Volume 20, Number 17
Serving Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall
www.TownTimes.com
Friday, August 15, 2014
Town institutes moratorium on herbicides By Charles Kreutzkamp Town Times
More than 15 residents attended the Board of Selectmen’s meeting in Durham Aug. 11 with concerns about herbicides and pesticides. First Selectman Laura Francis invited the residents to attend and said that an agenda item would be added to an upcoming council meeting to allow the creation of a special task force that will consider the town’s options regarding the usage of such chemicals and other methods to accomplish tasks necessary for the town, including road maintenance. See Herbicides / Page 9
The Pour Tour stops in Durham By Mark Dionne Town Times
When Todd Ruggere stopped at Durham’s Time Out Taverne on Sunday, Aug. 3 for a beer he was not there to relax. The stop, and specifically the beer, put Ruggere one step closer to completing his goal of drinking a beer in every town in Connecticut while raising money for charity. Ruggere’s goal is to complete the Connecticut tour in 2014, and Durham was stop number 154 of the state’s 169 towns. Ruggere, who lives in Grafton, Massachusetts, completed what he calls the Pour Tour of Massachusetts in 2013. He had a beer in all 351 towns and raised more than $38,000 for pediatric cancer research at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. As Ruggere described the start of his project, “I was looking randomly at a map of Massachusetts and all the See Tour / Page 7
Campers dressed in full armor raise their do-it-yourself weapons in defense of their cardboard castle. | Mark Dionne / Town Times
Cardboard brings fantasy to life in Middlefield By Mark Dionne Town Times
The Middlefield Community Center and its surrounding grounds were transformed into battlefields, fantasy landscapes, design studios, and homes for mythological creatures as a group of local children became knights, wizards, and kings for four days, from Aug. 4-7. The program, called “Dungeons, Dragons, and Duct Tape,” attracted more than 20 children in grades 5-9. Cardboard was a central feature of the camp, so much so that many of the participants called it “Cardboard Camp.” Campers made weapons, armor, mazes, creatures, a dragon, and a castle with a working drawbridge out of cardboard. The camp was run by Durham Middlefield Youth & Family Services, Heather Kannam of Durham, and a
crew of supervisors with a grant from the Coginchaug Valley Education Foundation. Betsy Dean, Executive Director of DMYFS, said, “I wanted to offer a program that was pure fun, no stress, just being as creative as they can be. I think this program hit all of those buttons.” Campers fought with cardboard weapons and played capture the flag with cardboard dungeons. Campers choose new names and identities. Justin Palardy, a 10-yearold from Rockfall, became a wizard named Galactic Caster. “I thought it would be a good idea,” Justin explained. When asked his favorite part of the camp, Justin said, “All of it. I can’t pick a favorite.” The same question drew a similar response from Justin’s twin brother Logan, who went by the camp name Sky Warrior. “I like everything,” Logan said.
Logan created what he called “a pick ax with a spear thing” and, like his brother, pointed to the spikes running up the cardboard dragon’s back as something he liked working on. The winged and spiked dragon was the largest but not the only animal at “Dungeons, Dragons, and Duct Tape.” Each camper received a spirit animal and had to create its identity and home. Michael Burford of Durham, who went by Dracodeus, carried his spirit animal, an altered stuffed snake, around camp because his snake did not need to stay in a home. “We made habitats and I didn’t want to make a big habitat so I made him a cyborg so he could download his habitat,” Michael said. The donated cardboard allowed campers to indulge creative whims See Cardboard / Page 5