Braxton Freeman has been keeping a trained eye on the Lebanon Airport from his lofty perch in the FAA Contact Control Tower since his arrival in 2006. As the Air Traffic Manager employed by Midwest Air Traffic Control Service, he has not only diligently handled the pressure-packed profession of assuring air traffic safety, Braxton has witnessed first hand the up and down financial battle to maintain the facility.

With the recent loss of some valuable federal funding for the Lebanon Municipal Airport, some area residents are questioning just how essential is the service provided by the airport that covers 563 acres.… Read More

Spring may be on the horizon, but it’s been an awfully cold winter – and for neighbors in need in Lebanon and beyond, it’s a good thing our community is home to an office of Tri-County CAP.

Tri-County Community Action Programs, by its long name, serves residents of Grafton, Carroll, and Coös counties with resources that can help them with home energy costs and conservation, housing, transportation, and more. And if Tri-County CAP doesn’t have a program to help a person in need, they know who does.

“We offer a huge referral system for people in our New Hampshire Upper Valley,” said Upper Valley Community Contact Office Manager Angel Hudson.… Read More

She didn’t marry to make this so, but Adele Patch has the perfect name. Over the years she’s earned fame locally, nationally, and even internationally for her quilts, her patchwork quilts. But she married for love, in storybook style.

The story started, classically, with a tough childhood in northern New Hampshire, where Adele was born in 1931, in the depth of the Depression.

“I was a skinny kid,” she says, one of 13 in an often tense blended family. Enough food was hard to come by, never mind extra for piling on the pounds. When she had just turned seven, the 1938 hurricane flattened the family’s house and blew out all the windows in the barn.… Read More

If you’ve ever been to downtown Lebanon, you can hardly have missed AVA Gallery and Arts Center, a centerpiece of the community’s creative economy for decades. Located just off Colburn Park on Bank Street, the center offers artist studios, galleries, and numerous events and programs for youth and adults interested in a wide variety of visual arts.

There’s always something interesting happening at AVA. Here’s a selection of some of the latest news from the center. To learn more about upcoming classes and events, visit avagallery.org – or better yet, drop in and see what’s going on for yourself!

7th Annual Best of the Upper Valley High School Exhibition

An exhibition at AVA Gallery this month features works by Upper Valley high school students who have been nominated for participation by their art teachers.… Read More

If a company has successfully served a local community for 65 years in one location, you have to acknowledge that it has found the key to success.

Lebanon’s Blaktop paving company is such an example. Founded by Lebanon resident William Taylor back in 1950, the company later merged with the nearby Twin State Sand and Gravel. Located at 73 Elm Street in West Lebanon, the two companies cover some 85-plus acres overlooking a breathtaking view of the Upper Valley.

On its website, Blacktop bills itself as “a family-operated asphalt paving business founded in 1950 to provide the highest quality asphalt and paving services to the Connecticut River Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont.… Read More

We like to think that education as a “gateway” is open to all, but the reality is that for some that gateway is hidden, slams shut as they approach, or just won’t open at all.

Many young people struggle to find their own way to that gateway. However, there is a man who knows where that gateway is and, furthermore, has the key to unlock it.

He is John Higgins, executive director since last July of the six-year-old Ledyard Charter School (LCS) in Lebanon. As I spoke with Mr. Higgins in his office on the third floor of the Whipple Building overlooking Colburn Park, it became increasingly evident that his passion is to try to help every person “find that gateway.”… Read More

The Dartmouth College Office of Science and Technology Outreach website asks visitors the following questions:

“Thirsty for good conversation in a stimulating atmosphere? Do you harbor questions you would like to ask a scientist or would you prefer to sit back, relax, and learn something new about the world?”

If you have answered yes to any of these inquiries, the Dartmouth College Office of Science & Technology Outreach and Lebanon’s downtown Salt hill Pub have just the ticket for you: Science Pubs, an informal monthly presentation and discussion on a variety of topics of scientific interest.

Based on the Science Cafe model developed in Europe in the 1990s, Science Pubs at Salt hill bring scientists and the public together for informal discussions around topics ranging from fracking to happiness to local food.… Read More

The Lebanon Police Department values its sterling reputation for serving and protecting citizens. But how about their four-legged counterparts who lay their lives on the line everyday as well?

Fortunately the K-9 dogs associated with the Lebanon Police Department and throughout the Twin State region have a pair of guardian angels watching over them.

Dr. Daniel Kelly and his wife Jodi founded Small Animal Veterinary Emergency Services (S.A.V.E.S) in Lebanon, one of a very few 24-hour veterinary hospitals in New England. And along with the general public they serve a special clientele, K-9 dogs that hold full status as police officers.… Read More

True or False: Male and female athletes can compete in the same sport on a completely equal basis?
If you answered ‘false,’ you’ll have to take time to drop by the Carter Community Building Association’s (CCBA) Witherell Recreation Center gym in downtown Lebanon and take in an action-packed game of floor hockey.

Yes, floor hockey! Harken back to those days in grade school gym class when the instructor brought out two nets, placed them on opposite ends of the gymnasium floor, and handed you a hockey stick. Suddenly you were introduced to an indoor version of the rugged game of ice hockey without knowing how to skate.… Read More

About four years ago, Barbara Hirai, chair of the Lebanon Energy Advisory Committee (LEAC), walked the streets of Lebanon counting streetlights. The existing maps of the network of lights weren’t matching, and she was looking to get an accurate record. Determined, she set out to map every streetlight in Lebanon and make sure that each one was where it should be. What she found surprised her.

“Some lights just weren’t there anymore,” she told me during a LEAC meeting one October evening. What had happened was that, while the city maintained streetlights, removing or moving some when needed, the official count of the streetlights wasn’t updated.… Read More