may 17th issue

1 Local News 8 Editorial8 From the Tower11 Fast Picks14 Calendar15 Beer & Wine16 Beacon Profiles18 Movies 18 Girl-2-Girl19 Sports

The Lee First Con-gregational Church

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The Berkshire Beacon

IndexDear Oreste “Rusty”

D’Arconte, publisher:

Jeff Peterson, general man-ager of The Sun Chronicle, and I have been discussing our first anniversary plans for The Berkshire Beacon at the Sun Chronicle in Attleboro today.

I have eight coming at this hour. More may join us.

I thought among the prin-cipals should be Roy Belcher, who was a mentor to me dur-ing the first run of 14 editions back in the late 1990s. I thought I would ask you to contact him to come join us. I am sure the Chronicle staff would be happy to see him.

I have my niece, Susan Un-

sworth Robinson, working on an anniversary edition front page and noting that it is a collector’s item.

We have gotten good feed-back here in Berkshire Coun-ty. We just need to develop an on-going week to week ad revenue stream.

We are building some bridges in the county... over the past year, we have given coverage to Lenox, Pittsfield, Lee, Stockbridge and other towns. Our sports depart-ment has covered both north-ern and southern Berkshire County.

Our goal is to foster a read-ership among the small towns in Berkshire County and in-crease our readership at con-

venience stores and other out-lets. Social technology today allows us to integrate within a community and help develop trends within the county.

I remember Jeff Peterson noting when you started printing the Westerly news-paper that I ought to think about The Republican, as it is closer to my area and my for-mer employer. So I asked him where he thought I would pick up the newspaper as a former employee?

He said probably the “dock.” Ugh!

This is probably where many vendors’ personnel do grab the bundles with little

Open Letter toSun Chronicle Publisher & Staff:

Publisher’s Note:

Catherine M. KrummeyBeacon Staff Writer

LENOX – For a smaller town like Lenox, Massachu-setts’ tuition cap of $5,000 for school choice is dramatically low.

“It clearly costs more than that to educate a student,” said Lenox Public Schools Su-perintendent Edward W. Cos-ta II. “I think it [the $5,000 cap] should be raised.”

According to data on the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) website, the total cost per pupil for educating a Lenox student in 2010 was at $14,226, or $1,171 more than the state average of $13,055.

According to Massachusetts Office of School Finance Pro-grams Administrator Roger Hatch, the $5,000 cap has been in place since student choice started in 1991.

“People have suggested rais-ing the rate,” Mr. Hatch said, adding that it has obviously never gotten serious enough to go through.

“I would love to see an in-crease for the choice cap be-cause it would reflect the cost of educating students,” Dr. Costa said in an interview with The Beacon.

For the 2011-2012 school year, the district has 218 stu-dents choicing into Lenox and only 43 out, according to the ESE website. The 218 stu-dents make up more than 25 percent of the 804 students currently enrolled in the district.

Dr. Costa indicated that the choice seats they offer to stu-dents outside of Lenox are only available to fully utilize the district’s capacity.

For example, in a classroom that has the capacity for 20 students, if there are only 15 students from Lenox sched-uled to enroll, only five spaces are available for choice students.

This keeps Lenox from hav-ing the cost of additional class-rooms or teachers.

“We only offer student choice where we have existing capacity, so it’s all revenue for us,” Dr. Costa said.

If the time comes when there is a lower enrollment number of Lenox students and a decreased number of stu-dents choicing in, Dr. Costa said that they would consider staff reductions in an effort to cut costs.

As far as cutting insurance costs go, Dr. Costa seems to be pleased with the town’s cur-rent insurance plan through Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Instead of going for the commonwealth-sponsored Group Insurance Commission (GIC), the town (which deter-mines the health insurance for school employees as well) worked to cut costs on their current plan.

Instead of paying 80 percent of the costs, the town now pays 75, leaving the employees with the other 25 percent.

“It was a better financial pic-ture than going to GIC,” Dr. Costa said. “We controlled the costs as a town without going to GIC.”

Costa: Choice cap

should be raised

Bera B. DunauBeacon Staff Writer

LEE – After over one and a half hours of debate, Lee’s rep-resentative Town Meeting gave the Lee Select Board the necessary approvals to proceed with Lee’s proposed municipal solar project.

The municipal solar proj-ect, if constructed, would pro-duce nearly three megawatts of power and provide for ef-fectively all of Lee’s municipal energy needs.

The three proposed sites for the solar arrays under the cur-rent plan are at the Lee Water Treatment Plant, the old Lee Landfill and on a section of town-owned land near the Massachusetts Turnpike on Stockbridge Road.

The town is currently in ne-gotiations with the company

Solar approved

see SOLAR page 7

see LETTER page 3

Photo Credit / Kameron Z. SPaulding / BerKShire BeaCon

The town can now move forward with its solar project.

May 17, 2012Volume II, Issue 52

www.berkshirebeacon.comLenox, MA 01240

COLLECTOR’S EDITION

1st Anniversary

2 The Berkshire Beacon May 17, 2012

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Kameron Z. SpauldingBeacon Staff Writer

Lee Board of Selectmen Chair-man David Consolati defeated challenger Richard I. Neales, 616-509.

Three years ago the race was much closer, and, only after a re-count, Mr. Consolati edged Mr. Neales by three votes.

Also in Lee there was a three-way race for two seats on the school committee. Incumbents Dr. Thomas Consolati and Kelly Koperek won by a large margin over JoAnn Piacquadio-Sullivan. Dr. Consolati led all candidates with 798 votes, followed by Ms. Koperek with 714 and Ms. Pi-acquadio-Sullivan with 390.

Meanwhile in Great Bar-rington, the one contested race saw a newcomer come out on top.

Sharon M. Gregory won one of two seats on the town’s finance committee. Ms. Gregory was top vote-getter at 344, with incum-bent Walter F. “Buddy” Atwood III a second-place finisher at 248 votes. Louis J. “Jim” Stark, the other incumbent, came in third place with 146 votes in the race for two three-year terms.

The Hancock School Commit-tee elections were close but the

incumbents pulled out wins.Patricia “Patty” Bishop and

Mark Gaskill, both incumbents, were the top two vote-getters in a four-way race for two three-year terms. Ms. Bishop won with 76 votes, while Mr. Gaskill’s 73 votes were enough to keep him on the board as well.

Challengers Josephine Nichol-son and Carrie Pause finished with 66 and 36 votes, respectively.

In Sheffield, Betty E. Le Geyt returns to the library board of trustees for another three-year term after defeating Frances E. Roth 179-129.

Also in Sheffield, Rene Wood was expected to be in an uncon-tested race for select board but faced a surprise write-in challenge on election day. In the end, Ms. Wood won re-election to the board of selectmen with 222 votes, while Ren Garber received 43 write-in votes.

In Dalton, Town Clerk Barbara L. Suriner had not faced a chal-lenger since she first ran for the seat in 1986.

This year newcomer John F. Pitha challenged Ms. Suriner, but the election was still won very handily by the incumbant by a tally of 553 to 75.

Consolati wins in Lee; Gregory in

Great Barrington Bera B. DunauBeacon Staff Writer

LENOX - In their first meeting since the May 7, select board elections, the Board of Selectmen took action on a number of high profile items.

The board passed a motion that the chairman of the Select Board could serve multiple terms, but no more than two terms consecutively.

Selectman Ken Fowler was then unanimously elected to the position of select board chair-man, after being nominated by then Chairman John J. McNinch and seconded by Selectman W. David Roche. Selectman Mc-Ninch was then unanimously elected to the position of the se-lect board’s clerk.

After his election, Chairman Fowler thanked retiring Select-women Dia Trancynger and Lin-da Messana for their services.

“I’m going to miss having Lin-da and Dia, they added a lot to this board,” said Chairman Fowler.

Mr. Fowler also congratulated newly elected Selectmen Chan-ning Gibson and Ed Lane on their wins.

“I offer a challenge to this board and to our community that we begin to move forward from here and put our differences and disagreements behind us and try to find some positive ground to stand on so we can move for-ward,” said Chairman Fowler, as part of some brief remarks he gave after his election.

The first order of business tak-en up by the newly reorganized Select Board was a motion to re-quire that all town committee meetings be posted online in ad-dition to the legal posting on the bulleting board in town hall.

This mirrored an article that was defeated at Lenox’s May 3 town meeting, which some of the selectmen spoke out against out of a fear that it could cause meet-ings to be canceled if an internet posting did not take place. The select board motion, however, al-layed this concern, as there was no question that meetings would still be able to proceed if an on-line posting was unable to be done.

“I think it’s the right thing to

do, I mean times have changed” said Selectman Lane, in support of the motion.

The motion passed unanimously.

The select board then tackled the driving issue behind a second defeated warrant article: setting up guidelines for the approval of monuments in Lenox.

The select board asked Town Manager Gregory Federspiel to draft some preliminary guidelines that the towns people would then be able to give input on in subse-quent public meetings and possi-bly a public forum. Selectman Gibson volunteered to assist Town Manager Federspiel in this endeavor, and Mr. Gibson’s assis-tance was incorporated into the revised motion, which passed the select board unanimously.

Another one of the significant issues tackled by the select board at their meeting was the subject of a long-term plan for Lenox; a subject championed since last year by Selectman Roche.

“We’ve got to take a look to-wards the future, and identify what we’re up against,” said Se-lectman Roche.

One of the highlights of Select-man Roche’s plan is a policy to bank the savings from the salary differential between a long term retired employee and a new hire in the position they’re vacating, in order to help offset some of the long term health and pension costs the town will be absorbing.

The select board has the ability to institute this for all town depart-ments besides the school depart-ment, and the Lenox school de-partment has agreed to institute Selectman Roche’s policy starting next year. This arrangement will be codified by a memorandum of understanding currently being drafted by Town Manager Grego-ry Federspiel.

“I think it’s a vital part of the ten year plan,” said Selectman Gibson, expressing his support of Selectman Roche’s proposal.

Another feature of the long-term plan is a focus on how to fund the $15-20 million dollar upgrade to Lenox’s sewer system mandated by the Federal government.

One of the more promising av-enues for addressing this problem is by sharing more of Lenox’s sewer services with Pittsfield, something Selectman Roche said Pittsfield Mayor Dan Bianchi was receptive to the last time the Se-lect Board met with him.

At the end of the select board’s meeting, Selectman Gibson an-nounced that he was establishing a social media presence as a se-lectman with a website entitled What’s happening in Lenox?.com Selectman Gibson said that the site would have accompanying twitter and facebook accounts, and that this presence would be representing him in his capacity as a selectman, and not the select board as a whole.

Lenox Select Board looks to move forward

Photo Credit /Bera B. dunau / BerKShire BeaCon

New chairman Kenneth L. Fowler (center) with new board members Channing C. Gibson and Edward P. Lane to the right.

May 17, 2012 The Berkshire Beacon 3

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PITTSFIELD – The search for a superintendent continues.

At the most recent meeting of the Pittsfield School Committee, one candidate was interviewed, but he failed to meet its approval.

“Our number one charge is not to settle ever,” said School Com-mittee Chairman Alfred E. Barbalunga

Dr. Reza Namin, the current superintendent of the Spencer-East Brookfield Regional School District (SEBRSD), was asked about a dozen questions from the school committee on a variety of topics ranging from technology integration to his thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of the Pittsfield Public Schools.

After the 95-minute interview, School Committee Chairman Al-fred E. Barbalunga expressed dis-appointment in Dr. Namin’s an-swer to whether or not he would permanently relocate to Pittsfield upon being hired, citing that Dr. Namin’s permanent residence is still in Portland, Maine, despite currently working in Massachusetts.

