. Beginning in early March and continuing through last week, postings on Facebook and other social media outlets by former Blake Hill employees and dedicated local fans of the company’s products have lamented what some termed the “permanent closure” of the food maker’s operations in Windsor, which had undergone a significant expansion over the course of the past two years.

“I’m happy to confirm that it’s not the case — we are very much in operation here,” Blake Hill Preserves co-owner and master jam-and-preserves maker Vicky Allard told the Standard last Friday, just after wrapping up another morning of production at the Artisans Park manufacturing facility. “And I’m happy to sort of back up a bit and go over where we’re at. Our blanket brand itself is definitely continuing its success,” Allard offered. “We’re getting a lot of orders all the time — and we’re actually going to have a big production session this weekend, just to lay things out for the next couple of weeks. We’ve got some really great, long-standing customers — and there are some cool new opportunities with respect to a new distributor.”

Allard acknowledged Blake Hill’s loss earlier this year of a large, private-label customer that had gone through “major restructuring,” which resulted in a “significant reduction in their business — and that therefore obviously impacts us, because we are their jam maker and now they don’t need anybody to make their jams.” Allard, who co-founded and co-owns Blake Hill with her husband, Joe Hinglin, added, “That obviously hits us, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the brand. It’s very much on the other side of our business — the private label side. We had to take a look at what our operating model should be. And we did what a lot of companies actually do, where they might go on furlough during the quiet time of the year. We’ve never done that before — it’s not a fun thing to tell people that when you go through a quiet time, you have to use furlough — but we had to figure out what to do given the restructuring of the private label customer.”

At its peak, Blake Hill Preserves employed 25 to 30 people. Allard said the company furloughed all of its employees in early March, simultaneously shutting down its on-site retail jam shop and tasting facility. “Now we’ve brought some people back, and we’re very much operational, albeit with a smaller team, and we’ve been busy making jams for quite a few weeks now,” Allard said. She noted that there are currently “about 10” people involved in jam making at the Windsor plant. “We’re definitely in operation. We haven’t gone out on social media to say anything — it’s just not our policy to respond. But if customers reach out, we’ve been very happy to let them know that we’re still in business and making jams. Our Blake Hill Jam Shop is closed for now, partly because of the economics of this off-season, quiet time of year. It makes sense to have the shop open when we’re busier, so we’ll continue to revisit that,” Allard averred.

For the time being, Blake Hill is encouraging local customers to order their fill of jams and preserves online at blakehillpreserves.com, with product pickup available at pre-scheduled times at the specialty food maker’s Artisans Park facility in Windsor. Blake Hill products continue to be sold through local retail stores as well, including the Woodstock Farmer’s Market, Brownsville Butcher & Pantry, the Billings Farm & Museum gift shop, and multiple food co-ops in the region, Allard noted.

The veteran entrepreneurial chef added that Blake Hill products are also still shipped to online buyers nationwide and to retail outlets across the country via the manufacturer’s existing network of regional distributors.

By Mike Donoghue, Senior Correspondent

The Vermont Principals’ Association and its executive director, Jay Nichols, have agreed to pay $566,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to partially settle a religious discrimination civil lawsuit brought by the Mid Vermont Christian School.

Mid Vermont Christian, located in Quechee, and one of its families filed the lawsuit against state education leaders in 2023 after the VPA expelled the private school and its students from participating in all state-sponsored activities.

The expulsion came because the school followed its religious beliefs by forfeiting a girls’ varsity basketball game at the state tournament against the Long Trail School because the Dorset school had a transgender player, according to Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the school and one of its families.

The VPA’s agreement to pay $566,000 comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York City in September ruled Vermont had to allow the Christian school back into the state’s athletic association.

MVCS, in its lawsuit, had maintained the VPA created an unsafe and unfair situation by allowing the tall, oversized player on the girls team.  The player was more than 6 feet tall.

A federal appeals court in New York City ruled last September that the VPA had violated its own rules and discriminated against the private school.  It came when the school said it would take a forfeit rather than play the team with a transgender player, records show.  The VPA took the unprecedented step to vote a full ban of Mid Vermont from all sports and activities.

ADF attorneys are continuing to litigate the remainder of the case, Mid Vermont Christian School v. Education Commissioner Zoie Saunders and others.

Vermont education officials have continued to exclude all religious schools, including Mid Vermont, and their students from participating in the state’s tuition program and other public benefit programs, ADF said.

Plaintiffs Mid Vermont Christian, Nathan Partington and his child, identified in court papers as O.P., did not dismiss any claims against Saunders and the other defendants State Education Board Chair Jennifer Deck Samuelson and the Waits River Valley (Unified #36 Elementary) School Board, court records show.

The dismissal against Nichols is in both his personal and official capacities at the VPA, records show.

The VPA issued a statement that said its lawyer had advised the association not to comment on the settlement, except “to say that we will continue to follow Vermont law and advocate for all Vermont children.”

It was unclear if the VPA has insurance to cover the settlement cost.

The plaintiffs and Nichols attended a successful mediation on March 17, ADF lawyers said.

Following that mediation, both sides entered into a settlement agreement, resolving all remaining claims and issues between them.

“The government cannot punish religious schools—and the families they serve—by permanently kicking them out of state-sponsored sports simply because the state disagrees with their religious beliefs,” ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman, vice president of U.S. litigation, said.

“For more than two years, state officials denied Mid Vermont Christian School a public benefit available to all other schools in Vermont just because it stood by the widely held, biblical belief that boys and girls are different. There’s a price to pay for violating constitutional rights for Christian schools and students,” he said.

Longtime MVCS coach Chris Goodwin said he never thought he would end up in a court of law, instead of on a basketball court for “simply adhering to my Christian and commonsense belief that boys and girls are different.”

Goodwin, his wife, daughter and son were among the plaintiffs. “At Mid Vermont Christian School, we strive to exemplify biblical truth in and through everything we do. We’re grateful for our legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom who helped us get back in the game,” he said.

Goodwin added, “As a coach, I always want my team to play in fair and safe competitions. As a dad, I want my daughter to know that she should always stand up for her beliefs and should never be punished for that decision.”

Three years after being banned by the VPA from all extracurricular activities, including sports, Mid Vermont Christian was back in the postseason girls basketball tournament this past winter.

The fourth-seeded MVCS Eagles defeated No. 13 The Sharon Academy in a VPA Division IV playdown game and No. 5 Wiliamstown in a quarterfinal contest.

MVCS eventually lost in the semi-finals at the Barre Auditorium to No. 1 Richford, the eventual state champions.

The Eagles have had some past athletic success, including most recently sharing the Division IV Vermont high school basketball crown in 2020 in a season cut short by COVID.  MVCS (17-6) knocked off No. 1 West Rutland in the semifinals, but the final with Proctor was called off, creating co-champs for the first time.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City said in a unanimous decision in September that MVCS has a strong discrimination claim.

“We conclude that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the VPA’s expulsion of Mid Vermont was not neutral because it displayed hostility toward the school’s religious beliefs,” the judge wrote.

The three-judge panel said it found open hostility by the VPA toward Mid Vermont Christian.  The judges also noted the VPA failed to follow its own rules and policies in its rush to dismiss the Christian school from the statewide association.

The ruling overturned a decision by Senior Federal Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford in Burlington that allowed the banishment to remain in place while the two sides battle in court.  The lawsuit will continue, but the court ruled MVCS can participate.

The court, in its 19-page decision, was critical of Nichols and his conduct toward MVCS and other religious schools in Vermont.

“In sum, Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in establishing that Defendants acted with hostility toward Mid Vermont’s religious beliefs.  The VPA Executive Director publicly castigated Mid Vermont – and religious schools generally – while the VPA rushed to judgment on whether and how to discipline the school,” the judges said.

“In upholding the expulsion, the VPA doubled down on that hostility by challenging the legitimacy of the school’s religious beliefs.  And as noted above, the punishment imposed was unprecedented, overbroad and procedurally irregular,” the judges wrote.

The judges ordered the case sent back to Vermont with instructions to grant Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction to allow for Mid Vermont’s reinstatement as a VPA member.

Mid Vermont Christian School, founded in 1987, is a private faith-based pre-K-12 school in Windsor County, whose religious beliefs drive and form the foundation for everything it does.

The nearly five-year-long regulatory and legal battle over a proposed restaurant at Peace Field Farm on Pomfret Road in Woodstock has come to an end with a whimper rather than a bang, with the opening date of the long-awaited “farm-to-fork” eatery still uncertain.

Judge Thomas Walsh of the Vermont Superior Court, Environmental Division — commonly known as the Environmental Court — issued a decision on April 23 dismissing the final appeal of the permitting process “with prejudice,” which means the issue cannot be brought back before the court for consideration. Counsel for Peace Field opponents Tom Meyerhoff and Cynthia Volk, who’d engaged in a long-term legal fight before local, regional, and state regulatory bodies and the Environmental Court to prevent the Peace Field farm-to-fork eatery from opening its doors, withdrew the couple’s final appeal in the restaurant case last month, just before Walsh was to hold yet another hearing on the matter.

