Week of January 21-27, 2006

Saturday, January 21 Rain coupled with temperatures hovering around 50 degrees have made this a January to remember for all of the wrong reasons at the local cross country ski touring centers. It was going to be the trip of a lifetime, but Paul and Carol Cunhas trip to climb Kilimanjaro a mostly extinct volcano, at 19,563-feet the highest mountain in Africaended in tragedy. The start of the school day is interrupted at Josiah Bartlett Elementary School due to a small fuel spill in the boiler room. The Winter Walkers are at it again. Remick Country Doctor Museum & Farm continues its year-long series, Genealogy Research at Captain Enoch Remick House, circa 1808, in Tamworth Village. Monday, January 23 Development along North-South Road is one step closer to reality with plans for two retail stores between the road and the Old Navy store in Settlers' Green. Sally and Steve Swenson of Kearsarge will get the opportunity to see their son, Carl, compete in his third and final Winter Olympic Games. The former Fryeburg Academy student who was arrested for allegedly setting fire to the academy gymnasium pleads not guilty. It will take $4.3 million to finish a new regional high school and career and technical center that's the message members of Conway Building Steering Committee hope to convey in the months leading up to a crucial spring vote about allocating additional money to the troubled building project. A Center Ossipee 18-year-old, who rode along with an accused burglar and played lookout instead of alerting police as a Granite Road home was robbed, will serve six months in jail. Jackson School Board votes to propose expanding the size of the school board from three to five members. A 20-year-old Conway woman whose parents reportedly put up their Florida house to keep her out of jail is indicted on drug charges. Local resident, New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed mystery writer Lisa Gardner launches her latest thriller, "Gone," at White Birch Books. The Thursday Night Book Club at White Birch Books will be starting off the new year with a Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren. Tuesday, January 24 North Conway Water Precinct commissioners give Superintendent David Bernier a five-year contract with an annual salary of $71,242. Local ski areas are down to bare earth on some of slopes when a Canadian storm rolls in and drops a couple of inches of snow Monday. A Carroll County budget that's up $10 million over the last dozen years has caught the attention of Conway selectmen, partly because of what it costs local taxpayers. A Kennett High sophomore who allegedly sent air gun pellets sailing down the aisle of a school bus in December is scheduled for arraignment in Superior Court. At public hearings this month, voters of Conway Village Fire District and North Conway Water Precinct can comment on whether the precincts should tie their water systems together for "emergency" flow purposes. A Vermont man, Thomas T. Welch, 23, is arrested for alleged felony possession of a controlled drug with the intent to distribute after police report finding a large amount of marijuana and nearly $11,000 in cash in his vehicle. Nobody is hurt when a car pushes through a wall at Watson's General Store in West Ossipee.Wednesday, January 25 Heritage-NH, which opened the bicentennial summer of 1976, will close at the end of the 2006 season, due to declining attendance. A bank robbery suspect is taken into custody at New Suncook School in Lovell after fleeing the Federal Bureau of Investigation and stealing a snowmobile during his flight. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken the lead in the investigation of the armed robbery of North Conway's Northway Bank on Jan. 6. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch and First Lady Dr. Susan Lynch sample Mount Washingtons famous winter weather with a tour of the summit. Court papers chronicling the more than three-year battle of Riss v. Town of Madison are on display at Conway Public Library. A chimney fire causes a brief disruption at Attitash Grand Summit Resort Hotel and Conference Center in Bartlett.Thursday, January 26 Harry Merrow, a selectman and state legislator who owns hundreds of acres in Ossipee, is planning to sell off about 28 acres on Route 16 to a major New England mall builder. Concluding a two-night review, Fryeburg Board of Appeals sides with East Fryeburg residents who are opposed to a Poland Spring truck-filling facility in their neighborhood. When a fleeing bank robbery suspect barges into New Suncook School on Monday, an emergency lockdown helps keep the elementary students and staff safe. Governor John Lynch wants to raise the compulsory education age from 16 to 18 and expand alternatives so kids kept in school who would rather drop out won't simply be occupying a seat. Conway Planning Board will begin reviewing plans for a 30-home subdivision off Thompson Road in North Conway. Applebee's Restaurant in North Conway is forced to close temporarily after a grease fire ignites in the kitchen.Friday, January 27 An Oak Ridge Road homeowner in Eidelweiss says mismanagement by the three heads of the village of district of Eidelweiss is running taxpayers dry. Rob Clark files for a three-year seat on Bartlett School Board on the first day of candidate signups. Dr. Mary Nash says she can start moving on with her life now that the man who broke into her Fryeburg home and assaulted her has been convicted. An Oxford County Superior Court jury found David J. Mair guilty of aggravated assault and burglary. Bank robbery suspect Travis Blodgett, who recently resided in Sweden, Maine, less than five months ago was arrested by Conway Police Department as a wanted person living in North Conway.