Going green
Goal oriented
Joint effort between brewer and grower helps reduce carbon emissions
Redhawks face off in high-scoring nail biter against St. Johnsbury
Page 9
Page 12
Volume 54 Number 18
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May 1, 2025
Students demand to be heard
Rearing to go
BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
Sessions. Chris Dorman, one of the owners of the farm, planned the series with his friend, Justin LaPoint. Both are folk singer-songwriters and saw an opportunity in Bread and Butter’s recently restored barn to make space for musicians to play. Their goal on concert nights, they said,
Twenty-five students from across the state came to testify in person last Friday before a joint session of the Vermont Senate and House education committees. One by one, they sat at a small desk facing a horseshoe of senators and representatives and asked to be heard. “It is just wonderful to have so many students here and to have your voices and your input and your authentic engagement. It means so much to us, and it’s an important part of our process,” Erin Brady, D-Williston, who chairs the House education committee said before the testimony began. Brady, along with Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale and Champlain Valley Union junior, Zoe Epstein organized the testimony. While on the schedule the time was officially logged as related to H. 454, the education reform bill recently passed by the state House of Representatives, the students’ comments ranged across topics that they wanted to address such as diversity, equity and inclusion programs or school choice, sometimes giving opinions that put them at odds with each other. However, at the center of the testimony was a demand that echoed Brady’s comments at the beginning of the session: the students would like to be involved in the legislative process.
See LISTENING ROOM on page 5
See STUDENTS on page 2
PHOTO BY BRIANA BRADY
A rearing horse at Shelburne Museum stands in the middle of other sculptures, which appear to be almost grazing on the lawn. See story on page 11.
Bread and Butter farm turns barn into listening room BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
Light from the setting sun came in through the slats of the barn at Bread and Butter Farm last Wednesday as Mikahely, a Burlington-based musician who often plays traditional instruments from Madagascar and sings in his native Malagasy, picked up a small instrument made of bundled
bamboo reeds from the floor in front of him, a kaiamba. He began to shake it and hit it against his opposite palm, creating a rhythm, its rattle and the beat of his foot the only sounds in the barn. “When it’s a small group audience, it feels much more closer,” Mikahely said. Mikahely was the first of three artists Bread and Butter has invited to play as part of their new monthly concert series: Silo
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