The final appeal by Meyerhoff and Volk, filed last July, challenged a June 2025 decision by the Woodstock Town Development Review Board (TDRB) to issue site plan approval and a conditional use permit to the Peace Field farm-to-fork restaurant project, contending it conformed with town zoning regulations and thus qualified as an accessory-on-farm-business (AOFB) under state statute, making it exempt from the Act 250 land-use permitting process in which it had lingered since 2021. A previous ruling by Walsh last August upheld the contention of Peace Field Farm developer John Holland and Woodstock native and tenant farmer/restauranteur Matt Lombard that the on-farm restaurant proposal was exempt from any further Act 250 oversight because it qualified as an AOFB under the “principally produced” standard of state law, which holds that 50% or more of the product served at an on-farm restaurant must be produced on site.

Replying via email on Monday to an inquiry from the Standard about Judge Walsh’s dismissal of the final Meyerhoff/Volk appeal in the Peace Field case, Meyerhoff, who lives next door to the farm along Pomfret Road near the Woodstock/Pomfret town line, was forthright.

“In response to your request for a comment regarding our dismissal of 25-ENV-00044, there are two separate issues to address,” Meyerhoff wrote. “First, our appeal of the permit issued by the Town was driven overwhelmingly by our opinion that the town’s amendment of its On-Farm Restaurant regulations was a case of spot-zoning and thus a gross violation of our and our neighbors’ constitutional rights. Despite numerous requests from various parties, both the Planning Commission and the Select Board refused to discuss any changes to the existing amendment other than the 2,800 sq. ft. issue, which was proposed solely for the benefit of Peace Field Farm. After months of the town’s refusal to share requested materials and correspondence in discovery, we concluded that the town had not only violated our rights but were also determined to stonewall and drag on what should have been a rather quick adjudication,” Meyerhoff added.

“When the former Select Board chairman, a central force behind this amendment, resigned from the board and moved out of state, we decided we no longer felt the need to go through this process, which would likely have gone on for many more months, perhaps causing further ill will among people in the town where, unlike Mr. Holland, we live,” he continued, referencing former Woodstock Town Selectboard chair Ray Bourgeois.

“Second, as to your query about a ‘finale for any further legal proceedings relative to the on-farm restaurant at Peace Field,’ we believe that they have had all the approvals necessary to open for many months now, a fact noted on December 12, 2025, by John Holland, who told us that ‘Peace Field Farm has the go-ahead from the court to open its restaurant,’ implying that the opening would happen in the near future,” the email from Meyerhoff concluded. The Peace Field co-litigant and appellant copied Meyerhoff/Volk joint counsels David Gracyk of Montpelier and Christopher Boyle of Lincoln with his email to the Standard.

There is, however, still some uncertainty in the path forward for Boston-based developer Holland and his partner Lombard: the pair haven’t yet agreed on a date when the much-anticipated on-farm restaurant on Pomfret Road will open its doors to the public, despite the fact that both entrepreneurs projected in late January that the Peace Field restaurant would open in time for summer.

For more on this, please see our May 7 edition of the Vermont Standard. 

Two senior administrators in the central office of the Mountain Views Supervisory Union (MVSU) will leave their posts at the end of the current school year.

MVSU director of finance and operations James Fenn is retiring from his full-time position with the school district effective July 3. Fenn told the Standard in a phone conversation last month that he expects to remain on board at MVSU in a limited-time advisory capacity while a new finance and operations director gets up to speed.

The MVSU board also accepted the resignation of veteran school district director of technology and innovation Raphael Adamek on Monday evening. Adamek’s departure from his post is effective June 30. In an email to Sousa dated April 8, Adamek said, “This was a challenging decision to make, but I feel that it is the right choice for me and my family. I am grateful for the 12 years that I have spent in the district, and I leave with deep appreciation for all the members of the MVSU community.” Adamek did not cite the reasoning behind his resignation, nor did he indicate what his next job opportunity may be.

In remarks regarding Fenn at the Monday evening board meeting, Sousa said, “I always continue to joke that there was one occasion in education where the clouds parted, and a resume fell on my desk, and it was James Fenn’s. I’ve known many directors of finance, and Jim has known some of them as well,” the superintendent continued, adding, “I’ve just appreciated Jim’s ability to problem solve and think things through and line us up in terms of our systems and approaches. When he was out on medical leave, we had someone sub in, and they jokingly said, ‘Why am I here? Because you have all the systems in place to make sure this is working.’ We will miss him deeply, but I know he’s just a short phone call away. I appreciate all he’s done to put us on the right path financially.”

For more on this, please see our May 7 edition of the Vermont Standard.

While embattled Woodstock Police Chief Joe Swanson and the Village of Woodstock continue the legal fight over his removal, the municipality is apparently moving forward with hiring a new officer for the police department.

In a series of e-mail exchanges Burlington attorney John Klesch, on behalf of Woodstock and its Municipal Manager Eric Duffy, believes Swanson has abandoned his police employment when he said he would not accept a demotion from chief to entry level patrol officer.

Attorney Linda Fraas, on behalf of Swanson, said her client cannot accept a position that he never applied for and he needs to be restored as police chief.

The Village of Woodstock appears to be moving forward without Swanson, even though he has appealed his demotion to the Vermont Superior Court. Swanson also has filed a multi-million lawsuit in Vermont Superior Court against Duffy, Interim Police Chief Chris O’Keeffe, the past village trustee chair Seton McIlroy, the Village of Woodstock, the Town of Woodstock, and William Burgess, a private investigation firm.

The Windsor County Sheriff’s Department said Deputy Jabri Black has resigned effective Thursday to accept a post as a police officer with the Woodstock Police Department.

Multiple sources also told the Vermont Standard that the village had reached out as part of a hiring background check in recent weeks.

Black, reached by phone Tuesday evening by the Vermont Standard, confirmed his resignation with the sheriff’s office and said he is headed to the Woodstock Police Department.

Black said he was told he will be working the evening and overnight shifts. Those are the work shifts Swanson was assigned by O’Keeffe following the chief’s demotion by Duffy. 

Black, 27, has worked as a fulltime deputy for just over three years for the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department. The North Carolina native had previously worked security at the courthouse in White River Junction for about 18 months.

Duffy and O’Keeffe did not respond to interview requests by the Vermont Standard this week. 

Swanson has not given up his employment rights with the village, Fraas said. She said the superior court ruled the first time Woodstock trustees botched the demotion effort when conducting the appeal of Duffy’s announced demotion.

Fraas said she expects the same result from the second appeal, which remains pending.

Duffy and the Village of Woodstock are seeking a 4-month delay in responding to Swanson’s appeal on his demotion. The normal response time is 30 days.

“Respondent’s persistent attempts to delay an outcome in this matter creates manifest injustice to petitioner,” Fraas said about Woodstock’s attempt to stall the case.

“There is no basis for Respondent’s request for more than thirty days to file an opposition memorandum to the Petitioner’s filing for final judgement,” Fraas wrote.

She said the demotion appeal, known as a Rule 75 motion, should proceed.

She added, Swanson as the petitioner, “merely declined to accept an unlawfully ‘demoted’ patrol officer position that he neither applied for, nor was hired to perform. Respondent’s mischaracterization of the result as a ‘voluntary resignation’ is a meritless position as a matter of law,” Fraas wrote.

Klesch said Swanson’s appeal was over 40,000 words, more than four times the word-count limit for normal cases. He said that should allow him to have four times as much time beyond the standard 30-day response.

He noted the legal briefing requires referencing a record from two hearings by the village trustees that exceeds more than 2,000 pages of transcripts, exhibits and other material.

Klesch maintains he believes Chief Swanson gave up his employment with Woodstock based on an email from Fraas.

“Your April 14, 2026, email constitutes Mr. Swanson’s notice that he has chosen to no longer be employed by the Village unless it is as chief of police. Given the police chief position is not available to him because he was removed from that position, he has voluntarily resigned employment,” Klesch wrote.

“The Village will not enforce the 60-day notice provision” under the employment agreement, Klesch said. He said the village would calculate any owed vacation and sick time based on his most recent rate of pay as police chief.

Klesch did not respond to the Vermont Standard’s request for comment this week. 

Fraas in her pending appeal to superior court is asking a judge to rule that the village trustees had no lawful authority to demote Swanson again and that the evidence was insufficient to support a just cause of removal from his hired post as Woodstock Police Chief.

Swanson also seeks to have the board decision overturned for a second time and reinstate him as chief with a court order for back pay owed to him when he was wrongly demoted, Fraas wrote in her filing.