“The gentleman is charming, intelligent and passionate about education...[but] I can’t get over two of his answers,” Chairman Barbalunga said, citing concerns about his residential preferences and his commitment to his cur-rent position.

Dr. Namin is only in the first year of his superintendency at SEBRSD; it is his third superin-tendent position in seven years.

“The teachers, the parents, the community-at-large want stabili-ty, and I have a question to whether or not that’s going to happen,” School Committee Vice Chairman Daniel Elias.

“I don’t support him as a candi-date that would be best for our school district,” School Commit-tee Member Kathleen Amuso said after raising concerns about his ability to work with a larger district’s budget. This was Mrs. Amuso’s second interview with Dr. Namin, as she was also a member of the Pittsfield Superin-tendent Search Committee.

“When you know you have the right superintendent, you never have this discussion,” Mrs. Amu-so said, citing her participation in

three superintendent searches.Unsatisfied with his answers to

their questions, the committee voted 5-2 against further pursu-ing him as a candidate for the Pittsfield superintendency. May-or Daniel L. Bianchi and Terry Kinnas voted in favor of hiring him.

“I didn’t come to a definitive conclusion tonight,” said Mayor Bianchi, citing his strengths as a hands-on leader and reservations about his employment history. “I did think that he had a fairly de-cent interview, and certainly his credentials are solid.”

“I don’t see any problem with moving forward [with Dr. Na-min],” said Mr. Kinnas before the vote.

Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) Field Director Patricia Correira indicated that the district could hire an interim superintendent to fill Superintendent Howard J. Eberwein’s position from July 1 until a more desirable candidate is found.

The MASC will have up to three candidates available to be interviewed for the temporary position at the school commit-tee’s June 13 meeting.

“We have two of our top ad-ministrators leaving, time is at a significant disadvantage,” said Mrs. Amuso.

Current Superintendent How-ard “Jake” Eberwein III is sched-uled to leave his post at the end of the fiscal year (June 30).

Deputy superintendent position also open

Pittsfield Deputy Superinten-dent Barbara Malkas will also be leaving for a job as the superin-tendent at Webster Public Schools.

“I have initiated the deputy su-perintendent search,” Superin-tendent Eberwein said, adding that the job was posted on May 1.

At the May 23 school commit-tee meeting, Superintendent Eb-erwein will present two or three candidates to be interviewed. Af-ter the interviews, the committee will ask the superintendent for his input on the candidates and can choose to accept his recom-mendation or go with another candidate.

fanfare or interaction.Not so at the Sun Chronicle. I used to say over the years, this

place is “family.” Some of the personalities have

changed since my first visit in the late 1990s, but the smiles are there, the handshakes are warm and the friendships of help are foremost.

I like to think that I have got a good product at this end thanks to my staff and at your end from the people, who care.

Admittedly, I am the only fool

to start a newspaper in this econ-omy. Yet the Sun Chronicle staff has been willing to help.

There is the weekly greeting; the question:, “How can we help?” and “Do you want to have a bite to eat before you hit the road to Lenox?”

Footnote: Usually there is no interaction between staff and the outside print vendor who weekly has his/her job printed at a newspaper.

Finally, I was leery of going from newsprint to bright white paper.

Antonio (Tony) H. DaRosa,

business manager said, “You’ll like it.”

I said, “What if I don’t?”He said then we’ll have to make

some changes. Always willing to help. And yes, looking at other newspapers, some of them are truly gray.

Thanks Rusty for helping to make our collective Berkshire Beacon and The Sonata happen each week.

This has certainly been and continues to be a joint effort.

My thanks to you and your staff.

George C. Jordan III

“Thanks George for your heartfelt feedback on our relationship. It’s been a pleasure meeting and work-

ing with you and we at the Sun Chronicle appreciate your commitment and will do whatever it takes to

make this partnership work. Your email sounds like a good story to run in your collector’s edition.”

-Antonio (Tony) H. DaRosa, business manager for The Sun Chronicle

Job left openLETTER from page 1



PITTSFIELD – For those looking to hear from technology guru Steve Jobs one more time here in Berkshire County, an up-coming special screening is just what you are looking for.

Berkshire Museum’s Little Cin-ema will present a special screen-ing of Steve Jobs: The Lost Inter-view, on Saturday at 2 p.m. The screening is sponsored in part by Mad Macs Inc., located at 317 North St. in downtown Pittsfield.

Tickets for the event are $5.In 1995, during the making of

his TV series Triumph of the Nerds, about the birth of the per-sonal computer, Bob Cringely did a memorable hour-long in-terview with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011. The film was shot 10 years after Mr. Jobs had left Apple fol-lowing a bruising struggle with John Sculley, the CEO he brought into the company.

At the time of the interview, Mr. Jobs was running Next, the niche computer company he had founded after leaving Apple. He would later sell Next to his old company, enabling him return to his Apple roots.

During the interview, Mr. Jobs was at his charismatic best – wit-ty, outspoken and visionary – al-ready anticipating the digital fu-ture that one day he would do so much to make possible. In the end, only a part of the interview was used in the series and the rest was thought lost.

Recently, a VHS copy was found in the series director’s garage.

Cleaned up with modern tech-nology and put into context by Cringely, this is a unique and very candid interview that reveals the burning passion of Steve Jobs – a passion that would go on to give us the iMac, the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

PechaKucha makes a return

The museum will also host the second installment of the only PechaKucha Night in The Berk-shires on Thursday, June 14 at 7 p.m., with presentations sched-

uled to start at 7:20 p.m.The second local round of this

worldwide networking event fea-tures a series of presentations, each consisting of 20 slides shown for 20 seconds, totaling 6 min-utes and 40 seconds of talking time. PechaKucha Night’s goal is to bring creative minds together for a night of inspiration, net-working and fun.

Once again, Berkshire Muse-um asks for a varied assortment of presentation topics.

The first-ever PechaKucha Night, held on March 8, yielded presentations on fashion, archi-tecture, love-cat, the Coen broth-ers and various local events such as the First Fridays Artswalk and the Call Me Melville celebration.

For information on how to be a participant, visit PechaKucha Pittsfield #2 on berkshiremuse-um.org or email [email protected].

The event tickets are $5. Mu-seum members get in for free.

There will be snacks, as well as free beer donated by Wandering Star Craft Brewery, but donations will be accepted and will go to-wards the Juvenile Diabetes Re-search Foundation. For this in-stallment, we will have two “beer breaks” instead of one, giving the participants and the audience more of a chance to connect and share their ideas one-on-one.

PechaKucha, literally translated as “chit chat” or “blah blah” in Japanese, was created by Klein Dytham architecture in Tokyo in 2003 as an opportunity for young designers to meet, network and show their work in public.

It has since gone viral and turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in more than 450 cities around the world inspiring creatives worldwide to take part.

Berkshire Museum holds four PechaKucha Nights each year: the next two events will be held on Aug. 14 and Oct. 30.


BECKET – Writing skills and studies of environmental science are key in moving the Becket Washington Elementary School forward.

At the most recent meeting of the Central Berkshire Regional School District (CBRSD) School Committee, Becket Washington Principal Leslie Blake-Davis gave a presentation of the school’s innovation plan to the public.

In February, the Becket Wash-ington was awarded a $10,000 planning grant from the Massa-chusetts Executive Office of Ed-ucation (EOE) to look into be-coming an innovation school.

According to the EOE web-site, innovation schools “operate with greater autonomy and flex-ibility with regard to curriculum, staffing, budget, schedule/calen-dar, professional development and district policies.

These public schools will be able to implement innovative strategies to improve student achievement while keeping school funding within districts.”

“Our goal is to educate stu-dents in preparation for the world they will be entering,” Principal Blake-Davis said.

As part of the plan, the school will go forward in partnerships with the Columbia University Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) in New York, Four Winds Nature Institute in Vermont and Beck-et-Chimney Corners YMCA locally.

The environmental science component of this plan focuses on place-based education.

“It allows students to explore the environment in their own backyards,” Principal Blake-Da-vis said.

Aside from developing writing skills and learning more about environmental science, technol-ogy integration is a key part of Becket Washington moving for-ward as an innovation school.

“We do already use technolo-gy, but we want to build on it,” Principal Blake-Davis said.

After her presentation and a question-and-answer period, the school committee approved the

plan. It will be presented to the state for a further implementa-tion grant.

“We need to change things,” said CBRSD School Committee Member Richard Lacatell. “I think that this is a good plan.”

November election

Eight seats on the school com-mittee will be open for election this fall. Michael Case, John Chivers, John Conner, Richard Farley, Richard Lacatell, John Les, Gary Stergis and Richard Wagner’s terms all expire this year.

In Becket there is one seat open; three in Dalton; one in Hinsdale, one in Peru, one in Washington and one in Windsor.

For those interested in run-ning for school committee seats, July 24 is the last day to submit nomination papers to the local board of registrars or election commissioners for certification of signatures; August 21 is the last day to file the certified pa-pers with the district clerk.

There is a minimum of 50 sig-natures required to run.

The election will take place on Nov. 6.

Food costs increasing

At the May 10 meeting, the school committee voted to in-crease the cost of cafeteria break-fast from $1.25 to $1.50 and lunch from $2 to $2.25.

“It will cover the costs of more fresh foods to go along with healthier eating,” said School Committee Member Billie Henderson.

Other business

A variety of overnight field trips ranging from Boston to Costa Rica were approved by the school committee.

The district is also in the pro-cess of expanding their recycling program.

Paper is already recycled, but CBRSD Business Administrator Margaret Foster is looking into commingled recycling (glass, plastic, aluminum and tin), which she said could save the district $100 or more per month.

Science and writing key to CBRSD


Children playing on the Wallie the stegosaurus in front of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield.

Berkshire Museum to screen lost Steve Jobs interview


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Beacon Staff Writer

PITTSFIELD – Towels, dried cat food, fluorescent copier pa-per, crinkle ball toys, non-lump-ing cat litter, bleach, laundry soap and absorbent cage pads are all needed at Animal D.R.E.A.M.S., 441 North St.

The not-for-profit organiza-tion, started 12 years ago by Yvonne Borsody, has an ongoing wish list for needed items so any-one in the community who wants to help would be welcome.

Animal D.R.E.A.M.S. helps to improve the lives and promote the humane care and acceptance of feral cats throughout Berkshire County and beyond.

The organization also has fos-ter homes for some of the cats and more homes are badly needed.

Animal D.R.E.A.M.S. moved to the North Street location last December.

Volunteers actually go out into communities where the wild, un-tamed cats congregate, trap them, have them vaccinated and neu-tered by a veterinarian and then release them to their natural environments.

Financial backing is needed for the program that is called T-N-R, or trap, neuter and return.

Ms. Borsody welcomes any group or organization that wants to sponsor fundraising activities or events to help Animal D.R.E.A.M.S.

Indulgence Salon at 75 North St., for example, recently held a Saturday afternoon cut-a-thon.

Hair stylists cut and sham-pooed hair and worked on cus-tomers’ toes and fingernails, too.

Proceeds of the successful event that packed the salon were shared with Animal D.R.E.A.M.S. and for bladder cancer research.

Tracy Wilson has owned Indul-gence Salon for the past year.

She said seven of her 13 em-ployees were on duty during the cut-a-thon.

“We always try to give back to the community,” she said.

Ms. Wilson said Ms. Borsody came into the salon when Animal D.R.E.A.M.S. first moved to

North Street and gave her a flier. “They probably need a little

help,” Ms. Wilson said, “and I love cats, animals and kids, not necessarily in that order.”

Two causes for the cut-a-thon

The salon owner said four years ago to the day the cut-a-thon was held, her own mother was diag-nosed with cancer.

“There’s not a lot of research for bladder cancer,” she said. To-day her mother is “doing great,” Ms. Wilson said.

In October, Indulgence Salon brings attention to breast cancer by offering special services and all money raised goes to Women’s Imaging at Berkshire Medical Center, Ms. Wilson said.

From the satisfied looks on cus-tomers’ faces and with plans to share monies raised for two wor-thy causes, the cut-a-thon ap-peared to be a very successful event.

Wants help from businesses

Ms. Borsody said any business, like Indulgence Salon, that wants to help the organization would be very welcome.

Fundraising is important for an organization that runs on a bud-get of well under $100,000.

“We also need corporate spon-sors,” she said, who could possi-bly sponsor an entire colony of cats.

Some people donate every month to Animal D.R.E.A.M.S.

“It doesn’t have to be too much,” Ms. Borsody said.

Even kids’ donations of 35 cents in a collection jar are appre-ciated and can buy individual cans of cat food.

“We are really truly in need,” she said, and any help the com-munity can give to the organiza-tion is very appreciated.

To ask about specific brand names of needed items, to be-come a foster home or to volun-teer, call Animal D.R.E.A.M.S. directly.

Cut-a-thon raises needed funding for animals

Photo Credit / SuSan m. WiCKer guerrero / BerKShire BeaCon

Tracy Wilson of Indulgence Salon in Pittsfield hosted the cut-a-thon.

Call 413-637-2250

to Advertise in

The Berkshire Beacon


Bera B. DunauBeacon Staff Writer

LENOX – Prominent restaura-teur Jason Macioge has divested from a second Lenox restaurant.

At the beginning of this year, Mr. Macioge owned four restau-rants in the Town of Lenox: clas-sic French bistro and popular lo-cal watering hole Bistro Zinc, Japanese restaurant Fin Sushi and Sake Bar, Italian restaurant Frankie’s Ristorante Italiano and gourmet pizza place Betty’s Pizza Shack.

Since a March 22 article in The Berkshire Beacon reported that Mr. Macioge was planning on selling some, and possibly all, of his Lenox restaurants, however, Mr. Macioge has sold two of these businesses: Fin (in March) and, most recently, Frankie’s Ris-torante Italiano.

While the sale of Fin to Lenox newcomer Whitney Asher result-ed in the restaurant being shut down, Mr. Asher plans to reopen it as a wine and tapas style bar called Brava Bar.

Mr. Macioge’s sale of Frankie’s to co-owner Steffan Feriolo and new investor Ariel Collins will change nothing but the names on the lease.

“There’s not going to be any changes at all, Frankie’s stays

Frankie’s,” said Mr. Feriolo in comments to The Beacon, after getting the Lenox Board of Se-lectmen to approve the transfer of Frankie’s Liquor license from Mr. Macioge to himself at their last meeting.

“We’re just regrouping every-thing under one roof so it makes more sense,” he added.

Previously Mr. Macioge owned 51 percent of Frankie’s, while Mr. Feriolo owned 49 percent. Mr. Macioge has sold his 51-percent stake to Mr. Feriolo and Mr. Col-lins for $102,000 according to the license transfer paperwork.

Under the new arrangement, Mr. Feriolo and Mr. Collins will now each own 50 percent of Frankie’s. Mr. Feriolo and Mr. Collins already co-own the Lenox restaurants Church Street Café and Alta Restaurant and Wine Bar together.

Mr. Collins also has a stake in the Purple Pub in Williamstown.

“Jason gave me the opportunity five years ago to open a restau-rant, which I could have never done without him,” said Mr Fe-riolo when asked by The Beacon why he and Mr. Macioge chose to part ways. “I approached him just asking him if I could be on my own and he said, yeah, with pleasure.”


GREAT BARRINGTON – When you think that you have been at your job for a long time, think of Bob Guidi.

Mr. Guidi has been on the board of assessors in Great Bar-rington for 58 years, one of the longest terms in state history.

“In 1949, I got elected to be the assessor and it has been a great voyage,” said Mr. Guidi. “I have been fortunate in living in Great Barrington and most of these years I ran unopposed.”

Mr. Guidi has informed the town that he will not seek to stay on the board when his current term expires on June 30.

The town honored him by naming his a lifetime ex-officio member of the board.

Stanton stays as chair

The selectmen in Great Bar-rington recently changed their guidelines to allow the current

chairman, Sean Stanton, to keep the seat.

Using that change, the board unanimously chose Mr. Stanton to remain as chairman as part of the reorganization at their latest meeting.

Ask the Selectmen

The members of the board wanted to make sure that resi-dents are aware of the “Ask the Selectmen” button on the town’s website.

If a resident has a question for the selectmen they can send it to all the members of the board at once by clicking the link, and the selectmen will respond within 48 hours.

Mini Town Meeting reviewed

The select board also discussed and reviewed this year’s addition of a mini Town Meeting.

It drew a small, but involved, crowd of around 45 residents.

The additional meeting was to

serve as a forum for residents to come forward and ask in-depth questions before the meeting to make sure the whole annual Town Meeting could be completed be-fore the 11 p.m. deadline.

“I was happy with the meeting and I was glad it was televised,” said Selectman Stephen C. Ban-non. “And by our meeting’s stan-dards, it was a packed house.”

The board felt that the mini Town Meeting was a good idea and that it should be continued.

The only concern the board raised with the Town Meeting process was the low number of young people who attended.

“I am concerned with the num-ber of young faces I saw,” said Se-lectwoman Alana Chernila.

The day of the week they should hold the meeting was one way the board discussed getting more young voters involved.

The days most discussed were Thursday night or Saturday after-noon to make it easier for young families to attend.

Frankie’s soldMacioge sells interest in second

restaurant in a few months


LENOX – The Berkshire Bea-con is certainly not the first news-paper to be Lenox-born.

In searching the “Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers” database on the Li-brary of Congress website, one can find listings of Lenox-based papers dating back to 1808.

Watch Light, The Berkshire Star and County Republican, The Berk-shire Journal, Journal and Argus, The Berkshire Herald, The Massa-chusetts Eagle, The Lenox Echo, The Lenox Chronicle and The Lenox Herald all came out of Lenox and covered the latest news in the town and the county in the 19th and 20th centuries.

“The Lenox Echo had a brief run in the 1880s,” said Cornelia Brooke Gilder, co-author of Hawthorne’s Lenox and Houses

of The Berkshires, 1870-1930.At the Lenox Library, all 13 is-

sues of The Echo, a monthly pa-per, are available in the reference department.

The Echo was published from 1882-1883 “in the interest of Lenox High School, by the prin-cipal,” according to its masthead.

The paper did not only cover school news.

In the paper’s first issue, dated December 1882, a statement reads, “The primary notion rela-tive to The Echo was...devoted to school matters alone. But upon maturer consideration it seemed best to open its columns to what-ever may be of interest to the town at large as well as to the schools.”

The Lenox Library also has is-sues of a weekly or “weakly” pa-per called The Lenox Chronicle from 1922 and 1926. The paper was first published 1828 and

again in 1922 under an editor by the name of “T.H.E. Goat.”

“The policy of the Chronicle is to tell only the truth, and to fear-lessly condemn the wrong,” it is stated as the paper’s mission state-ment in a July 1922 issue.

More recently, The Lenox Her-ald, a weekly paper, had a brief run with its last issue printed on July 29, 1974, according to an August ‘74 issue of The North Adams Transcript.

The Herald was the last prede-cessor to The Berkshire Beacon.

The Beacon had a previous run from 1999-2000 under the lead-ership of Lenox resident George C. Jordan III.

Mr. Jordan brought The Beacon back to cover the county in May 2011 and now celebrates its one-year anniversary with the May 17, 2012 edition.

Guidi retires after 58 years of service


Frankies will stay the same with new owners.

The history of Lenox newspapers



LENOX – Following last week’s election, the Lenox School Committee welcomed its new members and appointed its new officers.

Frances E. Sorrentino, who has been a school committee member since May 2011, was re-elected on May 7, while Jennifer S. Rein-holt and Jo Anne H. Magee were newly-elected. They replace for-mer Chairwoman Marybeth F. Mitts and Heidi L. MacLean.

The rest of the school commit-tee members are Jeremiah Ames, David Berkel, Veronica Fenton and Don W. Fitzgerald.

The first process at the May 14 meeting of the school committee was to appoint new officers. By a unanimous vote (with Mr. Berkel not in attendance), Mr. Fitzger-ald, who was the vice chairman last year, was named the chair-man of the school committee. He was the only candidate for the position.

Both Mr. Ames and Mr. Berkel were candidates for vice chair-man. By a vote of 4-1 (which was retaken after a split vote), Mr.

Berkel was named the new vice chair.

Mrs. Fenton was the only can-didate for school committee sec-retary, and she was unanimously voted in to reprise the same role she had last year.

Other business

Lenox Superintendent Edward W. Costa II presented the com-mittee with data on the math and science curriculum at Lenox Me-morial Middle and High School.

“We want to make sure that all students are exposed to the same level of curriculum,” he said, add-ing that this data will help the school move forward with de-tailed curriculum planning.

The committee members unanimously voted to approve the district as open to school choice for the 2012-2013 year.

The district will also use the Lower Pioneer Valley Education-al Collaborative for occupational and physical therapy services, as approved by the school committee.

The committee also approved the senior class trip to Cape Cod Sea Camps June 2-4.

Lenox School Committee appoints

new officers

Broadway Electric over a contract that would have Broadway Elec-tric construct and maintain the municipal solar project in ex-change for being able to sell the town of Lee electricity from the arrays for the next 20 years.

As currently proposed, the project would save the Town of Lee a minimum of $65,000 a year.

Because the proposed water treatment plant site arrays would cover up some existing youth soc-cer fields, the current municipal solar project plan would also see three athletic fields constructed on the Stockbridge Road proper-ty, which is currently zoned recre-ational/agricultural.

In the lead-up to the Town Meeting vote, the Stockbridge Road array and accompanying playing fields proved to be the most controversial portions of the proposed municipal project, and it was no less true when the question of whether or not to go forward with the municipal proj-ect came before the meeting.

Articles 16-19 on the Lee Town Meeting warrant directly related to the municipal solar project.

Article 16 authorized the select board to proceed with developing solar power at the Stockbridge Road site, while Article 17 autho-rized the Select Board to seek the necessary state approvals for this and Article 18 instructed the se-lect board to set aside four acres of town-owned land as open space to make up for the four acres of open space on Stock-bridge Road that would be lost to the solar arrays. Article 19, mean-while, directly gave the select board the authority to approve the municipal solar project.

Selectwoman Patricia Carlino made a motion to move Article 19 ahead of the other three arti-cles, but then withdrew the mo-tion after Town Meeting Repre-sentative Dayton Delorme expressed the desire to see the ar-ticles related to the Stockbridge Road portion of the project voted on first.

In order for the solar project to go forward as proposed, all four of the solar articles needed to go through. As such, much of the lengthy debate over the munici-pal solar project revolved around Article 16, as it was the first of the articles to be put to a vote, and dealt with the controversial Stockbridge Road portion of the project.

The debate over Article 16

then began in earnest, with those on either side of the issue making impassioned cases on the topic.

“I don’t think it’s an all-or-nothing approach,” said Repre-sentative Delorme, who expressed his support for solar, but his op-position to the Stockbridge Road project, and pointed out that Broadway Electric had said that they could do the project without the solar arrays on Stockbridge Road. “I think there are many options on the table.”

Leading municipal solar proj-ect opponent Deidre Consolati offered an amendment to Article 16 forbidding the use of the Stockbridge Road site for playing fields, in response to the concerns from abutters about the impact that the playing fields would have on traffic and their property val-ues at a previous public forum.

“This is an amendment that would narrow it down to a par-ticular non use,” said Mrs. Con-solati, who pushed for the amend-ment despite Lee town counsel determining that it would be non-binding.

This proposal was soundly defeated.

Stockbridge Road abutter Bob Bartini advocated throughout the debate for a proposal that would move the solar arrays near the wa-ter treatment plant, along with the Stockbridge Road arrays near the Mass. Pike, to an area of the Stockbridge Road property that would be out of sight of all of the abutters. Such a plan would leave the soccer fields at the water treat-ment plant intact, making the construction of new athletic fields on Stockbridge Road unnecessary.

“Leaving the existing fields on the sewer treatment plant prop-erty would mean a more favor-able rate for the town,” said Mr. Bartini, pointing out that the town would pay for the construc-tion of the new athletic fields on Stockbridge Road by paying a higher electrical rate to Broadway Electric. “This seems like a sce-nario that everyone should be comfortable with.”

Mr. Bartini’s plan, however, would remove the benefit of hav-ing the panels at the water treat-ment plant feeding into the plant directly, which would place the building, “before the meter,” and possibly open up the town to greater electricity savings in the future.

Selectman Consolati also ex-pressed skepticism that locating the panels in a more isolated part of the property would be more

cost efficient, due to the added costs of cutting down and des-tumping more trees.

Advocates for the proposed so-lar project, however, were no less tenacious.

“I believe it is an admirable goal to have all power needed to operate the town of Lee come from renewable energy sources, and reduce the town’s carbon footprint,” said Representative John Coty. “I don’t see anything wrong with putting in some de-cent playing fields with parking to benefit the youth of this com-munity on this town owned rec-reational property that has not been utilized by residents for years.”

“Our kids deserve better than plying in front of the sewer plant,” said Representative James Castegnaro. “We need new fields, we should put 20 acres of solar on there some day. It’s town land, we need to open it up for townspeople.”

“District III did have a meeting earlier this week…and the gener-al consensus was that there are times that we do what we have to for our community,” said Repre-sentative Alexandra Heddinger. “While some people might not be as happy, as a town, for the majority of the people, this is a good decision when we look at it comprehensively and as a whole.”

In the end Article 16 was ap-proved by a 36-14 vote. Articles 17 and 18 were then swiftly approved.

Then Lee Selectman Gordon Bailey made a suggestion. He rec-ommended that the Town Meet-ing pass Article 19 and then re-vise articles 17 and 18 to give the select board more acreage to work with on Stockbridge Road, which would allow the board to consid-er arrangements like putting the sewer treatment arrays up on Stockbridge Road, as Mr. Bartini had suggested.

“If we pass 19 and reconsider 17 and 18…that still gives us a little bit of playtime to revisit the numbers,” said Selectman Bailey, who pointed out that in the “worst case scenario,” the select board would just go with the cur-rent proposal of having both ar-rays and athletic fields on Stock-bridge Road. “I don’t mind taking the heat later by revisiting this if you folks give us the flexibility.”

Article 19 was then passed, af-ter which articles 17 and 18 then were re-opened and amended to allow for the use of 10 acres on Stockbridge Road for solar power development.

Photo Credit / Catherine m. Krummey / BerKShire BeaCon

Lenox School Committee Chairman Don W. Fitzgerald (cen-ter) runs the May 14 meeting alongside Secretary Veronica Fenton.

SOLAR from page 1


Editorial:

Sometimes money along with federal and state influence can of-fer a false sense of commitment to locals who desperately seek connection on the World Wide Web.

Case in point is the Massachu-setts Broadband Institute, which plans to spend more than $80 million to finance fiber from the Pioneer Valley west.

Its plan is full of myths, false promises, no utility participa-tion, and no end connection – just simply a plan to create a board to be seen as serving rural Massachusetts but not Berkshire County.

Mass. Broadband’s plan to date is to hire some agents, look at some end-user developers and run a cable up along Interstate 91 to serve the counties of Hamp-den, Hampshire and Franklin.

How does this serve Berkshire County? Some state worker fig-ures they will run wire into Hampshire County off of I-91. Where does Berkshire fall in?

From this observer’s point of view, it does not.

Clearly, this separates western Massachusetts into two catego-ries – the eastern and western

halves – with those communities close to the Connecticut River getting the connection with no announced plans for the western or Berkshire County communities.

Oh yes, Massachusetts Gov. Devel L. Patrick, who has a sea-sonal house in Richmond this spring helped get Richmond and his home wired.

Fred Hoot, an observer in the telecommunications business for over 30 years, wrote:

“The federal stimulus grants under the NBP (National Broad-band Plan) will be providing a good portion of the $70 million project, which is expected to bring fast fiber-based broadband to the entire western area and some in north-central part of Massachusetts. Additional fund-ing from the commonwealth and private investments will complete the funding.

“The construction has started with the Town of Richmond in the western part of the Com-monwealth of Massachusetts alongside the New York border. They are already seeing the equipment and crews start the in-stallation. The project comple-

tion is targeted for a mid-2013 date.”

State Senator Benjamin Down-ing, D-Berkshire, is supporting the project despite key gaps in planning.

Sen. Downing told The Berk-shire Beacon Monday that he be-lieves the plan will be completed within 18-24 months and that as early as 12 months, there will be fiber to a Berkshire County community.

“I understand the skepticism noting that the one backbone of fiber is being built along I-91, that there is no end-of-line ven-dor named and the plan for Berk-shire County seems ominous,” he said.

Sen. Downing does not equate a cheaper model for either West-ern Massachusetts (WMECO), National Grid, Verizon, Comcast and/or Time Warner.

While the senator does not support the utility connected model, this would save money and time in hooking up rural Berkshire County.

Also, their goal is not consis-tent with other carriers, who

George C. Jordan IIIEDITOR & PUBLISHER

Kameron Z. SpauldingEDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Susan G. RobinsonGRAPHIC DESIGNER

Bera B. Dunau, Rae A. Eastman, Susan M. Wicker Guerrero, Janel M. Harrison, Catherine M. Krummey, Dick L. SyriacCONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Janel M. Harrison, Jacqueline J. Wendling, Nancy G. Shepherd, Glenda LeeADVERTISING SALES

The Berkshire Beacon is published weekly. The Beacon is distributed throughout Berkshire County, MA. The Berkshire Beacon assumes no financial responsibility for failure to publish an advertisement, incorrect placement or typographical errors pub-lished. Advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their advertising and claims and offers contained within their advertising. The Berkshire Beacon reserves the right to refuse advertising for any reason. All contents copyright ©2012 The Berkshire Beacon. No portion may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher.

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View From the Tower

George C. Jordan III

Sometime back in the early 1980s, I moved to Lenox.

I was a reporter for The Springfield Union-Republi-can and I was commuting to Springfield five times a week. Slowly, I became interested in Lenox’s politics and its elected officials, and became ac-tive in zoning is-sues when the d iscussion was about V e n t f o r t Hall.

There were town meetings and there was always a de-veloper who had a “sky-blue” plan for one or two parcels of land, namely one of The Great Estates.

The Rev. Cannon Robert S.S. Whitman, Norman Day and myself were on the side of maintaining the status quo or at least retaining limited development. In many cas-es, we were able to nullify a two-thirds vote on the Town Meeting floor.

There was John Costello, a Harvard University-educated lawyer, who was always ready for a memo or court fight with Attorney Phillip Heller, who was engaged by some want-to-be developer.

Enter Edward “Cap” Conk-lin, fire chief, who held sev-eral jobs from town assessor to farmer/grounds keeper at Eastover Resort. Cap was one of those persons who did everything his way and without review or rebuke. I would see him riding the tractor from Eastover to town during the noon hour or per-haps later when he would get gas, a soda or just return home to Tucker Street.

Whether Cap was leading a fight for a new fire truck or supporting a change in zon-ing, or approving a depart-ment’s budget, he was al-ways ready to call the outcome before the vote was counted.

Somewhere in the thick it

of change, he dubbed me “The Green Onion.”

I always thought it was Tom Barry, a lineman for Massachusetts Electric Co. (National Grid) and a fire-man. Not so, he recently told

The Berkshire Beacon.“It was Cap. It one of those monikers

that he probably saw you walk or ride by and he just offered a quip, “Green

Onion.”The dictionary

says, green: “concerned with or supporting protection of the environment as a politi-cal principle;” onion: “com-posed of several concentric layers.”

He knew I was a reporter. He had knowledge of my travels prior to Lenox. Some days he would articulate about the “God damn son of a bitch” and wonder aloud about my goals and lifestyle. Then he would turn, and may have said, “You weren’t’ so bad after all.”

So maybe his witticism of The Green Onion wasn’t so bad and from time to time he would acknowledge my reporting.

Today, I pause and wonder what Cap Conklin may of thought about my restarting The Berkshire Beacon at this time, in this economy and for yet another generation of people from Berkshire County?

We won’t get those an-swers, but perhaps his nick-name of this publisher and editor, The Green Onion, will serve to offer a sense of in-dependence and enterpris-ing journalism along with a talented pool of young peo-ple committed to making our county one of economic growth and prosperity with a moderate-level thinking in Cap’s memory.

see BROADBAND page 14

The Green Onion still working the news

No fiber for The Berkshires-yet


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PITTSFIELD – If you're plan-ning to take a ride on Amtrak out of Pittsfield any time before No-vember, stay tuned.

Amtrak issued an alert notify-ing customers that the Pittsfield stop located at the Joseph Scelsi Intermodal Transportation Cen-ter will temporarily relocate from April 16 through November.

Signs were posted at the trans-portation center alerting custom-ers to this, but in the first couple of weeks, there were a few con-fused patrons.

“At the beginning there was some confusion, but Amtrak posted bigger signs all over,” said Lisa Parise, administrative assis-tant with the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority (BRTA), which operates the transportation center.

The temporary stop is now lo-cated in front of the CSX Rail-road Yard Office at 1355 East St., about two miles from the trans-

portation center.“The East Street stop is being

utilized as the only viable alter-nate to our existing station while the CSX track work is being com-pleted,” said Clifford Cole, man-ager of media relations at Amtrak.

There is no parking at the East Street location, so it is recom-mended that riders simply be dropped off or picked up at the stop. The location also lacks a waiting area or shelter for waiting passengers.

However, a mobile lift is avail-able if needed for passengers to access the train from the platform.

This information is being made available to passengers on the Amtrak website as well.

The reason for the relocation is so that CSX can work on the rail line, specifically lowering the tracks, Ms. Parise said in an inter-view with The Beacon. They are being lowered so that CSX can run double-stacked freight cars through the area.

Kameron Z. Spaulding Beacon Staff Writer

LENOX - The federal Environ-mental Protection Agency and the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut will be holding pub-lic meetings in both states next week to discuss next steps for the potential cleanup of the Housa-tonic River in Western Massa-chusetts and Connecticut.

The Massachusetts meeting will be held on Thursday, May 24, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Lenox Memorial Middle and High School, 197 East St.

Kenneth Kimmell, commis-sioner of the Massachusetts De-partment of Environmental Pro-tection, and Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Mary Griffin will join Curt Spalding at the meeting in Lenox on May 24.

EPA and the states have been

working cooperatively for the last several months to discuss poten-tial approaches to clean up the so-called "Rest of River" portion of the Housatonic River contami-nated with pollutants from Gen-eral Electric's former Pittsfield facility.

These discussions have focused, in part, on the need to address the risks from polychlorinated biphe-nyls (PCBs) to humans, fish, wildlife and other organisms while avoiding, mitigating or minimizing the impacts of the cleanup on the unique ecological character of the Housatonic River.

Prior to the meetings, EPA and the states will release a document called the "Status Report of Pre-liminary Discussions of Potential Remediation Approaches to the GE-Housatonic River Site 'Rest of River' PCB Contamination."

This summary document,

which recognizes that no remedy decisions have yet been made, re-flects the current status of EPA and the states' efforts to discuss and identify potential remedial approaches for the Rest of River in light of their shared goals and interests.

The summary report, which will be available on EPA's web page on Friday, May 18, will be the topic of the public meetings.

The Connecticut meeting will be on Wednesday, May 23, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Housatonic Val-ley Regional High School, 246 Warren Turnpike Road, Falls Village.

Spalding, regional administra-tor of EPA's New England office, will be joined at the May 23 Con-necticut meeting by Macky Mc-Cleary, deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

EPA to host Housatonic meeting in Lenox


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LEE – Members of the First Con-gregational Church’s Historic Preser-vation Committee are hard-at-work on a $150,000 capital campaign to repaint the Lee church for the first time in 20 years.

Because the church, located at 25 Park Place, is such a deep part of the town’s history, anyone who wants to contribute to the project is invited to do so.

“We need all the help we can get,” said the church’s pastor, Rev. William “Bill” Neil, who came to First Con-gregational Church two years ago.

Membership is only 120 people.“We are not a large congregation,”

Rev. Neil said, adding that the church is central to the community and is part of the settling of Lee.

“People can see the steeple for many miles from every direction,” he said.

French and German artists

Rev. Neil noted that the interior of the church, which was painted by French and German artists is almost “breathtaking.”

Workers from Iemolini Painting Company of Stockbridge, who paint-ed the historic Red Lion Inn, have be-gun scraping and priming the old church.

Donations have also started com-ing in and that is “encouraging,” Rev. Neil said.

High areas of the church, below the steeple, will be painted by a separate company, he said.

The many gallons of paint that will be required to finish the job are esti-mated to be about $9,000 alone.

Expand to performing arts

Plans are in the making to expand the use of the church for the perform-ing arts such as string quartet and band concerts.

Rev. Neil said he has been wanting to enhance the stage as well as the sound system and lighting. The plan to expand the church as a performing arts venue will incorporate those improvements.

The pews are relatively comfortable and can accommodate at least 400 people, he said.

Minor repairs will have to be done on existing exit signs.

If all the money to paint the church can be raised, the project could be completed by July, Rev. Neil said, de-

pending on the weather.

Bulk mailing went out

A town-wide bulk mailing in two installments has gone out to 3,000 households, giving information about the capital campaign, and people in the community are starting to re-spond, Rev. Neil said.

Anyone from throughout Berkshire County who wants to contribute can send checks made out to the Berk-shire Gateway Preservation, P.O. Box 725, Lee, MA, 01238.

Rev. Neil suggested they also send a note indicating the money is to be used to paint the church.

Former school superintendent now chairman

Garth E. Story, Jr., well-known in education circles in the area, is chair-man of the church’s Historic Preser-vation Committee.

He is the former superintendent of the Farmington River Public School District as well as former elementary school principal. He’s also taught at Lee High School. Although he offi-cially retired nine years ago, he’s often called upon to fill in as principal in schools in both Lee and Great Barrington.

“We’re trying to paint the old

church,” he said, which for several years served as the town’s main meet-ing place.

Even today, many community groups meet weekly in the parish hall. Community suppers are held every Wednesday.

“We want to see the church be-come a useful building in the com-munity all winter long,” Mr. Story said.

While listed as a historical build-ing, committee members also want to make it into even more of a commu-nity building, he said.

Unique building

“There’s no other building like it in Berkshire County,” Mr. Story said.

Because the church buildings are too big for the congregation to sup-port, a new organization has been formed.

Titled Berkshire Gateway Preserva-tion, Inc., it will oversee upkeep of the buildings as well as promote First Congregational as a year-round per-forming arts facility.

The preservation will eventually be an official non-profit organization.

Members are working in conjunc-tion with the Lee Community Devel-opment Corporation to sponsor a three-day Berkshire Gateway Jazz Weekend in the fall.

Local church needs funds for repairs


The Lee First Congregational Church needs $150,000 in repairs.

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LEE – The First Congregation-al Church of Lee stands splendid-ly on the green in the middle of town.

Its tall white spire juts high into the air, serving as a kind of “bea-con” to anyone driving into downtown.

One of the first churches built in Lee, about the same time St. Mary’s, the local Catholic church was built, it is rich in history that goes all the way back to 1778.

That year, according to written information about the church, a vote was taken at the second town meeting of the newly incorporat-ed Town of Lee. The assembly voted “to raise the sum of 30 pounds sterling lawful money, to be laid out in preaching the Gospel.”

First a primitive meeting house

In 1780, a rather primitive meeting house was constructed on the south side of the church green. A marble stone marker marks the site today.

There was no glass in the win-dows of that first meeting house, no stationary seats and no heat-ing. People attended services for two hours in the morning and two more hours in the afternoon.

A more “pretentious” building was constructed near the original meeting house in 1800.

Church destroyed by fire

In 1857, tragedy struck. There was apparently a fire in a building on Main Street. The weather was below freezing. According to church historical information, a burning shingle blew into the

steeple of the First Congregation-al Church and it burned to the ground.

In that same year, members of the congregation built the church that now stands on the town green.

The church is Romanesque-style and has a steeple said to be the “tallest in New England.”

Inside the bell tower is a 2,000 pound bell. A Seth Thomas clock system tolls hourly and every week the clock is still wound by hand.

Talk of the town

The church, it has been noted, became the subject of gossip for being “too ornate and fancy.” For example, original cushions were a deep wine color.

New covers have since replaced the old ones but the cushions are still filled with the original horse-hair. They are a deep cranberry color.

French and German artists were hired to paint “trompe l’oeil” pillars and carvings around the sanctuary. In French, tromped l’oeil means “fool the eye.”

“They flanked the lectern with apparent marble columns, em-bossed the ceiling with painted marble rosettes and hand-painted wood graining on the pews, the wainscoting and balustrades in the gallery,” according to church history.

Former gas lights that hang from the ceiling are now electrified.

People can take tours of the church as well as the bell tower from June through October and at other times, by appointment.

Special to The Berkshire Beacon

LEE – On three nights in June, local, young Berkshire County actors and actresses will present the musical Grease at Lee Middle and High School as a fundraiser for the First Congregational Church’s “Paint the Church” campaign.

The show will take place June 14, 15 and 16, so mark your calendars.

The church’s Berkshire Gateway Preservation Proj-ect has announced that Jim Morrison and some cast and crew of Earth Angels will produce the musical.

Local performers between the ages of 16 and 21 will be in the cast.

A look back at a church with history


Larry Lemoilini painting beams at the First Congregational Church in Lee.


The steeple of First Congregational Church in Lee needs repairs.

Fundraising event in the works


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If you have an event you would like listed in our calendar please email us at [email protected]!

Community Calendar FrIday, May 18

BCC PLAYERS TO PER-FORM ‘THE PRODUCERS’Pittsfield, 8 p.m.The BCC Players will present the popular Mel Brooks musical comedy “The Producers” in the Robert Boland Theatre at Berk-shire Community College. Di-rected by Tom Towne. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for BCC faculty/staff, students, and senior citizens.

IMPROV NIGHTS WITH RBITLee, 7:30 p.m.The Royal Berkshire Improv Troupe will perform an “Improv Comedy Night” at the Spectrum Playhouse on 20 Franklin St. If you liked the TV show ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway’, you’ll love this event. $12 cash or check at the door.

YOUNG CHILDREN’S STORY TIMEGreat Barrington, 10:15 - 11:00Children and their caregiver are invited to join us to enjoy stories. We often also have songs, games and crafts. No sign-up is neces-sary. Mason Library, 231 Main St.

TEEN T-SHIRT SWAP & WORKSHOPGreat Barrington, 4 - 5 p.m.Join up for a T-shirt swap and workshop on how to make your old shirts one of a kind and brand new again at the Mason Library, located on 231 Main St. Learn how to make baggy shirts fit per-fectly. Repurpose unwanted, or beat up shirts into really cool stuff like pillows, iPod cases, scarves, tote bags, and more. Bring in your unwanted t-shirts and swap with other people.

Saturday, May 19

BERKSHIRE MUSIC SCHOOL RECITALPittsfield, 3 p.m.Recital from the Studio of Kath-leen McDonald, voice. Berkshire Music School, Taft Recital Hall, 30 Wendell Ave., Pittsfield. Free. For more information, call 413-442-1411.

CRAFT FAIR AND COM-MUNITY TAG SALEWilliamstown, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.Little Red Schoolhouse, 32 New Ashford Rd. Crafter and Vendor Contact: Sarah Currie, 413.464.6335.

MISS HALL’S HORIZONS PLANT SALEPittsfield, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.The Miss Hall’s School fresh-woman class will hold its annual Horizons Plant Sale at the Ara West Grinnell Greenhouse on the MHS campus, located at 492 Holmes Rd.

LENOX CONTRADANCELenox, 8 - 11:30 p.m.Lenox Contradance: Live music by The Emulsifiers. Calling by Jon Greene, Lenox Community Cen-ter, 65 Walker St.,www.lenoxcon-tradance.org. 413-528-4007.

THE ESSENTIALS OF SPRING GARDEN MAINTENANCEStockbridge, 10 am - noon This hands-on workshop will walk you through a basic mainte-nance schedule to help identify what to do and when as the gar-den unfolds in spring. Learn how to shape perennials to produce more flowers, stimulate new growth, stagger bloom times, dis-courage pests, and encourage vig-orous plant health. Dividing, re-planting, and staking perennials will be demonstrated, and weed control, edging, and mulching will be covered. Berkshire Botani-cal Garden, Intersection of Routes 102 and 183.

LOCAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR CHATS ABOUT BOOKGreat Barrington, 2 - 4 p.m.Local author and comedian Ali-son Larkin will speak and read from her bestselling novel “The English American,” followed by afternoon tea. Adopted at birth by loving British parents and raised in England and Africa, Ali-son found her birth parents – and a new homeland – in the US. She will talk about her experiences, make you laugh, answer ques-tions and sign books. This event will take place at the CHP Health Center on 444 Stockbridge Rd.

10TH ANNUAL APPLE BLOSSOM BASHRichmond, Noon - 5 p.m.$20 admission includes BBQ, hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, free wine tasting and commemorative wine glass plus live entertainment by the Justin Allen Trio. Hilltop Orchards, home of Furnace Brook Winery, 508 Canaan Rd / Route 295, 800-833-6274; www.hilltoporchards.com.

Sunday, May 20

BUILD A COB OVENStockbridge, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.his is a two-day workshop (May 19 and 20). Learn the ancient art of making cob, a versatile and long-lasting building material made of clay, sand, and straw. Build a cob oven from the ground up using locally sourced stone, clay, hay, sand, wood chips, and gravel. All aspects of construction will be covered including siting, design, and building. After cur-ing for a month or so, the oven will be unveiled on the 9th of July. Berkshire Botanical Garden, intersection of Routes 102 and 183, 413-298-3926.

A SPAGHETTI SUPPER AND RAFFLECheshire, 4:30 p.m. A spaghetti supper and raffle to benefit 22 year old Steven Ferro of Daniel’s Terrace will be held in town at St. Mary’s Church on 153 Church St. The benefit will be to help raise money for Ferro’s reha-bilitation expenses, including equipment and extensive physical therapy due to his recent motor-cycle accident that rendered him paralyzed from the mid-chest down. Tickets can be brought at the door and are $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under. The dinner is made possible by Steven Gwozdz of Adams.

