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An artist uses his skills to create packaging for a Middlebury beverage. See Arts + Leisure.
Get a peek into one of the state’s biggest industries at the upcoming Vermont Farm Show. Page 12A.
One player set a record, but all the Tigers contributed in a win over Otter Valley. See Page 1B.
ADDISON COUNTY
INDEPENDENT
Vol. 72 No. 3
Middlebury, Vermont
Thursday, January 18, 2018
40 Pages
$1.00
Porter creates new blueprint for future growth on campus
List includes office building, bigger lab
Art as community
STREET ARTIST WILL “Kasso” Condry works with Middlebury Union Middle School students Clare Molineaux, left, Zora Duquette-Hoffman and Lia Robinson on a mural in the school Tuesday afternoon. Condry, the former Alexander Twilight artist-in-residence at Middlebury College, is working with college J-Term students and MUMS art students on the mural depicting Rosa Parks. See story on Page 10A. Independent photo/Trent Campbell
Bursting VUHS pipes shut gym, flood halls
By ANDY KIRKALDY VERGENNES — Flooding due to frozen pipes in the Vergennes Union High School sprinkler system has twice struck the building, most recently on Monday in the main VUHS hallway — but more seriously back on Jan. 2, when water damage to the school’s main gymnasium floor will put the gym mostly out of service for the next six weeks. On Monday, a sprinkler pipe froze and then burst over the VUHS health office, just off the main hallway connecting the school’s two wings,
at about 5:30 p.m. As a result, water flooded into that office, into the cafeteria next door, out into the hallway, and into the guidance suite across the corridor. Confusion momentarily reigned when the incident automatically triggered the school’s alarm system and a school evacuation, including a full middle school gym that was hosting junior varsity and varsity boys’ basketball games set to begin at 5:30 p.m. Principal Stephanie Taylor (See VUHS burst pipes, Page 14A)
Merger of Whiting, Leicester Sudbury schools put to vote By LEE J. KAHRS BRANDON — The Otter Valley Unified Union School Board has approved a proposed 2018-19 school budget that would combine the district’s three small schools — Leicester Central, Whiting
Elementary and Sudbury Country schools — and move the Caverly Preschool to Lothrop Elementary in Pittsford. The proposed $19,223,835 spending plan, approved at a Jan. (See Merger vote, Page 7A)
By JOHN FLOWERS helping PMC take inventory of its MIDDLEBURY — Porter Medical current assets, determine how those Center has completed a long-range assets could be improved, and propose facilities plan that recommends a new facilities to help Porter better fulfill series of capital projects its mission of providing for the next decade “Our current ‘front a variety of health care that include a new door,’ the entrance services to Addison medical office building, County residents. Porter a more modern to the old brick Medical Center includes emergency department, hospital building, Porter Hospital, Helen expanded lab and is a mess. The Porter Healthcare & imaging facilities, stairs are handicap Rehabilitation and 12 and a renovated front inaccessible, the affiliated physicians’ entrance to the hospital. practices in Middlebury, doors are heavy The new “University Bristol, Brandon and of Vermont Health and manual. I Vergennes. Network — Porter routinely rescue Porter has long Medical Center Master patients and maintained a wish list Facility Planning families trying to of projects to modernize Priorities” document get up and down its South Street campus is the product of six in Middlebury, but months of “meeting, the stairs.” its affiliation with — Dr. Fred Kniffin UVM Health Network talking and thinking about our current last year has greatly facilities and future needs,” Porter increased the prospects of some of President/CEO Dr. Fred Kniffin said those dreams becoming reality. during a recent interview. “When (affiliation) became official Kniffin credited a group of architects, last April, we paused and said, ‘Even planners and project managers for (See Porter, Page 11A)
Middlebury professor is ‘Taken’ with new role College’s Draper cast in vital supporting part in episode of NBC TV action series By JOHN FLOWERS Jan. 19, at 9 p.m., when he guest MIDDLEBURY — A lot of folks stars on an episode of NBC TV’s wouldn’t mind walking a few miles action drama “Taken.” The hourin Alexander Draper’s shoes. long thriller follows the exploits of Most days, this associate Bryan Mills (played by actor Clive professor of theater can be found Standen), a former Green Beretimparting the finer turned-deadly-CIApoints of acting to eager, “I was in New operative. aspiring thespians at York and did Standen plays a Middlebury College, younger version of the Draper’s own alma enough good same character made mater. The prodigal son work to the famous by Liam Neeson returned to Middlebury point where in three “Taken” films, more than a decade people really the first installment of ago after having spent know who I which saw Mills rescue 15 years displaying his daughter from a sex am.” his acting chops and slave racket in Europe. — Alex Draper paying his dues in the Mills famously City that Never Sleeps. warned his daughter’s It is that earned reputation that captors of his “very particular, and keeps earning Draper gigs on the very dangerous, set of skills” that stage, television and the big screen. he eventually unleashed on the bad And Addison County residents guys. Those skills are now on full will have a chance to see the local display in the TV series. professor in action on Friday, (See Taken, Page 7A)
CLIVE STANDEN, RIGHT, has to protect a character played by Middlebury College professor and Middlebury resident Alex Draper, left, in tomorrow night’s episode of the NBC television program “Taken.”
Courtesy of NBC
‘Making’ a difference for local inventors
By the way
Group eyes makers’ space for aspiring entrepreneurs By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury-area entrepreneurs and educators will spend the next few months gauging community support for establishing a “makers’ space” at the Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center. That new amenity would provide aspiring inventors with the equipment, facilities and guidance they need to get their original projects off the drawing board and into prototype form. The idea is being spearheaded by local product designer/ engineer David Cole and Hannaford Superintendent Dana Peterson. They are part of a group that includes business leaders and career center faculty, including Architecture & Engineering Systems Instructor Jake Burnham and Len Schmidt, assistant director of adult technical education. Area residents can learn more about the potential makers’ space at a “Mini Maker Faire” at the career center on Feb. 15 from 4 to 7 p.m. That event will coincide with a Hannaford open house that will run from 4 to 8 p.m. It was last July that Cole visited Peterson at the career center to ask about possibly siting a makers’ space in (See Space, Page 11A)
This weekend dogsled racing returns to Vermont for the first time in 30 years, and Middlebury dogsledder Doug Butler and his dogs will be competing as he preps to complete his lifelong dream of racing in Alaska this March. The competitions in the Lamoille (See By the way, Page 14A)
Index Obituaries................................. 6A Classifieds.......................... 5B-9B Service Directory............... 6B-7B Entertainment.........Arts + Leisure Community Calendar......... 8A-9A Arts Calendar.........Arts + Leisure Sports................................. 1B-3B
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN DAVID Cole, left, and Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center Superintendent Dana Peterson are leading an effort to create a makers’ space within the center to encourage students and area inventors.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell