MONDAY EDITION
ADDISON COUNTY
INDEPENDENT
Vol. 29 No. 12
More music on the green
• Top-shelf musical acts, like The Seamus Egan Project, above, round out Middlebury’s Festival on-the-Green. Read Arts Beat on Pages 10-13.
Education tax rates unveiled
Middlebury, Vermont
Scheu set to retire from business boosting post By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — Robin Scheu has spent the past nine years promoting business growth in the area as executive director of the Addison County Economic Development Corp. (ACEDC). Now she’s preparing to have some fun. Scheu, 60, confirmed last week
that she will be retiring from the ACEDC in December. It’s a job she began back in November of 2008 — which was an interesting point in history to be in the business of promoting economic development, Scheu recalled. “The stock market crash had (See Scheu, Page 22)
Monday, July 10, 2017
32 Pages
$1.00
‘Women of Wisdom’ helps city nonprofits By ANDY KIRKALDY VERGENNES — As its 10th birthday approaches on Aug. 10, the Main Street Vergennes nonprofit Sweet Charity and the group that supports it are enjoying their most productive year. The charitable venture and other fundraising efforts of the members of Women of Wisdom, all area residents, have seen steadily
increasing success in the past few years. In 2014, as Women of Wisdom, known as WOW, began to hit its stride after the 2008 recession, the organization donated a total of $22,600, most of it from the sale of donated furniture and household items at Sweet Charity’s 141 Main Street resale shop. (See Sweet Charity, Page 18)
• In Waltham, Panton and Addison, school tax rates went up in one town, down in two. See Page 2.
Otters get a new football coach • After facing OV as player at U-32, Phil Hall is returning to Brandon to coach his old nemesis. See Page 16.
Bristol police are considering union • Employee association is in its early stages. See Page 2.
LOUISE WRIGHT HOLDS the pair of glasses donated by the Middlebury Lions Club that allow the blind woman to operate with more independence. A camera on the specs uses technology to recognize faces and text, translate the images into sound and speak into Wright’s ear.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
Orphaned bears go back to woods • A New Hamphire man devoted to his ursine friends will discuss black bears in Ripton. See Page 32.
High-tech glasses help blind woman ‘see’ Lions gift restoring her independence By WILL DIGRAVIO MIDDLEBURY — Thirty years ago, Louise Wright was told she would become blind. Four years ago, she did lose her sight completely, and began training herself to live as fully as possible in her new world of darkness. Thanks to a unique piece of
technology she recently received, the Middlebury woman is regaining some measure of independence. In 1987, Wright, now 58, was diagnosed with chronic idiopathic panuveitis, a rare disease she described as “arthritis of the eye.” Typically, those who develop panuveitis are able to treat the inflammation it causes with steroids, however, since her’s was chronic, there was nothing that a variety of treatments from countless doctors
could do. Wright just had to live with it. On some days, her vision would be fine, while during others, she could barely see her hand and would feel as though she were looking through a fog. “(Inflammation) would come and go, and each time it would come it would damage different parts of the eye,” she said. Wright was able to fight through the disease and work as a Registered
Nurse in Burlington for 26 years. But eventually her loss of vision reached a point that she could no longer work. In the summer of 2013, Wright suffered from an inflammation that, unlike past flareups, did not subside; it grew worse each day. By the fall, she could no longer see people’s faces. By December, she could barely differentiate night from day. She became legally (See Wright, Page 7)