REMINDER
Suncook
Valley
Soccer
Club
Registration is now open for the Fall 2018 Season!
Visit
suncookvalleysoccerclub.com or our facebook page to sign up.
Registration ends 8/1.
REMINDER
Messy
Art Day!
F.B.
Argue Town Pool
July
28th 1:00 – 3:00pm
The Josiah Carpenter Library and the Parks and Recreation Committee
have gathered up paint and paper for your artistic delight.
Enjoy creating glitter fireworks, chalk art (the public works
parking area could get very colorful!), balloon burst painting,
paintball smash, and (toy) truck track painting. The rain date
is Sunday July 29th. While you are there relish reading a book
on a story walk. Come have fun and get messy!
Endicott College is pleased to announce the Dean's List students for
spring 2018. In order to qualify for the Dean's List, a student must
obtain a minimum grade point average of 3.5, receive no grade below
a "C," have no withdrawal grades, and be enrolled in a minimum of 12
credits for the semester.
Among
those named to the Dean's List was Maxwell Tuttle of Pittsfield.
Maxwell graduated this spring as B.A. in Environmental
Science. He is the son of Norman Tuttle and Stephanie Tuttle.
Letter
Dear
Members of the PHS Class of 1968,
On
behalf of the PHS Alumni Association Committee I want to thank you
for your very generous donation of $200.00 collected during your
50th class reunion on July 14th.
This
gift is greatly appreciated and will go toward scholarships. It is
donations like yours that enables us to continue to support students
and graduates.
Congratulations on your 50th reunion!
Sincerely,
Ted
Mitchell
President, PHS Alumni Association
Letter
Dear
Readers,
The
Pittsfield High School Alumni Association is selling tickets for a
50/50 raffle. The raffle winner will get 50% of the money raised
from this raffle. The drawing for the winner will be done on
September 12th, 7:00 PM, at PMHS in Room 126 during our scheduled
meeting.
Tickets
are $1.00 for 1 and $5.00 for 6. Tickets are being sold at
Pittsfield Youth Workshop, Town Clerk's Office, and at National
Night Out on August 7th from 5 to 8 PM. Please stop by and support
the Alumni Association. The money raised helps provide generous
scholarships to our graduates.
For
more information you can email me:
[email protected] and
use subject line “50/50 Raffle.”
Sincerely,
Ted
Mitchell
President, PHS Alumni Association
From
The Farm: Danger And Wonder En Route Home
Submitted By Carole Soule
The
60-foot tree fell right in front of our pickup truck, the noise
muffled by the deluge of half-inch hail rattling off the roof and
windshield. When we backed away from the downed tree, a smaller tree
fell, blocking the road behind us. The rain, hail, and wind whirled
in a vortex around us. Husband Bruce and I were not going anywhere,
for the moment anyway.
Earlier that evening, while I devoured a waffle cone at Jordan's Ice
Cream in Belmont, the radio had warned of severe thunderstorms. It
was cool with clear skies so the warning could NOT have been meant
for me. A few bolts of lightning flashed as we headed south and
home. Then as we turned down our dirt road, the heavens opened, and
hail poured out.
Within ten minutes the storm had moved on, leaving us stranded
between the two downed trees. We removed the tree behind the truck,
but the one blocking our way home was hanging on a power line making
it impossible to move or get around. After I called 911,
Loudon Fire and Rescue arrived. EMT Bill told us they could not
remove the tree and suggested that we back farther away from the
fallen power line.
As he and his partner strung up their yellow caution-tape, Bill went
on to explain that when the tree took out the power line, it
probably tripped the circuit breaker and shut off power to the line.
The problem was home generators.
When installed incorrectly, they can provide unexpected power,
called “backwash,” to the transmission lines. At Miles Smith Farm we
have a 60 kV emergency generator. Housed in a building 500 feet from
the house, and connected by a certified electrician, it looks like a
small locomotive engine. Because it was installed correctly, our
unit never backwashes electricity to the power lines.
