‘Hands off’
Mind matters
State senator delivers speech duing protest in Montpelier
Orchard Elementary School students win big at Odyssey contest
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the APRIL 10, 2025
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VOLUME 49, NO. 15
Holding the line
Librarians grapple with uncertainty over federal fiats LIBERTY DARR & BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITERS
On a particularly balmy spring day last week, a woman was meandering around the Charlotte library when Margaret Woodruff, the library director and friendly face around the building most days, approached her to ask if she needed any help. The woman explained that she had just gotten into town to scout a property she’s looking to buy. It seemed fitting that Woodruff was one of the first people to greet her in her new town, and that one of the first places she visited was the local library. News for librarians across the country has been far less bright in recent weeks. Woodruff and several other library directors across Chittenden County have been grappling with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order seeking to eliminate “to the maximum extent” the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the primary source of federal support for the nation’s museums and libraries. Last week, the institute placed
its entire 70-person staff on administrative leave. “We have never had to think about having to defend ourselves as an institution before,” Woodruff said. “We’ve never considered libraries to be the ‘bad guy.’ It’s really so unprecedented.” In Vermont, the institute provides roughly one-third of the state’s Department of Libraries’ funding, which in 2024, amounted to roughly $1.2 million, said Commissioner and State Librarian Catherine Delneo. Those federal funds support a slew of shared services within the state, from the interlibrary loan program — the service that moves books and other materials across the state’s libraries and libraries across the nation — to the ABLE library service for the blind and visually impaired, online databases, as well as other resources and professional development for library workers. Delneo said the state department has been using the Institute of Museum and Library Services See LIBRARIANS on page 10
COURTESY PHOTO
Roger Abare sits with his two daughters Doreen Allison (left) and Debbie Ruppel (right) at his 100th birthday party at the Rotisserie.
South Burlington man, WWII vet, celebrates his centennial birthday LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
“Howdy do!” Roger Abare said, his voice full of life. 100 years of life. The South Burlington resident sat comfortably last week in his leather-bound rocking chair in the
same house he has lived in since 1956. He has seen the city shift and change from that very spot, watching cars — and the decades — pass from his living room window just off Hinesburg Road. The road is now much different than it looked in the 1950s, as cars zip and zoom through landscape
that has grown to be much more of an urban atmosphere. Debbie Ruppel, Abare’s daughter, remembers when the area that encompassed Hinesburg Road was nothing but a massive field where she See ABARE on page 12
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