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FEATURES
When Tedd Benson landed in New England as a young carpenter, he began working on old timber frame buildings in Massachusetts. He soon became enthralled by the “old way of building.”
The Check-Up newsletter
I have such fond memories of volunteering with my mom when I was a kid. She’d take me with her to count ballots on Election Day or to pick out…
A few weeks ago, I came down with a nasty cold.
For people recovering from substance-use disorders, it can be hard to find sober activities.
Roll out the red carpet for Pierce Elementary School of Bennington, New Hampshire. Students from Jennifer Sutton’s third-grade class were feat…
The words “conservation” and “development” are not often used in the same sentence. But a project in the works in the Peterborough woods is bl…
Galloway Real Estate
Nuttin’ Ordinary
When Tedd Benson landed in New England as a young carpenter, he began working on old timber frame buildings in Massachusetts. He soon became e…
COLUMNS
Minding Your Business
I made a number of predictions to start the year. Not among them was a protracted war in Ukraine that included conducting war crimes as a strategy. I expected Russia to invade Ukraine. But like most, I also expected a quick end to the conflict with the world returning to its previous state o…
When you get to be my age, you get reflective. Recently Bill Mahr hosted a guest named Johann Eduard Hari on his TV show. I had never heard of the gentleman, nor would I vouch for the validity of his work. Nonetheless, the subject of his latest book, “Stolen Focus” intrigued me on multiple levels.
The calendar has turned another page. That means it’s time to reflect upon the year that was and the year that will be. As for the year that was, grade-wise, I’d give my prognostications a borderline B: directionally correct, but the timing was slightly off.
No, you haven’t been transported into the Twilight Zone, where you’re living in a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” That darkened mass in the sky is not a flock of birds; it’s all the free money the Federal Reserve and the Biden Administration are dumping from helicopters.
Young Entrepreneur
Mary Potter O’Neill, 32, creator of Billies & Tilli of Keene, lives in Harrisville with her husband, Brian, a talented welder. She grew up in Jaffrey, attended Conant High School and then went off to college at Suffolk University in Boston. After about two years there, she decided to tra…
Megan Lagaso Hercher & Will Hercher
Alexis Drury, 27, of Keene, has lived in this area her whole life, only moving away briefly for a year. She graduated from Monadnock High School in 2012 and then went on to Keene State College for management and communication and graduated in 2016. After college, she got her real estate lice…
The Business Next Door
Karen Guastella of Keene, owner of Karen’s Kosmic Cookies, had been selling her cookie mixes at a few local stores and craft fairs before the pandemic hit last winter.
The struggles facing communities dealing with the impact of COVID-19 on personal lives, jobs and businesses are well documented. With this in mind, the organizers of Radically Rural, the summit that showcases ideas of importance to small cities and towns, will stage its event this year on on…
The staff at Good Fortune in Keene NH.
Galloway real estate staff on the steps in front of their office in Walpole, N.H.
Ashley Beppel arrived in Keene almost six years ago, completely unfamiliar with the area and knowing nobody.
Kristin Brooks is something of a matchmaker, not for affairs of the heart, but for professional development.
Just about four years ago, Vanessa Calkins took a leap.
WESTMINSTER, Vt. — On a damp, gray February morning, Crystal Card’s office is a spot of warmth on a Westminster hillside.
Drew Dodson has always enjoyed tackling problems.
The Green Scene
At Keene State College, sustainability is more than just about recycling or reducing water usage on campus.
The Monadnock Sustainability Hub has a lofty goal. It wants to help communities across the Monadnock Region meet all their energy needs with renewable energy by 2030. As if that’s not lofty enough, the Hub hopes to see all of the region’s heating and transportation needs met by renewables by 2050.
At Antioch University New England, ecological stewardship and social justice are two of the cornerstones of the educational foundation that underlies the school’s graduate programs. Perhaps the other two cornerstones are the university’s faculty and the people from around the world who trave…
Five towns in the Monadnock Region — Peterborough, Sharon, Rindge, Hancock and Fitzwilliam — were the first participants in Monadnock Energy Hub’s “Solarize Monadnock” campaign. Solarize Monadnock is a community-based solar energy group purchasing campaign that makes solar more accessible an…
Expert Tips
Translating cutting-edge, highly-technical ideas to the world from a rural landscape seems ironic. Yet that kind of entrepreneurship is exactly what’s possible in New Hampshire and Vermont, what’s continuing to develop here, and now what’s needed living in the “new normal.”
It seems like passive investing — index and exchange-traded funds — have won the performance battle in today’s financial market. Trillions of investment dollars now rest in massive pools, while investors question why they pay active managers anything for investment advice.
High stress workplaces are like psychological Petri dishes; they are perfect places to grow nasty things.
