This year, Whaleback Mountain is celebrating 10 years as a non-profit organization. Over the past decade, Whaleback Mountain has continued to provide the Upper Valley with an affordable and accessible winter sports experience for all members of the community.

While many ski resorts have become overcrowded and expensive, Whaleback has remained dedicated to sustaining the soul of snow sports. The mountain offers opportunities for all age groups and all backgrounds to not only develop and hone skills but also to instill a lifetime appreciation for winter sports surrounded by members of our community who share the same passion.

The childcare shortage in the Upper Valley has become an increasingly pressing and widely felt issue over the past several years, affecting not just families with children, but whole communities. In Lebanon, the Early Learning Center of the Upper Valley Project (ELCUV) – a 22-milliondollar childcare facility projected to be in business by 2027 – aims to help address this issue.

A pre-Covid Vital Communities study estimated that there was a shortage of around 2,000 childcare openings in the Upper Valley. Now, with staffing shortages and childcare facility closures increasing, this number presumably continues to rise, putting more and more Upper Valley families in a tough spot.… Read More

As an Enfield native, Nicole Ford Burley has a special connection to the Upper Valley and its history. With a background in medieval art history and research administration, Nicole is well-positioned to serve as the Lebanon city historian, chair of the City’s Heritage Commission, and curator for the Lebanon Historical Society. Nicole’s volunteer and professional roles converged recently to inform the writing of her first book, Images of America: Lebanon (Arcadia Publishing, 2023), now available online through the Lebanon Historical Society website, at the Lebanon libraries, and at local bookstores.

William Bliss (1815–1853; standing at left) moved to Lebanon at the age of 7 and enrolled at West Point at 14.… Read More

By the time the ink had dried on the 501(c)3 paperwork declaring “Lebanon in Service to Each Neighbor (LISTEN)” an official nonprofit in 1973, the start-up activist collaborative had already racked up some significant accomplishments.

In the early 1970s, the conversation around town might have sounded familiar to modern ears: it centered on the shortage of quality, affordable housing for the people who lived and worked in the city. The city’s residents were in favor of the idea of public housing, but then – as now – the question had been about exactly where to put it. In late 1971, the City Council had rezoned South Main Street in West Lebanon to rule out anything other than single-family homes.… Read More

Wait! My older daughter was only 18 then? About to be a freshman at Northeastern? She’s 28 now and just got engaged. How could that be?

It seems like a lifetime has happened since I launched the inaugural issue of the Lebanon Times 10 years ago. In fact, many lifetimes have happened and we’ve been able to capture and share moments in time from those lifetimes. For ten years, four times per year, the Lebanon Times has had the privilege of getting to know the good people, good places and good things happening in and around Lebanon and then celebrating the stories in our pages.… Read More

Katharine Ogden made her presence felt as an All-American skier at Dartmouth College (Class of ‘21). Today, she is making a difference right down the road in Lebanon with WISE.

“WISE, as an organization, has a pretty broad mission statement in that the organization’s goal is to eradicate gender-based violence in the Upper Valley,” said Ogden. “My role involves working directly with survivors who are currently experiencing gender-based violence, usually helping them through the logistics of fleeing from an abusive relationship, or with processing what they had been through.”

Ogden is enrolled in a remote Master of Social Work program through Columbia University.… Read More

Since he was 12 years old, serving God and others has been Roger Tatro’s mission in life.

Tatro, who now lives in Quail Hollow with his wife, Dale, learned the value of hard work and selflessness early in life, and it’s carried with him throughout his life and career as a farmhand, a milkman, an insurance agent, and a musician.

Tatro grew up in Morrisville, and he met Dale “just by accident” after graduating from the Peoples Academy in 1958. “I just saw her sitting on a stone wall with another girl; I just pulled over [in the car] and introduced myself,” he says.… Read More

In 2008, Paul Coats discovered a trail running race in Newport, NH that caught his attention. The longtime director of the Lebanon Recreation, Arts, and Parks Department – and a serious runner himself – Coats knew competitive athletes expect professional timing and precise distance measurements. These quality characteristics found at the Newport Recreation trail race were usually reserved for events abutting metropolitan areas. In a few short years, a wide-ranging host of trail and road running events for all ages and abilities would be brought to the Upper Valley, in large part thanks to Lebanon Recreation, Arts, and Parks.

In the early 2000s, trail-running competitions nationwide exclusively spanned lengths far beyond that of a marathon.… Read More

As long as humans have roamed the earth, we’ve been coming together around common interests. We’ve formed groups of all kinds – tribes, guilds, coalitions, communities, associations, and clubs, to name a few. At last count, the online database – Cause IQ – listed almost 32,000 community service clubs and organizations in the United States. This year, the Rotary Club of Lebanon is celebrating 100 years of community service, as it steadfastly maintains the Rotary tradition of “Service Above Self” while continuing to find ways to adapt to our changing times.

Fellowship, service projects, and leadership development are deeply embedded in the club’s priorities, and always have been.… Read More

From humble beginnings, she stays humble. Virginia Tech women’s basketball star Taylor Soule – who grew up in Lebanon – is officially on her way to the WNBA after being selected in the April Draft.

Soule was raised in West Lebanon alongside her sister Zoe, and together, the self-proclaimed “Soule Sisters” represented New Hampshire on a national level as members of their junior high track team. “(I’m) not sure if anyone ever called us that, but we did,” Soule says. At age 10, Soule won the national 9/10 girls 100-meter event while competing at the Hershey’s Track and Field Games North American Finals in Hershey, PA.… Read More