Thursday, February 19, 2009

Haunted Lyndon

The age of Lyndonville and the surrounding area makes it rich in history… and some of the old residents still hang around to share it. The Northeast Kingdom, with its ancient buildings and old world stories, has long been a hotspot for supposed hauntings.
One of the several we found was the wife of Horace Fairbanks who supposedly haunts the upper floor of the Anthaneum of Saint Johnsbury. Speaking of the Fairbanks, the family has also been spotted at the family plot in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. There have been no counts of mischievous activity, leading these reporters to believe that the Fairbanks are just checking in on things.
Another haunting hot-spot has been the old Train Station, which has since been turned into a Welcome center. Many say that the high amount of traffic the station received is the reason it may be haunted today. For Academy students, the Brentview Residence Hall has been rumored to be haunted by a woman who was married to the owner of the house Ask around, and you will no doubt hear accounts of voices and footsteps in the night.
The Courthouse in Saint Johnsbury was built on a graveyard. While we could not find information on whether or not the bodies laid to rest in the graveyard had been relocated, but nether the less it makes this building a prime spot for paranormal activity.
The old Summer St. School, after it was done being a school, was converted to a retirement home for the elderly. Many people who work the offices now believe that the old ghosts who spent their last moments in the building can be heard and sometimes seen wandering the building. In Lyndonville a bridge located on Center Street has been stated as a haunted hot spot by college students for years. Many students who have said to have seen things report a mysterious face in the night.
Now onto two of the most interesting of the hauntings on the map: The Emma Vail haunting of the Vail Museum and the Old Mill in Saint Johnsbury.
The Old Mill in Saint Johnsbury, which has sense been renovated into a fitness center, has had a long and morbid history before being shut down in the 1900’s, deaths of children had been reported due to the dangerous machinery and the dangerous jobs they had to do. Today people report seeing small children where there couldn’t be, hearing voices and footsteps. There have been no recent reports by adults, but some parents have said their children have seen something while attending practice for the various sports.
The last and closest to home is the ghost of Emma Vail. The story goes that she sometimes takes a ride in her old wheelchair around the Vail Museum (which is located in the Vail Building).
Short and sweet, this is our list of just some of the haunted places around the Northeast Kingdom. There are no doubt hundreds of haunted places to visit- you just got to look for them!


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Thursday, February 5, 2009

"Recruiting is Selling." - Small Schools Recruit

The challenges facing (and their secrets too) a small college's recruiting. - Original Story by Sam Monroe

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For Lyndon State College, recruiting is an uphill battle that must be fought every year.

“Recruiting is the life’s blood of your program,” said Bill Johnson, Lyndon’s sports information director, who coached basketball for 28 years before coming to Lyndon.

“Great players make good coaches great,” said Vincent Maloney, the Lyndon State women’s basketball coach.

Most coaches agree that networking is number one in any recruiting outfit. The coaches at LSC attempt to have a New England-wide network with coaches and high schools year long, keeping up on stats and prospective players.

Chris Ummer, the coach for LSC's cross country also made use of summer camps in order to recruit, though he no longer is in charge of it. Maloney also uses a camp to aid in recruiting.

“Recruiting is selling,” said Johnson. The coach needs to sell the school and entice athletes with the small things that they can’t get at other schools. Johnson also said that he would never mention another school during a recruiting visit.

As for selling LSC to prospective athletes, the coaches all use differect methods. Joe Krupinski, a basketball coach from LSC says he stresses the improvement of the basketball team. He tells his recruits “you can be a building block in turning this around.” Ummer mentions the mountians and plethora of outdoor activities. Maloney, on the other hand, uses the size of classes and the idea of being a face and name, not just a number in a system to the professors.

Perhaps most difficult part of recruiting for a small school is being able to see prospective athletes play. The issues arise because of scheduling conflicts. LSC's seasons are at the same time as the highschool seasons; this makes it difficult for the coaches to go watch athletes play.

