TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011
VOL. 19 NO. 204
BERLIN, N.H.
752-5858
FREE
Opposition to proposed teachers’ School board contract prevails at GRS meeting learns about bullying BY CRAIG LYONS THE BERLIN DAILY SUN
GORHAM— While voters Thursday night approved the operating budget for the Gorham Randolph Shelburne Cooperative School District, they overwhelming voted against a proposed four-year teachers’ contract. Residents of the three communities voted 223 to 37 to not approve the proposed four- year teachers’ contract during the district’s annual meeting. Many voters spoke out against the proposed contract during the hearing, though no one spoke in favor of it. Even though the contract approved last year still stands, the school board put this proposal forward since
it would forgo raises in 2011-2012 and save an English teaching position. The proposal came under fire because of the length of the contract and the raises included for the last three years of it. In year two, there would be a 3.65 percent increase, totaling about $74,503; in year three, there would be a 3.54 percent increase for a total of $46,058; and the final year, there would be a 4.5 percent increase for about $92,634. Gorham resident Sue Demers said too many things are unknown about the future of the state aid and grants the school system gets from the state and the see OPPOSITION page 3
Berlin woman killed in Route 16 crash BY CRAIG LYONS THE BERLIN DAILY SUN
JACKSON— A Berlin woman died Saturday during an accident on Route 16 in Jackson. N.H. State Police, Troop E, reported that Doreen Bilodeau, 54, of Berlin, died as a result of injuries suffered when she lost control of her car, due to icy road
conditions, and collided with another vehicle, according to a press release. Two other people were injured during the crash though police say they suffered nonlife threatening injuries. State police and the N.H. Police Technical Accident Reconstruction Team are still investigating the crash. see CRASH page 3
BY BARBARA TETREAULT THE BERLIN DAILY SUN
BERLIN – One in three public school children will be affected by bullying and students rate it a bigger problem than drugs, HIV, and racism in their schools. Those were a few of the facts and statistics Berlin school board members learned Thursday night from a presentation on the topic by Sue Buteau of UNH Cooperative Extension. The district approved a new policy on bullying earlier this fall to comply with a new state law that took effect July 1. Superintendent Corinne Cascadden said the district is now in the process of implementing that policy. A timeline has been set and training of staff is underway. Buteau credited the district with doing a tremendous job putting its plan in place. Bullying causes emotion distress, physical see BULLYING page 8
Fictional paper mill is scene of new novel BY GAIL SCOTT THE BERLIN DAILY SUN
Ron Roy, 57, of Berlin, was at the White Mountain Cafe Bookstore Sunday for an author reading and book signing of his first published novel, “Passing Time,” a story that takes place largely in a mill that seems a lot like the Cascade mill, at a time in the 1970s that seems a lot like the years that Roy worked in the mill. Other scenes are a lot like life in Berlin. Roy, who grew up in Berlin, BHS 1971, insists that the book is fiction. “I have a good imagination,” he says. (GAIL SCOTT PHOTO)
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BERLIN—”He plunged through the doorway and into the corridor as it stretched before him for what seemed like miles. Brick walls and machinery gave way to excess paper in the warehouse, rolls six feet in diameter and ten feet wide, stacked to the ceiling, canyon walls clear to the exit, where the lights of the parking lot glittered, promising safety and sanity and a dozen other things that he’d always taken for granted . . . “ So begins “Passing Time,” Ron Roy’s just published, fast-moving novel that takes place in a town very much like Berlin in a paper mill very much like the Cascade mill. The novel’s protagonist, Gene Wheeler, learns much more than he bargained for in his time working in the mill for “The Company” and readers won’t want to put the book down before the denouement of his story. The scenes will be familiar to people who have grown up in Berlin, as Roy did, and who have been in the Cascade mill, where Roy, now 57, worked summers in the 1970s when
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