Congratulations to NHTI Women’s Soccer player, Stefani
Gauther, of Pittsfield who has been named to the 2015 YSCC Fall
All-Academic Team by the conference office. To be honored, an
individual must have achieved a grade point average of at least 3.2
for the fall semester and completed. Athletes recognized must have
completed their season of competition in the fall semester.
Celebrating 14
Years As A KOPS
(Keeping
Pounds off Sensibly)
Pat Smith of Pittsfield has maintained her goal weight for 14
years!!! She transferred to the Pittsfield Chapter of TOPS in
2002 and has served our Chapter in every board postion, currently
serving as our Treasurer.
Pat began her TOPS journey in 2001 in Epping and achieved her goal
weight in December of 2001. She has lowered her goal weight
several times and has worked hard to stay in leeway (7 lbs under
goal or 3 over goal).
She is always available to help any member, her generousity and
unselfishness knows no bounds! She works on every fundraiser,
presents programs at our chapter, attends workshops, officers events
and holds a position with the New Hampshire KOPS Honor Society.
She has received many Chapter awards, state awards and also designed
a charm for a charm bracelet for TOPS.
We at the Pittsfield Chapter of TOPS congratulate her on her 14
years of being a KOPS. We meet at Berakah on Tuesday nights
beginning at 5:30. Please contact Mickie at 269-7641 or April
at 630-3083 for more information.
Service
Observes Ash Wednesday
The First Congregational Church, 24 Main
Street, Pittsfield, will observe the beginning of Lent with an Ash
Wednesday service, February 10, 7 p.m. As part of the service, there
will be a time of prayer and reflection, the imposition of ashes and
Holy Communion. The Rev. David Stasiak will lead the service with
the addition of special music by the Chancel Choir and the
JuBellation Handbell Choir. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Lent is the beginning of the 40-day season
of repentance and preparation for the remembrance of the passion,
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It culminates on Easter
Sunday, March 27. Parking and wheelchair accessible entry are
available at the rear of the church building at Chestnut Street. For
more information, call the church office at 435-7471.
Pittsfield Players cast members pose while contemplating clues and
plot twists coming up in their March production of The Game’s Afoot.
Seated, from left, are Vicki Watson, Carole Neveux, Cathy Williams,
and Margot Keyes. Standing, from left, are Chad Boutin, Marty
Williams, Kim Tinkham, and Kevin Guimond. The award-winning
mystery/farce by Ken Ludwig is slated to show March 11, 12, 18, and
19 at 7:30 p.m. and March 20 at 2 p.m. at The Scenic Theatre, 6
Depot Street, Pittsfield, NH.
Letter To The
Editor
Dear Editor,
Grace Capital Church has opened a brand
new campus in Pittsfield! We are located at 55 Barnstead Rd (back of
the building) and have services every Sunday morning at 9:30 am. We
are excited to be in the community and can’t wait to get connected
more and more with the happenings in town.
On Friday, February 19, we will be hosting
a Family Movie Night at our church. It is open to anyone in the
community who would like to come out, see a movie, enjoy some
popcorn, candy, and drinks, and enjoy an evening together. The doors
will open at 5:30 and the movie starts at 6:00. Feel free to bring
your favorite comfortable chair, wear your slippers, and bring the
whole family. We will be watching the movie “Up”.
Sincerely,
Mike Mavity
Pittsfield Campus Pastor
Grace Capital Church
Letter
To Pittsfield voters,
I’m announcing my candidacy for a three
year term as selectman. Some of you may know me, many do not. This
letter is directed to those who don’t.
My parents were married in Hillsboro in
1951 and moved to Pittsfield that year. Dad worked in Concord and
later told me he thought this was the best town in the area and the
only one he considered when looking for a home. I was born in 1952
and graduated from PHS in 1970. With the exception of a dozen years
since, Pittsfield has been home.
After high school I drove an oil truck. In
1977 I started logging with a team of oxen, then horses, and finally
a skidder. In 1983 I got my real estate license and in ‘85 opened my
own agency in Pittsfield, which I operated until 1999. Since then
I’ve been a tractor trailer owner-operator. Self employment in these
fields has been challenging, but I made a living at all of them and
what I’ve learned along the way should prove invaluable in the
office of Selectman.
I have zero tolerance for spending waste,
excess, or indifference by those who spend “our” hard earned tax
dollars. If elected I won’t try to micro-manage town departments.
That said, any expenditure that comes before the Board must be
scrutinized for necessity. It may be small, but must still be
justified.
Pittsfield faces a staggering tax increase
this coming year. Our first half tax bills won’t reflect it, but
when the second bills come out in December - look out! This increase
will lower property values as well as hit property owners hard and
renters who get the increase passed on to them. Going forward things
MUST change!
Carl Anderson
Letter To The
Editor
I ran into my State Representative, the
Honorable Mike Brewster, last Saturday at my office on Main St. (in
between St. Stephens Church and the Veterans Memorial). He told me
the pumpkin bill (treating marijuana almost like a pumpkin) is dead.