RELAY FOR LIFE FUND-RAISER AT KIM’S KUTS North Adams, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.Kims Kuts is located at 9 Eagle St. All proceeds go to Relay For Life. Haircuts are $13, pedicures are $13, and waxing is $6. For an appointment, call 413-664-0444.

Work in a unique setting that provides quality services to individuals with severe and profound developmental disabilities. Lock in for a summer relief position NOW. Must be able to start first week in June. Rate: $11.00/hrSummer Incentives: Holidays worked are paid at double time.

SUMMER DIRECT CARE STAFF NEEDED: Monday – Friday:

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Requirements: High School Diploma or equivalent and must be at least 18 years old. Responsibilities: Assist with educational and skill development in all areas including daily living and personal care skills. Apply at or mail your resume and cover letter to: Berkshire Meadows249 North Plain Road • Housatonic, MA 01236.Fax: (413) 528-0293

BERkShIRE MEADOWSA program of Justice Resource InstituteVisit us at www.jri.org

want to put fiber to the curb. Here the call is to the last mile? This is crazy noting another de-veloper would have to extend from the last mile point (?) to the home/office.

NOTE: Berkshire County mainstream towns are served by Time Warner and in parts by Verizon.

The senator sees a savings if the “municipal infrastructure build-ings did not need to be hooked up as part of the deal.”

First you have to have an aggre-gate of places to hook into so the townspeople become acclimated and familiar, and what better place than town hall and the li-braries, along with the schools, one asks.

Then you start with a plan to move the fiber along the pole line this is where a savings comes into play with the pole owners string-ing their poles and charging a “lease rate” rather than the so-called last-mile developers charg-ing a lease rate-plus because he does not owned the poles.

This item alone could save mil-lions of dollars over the course of the plan, he noted.

Congressman Richard E. Neal on April 30 joined Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Eco-nomic Development Greg Bial-ecki and representatives from the Massachusetts Technology Col-laborative to discuss the expan-sion of high-speed internet access in western Massachusetts and other investments in the region’s growing innovation economy.

In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded $45 million to fund the construction of 1,300

miles of new fiber optic cable to bring broadband technologies to more than 120 underserved com-munities in northern and western Massachusetts.

The Commonwealth of Massa-chusetts is required to put up $26.2 million in matching funds. When completed, the expansion has the potential to reach an esti-mated 1 million people, 44,000 businesses and 700 community institutions including public safe-ty facilities, schools, health care providers and government institutions.

According to Rep. Neal, the Massachusetts Green High-Per-formance Computing Center is a $168 million technology hub be-ing built in the center of Holyoke that is expected to be completed late next year.

The facility will be New Eng-land’s first high-performance computing center and a catalyst for local economic development. The center is a partnership be-tween local universities (includ-ing the University of Massachu-setts, Harvard, MIT, Boston University and Northeastern University) and two private sector companies, EMC Corporation, based in Hopkinton, and Cisco Systems.

On Jan. 4, Massachusetts Broadband Institute announced agreement with Lightower Fiber Networks in Westborough to ad-vance Mass. Broadband 123 net-works in keeping with the Pat-rick-Murray administration’s commitment to expanding broadband access in western Massachusetts.

BROADBAND from page 7


Phillip S. Kampe

Bodegas Farina wines are con-sidered the best wines from Spain’s Toro region. Second-gen-eration winemaker Manuel Fari-na is credited as the pioneer of the Toro region and is known as the “Guru” winemaker in Toro and “one of the most influential wine-makers in Spain.”

Mr. Farina is considered the founding father of Toro and is re-sponsible for converting the re-gion into a D.O. (1987), as well as modernizing winemaking in Toro.

His breakthroughs included re-ducing alcohol content from 17 percent to 13, thus increasing the content of fruit and aromas in each bottle. He moved the tradi-tional harvest date of Oct. 12 to mid-September, thus picking the grapes at their peak.

Mr. Farina was the first to in-stall fermentation temperature controls in stainless steel fermen-tation tanks and de-stemmers. He was also the first to add new barriques for aging the wine and was the first wine to be exported from Toro.

Due to his innovation, Bodegas Farina was the first Toro winery to receive outside investment for growth.

The history of Bodegas Farina began in 1942. The winery was founded by Manuel’s father, Sal-vatore Farina.

The vineyard is located on the banks of the Douro River, near the medieval city of Toro in northwest Spain. The region is known for high altitude, stony soils and scarce rainfall.

Today, Bernardo, son of Manu-el, is the chief winemaker. Stain-less steel tanks with temperature controls, as well as French and American oak is used. Bodegas

Farina is a winery that uses state-of-the-art technology.

All wines from Bodegas Farina are made with the Tempranillo (Tinta de Toro), Gamacha or the Malvasia grapes.

My Bodegas Farina recommen-dations include: Dama de Toro Malvasia 2011:

This ia a one of a kind Malva-sia. The vines are 100 years old. Flavors of spice, peach and green apple prevail followed by a soft minerality. At $10.99 a bottle, this white wine is a true bargain.

Primero 2011: This 100-per-cent tempranillo is the first car-bonic maceration in Tinto. Chilled lightly, subtle flavors of raspberry, cherry and plum domi-nate the soft tannins of this deli-cious wine. It retails at $12.99 a bottle.

Peromato 2011: This fruity, medium-bodied, lively wine is a perfect food wine for both simple (pizza) to complex (steak) cours-es. At $9.99 a bottle, I consider this wine to be one of the best ta-ble wine values in the market.

Gran Peromato 2011: This is a new-world, oak barrel wine made from a mixture of Tempranillo and Gamacha grapes. Concen-trated cherry and raspberry dom-inate. Gran Peromato 2011 re-tails at $10.99.

Dama de Toro Tempranillo 2011: It’s probably the best wine in the country for $10.99 a bot-tle. Macerated for up to seven days in stainless steel, this fruity, unique, soft-driven wine is made from 20-40 year old vines.

Gran Dama de Toro 2006: This is one of the “Great Wines of the World.” It tastes like a $100-plus wine at less than half the price, $44.99. It is aged for 15 months in American and French oak bar-rels. Made from 80-90 year old vines, Gran Dama de Toro is a rich, elegant, supple wine with intense cherry and red berry fla-vors followed by tobacco and spice.

The wines from Bodegas Farina are wonderful, reasonably priced wines that are considered the best wines from the Toro region. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

rae a. EastmanBeacon Staff Writer

This was the first novel Ann Patchett wrote. It is peopled – as are the ones that followed – with unusual, unique characters, each absolutely true to themselves.

Given that, the plot is second-ary; the people in the novel do what they have to do and the story moves right along.

Rose was nothing if not im-pulsive, given to sudden deci-sions. She was also a liar, caring only for her own truths – hence the title. Those two traits keep her going in unexpected direc-tions, the plot being secondary to the trajectory of her emotions.

Married at 19 in California to a math professor who had wor-shipped her from afar, she sud-denly decides to leave him just as

she discovers she is pregnant. She asks the rector of her church to point her toward a place for unwed mothers which places ba-bies with other parents, and she leaves for Kentucky.

There she makes a few good friends and takes over the cook-ing for everyone, becoming part of the lives around her. She also begins to know Son – the tall, expert caretaker and handyman who has looked after the place for 30 years.

As her time approaches, she knows she wants to keep the girl she is going to have, and when Son suggests they marry, she re-alizes that’s the only way she will be allowed to stay on and accepts him immediately.

The novel is in three parts told from three interlocking points of view: Rose’s, Son’s and her daughter, Cecilia’s. Each story and point of view are separate,

three histories each in the end reflecting and revolving around Rose.

Patchett cannot write a con-ventional novel and each of them has many dimensions, each a separate kind of adven-ture for the reader.

The Patron Saint of LiarsBy Ann Patchett

Available in bookstores and on Amazon

Harper Perennial $13.95

It’s no lie that this is worth a read


With Craft Beer Week upon us it is time to look for great local beer events that are coming close to us.

If you have a good designated driver the Saratoga Brew Fest, in Ballston Spa, NY is worth the hour and fifteen minute trip.

With over 50 breweries the June 16 fest this on is a classic.

While in the event you will be able to sample over 125 different beers.

This will be the third annual and the first two featured great music, food and all around the perfect beer drinking vibe.

This year the live music performed by Capital Region Favorite Rich Ortiz, NYC based Trails to Town, and Groove Therapy.

Tickets are $45 and you get a full four hours of unlimited tastings.

Making the trip feel like you are heading home local Berkshire’s brewery Wandering Star will also be at the festival this year.

Cape Cod drops a beast of a beer

Cape Cod Brewing has just

released the 1,000 batch of their local New Engalnd brew.

To celebrate they brewed a big Imperial Red.

Their standard red is the best known beer and makes up 50 percent of their total sales, so it had to be a red for such a momentous batch.

This Imperial Red Ale was made with exactly 1,000 pounds of malted grains, a blend that included Canadian Pale, German Viena, and English Wheat,

Crystal and Black Malts, along with a blend of 6 different hops: Cascade, Chinook, Magnum, Mt Hood, Zythos & Willamette.

This beer tops out at 8% alcohol by volume, coincidently, that’s 1 percentage point for each year that Cape Cod Beer has been in business.

This well balanced Imperial Red finishes with a lingering warmth from the higher alcohol content – perfect for the cool spring nights.

A great brewfest, only one hour away.

Wine and Beyond:

Toro wines that are sure to please


George C. Jordan III George C. Jordan III, publisher and

editor of The Berkshire Beacon, was born in Winchester and lived in Melrose prior to his Parsons College days in Fairfield, Iowa.

He worked as a newspaper reporter on the former Springfield Union (now called The Republican).

He eventually settled down in western Massachusetts and has called Lenox home for more than 30 years.

Throughout his life, Mr. Jordan held tight to the dream of starting his own newspaper. The Berkshire Beacon is that dream-come-true. He pretty much eats, sleeps, and lives for running the newspaper around-the-clock. That keeps him pretty busy.

Mr. Jordan had this to say about writing for The Beacon:

“While the staff focuses in on news and feature writing, I like to offer a sense of direction for The Berkshire Beacon and our tourist publication, The Berkshire Sonata. I like to think we do not rewrite other publications, but I take a different viewpoint or angle on a subject and add pictures and layout to our product, the weekly newspaper. I can say it is not the old rag, but the bright white newspaper with content from our loyal staff.”

He added, “I go against public opinion on local issues per real estate developments and apparently, I am going against the norm of starting a weekly in an economic down market along with the closing of several print publications.”

He went on to say that the key to doing this is to “have a dream, build a staff of like minds and give a goal of creating the best weekly in New England.”

“Most of the staff are graduates of rank colleges and universities across America,” Mr. Jordan said of the men and women who put out The Beacon. “The bottom line is they are here to serve you and your family on the editorial pages and promote your businesses via advertisements with good graphic design.”

Bera B. DunauBera B. Dunau, a New York City native,

moved to upstate New York as an infant and grew up on a farm in Delaware County.

Catching frogs, toads, salamanders and non-venomous snakes and then letting them go was one of his favorite childhood pastimes.

He’s fairly fresh out of college, graduating from Hampshire College in Amherst with a bachelor of arts degree in 2010.

As for writing for The Beacon, this is what he had to say:

“I like the wide variety of topics I get to write about and the freedom I’m given to do so, both in terms of schedule and style.”

So what’s one thing about Bera Dunau that most people don’t know?

