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Summer 2017

SUMMER TIME ADVENTURE

TOWN FEATURES

CALENDAR & DINING GUIDE

Outdoor activities, entertainment, dining options and creemees. Read about them in our Summer Guide.

INSIDE:

The Tiger boys’ lax team beat Essex handily, and will face the Redhawks on Friday. See Sports, Page 1B.

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A Ferrisburgh couple is filling a niche in the art world with their business. See Arts + Leisure.

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ADDISON COUNTY

Vol. 71 No. 22

INDEPENDENT Middlebury, Vermont

Thursday, June 1, 2017  106 Pages

$1.00

Sanders takes aim at budget, health care and Trump record

Memorial Day 2017 PARADES IN MIDDLEBURY, Orwell and Vergennes highlighted Memorial Day Festivities in the county. Town Line First Responder Barb Wagner, top left, smiled through the rain in Vergennes; kids, above, tossed candy to spectators in Middlebury; and tractors and Shriners, left, filled the streets of Orwell with color. For more photos from the three parades, see Page12A. Photos by Trent Campbell and Mark Bouvier

By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., warned that a Republican-backed health care plan could result in closure of many small, rural hospitals like Middlebury’s Porter Medical Center, and he reiterated his intent to fight against President Donald Trump’s health insurance and budget priorities. Sanders touched upon rail, health care, the federal budget and the national political scene during a recent, brief phone interview with the Addison Independent. Sanders made his remarks just prior to leaving for a tour of European nations, including Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany. Health care Sanders was candid in his assessment of the U.S. House-passed American Health Care Act, which would roll back many of the provisions of the current Affordable Care Act — also known as “Obamacare.” He said the Republican plan, which has earned the endorsement of President Trump, would be “devastating” for small community hospitals like Porter Medical Center, which last month celebrated its affiliation with the University of Vermont Health Network as a way to stabilize its financial health and offer more diverse services to its patients. The GOP plan — which Sanders projected as a non-starter in the U.S. Senate — would leave an estimated 24 million Americans uninsured over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO has also estimated the proposal would cut around $880 billion in federal Medicaid dollars to the 50 states. The Medicaid program provides health care subsidies for the poorest Americans. “Obviously, I can’t make (See Sanders, Page 13A)

Orwell honors its veterans U.S. strengthens in crisis, speaker says

New town monument pays tribute to soldiers of three wars By JOHN FLOWERS ORWELL — Memorial Day parades are good at providing a yearly reminder of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made by men and women in the armed forces. Unfortunately, the spotlight on those sacrifices tends to dim when the marching bands have played their final tunes and the confetti has been cleared

By the way Many people swell with pride when they see the fife and drum players dressed in Revolutionary War outfits marching in parades. Of particular note is the tall, bearded man in the red vest, gray knickers and tri-cornered hat (See By the way, Page 13A)

Index Obituaries................................. 6A Classifieds........................ 7B-11B Service Directory............... 8B-9B Entertainment.........Arts + Leisure Community Calendar......... 8A-9A Arts Calendar.........Arts + Leisure Sports................................. 1B-3B

from the parade routes. But that wasn’t the case in Orwell on Sunday, when the annual parade was capped by the unveiling of a new veterans’ monument on the town park that will provide an everyday reminder that freedom isn’t free. Three years in the making, the granite monument — which stands about 4 feet tall by 30 inches wide —

pays tribute to Orwell’s 40 Vietnamera veterans, as well as the combined total of around 60 local soldiers who served in World War II and Korea. The classy tribute supplements a preexisting monument on the town park that pays homage to Orwell’s World War I veterans. “I’m excited about it,” Vietnam (See Memorial, Page 14A)

Powers offers intimate take on mental illness

By LEE J. KAHRS on Thursday, June 1, at CASTLETON/ 6 p.m. BRANDON — “No Powers has seen great one thinks about successes in his career mental illness until it as a journalist, novelist affects someone close and non-fiction writer. to them,” Ron Powers While working for the said. “It’s a primal Chicago Sun-Times, fear. We see demonic he won the Pulitzer transformation and Prize for criticism, when we see that, the first person to earn we see versions of that prize for television ourselves.” criticism. He earned an Powers has the Emmy Award in 1985 unfortunate credentials for the work he did on to speak with authority the CBS News program RON POWERS on the subject. “Sunday Morning.” The award-winning The biography coauthor of many nonfiction works has written with James Bradley in 2000, taken his family’s tragic struggle with “Flags of Our Fathers,” tells the mental illness and woven it into a stories of the Marines who raised commentary and call to arms on the the flag over Iwo Jima in World War state of mental health in a new book, II; it was a national best-seller and “Nobody Cares About Crazy People: became a feature film directed by The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Clint Eastwood. Health in America.” A native of Hannibal, Mo., like Powers will discuss and sign copies author Samuel Clemmons, Powers of the book at the Brandon Town Hall (See Ron Powers, Page 14A)

Grads urged to show leadership in turbulent times By GAEN MURPHREE MIDDLEBURY — “You know what history feels like,” Middlebury College commencement speaker Jon Meacham told the assembled crowd of Middlebury College seniors at Sunday’s commencement ceremony. Deftly situating the members of the class of 2017, he said they had experienced the terror of Sept. 11 just before entering grade school, the election of the nation’s first African American president when in middle school, and the election of “the most unconventional major-party candidate in American history” in their final year as undergraduates. “We are together at a remarkable and in many ways troubling moment for the republic that came into being in Philadelphia nearly 250 summers ago,” said Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, renowned historian of American presidents, former Newsweek editor-in-chief and much-called upon political commentator. Yet this nation has faced crisis before, Meacham reminded his audience, and has emerged stronger, better, truer to its ideals. “What is remarkable about America is her durability and adaptability amid the perpetual crises and vicissitudes of history,” said Meacham. The “genius” of America’s founding, he continued, “lay in no (See Graduation, Page 3A)

A MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE senior picks up her diploma and Gamaliel Painter’s cane during Sunday’s commencement.

Independent photo/Trent Campbell


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