the essex
April 5, 2018 • The Essex Reporter • 1
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{ Thursday, April 5, 2018 }
Locals honored for heroic efforts By COLIN FLANDERS A group of Milton and Essex residents were honored at Founders Memorial School earlier this week after they saved a young boy from drowning. Students Julian Ercole, Liam Kang and Abigail and Zachary Jackman were joined by parents on stage during a packed assembly last Friday to receive lifesaving awards from Essex emergency departments, recognizing their heroic efforts on January 27 in Hartford, Conn. There for a gymnastics meet, the four kids were swimming in the hotel pool when other children from a birthday party joined them. At one point, some of the Vermont parents started to notice one boy bobbing in the water and asked the supervising adult if he was OK. They assured the boy was fine, but a few minutes later, he was completely submerged. The Vermont group sprung into action. Essex resident Heath Jackman instructed his son Julian to swim to the bottom of the pool and grab the young boy. Julian said his “stomach was in knots” during the in-
cident, but he wasn’t thinking when he dove down into the pool. “I just knew it had to be done,” said Julian, a fourthgrader at Founders Memorial. “So I did it.”
“I just knew it had to be done. So I did it.” Julian Ercole Founders Memorial fourth-grader
Heath Jackman then jumped in, took the boy from Julian’s arms and moved him over to the deck. He instructed his wife, Amy, to call 911, while former EMT Tabatha Kittson, a Milton resident, performed two
PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
Beetle mania
See AWARDS, page 3
Founders Memorial fourth-grader Julian Ercole receives a life-saving award last Friday from Essex's emergency departments for his role to help save a 5-year-old boy from drowning in Hartford, Conn. on January 27.
The emerald ash borer is here. Luckily, Chittenden County has time to prepare for the inevitable. By COURTNEY LAMDIN
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STOCK PHOTOS
The emerald ash borer, an invasive pest from Asia, was found in central Vermont in February. Experts say it's only a matter of time before it migrates to Chittenden County, but there's also time to prepare for its arrival.
cross the street from Ethan Tapper’s Essex Jct. office is a picturesque neighborhood, a cluster of colonials with paved driveways, basketball hoops and two-car garages. Both Hayden Street and Wilkinson Drive are lined with ash trees, some nearly 30 years old, on both sides of the road, adding a coziness to the development that’s situated just beyond the busy Route 15. Within 20 years, all those trees could all be gone if the emerald ash borer, an invasive pest found in central Vermont this February, makes it way north as expected. Tapper, the Chittenden County forester, says that’s almost certain to happen. “We can’t contain it,” he said. “It’s going to kill 99 percent of all the ash trees we have.” Black, white and green ash trees make up 5 percent of Vermont’s trees, and due to their hardiness, are commonly seen in urban areas and lining residential streets such as the ones in the village. There, 21 percent of public trees are ash, accord-
ing to a 2014 tree inventory. Neighboring Colchester has 19 percent ash trees, Essex Town has 16 percent and Milton 11, as reported in those towns’ tree inventories. Add in the ash in town forests, large parks and on private property – plus the thousands of dollars in economic benefit trees provide – and the insect’s potential for collateral damage becomes glaringly apparent. Infected trees die within three to five years, posing danger to homes, powerlines and the traveling public. Cutting down just one of them can costs hundreds, plus a few hundred more to replace it. Not to mention the visual impact that hundreds of dead or missing trees has on a community’s landscape. But experts say there’s no cause for panic, arguing there’s time to plan for the borer’s inevitable arrival to Vermont’s northwestern corner. The emerald ash borer was found in the U.S. in Michigan in 2002, likely by hitchhiking on shipping material from its native Asia. Since then, it’s killed millions of trees across the country. The borer makes its home underneath an ash’s bark, tunneling through the outer wood, disrupting the tree’s flow of nutrients and killing it from the top down. A telltale sign of infestation is the D-shaped exit wound it leaves in the bark.
Inside
ADL project brings family to the forefront By COLIN FLANDERS A hundred portraits hung in the hallways of Albert D. Lawton last week showing snapshots of a life beyond the school walls. Some sat perfectly postured in formal attire, while others showed off their goofier side. And while none looked the same, all had one thing in common: family. The photos, taken by students from the Center for Technology, Essex, were part of a project that asked students to write essays about their families and what makes them unique. The essays were then hung throughout the school, each with an accompanied hand-written note that highlighted a certain part of the essay, like one that read: “My sis-
ter saved my life.” ADL vice principal Amie Conger and literary specialist Rachel Kahn, who co-led the project, said it offered kids a chance to celebrate themselves and their families. “This is putting it out there that we all look different; it's not one thing defining us,” Conger said. That’s an important message for students of any age, but especially those in middle school, where “a lot of us are trying not to feel different,” Kahn said. “At the same time,” she said, “we can sometimes cover up those things that make us really unique and really special.” Both educators said the project allowed faculty to get to know their students better; one long-term substitute teach-
er told Kahn the project was so “compelling” because she learned about students’ lives in a way she’s never able to do in school. “By seeing this side of us, who our families are, what our families experience, it goes such great lengths to connect us as a school community,” Kahn said. Students, meanwhile, said the project allowed them to reflect on their own families like never before, like seventh-grader Lexi Lyman, who got to know her family a little better. She even recognized some changes in her own life, too. “I just started playing with my siblings a little more, and I’m enjoying my life a lot more because I’m not cooped up in my room as much,” Lexi said. See FAMILY, page 4
See BORER, page 2
Legislation and education
Read up on some updates from Montpelier and perspectives on education spending 5
Weekly police log See a sample of the calls that your police force responded to this week 10
Spring sports schedules We've compiled schedules for all your favorite Essex High School teams 11
Athletes of the week
Check out two Essex Middle School players who earned this weeks honors 13
Brian Bradshaw sent this adorable picture of young Olivia at the annual Easter Egg hunt last weekend. We've compiled some more of reader-submitted photos on our website: essexreporter.com.
EWSD school board candidate Q&A
Hear from your three incumbents running for school board next week 2