Monday, July 17, 2017

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MONDAY EDITION

ADDISON COUNTY

INDEPENDENT

Vol. 29 No. 13

Middlebury, Vermont

Monday, July 17, 2017

32 Pages

$1.00

Museum launches lake tour to deliver history of canals

Wind down with jazz

By JOHN FLOWERS FERRISBURGH — Lake Champlain Maritime Museum officials are used to receiving a lot of visitors who spend hours perusing the LCMM’s many exhibits in Ferrisburgh that capture the storied history and environmental essence of the lake and its tributaries. But this summer, LCMM officials are also conveniently delivering that history to the people of more than 35 communities as part of a legacy tour featuring the canal schooner Lois McClure. The Lois McClure and its omnipresent companion — the tugboat C.L. Churchill — will spend the next 100 days visiting ports along the Champlain and Erie canals in this, the 200th anniversary of the start of construction of those two feats of human engineering. Creation of both canals ushered in a new era of travel and commerce. “The completion of the Champlain Canal in 1823 changed the Champlain Valley and Vermont forever,” (See History cruise, Page 15)

• The 17-piece LC Jazz big band will play Lincoln Peak Vineyard on Friday evening. See Arts Beat on Page 10.

Schools combine food programs • ANWSD Superintendent JoAn Canning describes changes that include a partnership with ANESD. See Page 3.

Program marking 30 years of summer fun

Legion baseball picks up pace

• The local nine won three of five games heading into a busy stretch scheduled to begin on Friday. See Sports, Page 16.

Celtic notes

SEAMUS EAGAN BEGAN performing as a teen prodigy in his native Ireland, took his virtuoso musical skills with him to found Celtic powerhouse Solas, and on Thursday played at Middlebury’s Festival on-the-Green with New Haven native Moira Smiley. See more photos from the Festival on Page 14.

Independent photo/John S. McCright

By GAEN MURPHREE MIDDLEBURY/BRISTOL/VERGENNES — This year marks important milestones in the fill-day summer camps of the Mary Johnson Children’s Center. The program has operated for 30 years in Middlebury, 25 years in Bristol, and 15 in Vergennes. Maybe 30 years ago, kids weren’t wiring bananas into piano keyboards or making solar robots, as they’ll do this summer. But then as now, the pioneering program provides an important resource for Addison County families. “The mission of our program is to serve the needs (See Program, Page 18)

Local animated film earns international acclaim Reaching audiences in PBS online festival Pieces of jewelry have some history • Two jewelry experts will talk about the history of bracelets, necklaces and the like at a presentation in Middlebury. See Page 32.

By WILL DIGRAVIO MIDDLEBURY — “The Collinwood Fire,” the latest animated film by Middlebury’s Daniel Houghton, begins with a filmmaker and a journalist racing toward a column of smoke rising above a small town. When the duo arrive at the scene, they record what they see on film and paper: children fleeing their elementary school as it is devoured by flames, forced to run past the corpses of their classmates and jump off a fire escape that does not reach the ground. If you want to know the rest of the (See Film, Page 22)

IN “THE COLLINWOOD Fire,” an animated movie by Middlebury filmmaker Daniel Houghton, a boy tries to escape the flames in a scene with archival newspapers projected in the background.


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