Preparing for the Future

The City of Lebanon was incorporated July 4, 1761 when it held the status of a town back then. It became established as the City of Lebanon in 1958. The original Carter Community Building (CCB) was opened October 14th 1919 and will have its 100th birthday celebration this October. The CCBA building was added on September 7, 1987 and today both have become an intricate part of Lebanon’s history.

The CCBA (Carter Community Building Association) has been hosting a summer celebration for the milestone and will add an event entitled “A Tasteful Evening” on September 7th, 2019 followed by another ceremony on October 14 to honor the original CCB building.… Read More

For the past 3 years, Carline Roberge and her husband Balvin have been offering take-out Haitian and Jamaican specialty foods and Haitian art next door to the former Hirsch’s clothing store. Together, they own and operate Karibbean Coffee Shop, sharing delicious authentic Caribbean dishes at the shop and in season at the Lebanon Farmers’ Market. The regularly changing menu takes you clear to the Caribbean with oxtail, curry goat, pork griot (chunks of citrus marinated pork shoulder with Scotch bonnet chiles), and Caribbean beverages and side dishes.

So how did Carline, a native Haitian, and her family land in Lebanon, bringing with them the spicy flavors of the Caribbean?… Read More

When J. Barrie Sellers received a call in 1974 from an old Sheffield University friend, Ivor Hawkes, inviting him to come to New Hampshire from his job at Terrametrics in Colorado, he jumped at the opportunity to co-found a new company for the manufacture and sale of vibrating wire devices. Though the company the two men (along with a third, mathematician David Wright) established on Parkhurst Street lasted only three years, Barrie’s subsequent project, GEOKON, has survived and thrived, and is this year expanding its modest footprint on Spencer Street with a new office complex currently being constructed across the road from their current location.… Read More

When Linda Copp arrived in Lebanon in 1984, one of her first stops was to visit the Lebanon Recreation & Parks Department to inquire about teaching ballet. What began as a small instructional program with a few dancers upstairs at the Carter Community Building is today a thriving, multi-faceted organization offering ballet, musical theater dance, and modern dance. The institution now has its own studio space on the mall in Lebanon comprised of a dance school – the Lebanon Ballet School – and a non-profit performance dance company – City Center Ballet, Inc., hosting professional artists and choreographers from around the country.… Read More

It was just one more challenge when the January night of the awards ceremony threatened a dismayingly snowy drive. But – as the award bears witness – overcoming challenges is a specialty of Opera North, the Upper Valley’s esteemed homegrown opera company. Three intrepid representatives of the company set forth for Concord to receive the New Hampshire Theatre Alliance’s Matty Gregg Award for Vision and Tenacity.

“I think of it as New Hampshire’s equivalent of the Tony awards,” says Opera North’s Director of Development, Maria Laskaris. Opera North (ON) was being honored for its collaboration with the National Park Service (NPS) which resulted in last summer’s Singers and Swingers, a surprising blend of opera music and circus performance at the NPS site, Blow-Me-Down Farm.… Read More

Jonathan Warren graduated from the Lebanon School District in 2007 with a keen interest in the arts. Now, he’s returned as the visual arts teacher. “Just as the arts helped shape me as a student, I value the opportunity to work with today’s young artists. The arts provide a vehicle for self-expression as students develop their voices… and provide an opportunity to work collaboratively.”

On the District’s last professional learning day, arts teachers Lauren Haley, Jonathan Warren, Jonathan Verge, Todd Matte, John Carey, Gary Rothe, Yvette Garnham, Todd Renninger, Christine Greenough, Margaret Schultz, Megan Cardillo, and Thea Calitri-Martin met to work on the PreK-12 curriculum.… Read More

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was credited with the following quote many years ago: “Music is the universal language of mankind.”

Joe Clifford, Executive Director of the Lebanon Opera House, apparently is an exponent of that theory and from October 10-12 he made that bit of wisdom a reality for the Lebanon community and the Upper Valley. Joe arranged to host a group of musicians from Egypt to tour the region and give performances for area music students and concert-goers.

The musicians were part of a band from Cairo, Egypt who were making their American debut. The group was led by Youssra El Hawary, a singer/songwriter who playfully blends the sounds of Cairo’s underground music scene with French chanson, Indie rock and jazz.… Read More

Community Access TV is “a conduit that fosters community connectedness,” says executive director Donna Girot. From its home in White River Junction’s TipTop building, “Its mission is to let all people find a voice. We provide training and equipment to all, for free. When there’s a problem in the community, we help solve it by helping people explain their ideas and points of view.” Donna has been at CATV for about a year. “The job seemed compelling,” she says, “because there are lots of challenges,” including that it’s the only (she thinks) community access station that contractually supports towns in two states.… Read More

It takes a special kind of athlete to play rugby. One who enjoys the challenge of a hybrid sport that involves continuous running, kicking and carrying the ball, being tackled, and passing only sideways and backwards. For the members of the Upper Valley Rugby Football Club, however, the sport is more than just a game with unusual rules, mud in your eye, and a checkered history. The Mountain Men (men’s team) and the Valkyries (women’s team) consider community service projects and genuine goodwill toward their teammates and opponents an essential part of the game.

The Upper Valley Rugby Football Club got its start in 2016 when Grant Gordon, once a local high school player, moved back to the area and wanted to play again, according to Brian Frampton, the men’s club president.… Read More

The week leading up to Earth Day on April 22 was a challenge for a group of Upper Valley folks who had taken the No Plastic Pollution Challenge – we were committed to not buying plastic. No plastic. Do you have any idea how challenging that can be? Bread bags, cheese wrap, ketchup bottles, yogurt cups, chip bags, cider jugs, peanut butter and mayonnaise jars, take-away cups, frozen food bags, maple syrup jugs, you name it, all soon-to-be-disposed-of plastic.

Two million single-use plastic bags are distributed every minute throughout the world – used for a moment, tossed, and then remain in the environment for centuries as they break down into tiny particles that infiltrate our soils and waters and bodies.… Read More