The town and its newspaper experienced unprecedented events this year, with a controversy that consumed much time and ink, and a pandemic, from which even our isolated corner of the world was not insulated.
We began our publishing year in May, 2019 with the tradition of reporting on the town budgets, followed by an article on the Town Meeting in June, information on the referendum in July, and the results of the votes in the August issue. Conversely, the year ended with reports on the deliberations of the Board of Finance, who were charged, per the Governor’s Executive Order, with sole approval of the budgets, restrictions on public assemblies precluding votes by the legislative body. In between, it was mostly business as usual, and we were pleased to report on our neighbors’ ventures: the General Store in its most recent iteration, “Fallen Log Homestead Bakery”, and Renee Cuprak’s “Rural Arts & Workshop Retreat”. On the suggestion of new board member, Delphine Newell, we started listing seasonal services, benefitting providers and residents alike.
We “Met the Candidates” seeking municipal office in the November Election, and new neighbors, members of the Mennonite community, who shared several celebrations with us, including a Thanksgiving Feast. The series “Coming to Hampton” introduced another new board member, Laura McCabe, and an exchange student temporarily here from Brazil. We recognized one of our neighbors, David Foster, who was honored as Windham’s Citizen of the Year, and started 2020 with the tradition of honoring our own, this year’s recipient, Susan Hochstetter. And in September, “It Must Be Something in the Water!” honored our fourteen nonagenerians, who are all, fortunately, still with us. We did lose twenty residents last year, some who resided here only briefly, others, all their lives, a renowned artist, Andy Jones, and veterans, including one of a few from World War II, Mario Fiondella. We celebrated Veterans’ Day with a patriotic tale from Wayne Kilpatrick, and the cover of last year’s July issue featured the Memorial Day speaker, veteran Anne Flammang, whose speech was a tribute to the young women who volunteered to serve in our military in the 1940’s – Ruth Burchnall, Eva Loew, Jean Surridge, and Dorothy Howell, whose family also contributed her memoir to the Gazette.
Our readers also submitted letters to the editor, mostly campaign related, recipes, and poetry, and contributed to the annual Community Poem titled “I Remember…” at the Fall Festival, listing “My first day at Bell School…Milking cows…The Little River Grange.” Because we’re a newspaper, we always poll townsfolk at the Festival posing local, state and national questions, and this year we discovered that 30% of the participants still have an out-house on their property, the majority consider summer their favorite season in Connecticut, and our town is comprised of people with cultural heritages from all over the world, along with a couple of “Swamp Yankees” and a few who identified as “Heinz 57”.
Pete Vertefeuille continued to elevate the Gazette with his exceptional photography, with information on the art as well as his avian subjects. His magnificent image of Pine Acres Pond graced the cover of our annual calendar, where local photographers and artists displayed seasonal masterpieces of the town’s nature preserves. Marcia Kilpatrick continued to dispense ecological advice in “Green Thumbs”, and the Editor, on gardening. Auntie Mac continued to keep us on our toes, and in stitches, with her sagacious answers to questions of etiquette, Angela Fichter continued to entertain us with her unique perspective on the world’s quirks, and Cindy Bezanson continued to delight young and old alike with enchanting tales of her chickens. Neighbors detailed their travels with us, to Ireland, and on the Rocky Mountaineer through northwest Canada; and a crew member shared her experiences in “Cruise Life: the Good, the Bad, and the Downright Weird”. Local high schools, and a student reporter, Genevieve Rondeau, informed us of academic events and accomplishments. We reported on an elementary school program and retirement, and featured the Class of 2020 on last month’s front page to recognize graduates who were prevented from having a ceremony this year.
We continued “Our Rural Heritage” series with articles on historic barns: “The Johnsons” and “The Joneses”, the “Little Red Brewster Barn” and the “Barn at the Top of Hammond Hill”; historic farms: “at Popover Hill” and “on Hammond Hill”, the “Grow Farm” and the “Vargas Farm”. Also included in the series: Farmer’s Markets, from the turn of the century to the present; the neighborly endeavor of “Barn-Raising” by Pat and Jamie Boss; stories from students who attended the one room school houses, including an award winning poem on the Bell School, and an account of life in the ABC school house from its current resident, Penny Newbury.
Various organizations apprised us throughout the year of their programs — Fletcher Memorial Library, Goodwin Forest, Connecticut Audubon, the Seniors, the Recreation Commission, and the Historical Society. And we reported on town news, detailing the addition on the library and covering the grand opening, explaining the new tax collection services, alerting residents of the rash of burglaries we suffered last winter. The year’s consuming news was the Selectmen’s unauthorized purchase of a bucket truck to remove hazardous trees from roadsides, and the response of the Board of Finance and taxpayers, which we reported on from November to June; and when the Selectmen scheduled a referendum to abolish the Board of Finance, our editorial board was compelled to publish an unprecedented Special Edition to alert residents of the referendum and the issues surrounding it, which proved costly in terms of time, money, and the removal of all references to The Hampton Gazette from the Town website. Information, however, is always an investment well spent.
We’re a local newspaper, so our pages rarely contain commentary on news of national or global significance. We’re there now though – thrust into a global pandemic and a national crisis from which most of us cannot turn away. When the pandemic, and its restrictions, struck, the Gazette published accordingly. Our organizations, churches and schools informed us of their accommodations and the Town’s Covid-19 Emergency Management provided information. “Our Rural Heritage” series featured “The Return of Milk Delivery”, a local psychologist advised us on dealing with stress, the Recreation Commission suggested ways to entertain ourselves, and we developed a Hampton crossword, word search and cryptogram for our readers. We featured the popular page “Hampton Remembers the 2nd Half of the 20th Century” which connects Hamptonites near and far. We promoted “The Healing Power of Humor” with humorous commentary, photographs and a political cartoon, and “The Healing Power of Nature” with articles on beginning a garden, shelter-in-place gardens, and our new community garden.
If ever there was a year that challenged all of us, this was it, yet the circumstances of the pandemic and our special edition proved the worth of a small town newspaper. If there’s one thing we’ve learned this year, it’s the value of hearing of and from one another. That’s the role we’ll continue to help fulfill in the future – with news of the town and our neighbors, sharing recipes, opinions, poetry, photographs, comic relief, and journeys on memory lane – whatever that future entails.
Juan Arriola, Chairman, Editorial Board of “The Hampton Gazette”