On Tuesday, May 5, Woodstock Selectboard vice chair Laura Powell tendered her resignation to the Woodstock municipal manager, effective May 11. In an email correspondence with the Standard, Powell said, “I am looking forward to engaging with our community in a different way around the causes I care about, like housing and voter education.”

Following this announcement, the Standard spoke with Stephanie Appelfeller, chief of staff for the Town of Woodstock, about how the selectboard will proceed with two vacant seats.

“There will be an application process for both Laura Powell and Ray Bourgeois’ vacant seats,” Appelfeller explained. “The application will be due May 25 for any interested candidates. An interview process will take place during the public selectboard meeting on May 28, with the board member approval to be announced shortly after,” Appelfeller said.

Those interested in being considered for this appointment should visit the Town of Woodstock website https://www.townofwoodstock.org or reach out to Appelfeller directly at: sappelfeller@townofwoodstock.org or (802) 457-3456 Option 8

An election is still set to take place on August 11 for both seats. Those who are appointed in the interim would have to run for election, if they choose to. All those interested in running for the August 11 primary will have to fill out the necessary paperwork at Town Hall and garner at least 30 Woodstock resident signatures by June 25 to secure their candidacy, according to Appelfeller.

For those interested in running for election to the Woodstock selectboard, call the Woodstock Town Clerks office at 802-457-3611 or by stopping in. The Town Clerks office is open from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1-4:30 p.m. on Monday – Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. of Fridays.

Pemberley Garden & Antiques officially opened its doors for the first time during Mother’s Day weekend. Located at 29 Pleasant Street in Woodstock, the historic property had been home to Wigren-Barlow Art & Antiques since 1950.

Pemberley is co-owned by Carolyn Kimbell and Sukie Shaw-Azar. Now the third owners in the building’s history, Kimbell stressed continuity in her and Shaw-Azar’s mission. “We wanted to keep the tradition of antiques alive in this building, as well as bring the garden theme to town. That’s why we have both.”

The reimagining included filling each room in the building with its own particular look and purpose. “Each room has its own feel,” Shaw-Azar told the Standard. “We have sort of a general store room with some antiques and china. We have a cottage room, which is the old cabinet-maker shop, and that feels more like a dining and living room with some outdoor furniture as well as the antiques.”

“An English garden feel is what we’re trying to go for,” added Shaw-Azar.

For more on this, please see our May 14 edition of the Vermont Standard. 

Pemberley co-owner Carolyn Kimbell, right, talks with a customer who visited during the store’s opening weekend. Kathryn Whalen Photo

The Yoh Theatre Players’ production of “Pride and Prejudice” treated audiences to this Jane Austen staple at the Woodstock Union High School on May 1, 2, and 3. Play attendee and Yoh supporter Janet North summed up audience sentiment with the comment: “It was a fabulous play — beautifully performed from start to finish. The seniors should be incredibly proud to close out their time on such a high note with this production.”

Right, Mrs. Bennet (Mimi Kanda-Olmstead) attacks Lizzy (Lia Gugliotta) in her excitement to see her consenting to marry, as Jane (Lylah Zeitlin), Mr. Bingley (Sam Hauze), Lady Catherine (Tula Klock), Mr. Bennet (Brady Kruse-Ely), and Mr. Darcy (Tegan Miller) look on in the background.

Above, the cast of “Pride and Prejudice.” Back row, from left: Judah Bowers, Molly Fielder, Lexi Gabardi, David Solitaire, Brady Kruse-Ely, Libby Fraga, Orly Agin, Basile Walker, Lux Ringenberg, Moira Helene, Alyssa Charbonneau, Olivia Follet, and Satori Rossi; Middle row: Jay Allen, Ana Sailsbury, Zara Paczkowski, Ella Hardy, Mimi Kanda-Olmstead, Tula Klock, Quinn Eckler, Lylah Zeitlin, and Sam Hauze; Front row: Alex Foley, Tee Miller, and Lia Gugliotta. Nancy Nutile-McMenemy Photos

Poet Carlene Kucharczyk of Woodstock won the Vermont Book Award in Poetry on Sat., May 2. Up against three other collections of poetry that made it to the final round, Kucharczyk walked away with a cash award of $1,000, along with a sculpture by artist Bess French, depicting a miniature Vermont scene with evergreen trees, red Adirondack chairs, and a duck pond.

“It feels really wonderful to be recognized in this way. There are so many writers I love who live in this state, whose books I have been reading for years — and I’m always coming across new ones, too. It feels great to be among them and receive this honor, in a state I’m glad to call home,” Kucharczyk told the Standard after receiving the award.

The Vermont Book Awards is an annual literary event now in its tenth year. This year’s reception and ceremony was held at Montpelier’s Greenway Institute campus (formerly the campus for the Vermont College of Fine Arts), featuring a keynote speech by current Vermont poet laureate Bianca Stone, who emphasized the importance of literature in our lives, and the special role of poetry as the first written art form.

Beginning this week, Shaker Bridge Theatre will shine a spotlight on an incredible story. “The Waverly Gallery,” written by acclaimed playwright Kenneth Lonergan, will tug at the audience’s heartstrings as they watch a beloved matriarch slip into the terrifying world of dementia and witness her children try to find a place of love, light, and acceptance during one of their mother’s most trying chapters. 

 “The Waverly Gallery,” directed by Bill Coons follows Gladys, an elderly art gallerist and matriarch of the Green family. When management reveals plans to replace her gallery with a coffee shop, Gladys is thrust into a whole new set of challenges, far beyond her career struggles. 

Told from the perspective of her children and grandchildren, audience members will watch as Gladys’ memory begins to slip away and how the heartbreaking effects impact each member of the Green family. 

Coons, founder and artistic director of Shaker Bridge Theatre, has never turned away from a trying tale. Known for choosing controversial and thought-provoking plays, “The Waverly Gallery” fits perfectly into the rest of Shaker Bridge’s season — from the vaccination drama “Eureka Day” to the incestuous and charged romance, “Fool for Love.” 

Coons spoke to the Standard about what drew him to this latest piece and what he hopes audience members take away from this play.

At left, Bill Coons founded Shaker Bridge Theatre and serves as the artistic director of the small White River Junction playhouse. After years of admiring playwright Kenneth Lonergan’s work, Coons decided to tackle “The Waverly Gallery” and bring this trying, humorous, and captivating story to the stage. Courtesy of Adrian Wattenmaker

“I’m a big fan of Kenneth Lonergan’s work,” Coons began. “I read this play several years ago and just now finally feel like I’m ready to tackle it. This subject matter is not an easy thing to deal with. When Lonergan started talking about dementia and what it does to a person and what it does to their family — it’s not always easy to approach on stage.”

“However, this play is not simply a woman going through dementia at the end of her life, but how much love there is in her family, how each character gets stronger and stronger through this process, and how life-affirming it is to have a strong bond with those who love you most.” 

One of the challenges Coons mentioned was the number of lines Gladys must say, each one a little different then the last to show the mental deterioration of the character, but to also keep the pacing on point. 

“For me, the most difficult part of directing this play is finding the truth in each moment. I want the audience to connect with these actors and embody all their complexity. Marina Re, playing the character of Gladys, must carry an astronomical weight with this role and find the thread of truth in Gladys that tethers not only each actor on stage, but each person experiencing this play.” 

In a play that explores the complications and nuance of caring for a loved one losing their memory and identity, Coons only has one wish for the audience. He told the Standard, “I want everybody, as they are leaving the theater, to be thinking about just how special human life is. That’s ultimately what the play is about — just how important every human life is. Not just to the person who is sick and losing their life, but every person around them, who loves and cares for them. 

“This play takes on the point of view of every family member struggling with this hardship and forces the audience to step into their perspective, just as these characters must now step into Gladys’ point of view, even though she no longer sees things so clearly,” Coons continued. “I think that kind of framing underscores the necessity of empathy and highlights the love that holds this family together. This will be an incredibly important play for those in the Upper Valley to witness.” 

“The Waverly Gallery” will star Marina Re as Gladys, Celese Ciulla as Ellen, Claude Choukrane as Howard, Isaac Hickox-Young as Daniel, and Ernest Daniel Fleischer as Don. The Shaker Bridge production premieres on May 7 at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction and will run through May 24. Tickets and more information can be found at shakerbridgetheatre.org.

For more on this, please see our May 7 edition of the Vermont Standard. 

The Woodstock Union High School girls tennis team bested Rutland 6-1 on Monday afternoon at the Woodstock Athletic Center. The two teams have a rematch on Thursday at 4 p.m. in Rutland.

Above, Jess Pierce competes in her match against her Rutland opponent. Rick Russell Photo

By Tyler Maheu, Staff Sportswriter

Up 3-2, with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, the Woodstock Wasps baseball squad looked poised to continue its undefeated season last Saturday. But, in a torrential downpour, the Leland & Gray Rebels dashed those hopes and walked it off for a dramatic 4-3 win.