It appears that due to the Maggie Hassan veto threat of any bills
dealing with legalization of marijuana, two other bills died also.
Maggie must be reading different
information than I. For example, I understand marijuana is not the
gateway drug that some folks think it is. It’s who you hang with. If
you hang with the desperados, you might be a desperado, however, if
you hang with the legislators, you might be a legislator.
Another point is, according to the State,
223,161 smoke pot in NH, 21% of adults. This is a civil rights
matter.
Maggie, you are no civil rights leader.
Something else I am learning on the
streets of Pittsfield, most people would rather have the freedom to
choose between a little weed or smoking a cigarette, drinking
alcohol, popping a pill, or doing nothing at all.
Dan Schroth Piermarocchi
Five
Generations!
On October 29, 2015, God blessed our
family with twins, Theodore Tyler and Adeline Juliette, born to
Tyler and Jaime Plourde of Woolrich, ME. Sharing in the love are
Great-great Grammie Tibbetts, Great grandparents Maxie and Bertie
Maxfield of Pittsfield, and Grandparents Steve and Denise Plourde of
Topsham, ME. Great-great Grammie T. will be celebrating her 99th
birthday on February 22nd. Pitctured above are: Great Grammie
Bertie, Grammie Denise, Great-great Gram T. and Dad Tyler with Theo
and Addy.
Members of the Victory Workers 4-H Club help Jr. Leader
Nathaniel Huse collect over 200 lbs of donations for the Pittsfield
Food Pantry as part of Nathan’s community service project.
Elected Officers of the Victory Workers 4-H Club for 2016:
Vice President Harrison Worster, Loudon; Secretary Sophie Worster,
Loudon; Treasurer Trinity Bond, Loudon; Reporter Derek Ladd, Epsom.
President Nathaniel Huse, Barnstead.
Pittsfield
School District
Strong Community,
Strong Schools
Submitted By John Freeman, Superintendent of Schools, SAU #51 During
Wednesday’s Budget Committee Hearing, the reputation of Pittsfield
and Pittsfield’s schools was raised. It’s true that Pittsfield
has been burdened with a less-than-sparkling public image at times.
And, it seems that regional media has seemed to dwell only on
Pittsfield’s challenges rather than on Pittsfield’s successes.
While it is not a duty of the school
district to change public’s perception of a community or its
schools, the innovative work that has taken place in recent years to
improve our students’ learning experiences in our schools has
resulted in unusual attention to our schools.
For example, did you know that:
• Governor Hassan singled out our high school as a model school in
her state-of-the-state address in 2014; she also mentioned the seven
districts in the performance assessment pilot project in this week’s
state-of-the-state address; Pittsfield is one of the seven; • PMHS
was identified as the fifth lowest achieving high school in the
state by the department of education in 2009; in 2014, the U.S. News
& World Report ranked PMHS as one of the top twenty high schools in
New Hampshire; • The Innovation Lab Network at the Council of Chief
State School Officers initiated a new project this past year to
highlight innovative schools in all states; New Hampshire is one of
the first four states to be featured; the New Hampshire story
focuses on our high school here in Pittsfield; take a look:
http://nextstateoflearning.com/states/new-hampshire/;
• Visitors have come from across the nation to see and talk about
our student-centered work at PMHS; for example, this week, we hosted
a group of school leaders from Missouri and next week we’ll be
hosting a group from Kearsarge Regional High School, which is here
in New Hampshire; we like to talk about the group of thirty charter
school leaders from Chicago who visited Pittsfield last year; their
thank-you was overnight shipment of Chicago deep-dish pizza for
everyone in the school; • PMHS has been featured in articles on the
national Competency Works blog, The Hechinger Report, and The
Atlantic; these can be accessed through our district website:
http://www.pittsfieldnhschools.org/;
• Our students, teachers, and
administrators have been regularly invited outside the district to
talk about our school; this includes, for example, student
presentations at national conferences in Dallas and Washington,
D.C.;
• The Nellie Mae Education Foundation has recently approved
funding for a twenty-minute video that tells the story of
student-centered learning in Pittsfield; this video will be widely
distributed to support the work of other districts nationwide that
are working to improve their schools in a manner similar to
Pittsfield’s.
Certainly, our schools are not perfect,
nor are they a precise image of school district vision; but the hard
school development work that’s been done by our faculty and staff,
strongly supported by our School Board and community, may be going a
long way to improving the public’s image of Pittsfield’s schools.
VA’s Polytrauma System Of Care Marks One
Million TBI Screenings Submitted Via Merrill Vaughan WASHINGTON –
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Polytrauma System of Care
(PSC) has hit the one million mark in screening Veterans for
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), often regarded as one of the signature
injuries of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. TBI symptoms such as
severe headaches, memory loss, reduced executive functioning, and
tinnitus can range from manageable to seriously disabling,
potentially limiting a Veteran’s ability to work and manage daily
living. Screening Veterans for TBI and helping them to deal with the
condition is one of the central programs of PSC.
