There is an interview with retiring Planning Board member Bruce Fletcher who simply wanted to end his town service with a positive legacy. In a lengthy interview Bruce answers the hard questions The Stow Advocate put before him.

 

At the other end of the age spectrum is a bunch of kids from the Nashoba Regional School System who created a positive legacy very early in life.  Four teams were entered into the State finals of the Destination Imagination competitions and, remarkably, we are sending four teams to the Global competitions in Knoxville-- a total of twenty kids. We should be proud of them and they should be proud of what they have accomplished. The lessons these kids have learned will remain with them and guide them for the rest of their lives.

 

Michelle Smart, daughter of Town Clerk Linda Hathaway has decided to “pay it back”. Michelle is a volunteer in New Orleans helping clean up the massive damage that remains from Hurricane Katrina. Michelle tells her own story in her own words.  I edited a bit and arranged some paragraphs but it's the power of Michelle's words that tell the story.

 

The camera of a young Bruce Fletcher captured some rare images of Stow’s Spring Festival—some thirty-nine years ago.

 

I wanted this to be a non-political issue. I wanted this to be an issue about the human sprit in Stow—achieving, creating positive legacies, paying back to the community but sadly the saga of the embattled Selectman’s Administrative Assistant Susan McLaughlin continues. In a sense, Susan's story is a story about the human spirit.  Faced with withering criticsm by press, in listservers, and a few Selectmen she goes on, unbended and does her job.  Susan needs our support.  In the Rockbottom Ramblings we read a letter of support for Susan written by her fellow workers and I call for a total boycott of a newspaper that actually, once served this community.

 

Well, anyway, enjoy The Stow Advocate and, as always, thanks for reading it.

 

Jim Dunlap- Publisher, editor, and townsman