Saturday was a special day in Townshend, as the baseball and softball teams held their annual “Dingers for Dylan” event. The day featured two high school games, youth matchups, a home run derby, and other activities, with all proceeds benefiting the Dylan Landers Memorial Scholarship Fund. The meaning of the day was not lost on those who knew Landers and the town as a whole.

“My player Shane Lecours was his cousin,” said Leland & Gray head coach Tyler Francouer. “Today was a huge day for these guys and the whole community. Win or lose, it was going to be a good day. But to pull out a win like this, it’s almost poetic.”

The Rebels got on the board first in the bottom half of the opening frame, when an errant pick-off attempt from Woodstock pitcher Aksel Oates allowed a run to score. This lead did not last long, however.

The Wasps pushed across all three of their runs in the second inning to take the 3-1 lead, two of which came off a sacrifice fly from Grayson Hughes and a throwing error from Leland & Gray. The inning could’ve been much more, however, as Woodstock left its runners stranded with the bases loaded. “We need to be a little more aggressive at the plate and understanding of situational hitting,” said Wasps head coach Jason Tarleton. “This kid tended to throw back-to-back fastballs, and we should’ve been more ready for that.”

The kid in question was Rebel pitcher Ryder Butynski, who did not allow another run after the second inning, including a stretch of four straight one-two-three innings to keep his team in contention. “I had to change my mindset,” he said of what changed after the second. “I wasn’t being aggressive in those first two, and then I flipped a switch.” His coach had high praise. “Ryder is an absolute leader and to say it lightly, has that dog in him,” he said. “He fights hard, battles at all times, and will fight until the last breath.”

To his credit, Oates also pitched a gem on the mound. The Woodstock senior pitched all seven innings and accumulated six strikeouts despite the harsh weather. “He was mixing his pitches well and keeping them off balance,” said Tarleton on what his pitcher was doing well.

But, with two outs in the seventh and the bases empty, the rainstorm swelled to a crescendo and created chaos. Oates plunked two Rebels in a row. Then, the home squad read their opponent’s pick-off move to perfection, taking second and third base without a ball entering play. “With the conditions near the end, he lost the grip on his curveball, which dictates what pitches you select to throw,” said Tarleton. “I think that was ultimately an issue in the last inning.”

Standing ready to face him at home plate was his pitching counterpart, Butynski. “Before every swing I tell myself barrel, barrel, barrel,” he said, referring to the sweet spot on the bat. In a 3-2 count, with the game on the line, in his own words, he “finally caught one.” The pitcher shot a single into right field, which died in the wet grass and allowed two runs to cross home and give his team the 4-3 win. “It means a lot, especially today, to do it for Dylan,” he said.

The win boosted Leland & Gray to 6-1 on the year, and Francouer believes his team can keep this momentum rolling. “We’re going to keep going, keep playing our game, and the baseball will do the rest,” he said.

Woodstock’s first loss of the season put them at 5-1, but Tarleton did not fear the effect the defeat would have on his team. “They’re mentally tough, I’m not worried about them,” he said. “We’ll be ready to go Monday.”

And ready to go they were, as the Wasps traveled to Montpelier and picked up a 7-0 win to move their record to 6-1 on the season.

By Tyler Maheu, Staff Sportswriter

Wasps pitcher Riley O’Neal put himself into rarified air last Thursday, as the senior tossed his 100th career strikeout.

According to the 18-year-old senior from Plymouth, baseball has been a core part of his life since the start. “I’ve been playing baseball for as long as I can remember, starting with tee ball,” he said. While he may have started playing early, pitching was not his first position. “In elementary school, I played catcher,” he recalled. “Because of this, the coaches saw I could throw, and I started pitching then.”

O’Neal said he realized he was “decent” at pitching in eighth grade, when he was a pitcher for Woodstock’s junior varsity team despite being in middle school. Woodstock head coach Jason Tarleton credited a lot of his star pitcher’s growth to the team’s offseason pitching program.

Baseball coach Jason Tarleton congratulates Riley O’Neal after O’Neal reached his impressive milestone. Katharine Whalen Photo

“For the last three years, we’ve started a throwing program in January,” he said. “A consistent throwing program and being ready before the season starts has paid off. That’s why you’re seeing a lot of consistent pitching. They’ve put in a lot of work in the offseason, and it’s paying off.”

O’Neal agreed. “The launch of a preseason pitching program at Woodstock has completely upgraded the program, not only for me, but for everyone on the team,” he said. “Rather than jumping in with two weeks until the first scrimmage, myself and the whole team have already been getting loose for months.” He said it’s been a great tool for tweaking pitching mechanics, since in-season bullpen sessions can be hard to come by.

A lifetime of pitching training led to his accomplishment last Thursday, May 7. During a home game against White River Valley, O’Neal took the mound with a chance to create Wasps history. “It hasn’t really happened, not in my 26 years of coaching,” said Tarleton, before commenting that nobody had accomplished the feat of 100 strikeouts during his own playing career in the 1980s, either. “At least in the last 30 years, it hasn’t been done.”

In front of a home crowd ready to celebrate one of their own, the senior rose to the challenge. “Passing this milestone felt amazing,” he said, after leading his team to a 2-1 victory. “It felt so rewarding to achieve this milestone given all the work myself and my coaches have put into my pitching career.” While excited about his personal achievement, O’Neal has his sights set on something bigger. “That said, this is my final year, and I’m pushing for a bigger achievement, a championship.” With his Wasps currently at 5-1, he may be well on his way.

After graduating this spring, the Vermont native will be traveling to New York to continue his education at Clarkson University in Potsdam. There, he hopes to make an impact in the classroom and on the baseball diamond. 

“I am still working towards earning the opportunity to be a part of their baseball team,” he said.

By Tyler Maheu

Staff Sportswriter

“This one’s all on us,” said Woodstock boys lacrosse head coach Brandon Little on Monday after his team suffered a disappointing loss to the visiting Burr & Burton Academy Bulldogs, 7-4.

The battle of the two one-loss behemoths started well for the Wasps, when just two minutes into play, senior Kyler Eaton found senior Ian Coates for a goal to give them a 1-0 lead. However, that would be the first half’s lone bright spot.

Burr & Burton raced out to a 3-1 lead after the first quarter, thanks to two goals from senior Jack McCostis, the second of which was his 100th career point. “It’s taken a lot of effort, and to do it in just two years on varsity means a lot,” he said, while commenting that he believes 60 of the 100 came from goals, with 40 from assists. “I take pride in being a feeder,” he said. 

He added a third goal just 10 seconds into the second quarter, and his team netted two more to take a 6-1 halftime lead.

“We were making mistakes and throwing the ball away,” said Little on what went wrong in the first half. “This one’s all on us.” While he said his coaching staff didn’t make any major adjustments at halftime, just “the little things,” the Wasps came out with a fire.

Three minutes into the third quarter, sophomore Cole Little fired a pass from the top of the box to fellow 10th grader Declan Roylance, left of the net, for a goal to make it 6-2. Here the score would stay headed into the fourth. 

Burr & Burton would score their seventh and final goal of the night six minutes into the quarter, before Cole Little added two of his own to close the gap 7-4. With time winding down, the Bulldogs successfully ran out the clock before storming the field to celebrate their win.

With the victory, the Bulldogs move to 8-1 on the season, and McCostis views this as just the beginning. “We have all the momentum,” he said. “We are going to win out, take the first seed in the state of Vermont, and then win the state championship. We are going to keep having a good year.”

For Coach Little, his team has areas to improve in order to compete with the top of the division. “We need to be better on ground balls, getting them to passes and taking baby steps up the field,” he said. “It’s all about personal responsibility, owning mistakes and correcting them.” He continued on a positive note. “We are a good team, we just didn’t put four quarters together.

Woodstock, now at 6-2, hopes to get back on track Wednesday against Stowe. 

Elizabeth Stetson, cherished mother, grandmother, and lifelong member of the Pomfret community, passed away peacefully on May 11, 2026, in Pomfret, Vermont.

Arrangements are not yet finalized for services. A full obituary will appear in an upcoming issue of the paper.

The Cabot Funeral Home in Woodstock is assisting the family.

With deep sadness, we announce the passing of Blair Fahnestock Baldwin, 47, of Pomfret, Vermont, who left us early on Monday, April 27, 2026. He died peacefully in his sleep due to a sudden cardiac event, after spending the weekend with his cherished wife and three daughters.

Blair lived every day radiating joy, love, and a sense of fun. He danced daily to the tunes of his favorite band, Phish. He took his girls hiking in the woods of his beloved Vermont farm. Whether he was taking professional calls or walking through the grocery store, Blair brought his creative, playful approach, elevating the mundane to a grand adventure.

Blair was born April 7, 1979 in New York City, to Deborah Stoddard Baldwin and Blair F. Baldwin. He grew up sharing his time between Southampton, N.Y., and Newport, R.I., where he spent long summers with his grandparents, Helen and John Winslow, and his uncle, W. Barton Baldwin, and developed a love of tennis and sailing.