“I have a pretty big temper,” he said. “Since I’m generally a pretty nice person, or so people tell me, I’ve actually been asked if I ever get mad. Truth is, I can get pretty hot under the collar but make a point of controlling myself and trying to be a mature individual about it.”

Rae A. Eastman You know those book reviews you’ve

been reading in The Beacon? Well, they are all written by Rae A. Eastman of Williamstown.

Ms. Eastman is an amazing lady with a lot of pizzaz.

A New York City native, Ms. Eastman grew up in Huntington, Long Island and Ipswich. She majored in music at Vassar College and has sung as well as played just about anything on the piano.

She has lived a long and interesting life. She worked as a literary agent in New York City, collected and made automated social services data available for reference throughout New York City through the mayor’s office and also worked as assistant to the director of a music/art agency in

Litchfield, Conn.Ms. Eastman managed an annual two-

week chamber music conference for the Manhattan String quartet, ran a bed and breakfast referral agency in Connecticut and also worked as an educational assistant for an agency that served recovering mentally ill patients.

Divorced, she has a son, Alex Brooks, who is a newspaper publisher in Petersburg and a daughter, Carolyn Brooks, who is vice dean of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

Susan M. Wicker Guerrero Susan M. Wicker Guerrero’s hometown

is Pittsfield. She left when she was very young and returned in 2002 after living away for many decades, including 12 years in Arizona.

She also graduated from Berkshire Community College with an associate’s degree in liberal arts. While at BCC, she was editor of the college newspaper which, at that time, was called The Falcon’s Nest.

Mrs. Guerrero earned a journalism degree from the University of Arizona. She worked as a reporter on several metropolitan as well as small town newspapers including the former Springfield Union (now the Republican), The Daily Hampshire (Northampton) Gazette, The Westfield Evening News and The Sidney (Ohio) Daily News.

One thing about her that not many people know is that she taught creative writing as well as parenting skills to inmates in a federal prison in Arizona.

Janel M. HarrisonJanel M. Harrison thoroughly loves

writing her Girl 2 Girl column weekly in The Beacon.

Mrs. Harrison studied at Southern Vermont College, where she majored in nursing and minored in English literature.

She received a scholarship to attend the Writers Workshop at Chautauqua in 2009 which, she said, she will always treasure.

She is also a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

“If I can give you something, perhaps a bit of inspiration, make you laugh or cry, or feel less alone as you go about your life, I’ll be happy,” Mrs. Harrison said. “I also love writing for kids and young adults and have a middle grade novel, young reader series and young adult novel I’m revising.”

She said she likes The Berkshire Beacon and thinks it’s a “great little community paper and it’s growing.”

One thing most people don’t know about her is that she adores the phrase “A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.”

Catherine M. KrummeyAlmost all the education news printed in

The Beacon is the hard work of Catherine M. Krummey, a native of Black Jack, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis. That, she said, is where she was born and raised.

At the University of Missouri in Columbia, she studied journalism for three years and then switched her major to interdisciplinary studies with emphasis areas in film studies and journalism.

“I love to write anything that ties into the world of film – screenplays, film reviews, essays, news stories, etc.,” Ms. Krummey said. “I also enjoy writing about the arts and culture in general, including music, fashion, TV and food.”

Ms. Krummey has a good sense of humor and has enjoyed going to various office parties and gatherings, including trivia at a local establishment.

“I’m not originally from The Berkshires or the northeast,” she said, adding, “I am enjoying getting to know the area through working on my various assignments.”

Philip KampePhilip Kampe writes a wine column for

The Beacon.Born in St. Louis, Mr. Kampe was raised

Berkshire Beacon Profiles

George C. Jordan III,Publisher and Editor

Bera B. Dunau,Staff Writer

Catherine M. Krummey,Staff Writer

Susan M. Wicker Guerrero,Staff Writer

After one year meet the staff...


in New Orleans. As a child, he loved amateur radio.

He earned a bachelor of arts degree in secondary education from the University of New Orleans and took graduate courses at Tulane University. While an undergraduate student, he served as an editor on the school paper.

He said he was always a writer, even from childhood. He taught journalism overseas in Nuremberg, Germany, for four years and for two years in New Orleans.

He had this to say about writing a column for The Beacon: “The once-a-week deadline gives the columnist ample time to develop a story idea.”

Mr. Kampe said he founded Fabulous Phil’s ice cream in the Berkshires and put out pints of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream at the same time a famous ice cream company did.

Glenda Lee Glenda Lee is another Beacon advertising

sales woman. She was born in Midland, Mich., but

has lived as far north as Maine, as far south as Florida, on Cape Cod to the east and California to the west.

Ms. Lee has dual associate degrees in accounting and dependency disorders.

“Since I personally feel the need to make a difference, when I write, I aim to make a difference,” Ms. Lee said. “It can be any number of topics that I’m passionate about as long as the end result is something that has the potential of making a difference.”

Eventually, Ms. Lee may write some articles for The Beacon but right now, she’s busy selling ads.

“But what I really like about working for The Beacon is that I can do something I’m really good at and indulge my creative side by actually writing now and then,” she added.

She was asked to name one thing about herself that not many people know.

Susan G. RobinsonSusan Robinson is The Beacon’s immensely

creative and talented graphic designer.All the unique ads, banners and fancy

artwork you see in The Beacon are the result of her handiwork.

Ms. Robinson was born in Pittsfield, grew up in Dalton and spent a couple of her early years in Scotland.

She studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in illustration.

Ms. Robinson has been putting her expertise into practice ever since.

The Beacon asked this talented graphic designer why she loved to draw.

“I love designing/illustrating for kids. You can usually just let your imagination go anywhere with it,” she said. “I especially like making characters out of animals and objects. recently had to do a set of illustrations where the main characters were a rock and an insurance policy! It wasn’t actually for kids, but in that style.”

Regarding designing for The Beacon, Ms. Robinson said, “Since the paper is new and most of the customers are new, I’m often given free reign to come up with ads without any input from anyone...of course, that can be good and bad!”

Kameron SpauldingKameron Spaulding’s job as assistant

editor requires a tremendous amount of patience, perseverance and fortitude.

He needs to keep his finger on the pulse of what is going on in several communities. He has to keep track of what stories are needed, who’s writing them, how well they are written and then make sure they get submitted on time.

Every week a newspaper must be filled with stories and accompanying photographs, and it’s no easy task to line everything up. Meeting deadlines can be nerve-racking but it’s part of the territory in the newspaper field.

Mr. Spaulding will often be found at his computer, organizing the endless tasks of newspaper work.

He covers events, too, and writes stories, takes photos, copy reads, attends advertising sales meetings, plans for

future issues of the Sonata, yaks on the phone, sends text messages and somehow, miraculously keeps it all together.

He studied political science and communications at Rhode Island College.

Why does he love to write?“I always loved to tell a good story and

share information with our readers,” Mr. Spaulding said.

Anna ShippeeAnna Shippee often writes about her

baking and cooking experiences in the kitchen.

She’s a natural when it comes to making lip-smacking dishes.

Her creations make a reader want to run out to buy ingredients and try to duplicate them.

She writes descriptively and also accompanies the articles with photos.

ing and cooking her main hobbies and she loves to share her experiences.

She has a bachelor of arts in psychology from Stony Brook University.

Ms. Shippee is very busy these days planning her summer wedding to Kameron Spaulding, The Beacon’s chief editorial assistant.

They are planning a honeymoon in Europe which will include seeing the Olympic Games.

Donna ThomasDonna Thomas, business manager,

helps keep things running smoothly at The Beacon.

A Pittsfield native, she grew up in Dalton.

As The Beacon business manager, Ms. Thomas is responsible for the challenging job of keeping up with all the business aspects of a weekly newspaper.

Sometimes she’s even up to her nose working on endless reams of employee paper work.

“Every day is a challenging day for me, after suffering a brain injury,” Ms. Thomas said. “Some things that become easy for others are not so easy for me. One of the

most challenging is organization. I used to be able to organize with ease. Now, I have to write everything in order to complete the task at hand.”

Ms. Thomas said it takes her longer to accomplish tasks than the ordinary person. However, it’s amazing how she gets everything done, right down to the most minute detail.

“Everyone in my brain injury support group has the same challenges in everyday life,” Ms. Thomas said. “We do the best we can, every day, and hopefully, we have been able to accomplish our goals in our every day living and for the future that it may hold in store for us.”

Jacqueline J. Wendling Jacqueline “Jackie” Wendling is an

advertising salesperson for The Beacon. A petite, attractive young woman, she is

a Pittsfield native.Ms. Wendling said one of her favorite

childhood joys was Christmas morning with her family.

“When my dad tucked me in at night, he would sing a song that he made up on our way to bed and tuck us in REAL tight, so tight you couldn’t move,” she said.

Ms. Wendling earned a bachelor of science degree in elementary education and liberal studies from Westfield State College.

“I love selling ads for The Beacon because I love being out and about in the community, meeting new people every day,” Ms. Wendling said. “I believe in The Beacon as a useful, viable newspaper for the Berkshire community. I have also formed new, lasting friendships with some wonderful co-workers at the Beacon as well!”

Nancy G. ShepherdNancy G. Shepherd works in advertising

sales at The Beacon and also loves to write. A native of Adams, where she grew up,

she is the youngest of two children.Later in life, Mrs. Shepherd enrolled

in Berkshire Community College and graduated in 2000.

“My college graduation day was one of the happiest moments of my life as I was not allowed to go to college after graduating from high school,” Mrs. Shepherd said. “Instead, I went to work at the G.E. Ordnance in Engineering and was enrolled in the evening classes at both GE and BCC.”

She added, “I accrued enough credits so that I was able to compete my degree in business and culinary arts in two semesters after my position in finance at General Dynamics was eliminated due to company downsizing.”

Mrs. Shepherd said she loves writing for The Beacon because it gives her great satisfaction and joy because she is able to present to the public stories which she feels are important to her and that need to be shared with the reader.

“It is an emotional presentation which needs to be shared and brought to light,” she said.

Kameron Z. Spaulding,Assistant Editor

Donna Thomas,Business Manager

Glenda Lee,Advertising Sales


Girl-2-GirlLone Wolves

Janel HarrisonBeacon Staff Writer

So the questions on deck this week girls are, “Is a lone wolf re-ally a lone wolf?” and “Can men be alone?”

Take your “born bachelor” for instance, is he really that inde-pendent? Destined to forge through the tall and treacherous grasses in the great circle of life all by himself?

Or is there always some strong figure there or in the background to comfort, console, love, give advice, provide com-panionship and catch him when he falls?

Whether it’s a part-time girl-friend, a sugar mama, a mom, a sis-ter, a close friend or per-haps someone on the side or wait-ing in the windows of her mind, it seems to me there is always one that is the most prominent pro-viding those basic human needs.

When the subject had recently been brought to my attention while lounging with friends, I thought I’d do a bit of research and strike the match.

I approached a young and hip bachelor-bartender friend of mine who said, “I like the com-pany of a woman to warm me in the morning.”

Well, he’s honest. And without any mumbo-jum-

bo let’s now go over to Domi-nique Browning who wrote an insightful article in The New York Times, “Alone, Naturally,” which sums up generalities of men and woman living alone.

The gist: Women like being alone while men don’t.

She says that most men seem unable to live alone for longer than, at the outside, three months. Along with this:

“Men are hardwired to feel danger all the time. He hunts and tangles with wild beasts. He does not nest. He gets in the way of nesting. And above all a man does not willingly venture near that

snake pit called ‘feelings.’ He avoids danger, aware that only so many arrows are granted to him in a lifetime, so he should hus-band his resources. The world is dangerous enough without add-ing the dangers that come from being alone.”