Backwashed power from generators can be as deadly as grid power to
those who venture too close to power lines, which is why Bill told
us to stay at least 50 feet away from the downed tree.
Since it would be a while until the road crew could clear the road,
we decided to walk the mile home. So we started out with a detour
through woods to get around the fallen tree.
In the forest, a mist hung close to the ground, created when frozen
hail connected with warm soil. As we made our way around upturned
root systems of trees toppled by previous storms, our voices and
footfalls were muffled by the fog. I expected to encounter elves or
maybe hobbits or even a dinosaur as we walked through the foggy,
pine-needle carpeted forest.
When we got home, our Airbnb guests – a family of four from
California – phoned from the other side of the tree wondering what
to do. Bruce and I borrowed two cars and retraced
our steps so that we could guide our visitors through the mystical
forest to the safety of our farmhouse and their accommodations for
the night. Our visitors, wearing impractical sandals, followed us as
we carried their luggage around the tree to the waiting cars.
Soon they were eating delicious grass-fed hamburgers, cooked on
generator power while watching a double rainbow hanging in the
southern sky.
Later that night the tree was removed and power restored. The
takeaways? Make sure your generator is installed by an expert; be
wary of seemingly dead wires; and savor a moment of enchantment even
when it occurs amid gross inconvenience.
Carole
Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm, in Loudon, NH. She can be
reached at [email protected].
Letter
To The Editor
TO
ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACKS…. there’s a Public Hearing Thur. night, July
26, 7 PM, at the High School for input regarding a proposed recovery
center for up to 40 males with problems such as drugs, alcohol,
violence, etc. The facility would house Teen Challenge New
England which I find a bit of a misnomer, considering the ages would
be 18 - 25 years old. The location they seek to get Zoning
Board of Adjustment approval for is the Berakah religious retreat on
Fairview Rd., because they’ve outgrown their Manchester facility.
As
Selectman, I have NO say in the matter of approval. That’ll be
up to the Zoning Board to decide, based on criteria necessary to
grant a Variance for a Use that’s prohibited. As a lifelong
resident and taxpayer however, I do have an opinion- that I
expressed at the first public hearing. Property values will
suffer no matter how well it’s run. Their success rate isn’t
the issue- a 40 bed facility in a town of 4,100 is. This would
be an expansion/relocation of a Manchester facility, not primarily
for Pittsfield.
One of
the primary ways that Teen Challenge helps their people is find them
jobs. 40 more men looking for jobs in the Pittsfield area??
What about the young people already living here? Also, this is
a non-profit- there will be NO property tax income to the town to
offset additional services that may be required.
Approval is NOT a foregone conclusion. In order to be granted
a Variance, the ZBA must conclude that the Use is not contrary to
the public good and that property values won’t be diminished.
In favor or opposed, if you have a concern or knowledge, NOW is the
time to be heard, not after the Zoning Board has handed down its
decision.
Carl
Anderson
50th
reunion for the PHS class of 1968: L to R back row, John Emery,
Garrick Stockman, Eleanor Scott, Candy Hillsgrove, Janice Foss,
Kristine Jenisch, Dawn Nation, David Hall, Peter Stimmell, Jim Adam,
Donald Fife. L to R Middle row , Mark Flanders, Diana Morse, Dena
Flanders, Betty Daley, Kathy Soulia, Judy Watkins, Paula Golden,
Mary Lee Stockman, Paula Finnegan, Greg Riel, Lon Siel, Ken Blackey,
Charlie Jenkins. L to R front row, Mike Green, Bruce Cayes, Nick
Liouzis, Ted Mitchell.Missing from the photo is Patty Freese.
Letter
To my
constituents in Allenstown, Epsom, and Pittsfield,
It was
a pleasure visiting with so many of you at Pittsfield Old Home Day!
The issue of the day was education funding, but it seemed to me that
many people were interpreting that in light of the fairy tale theme:
that some fairy would provide as much money as a school district
wanted without requiring it to come from local propertytaxes.
In real
life, education funding is a lot more complicated than that.
