The degradation of our lakes from cyanobacteria and milfoil is of great concern to all New Hampshire taxpayers, even if you never get your feet wet in them. As an example, the three New Hampshire municipalities with the lowest tax rates and a population of 5,500 or more are Wakefield, Rye an…
Early last summer, two different friends of mine commented on how many of Kennett High School's 2026 graduates indicated that they were going directly into the workforce. I think it was at the July SAU 9 meeting that Conway School Board member Randy Davison mentioned the same thing. All thre…
LAMBS GROVE, Iowa — Move over, soccer moms, forget about NASCAR dads and dismiss even the “bunch of childless cat ladies” that JD Vance identified — all shorthands for critical voting groups in past elections. The term with a powerful punch in this year’s midterm congressional election is “d…
When fall is in the air, I start to think about the thousands of students who first walked through my classroom door. The first time, in 1993 it was 3-year-old story hour, and the last, 2016, sixth grade science. Over the years I taught in three different schools. The first was grades 3-6 sc…
As the outgoing Conway representative to the N.H. House of Representatives, I feel that it is important to clarify some of the facts in a recent letter to the editor by Republican House candidate Karen Umberger.
Carroll County had a great opportunity to invest in a project that would have benefited taxpayers and the environment, thanks to Wharton Sinkler and a group of local volunteers. This proposal required a careful study of the financial benefits of installing a solar array at the county farm. T…
Those who attended Doug Burnell's slide show of his father's photos at the public library four weeks ago saw a newspaper image of a murder victim whose skeleton was unearthed in Conway Village in 1937. While that may have come as a surprise to those who found it, it wasn't the only such disc…
September has once again passed, leaving some of us behind and taking with it others. This year one of those whisked away was a woman with whom I've all my life had more than a passing fascination. I was in awe of her, really, and my awe didn't diminish with age. This intrepid heroine, Glori…
NEW WATERFORD, Ohio — See how they run. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown is running like an old man in a hurry.
For the last nine years that I have called the valley my home, I have resisted commenting on the state of our Conway public schools. I graduated fourth in my public high school class of 200 in a blue-collar town. When I was deciding what to do with my life after high school, the guidance cou…
From 40,000 B.C. when we Homo Sapiens took over from the Neanderthals until about 10,000 B.C. when we started growing crops and domesticating animals, we had it pretty good. Sure, we died young. Infections and all sorts of trauma killed us off. We spent most of our time hunting and gathering…
Fifteen years ago, the Wall Street Journal reprinted an op-ed from City Journal that asked "Who Lost the Middle Class?" The author, Fred Siegel, called it "a question for historians of the not-too-distant future." He predicted that the United States, once known for its vibrant middle class, …
New Hampshire politics heading into the midterms has taken a disturbing turn. Instead of arguing about taxes, education, housing and health care, some of our political discourse has descended into calling Democrats communists and socialists, and, in one extraordinary case, advocating politic…
Attending the most recent SAU 9 meeting was another eye-opening endeavor.
WILLIAMSBURG, Virginia — The governor of Virginia was relieved there was no school in the colonial capital. No newspaper, either.
New Hampshire Republicans have been attempting to explain away the reason for N.H.’s increasing property taxes, some claiming that the leadership in Concord is not directly responsible and others blaming the increase on the high cost of education funding.