So as it appears being alone feels dangerous to a man. Who has his back? Who feeds him? Who nurses him in his sick bed? Who takes watch if he disappears

or sends out the search party if he wanders off the trail?

It’s us baby… or as I said before,

someone who takes on the role and runs with it.

I’ve known some bachelors

in my lifetime and one thing is

true with them all: they’re never alone,

there’s always someone or some-thing there to soothe or entertain.

In the end their life is like a worn road map where the route never changes and the road was never built upon. They’re set in their ways and it’s difficult to change directions, so they just keep going adding bits of glori-ous scenery along the way to ec-stasize their souls.

To some their life feels com-plete, but to others… as I see it they’re afraid to really live.

Afraid to fail? Maybe, but as the great Albert Einstein said in 1604, “You never fail until you stop trying.”

The answer is clear – men don’t want to go it alone, nor do they think they’ll be happy that way. And the good ones out there only want to be our “knights in shin-ing armor” so long as we prepare the meals and polish the armor.

Now the next time you come across a man who tells you he’s playing the game of Solitaire, think twice, roll your eyes and ask again.

Till next week when the tables turn to us brave-hearted gals.

Ciao Bella

Chances are you’ve already seen The Avengers. Indeed you’re probably among the millions of people that have helped The Avengers gross over $1 billion worldwide with no signs of slow-ing down.

If you’re still hesitant, however, I’m here to tell you that The Avengers is indeed an entertain-ing film, and well worth your time. It also happens to be a groundbreaking piece of moviemaking.

The Avengers isn’t just a sequel to one film, but a sequel to five. A follow-up to Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers attempts to recreate the sprawling shared universe of Marvel Comics that has been beloved by readers for decades.

The fruit of seven years of pro-duction efforts, The Avengers could have been a complete and utter disaster. What it is, howev-er, is a perfectly-balanced film that gets every one of its myriad components right in a truly su-perb piece of entertainment.

The plot of The Avengers is fairly straightforward.

Loki (played by Tom Hid-dleston), the chief villain from the Thor movie, seeks to conquer Earth and enlists an alien race, the Chitauri, to help him in ex-change for giving them the tesser-act, the MacGuffin from the Captain America film.

In order to foil Loki’s plans, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of the international secu-rity and espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., gathers together Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans) and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to form a special response team called the Avengers Initiative.

Joined by the demigod Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and master assassins Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jere-my Renner), The Avengers must find a way to both decipher the exact nature of Loki’s plans and overcome their differences in or-der to stop him.

One of the most impressive things about The Avengers is how well it is able to allow each one of

the members of its sprawling cast to shine.

Ruffalo is the third person to play a live-action version of the character in ten years, and he nails the role.

As mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner, who transforms into the brutal Hulk when pro-voked, Ruffalo brings both a vul-nerability and a smoldering sense of menace to a performance that is both the most interesting and the most effective in the movie.

Then there are the action scenes. The Avengers has some of the best-choreographed group fight scenes that I’ve ever seen. Every one of the Avengers is given a chance to stand out and do something awesome.

The climatic battle is nothing short of a thing of beauty, as the camera moves fluidly from con-flict to conflict without ever miss-ing a beat or descending into mo-notony. It is everything you could ever want out of a giant super hero battle (and more) and brings to the big screen what moviegoers had previously only been able to enjoy in comic books.

Make no mistake, The Aveng-ers is not a perfect film. The story, while engaging, never crosses into the sublime and, while you’re rooting for the Avengers the en-tire way through, you never really get the sense that they’re in dan-ger of losing their war, especially once the Hulk starts to smash.

Indeed, other super hero films, such as The Dark Knight, both Hellboy films, Spider-Man 2 and Superman 2 pack a stronger emo-tional punch.

That being said, The Avengers doesn’t really do anything wrong. It’s funny, it’s dramatic, it’s well-acted and it is never boring, which is far more than most spe-cial effects-laden action films can say.

So, if you want a movie to see with your friends, your family, your kids or if you simply want to be entertained, you really can’t go wrong by assembling at The Avengers.

Side Note: There are two after-the-credits scenes, so make sure to stay in the theater until the lights go up.

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The Lee baseball team had two games last week. They lost 2-8 at Hoosac on Friday and then 5-9 against Wahconah at home on Monday.

Baseball has a big week coming up, with two chances to clinch a playoff berth. On Friday they’ll travel to Mount Everett and then on Monday they will travel to St. Joe’s. If they win either of those games they will make the playoffs.

The boys’ tennis team took care of business in their one match last week, beating Drury 4-1. Their second game scheduled for Tues-day was cancelled due to rain.

The girls’ tennis team swept Drury on their only match, get-ting to 5-4 for the season. Their game scheduled for Tuesday was also cancelled.

Both teams have two games this week, one today at Monu-ment and then one on Tuesday at home against Mount Everett.

A quick side note: the individ-ual tennis tournaments were last week. The only Lee player to ad-

vance to the semifinals was the two-seed Tanner DeVarennes. In fact Tanner was the only Berk-shire County player to make it that far.

The boys’ lacrosse season is winding down. The boys split their two games last week, win-ning 8-5 at Taconic and then los-ing 6-7 away to Hoosac.

The boys will play their last game of the season at Wahconah on Tuesday.

The girls’ lacrosse team won both their games last week, 14-7 against Pittsfield and then 16-9 against Hoosac to be 8-0-1 for the year.

The girls will try to complete their undefeated season on Mon-day with their last game at Wah-conah. Wahconah came the clos-est to beating the girls but Megan Gaul helped save Lee, scoring three goals in the last five minutes.

Softball had an off-week last week with no games, but they have two tough tests this week. They travel to Gateway on Friday and then they go to Hoosac on Monday.

Wildcat Weekly:

Big week for baseball

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The Intercollegiate Tennis As-sociation (ITA) Awards Commit-tee after receiving nominations from ITA member coaches in the Northeast Region has announced that Williams College senior Kristin Alotta and sophomore Kara Shoemaker are 2012 award winners.

Kristin Alotta, a captain, was named the Northeast Region Se-nior Player of the Year. She is the second Eph in the last three years to be named the region's top se-nior player, joining Grace Baljon who won in 2010.

Alotta plays 1 singles for the Ephs and teams with sophomore Kathleen Elkins at 2 doubles. Earlier this season Alotta record-ed her 100th career singles win. She now has 106 singles wins and with her doubles win in the 5-0 win Tufts last Sunday she record-ed her 94th doubles win, giving her 200 career wins in the Purple Valley.

Most recently Alotta was named First Team All-NESCAC in both singles and doubles. After the NCAA Team Tournament concludes in Cary, NC, Alotta will be back on the court com-peting in the NCAA Singles Tournament. A year ago Alotta advanced to the semifinals of the 2011 NCAA Singles Tournament.

"Kristin is having a tremen-dous senior year," stated head coach Alison Swain. "Sometimes achieving the kind of success that she has in her first three years can put pressure on a player. Kristin has a perfect mindset for senior year. She is not playing for indi-vidual honors but rather to help the team achieve our goals and this has allowed her to keep im-proving and play her best tennis

yet."Kara Shoemaker was named

the ITA Northeast Player to Watch. It is hard to under esti-mate the improvement in play of Kara Shoemaker from her first year to now.

It is rare that a player jumps into a tournament-tested lineup like the Ephs from outside the top six to play at 2 in singles and at 1 doubles, but that is why Kara Shoemaker was named the ITA Northeast Player to Watch.

"Kara came into our program with a lot of weapons in her game, but hadn't completely mastered her own game style yet," Swain stated. "Over the last year, Kara has come into her own. She has improved her game be-yond any expectation and has also improved her competitive

mentality, her fitness, and her strength. The combination of all these factors has allowed Kara to really step up on our team and add strength to the top of our lineup."

Shoemaker is the third Eph to win the Northeast Player to Watch award in the last five years, joining her doubles partner Tay-lor French (2010) and Grace Bal-jon (2008).

Shoemaker will also be com-peting in the NCAA Singles Tournament after the conclusion of the next week's team championships.

Next up for Alotta and Shoe-maker and the 21-2 Eph team is a National Quarterfinal match ver-sus Claremont-Mudd-Scripps at 3:30 PM in Cary, NC, on May 21st.

Williams tennis wins awards

To place your help wanted ad in

The Berkshire Beacon Call 413-637-2250

May 17 2012

SportsThe Berkshire Beacon

For information about advertising in The Berkshire Beacon Call 413-637-2250



BEACON

dick SyriacBeacon Staff Writer

At the completion of the MAS-CAC golf championship played April 17 at Blackstone Valley Golf Club in Worcester, Shane Ortega of MCLA checked out the leader board and found only one name above his. Nick Zolo-tas of Salem State had posted a very impressive 66 to take home the hardware.

Shane, a senior from Pittsfield, wasn’t too disappointed that he wasn’t able to catch the winner, but had to be pleased with the fact that he bested the other 18 players in the field.

“There were some shots I wish I had back, but I was not going to catch the medalist, he said.

On a sunny day that featured strong and gusty wind condi-tions, 66 was a great score.

Ortega’s 77 would have been the best if someone had told Zo-lotas the event was moved to an-other location.

Shane, who first started playing at age four, honed his skills at Berkshire Hills Country Club tagging along with his dad, Mike. He was member of the St. Joe golf team as a freshman and then Pittsfield High School’s for three years. He has proven that he is ca-pable “of going low,” as he has carded a 68 on his home course in tournament play.

When not in school or on the course, he can be found assisting PGA professional Josh Hillman in the everyday operation of the BHCC golf shop.

After graduation he plans on continuing his education, focus-ing on a career in criminal justice. Upon completion of that endeav-or, his first job should be to look into the handicap system at his home club.

MCLA was also represented by two other county youngsters, Sean Cota, who shot 81 and fin-ished fifth, while Corbin Brassard struggled in with a 95. Cota and Brassard play out of Forest Park Country Club in Adams.

Good to see old friend and PGA pro Sean Hanley on the staff at Wyantenuck Country Club in Great Barrington. Sean

and I go back to our years at Crumpin Fox, where he was very busy working as an instructor and assistant pro. After many years at Cranwell he is taking his talents to south county, not South Beach.

While at “The Fox,” one of Se-an’s junior golfers was Josh Hill-man, who went on to play D-I at URI and can now be found at BHCC in Pittsfield.

How did Crumpin Fox Golf Club of Bernardston, Mass., get its moniker?

Years ago there was a company in town named Crump and Fox Bottling Co. The soda business is long gone but their name, after being localized, is still around.

Erika DeSanty of Drury High School and Clarksburg is doing a wonderful job as Williams Col-lege’s women’s golf coach. Erika is also on the payroll of Mark Mills at Waubeeka Golf Links as their top golf instructor.

When not on the course or the practice range, Erika can be found in her office, where she is on the college administration staff.

Luke Salvatore is back at Cran-well for season 18 as a top in-structor and assistant pro. Luke has been a fixture at the resort club with the exception of one season spent at BHCC.

Former Cranwell PGA profes-sional John Wells was spotted working on his game and work-ing on his favorite Cranwell burg-er at Sloane’s Tavern.

The 1986 PGA Junior Cham-pionship, played at Palm Beach Gardens in Florida, included some familiar names in the field.

Phil Mickelson finished third and Brett Quigley tied for sev-enth, while David Hathaway of Lenox Dale tied for 18th. David’s third-day 71 was his highlight round, while the best “Lefty” could do was a fourth-round 72.

David is still in the area and when he puts it in the ground he can still post impressive scores. I believe his score of 64 is still the course record at North Adams Country Club.

Berkshire Sports Guy:

Golf is back

may 17th issue

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