What is
included in an “adequate education?” (and how do we get better than
adequate?) Is the local government school system the whole of
education, or should other delivery methods be included? How much
should we pay for education? Who should pay? How do the payers
ensure that whoever spends their money is using it efficiently and
effectively? And, on all of these and many other questions, who
decides? The legislature? Local school boards and communities? All
of these are policy questions that have more than one reasonable
answer, and I'm sure the answers are intertwined.
In any
event, this will be a hot topic for the legislature next year, as we
work on the state budget, so I'd love to hear any ideas. I'm not an
expert, but my understanding is that school enrollment will continue
to decline for the foreseeable future, and there is too much
bureaucracy in our education system, and any funding method needs to
account for these trends. My personal preference is to expand school
choice so that more students can find the education best for them;
after all, a distressingly large number of students come out of the
current school system without having learned what they need to be an
independent adult.
Representative Carol McGuire
[email protected]
782-4918
One
Dime At A Time…
Submitted By Melissa Babcock , PES PTO President
PES PTO
is trying to be creative in ways to help the school district raise
funds. One way that everyone can help without spending extra
money is to save BOX TOPS. BOX TOPS are found on HUNDREDS of
products and the school gets TEN CENTS for each one returned!
This past year, PES raised just over $1000 from the collection of
box tops. With such a large, supportive community, we feel
like we can at least double this total by educating everyone about
the BOX TOP program. Even if you don’t have youth in the
school system, you can help by clipping the BOX TOPS.
The
list of products that the BOX TOPS can be found on is quite large
these days—way more than just cereal like it used to be! The
list includes Betty Crocker products, Ziploc storage bags, Lysol
Cleaners, Nature Valley Gronala Bars, Pillsbury products, Yoplait
yogurt, Old El Paso Taco Kits, Bisquick, Green Giant Vegetables, and
even Hamburger Helper.
The FULL LIST can be found at
https://www.boxtops4education.com/
earn/participating-products
Since
we know the community is filled with supporters who don’t have
children in the school system, PTO volunteers have made collection
boxes for the BOX TOPS and placed them around the community.
So far, the BOX TOPS can be dropped off at Danis Supermarket,
Pittsfield Town Hall, Forest B Argue Recreation Area (Town Pool),
Pittsfield Fire Station, Joy Church, Epping Well and Pump, Mike’s
Meat Shoppe, Globe Manufacturing, and Pittsfield Elementary School.
The
funds earned from the BOX TOP collections are mailed directly to PES
and used by administration for things as needed throughout the
school year. In years past, such items included; helping with
the ever-growing field trip/bussing costs, band t-shirts, items
needed for school concerts, 6th grade yearbook fund, and some simple
classroom supplies as well.
Please
reach out to PES PTO with any questions you may have.
[email protected]
Thank
you for helping PES—ONE DIME AT A TIME!
Letter
To The Editor
Have
you met Jane Cormier?
Jane
Cormier is a candidate for the Governor’s Council who would like to
represent District 4 (which includes Chichester, Epsom, Northwood,
and Pittsfield). The Governor’s Council is a seven member board
elected by us. They advise the Governor and monitor that the state
budget is spent as agreed. An important group.
It just
so happens that shortly after I met Jane, I read J.D. Vance’s
Hillbilly Elegy. The young author rose from Appalachian poverty to
become a Yale law graduate, serving as a U.S. Marine along the way.
His observations about problems in our culture (think opioid crisis,
shortage of good workers, students lacking basic academic and life
skills, epidemic of fatherlessness) keep bringing him back to the
pivotal role of strong healthy families. He does not find the best
answers for creating a productive people in increased government
programs (we have lots), better educational opportunities (we have
lots), or earning higher income. Politically he comes to the same
conclusion that Jane Cormier has; a conservative approach to
government does more to empower individuals of every socioeconomic
level, not just the rich. I agree.
So many
of society’s ills will not be cured by more government, but by
personal choices. Go out and influence a young person to work hard,
commit to a spouse and become a persistent parent! And don’t forget
to vote September 11th and November 6th.
Diane
Rider
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