For high school, Blair attended St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. During his time there, he spent a Semester at Sea and a term teaching at an Aboriginal school in Australia. He then started his college career at St. Andrews University in Scotland, where he formed deep friendships, came into himself as a scholar, and learned to focus his brilliance and energy.

Blair transferred to Harvard halfway through his sophomore year, and found himself in Dunster House. There he built bonds of friendship so strong that his rooming group was featured in the Harvard Gazette for the strength of their support for one another despite being very different humans. He worked in the Dunster Grille, and was very active in the Dunster House Committee, taking his role as a Zorbel Meister seriously. He fortuitously served as a Sophomore Outing leader for incoming Dunsterites, during which he met the love of his life, Lindsay Hyde, at Walden Pond.

After graduating from Harvard College, Blair continued to build a community of friends that would become akin to a chosen family, and traveled the world as a consultant with Digitas, further cementing a life-long love of adventure and travel that ultimately took him to six of seven continents.

Blair enrolled in Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2007. It was there that he discovered his entrepreneurial spirit and became part of a community of founders who continue to champion each other to this day. During this time, he also married Lindsay at a wedding in Southampton that was attended by family and friends from around the country and the world.

Following his time at HBS, Blair immersed himself professionally in the world of startups. He founded and led four startups over his career, and played critical leadership roles in five others. He also provided mentorship and generous advice to hundreds of early-stage founders.

Together, Lindsay and Blair lived full and rich lives. Blair was a true partner in all aspects of life. No matter what Lindsay was doing, Blair showed up and did whatever needed to be done.

Anyone who knew him knew he was her biggest champion, her greatest love, and her teammate in the good and hard moments of life.

He extended this devotion to his many friends and colleagues. Over the years, Blair was the person many called to share the best and most terrible times. He effortlessly sustained connection with people from many eras of his life, and will be mourned and deeply missed by countless members of the many communities to which he belonged.

Blair’s mother says that from his earliest days, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, “A father.” In addition to his many personal and professional achievements, Blair first and foremost focused on being a great dad to his three girls: Campbell, age 9, Jones (JoJo) age 6, and Hawthorne (Hattie) age 2. Blair was an active volunteer in their school, sharing his love of skiing through the school ski program. He told original bedtime stories every night from his vivid imagination, and built family traditions like Taco Tuesday, annual camping trips, and morning Phish dance parties.

Blair is pre-deceased by his father, Blair F. Baldwin, and his step-father, Charles Moulton. He is survived by his mother, Deborah Stoddard Moulton, his sister, Sarah Moulton Faux, and his uncle, W. Barton Baldwin. He leaves behind his wife, Lindsay Hyde, and their three daughters.

A Celebration of Life was held at St. James Episcopal Church in Woodstock, Vermont, on Saturday, May 9, 2026 at 10 a.m. In lieu of flowers, consider making a contribution to college funds for Blair’s three girls. You can do so at online-tribute.com/blairbaldwin.

John F. Cullen, III, age 84, long time teacher and coach at Woodstock Union High School, died peacefully on Aug. 30, 2025 at his home in Lake Oswego, Ore., surrounded and held by his family. He was born in Taunton, Mass. on Aug. 8, 1941 to John F. Cullen, II and Virginia Cullen (Nichols). He is survived by his wife, Dona Cullen, and his daughter, Amanda Cullen-Crofut (Benjamin Crofut) WUHS Class of ‘92, also of Lake Oswego, and grandsons Orion (24) and Tashi (20); and his son, Brendan Cullen (Rebecca Krouner) WUHS Class of ‘90, now of Lexington, Mass. and grandsons Aidan (12) and Asher (2). John is also survived by his sister, Joan Kuliga (Mitchell Kuliga), of Assonet, Mass. and his brother, Peter Cullen (and friend Sheila Parker), of New Bedford, Mass. He leaves nieces and nephews he holds dear — Kristen Kuliga, Kim Kuliga, Peter Kuliga, Meghan Cullen (Ruscitto), Caitlin Rollins and Kelsey Cullen (Davidson) and all of their children.

Also known as “Jack” and pictured here as you might have remembered him in the ‘70s, was a graduate of Taunton High School and quarterback of the football team. He spent a 5th year at Brewster Academy (NH) playing football and basketball. He then attended and played football at Southern Colorado University, graduating in 1965. Jack was a beloved teacher and coach all of his life. He started at Bridgewater-Raynham High School in Massachusetts; then moved to Vermont and had 29 wonderful years (1970-1999) teaching earth science and coaching at different times football, tennis, hockey, basketball, track and gymnastics. He went on to run programs in hockey, basketball and tennis in Prescott, Ariz.; and finally landing in Oregon, coaching boys’ tennis at Tigard High School and mentoring his grandsons, friends and teammates in football, basketball and tennis at Lakeridge High School in Lake Oswego.

Countless youth over the decades benefited from his devotion and meticulous instruction, his wit and ability to connect, entertain and educate. So many adults report how Jack Cullen changed their lives, inspired them to have faith in themselves and to aspire for excellence. He had dozens of awards and championships and, to his last breath, was lecturing caregivers on nature and the environment. He is sorely missed.

There will be a Memorial Service and Celebration of Life at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Woodstock on June 14 at 1 p.m., with a simple reception to follow. Come with your stories.

Preceded in death by husband, John (aka Jack), sister Mary Lu, and brother, Bruce. Survived by children David, (JoAnn), Emily, (Matthew), Amy, and Edward, and grandchildren Sadie, Sam, Hannah, Iris, Jordan, and Maggie as well as siblings-in-law Janet Bender and Charles Mathis, and her nieces and nephews. Born in Cooperstown, N.Y., her father’s work as a Methodist minister took Ruth to several towns, notably Scranton, Pa. Throughout her childhood, she enjoyed spending time with her grandparents, including at the family farm in Chenango Bridge, N.Y. She met Jack Hunter at Lycoming College. After he helped Ruth on move-in day, and later recognized her in the library where she worked, Jack asked her to the homecoming dance. They married on June 1, 1956. Ruth went where Jack’s teaching career took them, creating a niche for herself, being mother to her children wherever they landed, be it Boston, Denmark, Greensboro, North Carolina, Vermont, Maryland, California, the Hudson Valley, Pennsylvania and finally returning to Vermont for retirement where she spent her last years. On moving to Vermont the first time, Ruth helped found Saltash Mountain Camp, beginning an association with Farm and Wilderness Camps that would endure her whole life. 

Over the years, Ruth applied her library science degree at schools such as John Woolman, Oakwood Friends, Westtown, and as an archivist at Bryn Mawr, and Lincoln University where she helped to curate the Langston Hughes collection. At each library where she worked Ruth made certain to have books that welcomed each student. After retiring she started Ruth’s Book Repair out of her home in Woodstock. She was a doting grandmother, and active in Hanover Friends Meeting, a volunteer at the Women’s jail, the League of Women Voters, the Food Shelf, and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science. She was a gifted singer, who effortlessly brought warm tones to whatever gospel or pop tune she tried, often in community choral groups. She was also a graceful swimmer at Fiddle Lake, Tiny Pond, Mel’s Lake, Woodward Reservoir, the Yuba and Feather rivers, to name a few. Ruth instilled in her children a love of books, the outdoors, and an unwavering passion for justice. To meet her was to feel warmth and kindness. She was impossibly loveable and will be dearly missed by her children, grandchildren and all who met her were better people for knowing her. 

Please feel free to donate in her memory to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science at vinsweb.org, the Campership Fund (Affordable for All) at the Farm and Wilderness Foundation at farmandwilderness.org or the Vermont Food Bank at vtfoodbank.org.

A memorial service for Blair Baldwin, 47, who died on April 27, will be held Saturday, May 9 at the St. James Episcopal Church in Woodstock, beginning at 10 a.m. The Cabot Funeral Home in Woodstock is assisting the family. A full obituary will be published at a later date.

Richard ‘Rick’ Bates A celebration of life for Richard “Rick” Bates, who died Nov. 21, 2025, will be held on Saturday, May 9 from 1-4 p.m. at The Thompson Center in West Woodstock. A time to share memories of Rick will take place at 2 p.m. at The Thompson Center. The Cabot Funeral Home in Woodstock is assisting the family.

Glenn M. Barr, 96, died peacefully early Wednesday morning April 22, 2026 at the Mertens House in Woodstock.

He was born on Dec. 23, 1929 in Holyoke, Mass. the son of Francis A. and Agnes (O’Connor) Barr.

Glenn graduated from Holyoke (MA) High School in 1947 and then served in the U.S. Airforce from 1948 to 1952. While still in the Air Force he married Charlotte Howard. By 1955 Glenn had received a degree in Engineering from UMASS Amherst and began a career working for Sylvania, then GTE, and finally for Northrop Grumman. He was an avid golfer and in 1955 won the Woodstock Country Club championship.

