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Keyword search: Hometown hero

By RACHEL WACHMAN

Maria Pacelli remembers sitting at her father’s bedside as he took his final breaths. She was in college at the time and had, coincidentally, been taking courses on death and loss.She and her brothers held a vigil for the final four days before her...

By ALEXANDER RAPP

Jacob Adler, a junior lineman and middle linebacker for Franklin High School, walked into Dan Sylvester’s office to ask about meeting his community service requirements while also having a commitment to the football team practice before a big game...

By RACHEL WACHMAN

To some in her Pembroke neighborhood, Lori Rowe’s home is known as the “fairy house” or the “fairy garden.” It started three years ago when she put out a display of hand-painted fairy houses with little gnomes and knick-knacks. Nestled into the base...

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

They came from opposite ends of world: she from Rio de Jainero, Brazil, population 6 million; he from Fort Kent, Maine, five hours north of Portland, population 4,000.And they arrived for different reasons: she to support her sick sister in 1994; he...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

Since long before she moved to Concord six years ago, Mary McEvoy-Barrett has taken a daily walk through Rollins Park.It was part of why she and her husband, Ray Barrett, picked their house in the South End.“There were too many hills in Dunbarton,”...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

A card game helped put things in perspective for Finan Murphy.As he sat in a church in Concord, where residents at Family Promise’s emergency shelter stayed the night, and played a game against one of the teenagers living there at the time, he...

By DAVID BROOKS

There’s a group of New Hampshire volunteers who are like mail carriers in that neither rain nor snow will keep them from their appointed rounds.That’s because rain and snow is the reason for their appointed rounds.“My husband and I really like...

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

When Linda Sarette laid her father to rest at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen in 2019, the section where he was buried had no garden.It was an omission that bothered the Sanbornton resident so much she asked the cemetery to...

By DAVID BROOKS

The volunteers who answer phones for the state’s Consumer Protection hotline hear a lot of sad stories, of business deals gone wrong, purchases that became expensive lemons and brutal scams that empty bank accounts. But every now and then, they get a...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Each time Glenn Morrill drives around the traffic circle in Franklin and the long grass blows in the breeze, he jokes the swaying blades are waving hello.The long grass at the rotary is one of many spots Morrill can look at in New Hampshire’s smallest...

By ERIC RYNSTON-LOBEL

A science teacher and an English teacher might sound like an unlikely duo to embark on a pretty intense outdoor project. But for former Belmont Middle School teachers Tim Lamendola and Greg Wood, the pairing was a natural fit.The two have worked over...

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

On a January day in 1944, at a time when governors still worked day jobs, the physician who delivered Roger Phillips into the world was none other than New Hampshire’s sitting governor, Robert O. Blood.Perhaps the circumstances of Phillips’ birth...

By SOFIE BUCKMINSTER

As a photographer, Becky Field is always searching for the story.Her camera gravitates toward contrast. For the last 12 years, it has led her to the often-sidelined immigrants, refugees and New Americans who, one way or another, found themselves...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

Odette Kanzayire pulls a thin workbook from her purse, placing it on the table beside a spiral notebook whose edges are worn round. On its cover is splashed the title “Survival English.”Kanzayire has been tutored by Terry Irwin, a volunteer with...

By SOPHIE LEVENSON

Ross Mingarelli says he likes dogs more than people, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t kind to both.He’s a man who does things by himself. He operates CandleTree, his store on Main Street, as a one-man operation. He drives his ax-throwing truck solo. He...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

For Sindy Chown, dance is belonging: within one’s own body, within a culture, within a community. “When someone dances with their heart, you see it in their face,” Chown said. Their eyes will light up, and a smile will bloom on their face. “It’s like...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

People often go to the library looking for something quite specific: the next mystery novel in a series, a tax form or maybe a political memoir. But, as any regular knows, libraries hold so much more than books between the stacks: free and engaging...

By RAY DUCKLER

You might have seen some of Stacy Duffy’s Girl Scouts standing in front of grocery and convenience stores in recent days, selling those yummy cookies like Do-Si-Dos, Tagalongs and Samoas.She runs Troop 10162, and her lineup of girls has fanned out as...

By RAY DUCKLER

Bob Wolfe heard the story nearly 25 years ago about a 10-year-old boy sprawled out on the side of a road in Sierre Leone shortly after a rebel fighter had cut off his legs.“That was it,” Wolfe said. “That was all I needed.” He had been shown the dark...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Rebecca Carlman knows a new blanket can go a long way when you are living out of a tent. She did so herself for three years – with cold winters and wet mornings after a night of rain leaving a lingering chill. So now she loads what supplies she can...

By RAY DUCKLER

The latest candidate for the Monitor’s Hometown Hero award, Lawre Murphy of Boscawen, strongly believed that her partner in keeping seniors on their toes, Brenda Bartlett, deserved the honor more than she did.Bartlett happened to be the woman who...