“Students are very excited when a coach walks in to see them play,” said Maloney. Yet not being able to go to as many games as they would like they rely on stats. Ummer, just as an extra boost, will go to a prospective cross country runners will visit them at other sports events.

The last part of recruiting for LSC is a campus visit. The coaches will generly introduce athletes already on the team to encourage the prospect to play.

“It makes them feel like they are already part of the team,” Ummer said.

While Krupinski puts it into one sentence “it is about finding your niche and finding guys who are a good fit at your school and your level.”

Lyndon State Athletics

Sam's Original Story

Tragic Crash- LSC Professors Survive

Skyler Edwards (CRITIC) -

A Helter National airliner crashed on takeoff from LaGuardia Airport this Thursday. Professors from Lyndon State College, on their way back home from a conference were on the flight.

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Thursday, a Helter National airliner crashed just moments after take off from LaGuardia Airport. There were 45 passengers on board the flight, including two Lyndon State College Professors.

Professor John Dumont and Professor George Johnson were both on their way back to Vermont from a teachers conference in New York City. Luckily, neither were harmed in the crash.

Regrettably, 5 other passengers did lose their lives in the accident.

Both Professors are expected to be back at work the following Monday.

In other news, Helter National has announced they will be releasing the design for their new airliners in the next month.

This is a fake news story, and is not to be taken seriously. Both professors mentioned are perfectly fine and were not in this fictional plane crash.

Star’s Plan to Help Schools Funding

Chairman Bobby Star (D-Essex-Orleans) told media Monday morning of a bill to that may be drafted to separate the cost of High schools from elementary school budgets. This is an attempt to lower cost of elementary schools from being cut due to private high schools.

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Skyler Edwards

Monday morning, Chairman Bobby Star (D-Essex-Orleans) spoke of the funding problems facing many elementary schools due to sharing a budget with private high schools. Star also spoke of a bill that may be drafted by the committee that would separate the two funds.

Starr also said that he wanted to look at drop-out rates. Students tend to drop out in the winter months, but the state is stuck paying the students tution for a whole year. Another bill was mentioned to persuade schools to keep students enrolled.

Starr suggested that they look at a loophole in education funding law that could save the state millions in rebate funds.

Steven Sanborn, operations chief at Essex-Caledonia Supervisory Union in Concord spoke before the committee. He brought examples of various elementary schools who needed help.

One of the examples given was the elementary school Lunenburg was forced to cut two teachers to keep the funds within what was allotted, but the high school tuition funds where left untouched.

Caledonia Record's article

Gov. Douglas' School Funds Plan

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

"Pimpin'" my blog.

Well, it appears that I've got a job to do for class. I'll delay my post of the wonderful Reh Dogg to put this up before I forget and it gets lost in the ravings:
My blog seems to be generic right now when compared to my classmates. Many of us have opted for this 'bubble blue' layout... and I would change it but any other XML coding I attempt to apply breaks because of exceed bandwidth issues on images or deleting all of my 'gadgets'. When I started this blog, I did not do so to show off anything other than my apparent bad luck in seeing horrible things. Thus I added things that are silly or have to do with entertainment. I attempted to add the Youtube search tool, but it looked so clunky and out of place I got rid of it. Really, there doesn't seem to be much of a process to set one of these up. I'll let the others try and win you over with their blog powers. I just want to talk about things. Your assignment was just the push to actually make me set up a blog. The features don't make the blog, the information inside of it does. But grading on features is your idea, and I'm not going to say anymore on the subject.
So, this is my attempt at appeasing my teacher. I'm going to go torture myself some more for apparently no reason.

Multimedia, the Blog.

Welcome to my Multimedia and Storytelling blog. Here is where I will be posting classwork for Dan William's class, Introduction to Multimedia Storytelling. Perhaps I will even post other essays from some other classes, just to make it a bit diverse.
Well, cheers!