Glenn and Charlotte settled into their home in West Woodstock for many years and spent winters, beginning in 1991, in Florida. 

Glenn is predeceased by his wife Charlotte. He is survived by their children Bruce Barr of Vero Beach, Fla., Cathy Barr Balaschi of Middleborough, Mass., Glenna Barr of Orford, N.H., James Barr of Palm Bay, Fla., Leslie Wright of Palm Bay, Fla., Jennifer Volpe of Coral Springs, Fla.; 15 grandchildren; 14 great-grandchildren; four great-great-grandchildren.

A private graveside service will be held in the Highland Cemetery in Woodstock.

Memorial donations may be made to The Thompson Center, 99 Senior Lane, Woodstock, VT 05091.

An online guestbook can be found at cabotfh.com.

Heather Marie Regan, 53, of Everett, Mass. passed away peacefully on April 19, 2026, surrounded by her family.

Born in Saugus, Mass. to her parents Paul and Beverly Regan of Milton, South Woodstock, and presently Hingham, Mass. Heather graduated from Milton High School and Colgate University where she received a BS in Biology and a minor in Chemistry.

Growing up in Milton Massachusetts Heather joined a Blue Hill Reservation Pony Club called “The Ponka-Pog Pony Club” which led to her attending a two week summer horse camp here in Woodstock at Green Mountain Horse Association in South Woodstock.

Future summers were spent with her parents at their home in South Woodstock, surrounded by the Green Mountain Horse Association. During some of those summers, Heather worked at both The Grand Union Food Market and The White Cottage Restaurant.

Throughout her college years, she was active in support of Habitat for Humanity.

After college, Heather joined The Peace Corp. and served in Niger, Africa.

Upon her return to the States, skills developed at Colgate University led her to her positions at both Harvard Medical School, running a lab overseeing retina research for the National Health Institute and then on to Boston University Medical School putting to use her expertise in electron microscopy.

Heather’s passionate “What’s next?” curiosity meant career moves through the years, becoming a talented baker working at Boston top hotels with James Beard recognized chefs; starting her own company “The Collared Canine;” and finding her niche in bartending at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel for over 20 years.

She was an extraordinary cook, involved and caring neighbor, creative collector, and a master gardener.

She is survived by her husband, Dennis St. Aubin, her parents Paul and Beverly Regan, her closest friend Beth Degen and her numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, close neighbors, and many of her favorite patrons.

A Mass of Christian burial will be celebrated at St. Agatha Church, 432 Adams Street, Milton on May 15 at 11 a.m. Family and friends invited. Visiting hours at Dolan Funeral Home, 460 Granite Avenue, EAST MILTON SQUARE, prior to the mass from 9-10:30 a.m.  Burial will be private.

Bill Hall passed away unexpectedly at his home on March 28, 2026.

Bill was born in Lebanon, N.H. on Oct. 11, 1952 to Peter N and Barbara G. Hall.

He spent his childhood in Woodstock, where he graduated from Woodstock High School as the valedictorian in 1970. Bill then went on to graduate with honors from UVM in 1974, with a degree in business administration.

He worked as an accountant and business consultant, both in private practice as well as for the town of Hartford as the finance director, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and the State of Vermont. He also became a certified government finance officer and eventually became a board member for the Government Finance Officers of America. He also was an original co-owner of Pete and Bills in Woodstock.

Bill enjoyed gardening, cooking, spending time with his beloved pets and spending time with friends and family. 

Bill was predeceased by his parents, his sister Patty Soule and her husband Charlie, his brother Peter G. Hall, and his brother Jerry G. Hall.

He is survived by his husband of 19 years David Sambor; sis sister Lea Cohen (Daniel) of Lamanon France, his sister Robin Hall of Woodstock, his sister in law Sharon Hall also of Woodstock, and his sister in law Sandy Dalphond of Grafton, N.H.; his nieces and nephews Rick Parks (Debby), Jennifer Salk (David), Ethan Hall (Linda), Shannon Hall (Britt), Terry Lavasser-Green (David), Tammy Standley (Ron), Christoper Hall, Allen Hall, Peter Hall, David Cohen, Sarah Cohen (Yvan), Ilan Cohen (Marion), Elise Drake (David), and Eric Drake (Monique).

Bill will be sorely missed by all.

A celebration of Bill’s life will be held later in July, an announcement will be published at a later date.

Arrangements are being made by the Cabot Funeral Home.

By Dan Cotter, Publisher 

Well, my friends, this is my fourth and final article of our 2025 annual appeal. 

Once again, this year, it’s been a privilege to talk directly with you about the mission we’re on at the Vermont Standard and the difficult challenges we face — to ask if you’ll please consider donating to the Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation in support of our efforts to connect our community and keep you informed on issues of public importance.

Today, the main thing I want you to know is that we are proud to work for you.

We know you’re counting on us to be your eyes and ears — filling you in about local government actions that affect you, about local crime, about court cases playing out here, about notable news items and occurrences, the accomplishments of our neighbors and local youth, about developments at our schools, churches, businesses, and charitable or civic organizations, about the happenings and things to do in the local area, and lots more. 

We are the one and only news source that’s entirely focused on our area; reporting news that’s primarily of interest right here. Our work — week in and week out — is entirely dedicated to the welfare of this community. 

That’s the way it’s been here for 172 years. And Phil Camp and I and our small team are now trying to produce a 2025 version of the Vermont Standard that’s the best it has ever been in the paper’s long history.

The Standard is for you. It exists simply to benefit you and your neighbors. We regard this responsibility and the trust you place in us as a badge of honor. We pledge to give it our best. All we’ve got.

As I’ve explained before, the financial pressures we face are intense. And, tragically, various powers that be are trying to exert additional pressure in a sad attempt to undermine the press. By extension, their actions undermine you, the public. That’s nothing new, really, but it’s pretty acute right now. Shame on them.

However, with your donations to keep us afloat, we’re hanging in there, staying strong and getting stronger. We are continuing to work, not only on improving this week’s Vermont Standard, but next month’s and next year’s too, as we attempt to set things up so we can produce high-quality local journalism for the long term. 

We’ll make sure your gift is put to good use as a worthwhile investment in one of the key components of the critical infrastructure that underpins this community.

As a citizen, it’s essential for you to be well-informed. That’s the only way we can have a functioning local democracy and a lively, connected community. As your eyes and ears, we’ll continue to follow the news closely and report it to you in new, better, and more engaging ways as time goes on. 

We hope to make you proud as we strive to do the best community journalism in the country. We believe that’s a realistic goal. This weekend — for the ninth time in the last twelve years — the Standard will once again be a finalist for the honor of being named New England Weekly Newspaper of the Year.

When it comes to journalism, we believe you deserve the absolute best.

We are deeply appreciative of any financial help you can offer in this year’s 2025 annual appeal. In fact, if you’re interested, Phil Camp and I would be very grateful for an opportunity to meet with you in person to talk more about what’s needed and our plans. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at dcotter@thevermontstandard.com or 802-457-1313.

Also — very importantly — if you have a family foundation, please consider adding the Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation (EIN: 93-3287932) to the worthwhile causes you regularly support. We’ll be deeply indebted to you.

The Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation is a public charity, so your gift will be fully tax-deductible. 

If you’re willing to make a tax-deductible donation to our 2025 Annual Appeal, please send a check to PO Box 88, Woodstock, VT 05091, or go to our Vermont Standard THIS WEEK website at thevermontstandard.com to make a contribution with your credit card. Be sure to make your check out to the “Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation.” 

By Dan Cotter, Publisher 

Lord knows, there are lots of fascinating people in our community.

At times, it seems as if every person you meet here in the course of a day is even more interesting than the last one. Sometimes, I marvel at how in the world all these wonderful and impressive folks are either from here or ended up here, in this little corner of Vermont.

Of course, I’m lucky. I get to participate in our story planning meetings at the Standard each week to decide who and what we’re going to write about next. Beyond the breaking news, what feature stories should we write – about which people, which organizations, which businesses?

It’s a joy.

There are always plenty of nominations. And then, even though you think you pretty well know who someone is or what an organization does and stands for, our reporter does a deep dive and provides new insight about them or their work or their cause in an account that’s simply breathtaking. Who knew? Right here among us! 

I often refer to the Vermont Standard as a kind of “glue” for our community. It’s a paper everyone can turn to in order to stay informed about the local news — the goings-on, the things to do. Something to look forward to each week to catch up on the latest. A common experience shared by those who live here or care about this place.

But maybe the best part about the Standard is the way it enables us to connect as a community. The way it helps us get to know each other better by introducing us to that really interesting person who lives next door (sometimes literally). And I’ve found that typically the more impressive people are, the less likely they are to talk about themselves. They’re too modest. So, it takes a nosy reporter to get them to tell their full story.