At the end of June of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, or the “internet sales tax case,” which overturned its prior case law that required “physical presence” before a state could subject a retailer to its sales tax collection and remittance l…
Start-Up Corner
In the face of COVID-19, pressure on a global scale has made it obvious that a changed economy is imminent. On a local level, businesses are confronting an “innovate or exit” reality and are thinking carefully about their next steps. Hope, it seems, lives in an altered, or could we even say …
On a pleasant spring day a few years ago, Jill Carson was enjoying some outdoor play time with her granddaughter. The focus of the play: bubbles. It was fun, but with her instinctive sense of quality control, Carson noticed that the bubbles and the medium of play were generally deficient. Th…
Suzanna Kamphuis’ startup, TotumVos, produces and sells multi-collagen chews in Keene. Collagen, if you weren’t sure, is the most common protein found in the body, offering support to everything from bones to skin.
JAFFREY — Some days you’re the windshield. Some days you’re the bug.
The No. 4 ranked Keene State College men’s basketball team recovered from an 11-point first-half deficit to lead by five with 10:21 to go, and…
Keene State sophomore Octavio Brito dribbles toward Middlebury’s basket during the final minutes of their game Monday night at Keene State. Mi…
Keene State junior Nate Siow dribbles up to Middlebury’s basket before passing to a teammate in the first half of their game at Keene State Mo…
SWANZEY CENTER — The Monadnock girls basketball team led wire to wire defeating Hopkinton, 45-42 at home Thursday night.
The art of leadership, Jeff Hunter has learned, is part natural, part learned.
DUBLIN — The Keene girls Nordic ski team won the season-opening race at the Dublin Nordic Center on Thursday.
Main Street 2.0
When people talk about downtown Keene, they use words like “vibrant,” and “vital.”
A small New Hampshire downtown fights back rising tide of online shopping, absentee landlords and years of Main Street vacancies
While Webster might associate “malaise” with depression, dejection and good old ennui, Marlborough’s Malaise is having quite the opposite effect.
It’s all about the bones. The bones of the old buildings in Bellows Falls, Vermont. That’s what’s bringing back this town in Windham County that went through some bumps, scrapes and bruises for almost 100 years.
TALK OF THE TOWN
SULLIVAN, NH — The Sullivan Country Store will partner with The Local Crowd Monadnock to launch a crowdfunding campaign on February 7, 2022. This campaign will raise funds to reopen the Sullivan Country Store. Community-based general stores provide critical “third places” for residents to ga…
GILSUM, NH — W.S. Badger Company (Badger), a manufacturer of reef-friendly mineral sunscreen and personal care products, has unveiled its first-ever brand refresh, including a new visual identity, tagline and packaging. The sleek, modernized, and streamlined branding is designed to convey Ba…
CAMPTON, NH — Holistic NH LLC has launched its website, holisticnh.org, where more than 1,500 practitioners in the state are freely listed and searchable by name, location and category. “It is our intention to bring the holistic community to the attention of the public through a highly acces…
KEENE, NH —Good Fortune Jewelry & Pawn celebrates its 30th birthday this Valentine’s Day. Founded by Roger and Maddie Weinreich (pictured), the store on Main Street has become a hub of activity for locals and tourists alike. The company’s long-standing reputation and expansive collection…
SPECIAL SECTION
Radically Rural kicks off its first-ever online event on Sept. 24 at 8 a.m. Event hosts, The Hannah Grimes Center and The Keene Sentinel hope the event will incite the sharing and shaping of ideas that will drive change, prosperity, sustainability and connection in and among small towns and …
Depending upon what type of farmer you talk to, the pandemic has been either a boon or bane for the business of agriculture.
What started as a “rosy” year has taken an unprecedented and historic turn with the threat and reality of COVID-19 sweeping through the region.
Right off the bat, the nonprofit sector was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, with 92% of those organizations who responded to a New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits survey said that they’d had a loss in revenue, more than 61% of responders having suspended some operations and more than…
Med Kopczynski, Keene’s director of economic development initiatives and special projects, says progress may have slowed due to the pandemic, but projects are not being canceled or shelved. He notes that the city has a list of capital improvement projects that could become candidates for pot…
The COVID-19 data on the hospitality industry is dire, catastrophic, really, with $800 million lost so far since the pandemic reached New Hampshire; roughly half of the industry’s 70,000 employees have been laid off or furloughed, according to New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association…
The spring 2020 season was forecasted to be a tornado of transactions in the real estate market with eager buyers waiting to snap up new listings. However, for locals, coronavirus has disrupted or perhaps just delayed that prediction.
The Monadnock girls' basketball team came out strong in Swanzey on Tuesday night and took a one-point lead into halftime.
After three weeks of stagnation, the Keene State College men’s basketball team moved up two places in the latest D3hoops.com poll, it was anno…
Host Keene fended off 23 teams from New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts to win the annual Minickiello Invitational wrestling meet …
It was a four-point difference heading into the fourth quarter in Friday’s matchup between the Keene girls basketball team and Londonderry, an…
JAFFREY — The Conant girls basketball team knew coming in that it was going to be a battle against Concord Christian.
Photos from the Keene hockey doubleheader at Keene Ice Wednesday. The girls team beat St. Thomas Aquinas, 5-2, to start the evening, then the …