Luke Eastman | Rev. Diane Sullivan Eleanor Abbot contracted polio at age 36 and came up with the concept of a classic children s board game while convalescing in the hospital polio ward in 1947 with numerous children sufferers, the Our cover this week, spawned in this COVID-19 era, is based ever so loosely on the game but is decidedly
not for kids. There s no Licorice Lagoon or Peppermint Forest just the hazards of a Red Tape Snarl and a Governor s Veto. The board depicts in a whimsical way the twisting path Vermont has taken toward next year s start of legalized sales of cannabis for adults.
Soon Cutillo was getting requests from national outlets eager to license her photos images that convey both the excitement of this innovative and hastily improvised space and the pandemic weirdness of socially distanced desks inside windowless classrooms. Her visuals complement Novak s text, which recorded the hopeful reactions of students, teachers and administrators who ve been doing their best to cope during this challenging year. It s really cool to see, senior Ariel Felcan said of the makeshift campus. I m excited to spend the rest of the school year here. Novak, the managing editor of
Kids VT, has chronicled the BHS saga for
Michael Tonn
More than 1.6 million people worldwide have died of COVID-19 so far this year; more than 300,000 of them were in the United States, and 100 were in Vermont. The coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy. It s driving up rates of depression, anxiety and overdose deaths, and causing record numbers of parents, mostly women, to leave the workforce to care for their kids. And the pandemic has isolated us from friends and family when we need them the most.
All of this has been taking place amid a bitter partisan battle for control of the federal government. Consequently, crucial relief measures that thousands of Vermonters rely on are scheduled to expire at the end of this month.