And the same goes for some of the incredible organizations in the area, including charities, nonprofits, schools, churches, arts organizations, libraries, history centers, and many more. They aren’t always focused on touting or telling their story – about what they do, who they help, what they accomplish. Often, they toil away under the radar. But the Standard is eager to bring their story to the public’s attention. We want to shine a spotlight, applaud their work, and make the folks who might decide to join or support them aware of them.

Soon, we’ll be bringing you those kinds of stories on video too, as we roll out our Headliners and Inside Scoop programs this fall.

The bottom line is that living in a community is much more fulfilling for most of us when we get to know more about the ordinary people among us, who are doing some pretty extraordinary things. Reading about them and their aspirations and accomplishments in the Standard is fun, and, on occasion, when those stories also explain their struggles and failures, their resilience and ultimate triumphs, it can be touching to read, inspiring even. 

These stories help us all feel a deeper sense of kinship with the people and organizations in our midst. They connect us and make us feel that we all truly belong to this beautiful community.

As I said, being this glue that strengthens our connection? It’s a joy.

We are deeply appreciative of any financial help you can offer in this year’s 2025 annual appeal. Our effort to preserve quality journalism for our community is quite urgent, my friends. And Phil Camp and I would be very grateful for an opportunity to meet with you to talk more about what’s needed and our plans. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at dcotter@thevermontstandard.com or (802) 457-1313.

Also, if you have a family foundation, please consider adding the Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation (EIN: 93-3287932) to the worthwhile causes you regularly support.

The Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation is a public charity so your gift will be fully tax-deductible. 

Your donation will be utilized in the form of project grants to support the Vermont Standard’s mission to inform, connect, and educate our community on issues of public importance. 

If you’re willing to make a tax-deductible donation to our 2025 Annual Appeal, please send a check to PO Box 88, Woodstock, VT 05091, or go to our Vermont Standard THIS WEEK website at www.thevermontstandard.com to make a contribution with your credit card. Be sure to make your check out to the “Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation.” 

By Dan Cotter, Publisher

For the past 15-20 years, most local newspapers have been trying to “do more with less” in an effort to survive. And, of course, since that’s not a good long-term strategy, it has put our industry into a slow death spiral.

America has lost 3,200 of its newspapers in that same period of time, and currently, an average of more than two per week go out of business. Hundreds more papers are on life support, as they try to hang on by cutting staff, cutting pages, cutting the frequency of their publishing days, and eliminating their print editions. In their resulting emaciated state, those papers certainly can’t serve the need for local news and information in their communities.

Those withered newspapers are called “ghost papers,” because they are hollowed out shells of their former selves. Technically, they still exist. They continue to survive. But the communities counting on them? Well, they can no longer really count on them.

The handful of hedge funds and corporate raiders that bought up so many of our nation’s newspapers and ruined them wrote the playbook. In their effort to “rightsize” (meaning to dramatically downsize…) their papers in the face of diminishing advertising revenue, they chopped the expenses. Severely.

For newspapers, the primary expense is paying the people who work there. After many rounds of staff cuts, those papers barely cover any news at all, because they no longer have enough people to do it.

And as many of the small independent papers – like the Standard – encountered those same advertising revenue headwinds, lacking a better plan, they began following the same playbook. Consequently, in their efforts to survive, they now f ind themselves in that same never-ending spiral of cost-cutting.

Also, newspapers in that ragged state aren’t able to do the type of development work required to create a sustainable path for the future. In order to survive beyond just this week or this year, news organizations must create new services and revenue streams that will support them long-term. To do that takes time, thought, experimentation, risk-taking, and perseverance.

The beleaguered staff that’s left at most newspapers today simply lacks the energy for that.

“Doing more with less” (and less, and less…) was originally supposed to be a stopgap measure to buy time for newspapers to get their feet under them so they could forge a path to sustainability. Sadly, though, for most, it’s simply become standard operating procedure.

Fortunately, for our community here, the Vermont Standard has not followed that all too popular “survivor” playbook. We’ve never wanted to preside over a slow death march, just to be able to say we’re still publishing, but, in fact, failing to serve the very real need for local news, information, and connection in this community.

Thanks to your financial support, we’ve been able to go another way. Instead of doing more with less, we realize that we – and all local news organizations, especially in today’s political climate – just need to do more. Much more. And while doing that, we also need to create a sustainable path forward so we can live on to serve this community in even better ways for many more years.

Our efforts to survive are actually just the first step towards our real intention, which is to thrive.

In fact, with your help, we’ve upgraded our staff and improved our publication in recent years. The team we have reporting local news is now stronger than ever. They have a good deal of talent and a whole lot of heart, working for ridiculously low wages at this frugal newspaper, yet fueled by such a worthy mission. At the Standard, we haven’t forgotten why we exist in the first place. We are striving to provide wall-to-wall coverage of a steady stream of complex stories that are of great interest and importance to this community we serve.

We’ve also enhanced the look, feel, and utility of our publications.

And we’ve expanded our digital news and information products – we are doing more and more online programming with them. This fall, we are introducing our new series of “Headliners” interviews with local newsmakers that you’ll be able to view on our Vermont Standard THIS WEEK website. Also, we’re introducing a new show called “Inside Scoop”, which will give you an in-depth, insider look at the goings-on at many of the businesses and organizations that make our community so special.

At the Standard, we are trying to save a real newspaper that offers the powerful local journalism our community needs to function properly. Not a ghost paper. The Standard has to be good enough to get the job done now and survive in the long run. “Right-sizing” here does not mean a diminished publication that’s essentially worthless, as it does in so many communities throughout our nation. Here, it means being just big enough to provide the essential local journalism that contributes mightily to the quality of life in our community, and break even.

That’s the kind of Vermont Standard we are trying so hard to preserve, while setting things up so we can provide the quality local journalism our community needs well into the future.

I sincerely hope you’ll join us on this very important mission.

As we begin this year’s 2025 annual appeal, we are deeply appreciative of any financial help you can give us. Our mission is quite urgent, of course, and Phil Camp and I would be very grateful for an opportunity to meet with you to talk more about what’s needed and our plans. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at dcotter@thevermontstandard.com or (802) 457-1313.

Also, if you have a family foundation, please consider adding the Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation (EIN: 933287932) to the worthwhile causes you regularly support.

The Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation is a public charity so your gift will be fully tax-deductible.

Your donation will be utilized in the form of project grants to support the Vermont Standard’s mission to inform, connect, and educate our community on issues of public importance.

If you’re willing to make a tax-deductible donation to our 2025 Annual Appeal, please send a check to PO Box 88, Woodstock, VT 05091, or go to our Vermont Standard THIS WEEK website at thevermontstandard.com to make a contribution with your credit card. Be sure to make your check out to the “Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation.”

By Dan Cotter, publisher

It’s been said that there are very few things in life that you can always count on. But there are indeed a few, and I believe you’re holding one of them in your hands right now (or perhaps reading it on a screen).

For 172 years, the people of Woodstock, Hartland, Pomfret, Barnard, Bridgewater, Reading, West Windsor, Quechee, Plymouth, and the surrounding towns have counted on the Vermont Standard to keep watch on things in order to keep them informed, empowered, and connected. Our columnist, Dave Doubleday, replays some of the top stories of the day that took place 10, 20, 50, 75, or 100 years ago in each installment of his brilliant “Olde Woodstock” feature. It’s amazing and quite reassuring that people here were reading this same paper all those years ago simply to find out what’s happening.

Just as you are today.

All this time, citizens – informed by the Standard — were able to fully participate in their local democracy as our area progressed to the state it’s in today. What a huge responsibility it must have been, and still is today, to produce this newspaper each week. To prepare a quality news report to help readers experience and enjoy day-to-day life here and make good decisions for their community.

It’s the honor of a lifetime to be entrusted with this responsibility. The Standard has a small crew of talented, fair-minded, and underpaid journalists doggedly pursuing their mission week in and week out — trying to produce an interesting local news report that will inform, educate, and entertain the people who live here. It’s a “weekly miracle.” We start with a blank page each Wednesday afternoon, and we work tirelessly to pursue stories and produce the very best finished publication we can by the following Wednesday, so that it will be in your mailbox or at the store for you on Thursday.

In the century and a three-quarters that this paper has existed, this is our time, and our team is attempting to make a proud contribution to its legacy.

Ours certainly isn’t the easiest time to be a journalist in the Standard’s and our community’s history. This is a time of transition, when traditional forms of funding for local journalism have waned. Now, we have not only to strive to produce an excellent news report each week, but we also have to hold our breath that we’ll even be able to stay afloat.

An average of more than two newspapers fold in the U.S. each week (3,200 have vanished in the past twenty years!), leaving their communities without this kind of “glue” – without the common experience of reading in print or online about issues that affect them and their neighbors and a comprehensive set of facts for all to know about what’s happening in their local area each week.

