Monday, Sept. 25, 2017new

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MONDAY EDITION

ADDISON COUNTY

INDEPENDENT

Vol. 29 No. 23

Middlebury, Vermont

Monday, September 25, 2017

• Canadian guitarist’s acoustic blues embodies the spirit of Americana, ala Chet Atkins and Kelly Joe Phelps. He’s at Brandon Music, Sept. 30. See Arts Beat, Page 10.

• Vermont Supreme Court ruling OKs pipeline’s path through Hinesburg park. See Page 3.

King earns VNRC’s Art Gibb award

Schools take on hurricane relief VERGENNES UNION HIGH School students participate in the school’s annual Peace One Day event held on the school’s baseball field last Thursday afternoon.

Independent photo/Trent Campbell

• Tiger football was looking to reach .500, while also on Friday Eagle girls’ soccer visited MUHS. See Pages 16-18.

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By GAEN MURPHREE BURLINGTON — Hearings, discussions and debates are well underway for the 2018 Farm Bill, the massive legislation that drives federal farm and food policy — effectively touching almost every person in Vermont. “Now is the time. The nuts and bolts of putting this bill together is very much happening as we speak,” said Tom Berry, Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Vermont-based advisor on agricultural and natural resource issues. “The organizations that track this and represent a number of people certainly in Addison County are coming in on a regular basis to our state offices and into Washington along with their national partners to say, ‘Here’s the agenda for forestry in the farm bill;’ ‘Here’s what we need to be doing on nutrition;’ and so on — so it’s very active right now.” While local dairy farmers are already tracking changes to such components as the Margin Protection Program, a muchcriticized part of the 2014 Farm (See Farm bill, Page 32)

Vermont Gas wins court fight

Crucial games for local teams

32 Pages

Debate underway for 2018 Farm Bill

Adam Karch to play in Brandon

• Students at MUHS and VUHS are raising funds and gathering needed items. See Page 2.

Embracing peace at VUHS Students promote acceptance, diversity at annual event By ANDY KIRKALDY VERGENNES — Vergennes Union High School students Siobhan Eagan and Sarah Rathbun had a message for their peers when they took to the podium at the school’s annual Peace One Day celebration held Thursday. Eagan and Rathbun, two of many speakers

addressing staff members and many guests at an allschool assembly, sounded one of the day’s central themes: They asked students, in Eagan’s words, to fight the problem around the country of students being “subject to bullying and harassment for reasons such as their sexual orientation, gender, or who they chose (See Peace, Page 6)

By YVETTE SHI MIDDLEBURY — Facing President Donald Trump’s agressive agenda against environmental policies, it’s fitting the Vermont N a t u r a l Resources C o u n c i l honored Ripton resident Warren King for his lifetime of environmental stewardship this past Thursday. KING King, whose career has spanned the globe, now heralds action at the local level as the best course under the current administration. (See King, Page 31)


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