Started in May 2005, PSC provides comprehensive and coordinated
rehabilitative care to Veterans with life-changing injuries,
including TBI, limb loss, blindness, hearing loss and tinnitus,
among others. PSC also assists with community re-entry needs.
It is fully coordinated with the Department of Defense to ensure
uninterrupted, seamless health care transition for those that served
on active duty.
Over these past 10 years, many
Servicemembers have returned home with injuries that would not have
been survivable in previous conflicts. Today, they not only survive,
they thrive, in large part due to PSC, a thoroughly Veteran-centric
VA program.
“The one million mark in TBI screenings
reflects VA’s success in building an integrated polytrauma care
program for wounded and injured Servicemembers and Veterans.” said
Dr. David J. Shulkin, VA Under Secretary for Health. “VA’s dedicated
polytrauma care teams recognize the importance of taking care of the
whole person and coordinating physical, mental and rehabilitative
care for Veterans suffering the most dramatic injuries of the war.”
VA employees created PSC to address the need for a comprehensive
multi-disciplinary system of care to help Veterans suffering with
two or more injuries considered disabling physical and psychological
impairments, such as blast injuries and traumatic amputations.
PSC patients have sustained injuries affecting multiple body parts
that result in physical, cognitive, psychological, and functional
disabilities. Frequently, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) occurs in
Polytrauma patients, as does Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),
and other mental health problems.
“The Polytrauma System of Care sets VA
apart from other health care systems,” said Dr. Joel Scholten,
National Director, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation for VA. “PSC
demonstrates VA’s unique understanding of the needs of Veterans and
the best way to support them in achieving well-being and their
personal life goals.”
VA has 110 Polytrauma rehabilitation sites
across the country, including 5 Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers
(comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation); 23 Polytrauma Network
Sites (comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation); and 87 Polytrauma
Support Clinic Teams (comprehensive outpatient rehabilitations).
Services available through PCS include interdisciplinary evaluation
and treatment, development of a comprehensive plan of care, case
management, patient and family education and training, psychosocial
support, and use of advanced rehabilitation treatments and
prosthetic technologies.
For more information about the Polytrauma System of Care, visit
www.polytrauma.va.gov/. A VA
blog post featuring Polytrauma System of Care may be found here.
Obituaries
Marguerite S. Genest
Pittsfield – Mrs. Marguerite S. Genest, also known by her family and
friends as “Midget” or “Midge,” went to join the Lord on Monday,
February 1, 2016. She passed away at the Concord Hospital
after a long chronic illness.
The daughter of Eva Wade Duclos and Arthur
Felix, she was born, raised, and spent her entire life in
Pittsfield.
When she was 34, her husband Maurice R, Genest, who was only 46,
passed away. She never remarried, always staying devoted to
her husband and the two daughters she raised on her own.
She was a former member of the Pittsfield VFW and each year would
march in the Pittsfield Memorial Day parade in honor of her husband
and others who served in foreign wars. She was employed at the
Pittsfield Cotton Mill, Pittsfield Shoe Shop, Thomas Hodgson & Sons
in Allenstown, and spent 29 years with Globe Manufacturing, retiring
at 82 because of medical issues. Up until the time of her
passing, she wished she was still working at Globe Manufacturing.
She loved her job, the company, and her co-workers and couldn’t
praise the company or its owners enough.
After her husband died, she started her own housekeeping business,
which she ran for 15 years. She also had a cultivated
blackberry patch, where she picked 72 quarts of berries each season,
sharing them with family, friends, and neighbors and selling them to
a local farm stand and the Pittsfield IGA.
What she most enjoyed were pets, birds, Word Find puzzles, flowers,
and spending quality time with her family. She was always a
giving person, never asking for anything in return.
She was a member of Our Lady of Lourdes
Catholic Church in Pittsfield.
In addition to her husband, Maurice R.
Genest, she was predeceased by her son, Steven M. Genest; her
brother, Arthur Brasley; and her mother, Eva Wade Duclos.
She is survived by her two daughters,
Sharon M. Genest of Pittsfield and Susan D. Eastman and her husband
Ricky L. of Cabot, VT; a grandson, Derek L. Eastman and his wife
Linda of West Danville, VT; a granddaughter, Nicole Mangan and her
husband Benjamin of Carthage, NY; 5 great grandchildren, Shamus,
Anastasia, Marie, Troy, and Hunter; a brother, Henry E. Duclos of
Etna Green, IN; and cousins, nieces and nephews.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at Our Lady of Lourdes
Church in Pittsfield. Burial will take place in the Mt.
Calvary Cemetery in Pittsfield.
Since she was passionate about pets and
animals in need of a home, memorial donations should be made to NH
Humane Society, 1305 Meredith Center Road, PO Box 572, Laconia, NH
03246, in lieu of flowers.
An on-line guestbook is available at
stilloaks.com.
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