Making matters worse, hundreds of other towns throughout the nation now only have a “ghost newspaper” that is so financially compromised it can barely cover any local news in its meager news product.

Some people – perhaps taking a page from the playbook being used at the national level – might prefer that ours was a weaker, sleepier paper and that they could exert some kind of pressure to compromise the Standard’s coverage.

But they’re mistaken. It hasn’t worked in 172 years, and we won’t let it happen now. Count on it.

We’ve had many complex (and interesting!) local stories to cover just in this past year — news that people here are counting on us to follow and explain. From the Woodstock Foundation lawsuit, to school policy, budget and reorganization issues, to Peace Field Farm, to the water company purchase, to short-term rental ordinances, to the police chief demotion, to the proposed cell phone tower and farm outlet store in Hartland, to the ECFiber case, to the ongoing housing and child care shortages, to the impact of federal funding cuts on local organizations. And we’ve had many milestones and achievements to celebrate, from our football state championship team, to our local priest’s 50^th anniversary of his ordination, to the resurgence of Bookstock, to local artists and authors who released their latest works, to this year’s graduates, to a pair of brothers who achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, to the dedication and resilience shown by those remarkable protesters in Woodstock. Even the announcement of plans for a new performing arts center, and the sighting of low-flying military planes over Woodstock. Those stories aren’t easy or inexpensive to cover, but like the journalists at the Standard who were our predecessors throughout those many, many years, it’s our solemn responsibility to inform the public about the public’s business, the very best we can.

Indeed, we can, primarily because we now have the support of hundreds of residents and readers who truly understand and value what quality local journalism does — and has always done — for our community here. They respond to our annual appeal each year. They keep us afloat. They keep us encouraged. They harden our resolve to try ever harder to serve this community and this local democracy. We count on all of you.

Oftentimes, I’ve asked individual donors, “What can we possibly do to thank you for your generosity?” And, to a person, they always say, “Just keep putting out a darn good newspaper.”

In appreciation for you, our friends, the Standard has only one single objective and guiding light going forward: to keep trying to put out a better and better paper each week in service to this community.

You can count on us.

As we begin this year’s annual appeal, we are deeply appreciative of any financial help you can give us. Our mission is quite urgent, of course, and Phil Camp and I would be very grateful for an opportunity to meet with you to talk more about what’s needed and our plans. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at dcotter@thevermontstandard.com or (802) 457-1313.

We sincerely hope you’ll join us in our mission by contributing to this year’s 2025 annual appeal.

Also, if you have a family foundation, please consider adding the Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation (EIN: 93-3287932) to the worthwhile causes you regularly support.

The Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation is a public charity so your gift will be fully tax-deductible.

Your donation will be utilized in the form of project grants to support the Vermont Standard’s mission to inform, connect, and educate our community on issues of public importance.

If you’re willing to make a tax-deductible donation to our 2025 Annual Appeal, please send a check to PO Box 88, Woodstock, VT 05091, or go to our Vermont Standard THIS WEEK website at www.thevermontstandard.com to make a contribution with your credit card. Be sure to make your check out to the “Woodstock Region Journalism Foundation.”

“View From Here”

By Sandy Gilmour, Woodstock resident

If you are reading this column right now, that’s good news for the community. It means you probably paid for this paper, hard copy or online, maybe even made a donation to it, and value its contribution to our lives in Woodstock and surrounding areas. We are so fortunate to have the Vermont Standard week in and week out. For years, small-town dailies and weeklies have been closing their doors, leaving communities without a soul. Papers like the Standard are dying off at the rate of two per week across America. 

Such towns are called “news deserts.” Imagine weeks, months and years going by with no professional reporting on selectboards, trustees, school boards, taxes and roads. Zero stories about public school events, sports, student accomplishments, obituaries, gardening tips, neighborly cooking advice, local history, and no reports from towns from Brownsville to Pomfret. 

We would know next to nothing about the interminable Peace Field Farm restaurant delay, the Ottauquechee Trail head fiasco, the high-stakes Woodstock Foundation controversy and the fatal shooting off Central Street, including the bravery of Woodstock Police Sgt. Joe Swanson. In my view, these stories have been really well reported. 

To not get these stories delivered to us every week would be a news desert right in verdant Woodstock, for sure, a gaping hole left to be filled by rumor and mis- and dis-information, the precursors of community dissolution. So we are blessed indeed to have had the Vermont Standard around — nonstop — since 1853, and owned by beloved Woodstocker Phil Camp, now 87, since 1981. 

But as Mr. Camp has pointed out many times over the years, the paper’s solvency hangs on a thread and now more than ever. In hundreds of towns across America, owners, beleaguered by losing subscribers and advertising to social media, simply folded or sold out to hedge funds and private equity firms, whose investors are bereft of community values. Not Phil Camp. He has always said, “I never sold out. I’m never giving up.” He made up for past deficits (difference between expenses, like staff, and income from subscriptions and ads) out of company savings from better times, week after week. He stayed with it after being flooded out by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and being burned out by the Central Street fire of 2018 (taking out his camera and snapping photos of the flames and rubble).

The paper was in dire straits when COVID hit, saved by the forgiven federal PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans through 2021, when the largesse ended. Then beginning in January 2022, the community stepped up, responding to a fundraising appeal. I was rather stunned to learn from the Standard’s publisher, Dan Cotter, that the paper’s annual shortfall of $150,000-$200,000 is being covered by donations from local Woodstock residents. There are many (and appreciated) donations in the $50-$100-$200 range, but really heavy lifting is being done by donors of means who, Mr. Cotter says, highly value the contribution local journalism makes to communities. Several of these more-than-generous and anonymous donors contribute $20-25,000 and more — each — and, Mr. Cotter says, without any hint of trying to influence coverage. Without them, surely there would be no Vermont Standard in the mailbox or online, just the unreliable grapevine. At the same time, the paper is moving to create other revenue streams, including an online advertising app for Woodstock happenings and a magazine, in addition to improving thevermontstandard.com website for go-to news. 

Still, the operation is bare bones. It seems to me a miracle the paper “hits the streets” without fail every Thursday with some pretty good and important stories that we need to know about, and many features that are good to know about. And there are just two, count them, two, full-time staffers who report stories: the seasoned and prolific Tom Ayres, and Tess Hunter, who is also the managing editor. Ms. Hunter says reporter staffing is the big issue; she has on hand freelance contract reporters that can be assigned to stories if they are available and if they want to spend the evening at yet another unexciting if important selectboard meeting. “It’s a constant juggling act,” Ms. Hunter told me, “between finding the right person for the story and just getting people to say ‘yes.’” Still, she is committed, saying, “Without us making the attempt, there would be no common base of understanding and little sense of the community spirit of the area or the hard news happening within it.”

Volunteer contributors are crucial; regular community writers like Jennifer Falvey (insightful musings on life) and Kurt Stauder (pointed political observations) are popular. Mary Lee Camp’s business column is relentlessly informative. 

Other key staff are listed in the box below — lean and spare!

Publisher and editorial content director Dan Cotter, 64, hired by Mr. Camp in 2018 after years of informal consulting for the Standard, is not a household name in Woodstock, though he is hands-on every issue. He owns a condo in the area and is here about half the month, returning to his home and wife in Chicago for the remainder. He has decades in the industry as an executive and consultant, was head of the New England Newspaper and Press Association, and takes a no-nonsense hard line on newspaper independence and objectivity. It’s an unusual situation but Mr. Camp, still the president of the company, has total confidence in Mr. Cotter and has turned over the Vermont Standard, its operation, assets and its future, to his close friend. Mr. Camp has indeed not “given up,” but hopes to ensure his dear newspaper’s future with this arrangement. 

So where does the Standard go now? Around the country, journalists are reinventing newspapers and online reporting. The most promising seems to be the non-profit model, where deductible contributions from community-minded supporters can be made even as the publication accepts subscription fees and what advertising there is left. There are indications that the Standard is moving in this direction, and the sooner the better, in my view. When I pressed Publisher Cotter on the issue, he responded with this very encouraging comment: 

“In the past couple of years, members of the community have literally kept the Standard alive with their donations — and a handful of them have given very substantial sums, even without the benefit of a tax break. That’s how much they value the role our local journalism plays in the quality of life in our area. We are working now to put the paper on a path to where donors could indeed have a tax benefit. For it is essential to our democracy and our own survival that we have the financial support we need from the community to maintain a news organization — modest as it is — that’s capable of producing good local journalism that adequately informs our citizens.”

I can’t imagine Woodstock without the Vermont Standard. The new business model provides great hope the paper will not only survive but as a Woodstock-based non-profit, continue to expand coverage to benefit all of us in this great community. 

Note: This (unpaid) column originated with me alone! 

Sandy Gilmour is a retired NBC News correspondent who lives in Woodstock.

Throughout the country newspapers are in a fight for their lives.          Here too.

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