2022 Year In Review

An Orleans County man filed a lawsuit in September against Facebook alleging that the social media giant caused injuries to his teenage daughter including self-harm, depression and eating disorders.

A story broke in January about an unusual filing by convicted Elm Street shooter Arther Butler.

Dick Hamilton, who dedicated his life to growing tourism in the White Mountains and became a pioneer in the industry, was remembered for the role he played in putting the North Country region and the state on the map.

Jonathan Zukowski, 31, of Woodstock, N.H., died while fishing with two friends on the Connecticut River in Monroe on the afternoon of April 6.

A local attorney elected to serve as Caledonia County Probate Judge was suspended for misconduct but put himself in position for re-election before pulling out of the race eight days prior to Election Day.

ST. JOHNSBURY — In late September of this year, a long-envisioned expansion project at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital was finally realized.

DANVILLE — After running a community market named for himself, Marty Beattie, founder of Marty’s 1st Stop on Route 2 in Danville, passed the torch earlier this year to his son and daughter-in-law to run the family market. He had begun Marty’s 33 years ago and said it was time to pass the torch to the next generation.

Raised in Brattleboro and a former prosecutor in a Bennington County courtroom, Jennifer Barrett was sworn in on Sept. 24th as a Vermont Superior Court judge serving in Orleans County.

In early fall Northeast Kingdom Human Services announced that it had completed the redesignation process by the Vermont Department of Mental Health following a couple turbulent years for the NGO that saw administrative turnover and staff and client concerns.

Northeast Kingdom legend Dudley Bell who died March 11 after a year-long bout of melanoma at the age of 89.

A Massachusetts man was shot and wounded at 72 Maple Street in St. Johnsbury in October.

Longtime Caplan’s Army Store employee Gary Ely died on Aug. 22.

FRANCONIA NOTCH — The body of Emily Sotelo was found Nov. 23 in a drainage area on the northeast side of Mount Lafayette on what would have been her 20th birthday.

LANCASTER — After decades of wondering, 84-year-old Nancy McLain finally knows what happened to her mother, Alberta Leeman, who disappeared in 1978.

ST. JOHNSBURY — Dog Mountain in September received a grant of $5,000 from PetSafe brand’s Bark for Your Park awards to help build or support community dog parks around the country.

The conditions on Mount Pisgah on New Year’s Eve were, well, less than ideal.

The Development Review Board approved a plan on July 18, 2022 to make the former Derby Green Nursing Home a place to house and educate Ukrainians driven from their country by war.

On Dec. 8, after seven decades, Sgt. Alfred H. Sidney came home and was laid to rest in his hometown of Littleton.

EAST BURKE — Moriah Wilson, a 2014 graduate of Burke Mountain Academy and East Burke resident who was pursuing a promising career as a competitive gravel cyclist was identified by the Austin Police Department as a victim in an East Austin homicide at a home on May 11.

State Trooper David Garces from the St. Johnsbury Barracks was honored on Oct. 26 for his work as a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) by the Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT), the State Highway Safety Office and the Vermont Highway Safety Alliance.

Vermont State Police Sgt. Matthew Tarricone was injured while trying to stop a drug suspect from fleeing a traffic stop on Interstate 91 in St. Johnsbury in February.

On June 7, Dalton voters by a wide margin rejected a permanent zoning ordinance in a special town meeting ballot vote.

The Vermont Department of Corrections announced ten incarcerated individuals tested positive for COVID-19 at the Northeast Correctional Complex (NECC) in St. Johnsbury during testing conducted on Jan. 20.

ST. JOHNSBURY — The State of Vermont began licensing cannabis stores in October, and the first shop to get a license in Northeast Kingdom is in St. Johnsbury.

A member of the St. Johnsbury Select Board was accused of drunken driving on Main Street March 14.

BURLINGTON — On April 29, Ariel Quiros, the former owner of Burke Mountain resort and Jay Peak ski resort, was sentenced in federal court to serve five years in prison.

ST. JOHNSBURY — A labor of love reached a 50-year milestone on Valentine’s Day as Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital marked 50 years of operation.

The FBI arrested an alleged hit-man in the spring who authorities say posed as a federal agent to kidnap and murder a Danville man four years ago.

ST. JOHNSBURY — The lodging of homeless people at the Fairbanks Inn was identified as a zoning violation by the town of St. Johnsbury in July.

The Littleton Select Board during their meeting on June 13, 2022, agreed, without a vote, to allow a prayer at the opening of their Monday meetings.

Jen Botzojorns announced in mid November her intent to resign as Superintendent of Kingdom East School District at the end of the school year.

In January 2022, when the numbers were in, state officials said tourism in summer 2021 set a record, with millions of visitors pouring into the White Mountains, Great North Woods, and the rest of the Granite State and making a strong economic impact on local communities.

ST. JOHNSBURY — After more than 22 years owning the Comfort Inn property, Peter Murphy sold it to a Massachusetts-based hotel management company.

EAST BURKE — The relocation of the Thaddeus Stevens School from the Lyndon Institute campus to a former inn property on Route 114 is a natural progression, said the school’s director.

ST. JOHNSBURY — Police detained two people connected to a shooting outside Maplefields on July 5 that left a Barnet man with life-threatening injuries.

Beginning with the withdrawal of a local state representative in February, a series of decisions in 2022 helped to remake the political landscape of the Northeast Kingdom that had been dominated by Republicans.

Danville School’s David Schilling was lauded in early August as High School Principal of the Year at an awards banquet at Killington Grand Resort.

WATERFORD — 2022 began as 2021 left off for the Town of Waterford, with uncertainty over municipal leadership in key staff positions, unprecedented turnover and a cloud of concerns over transparency issues.

WHITEFIELD — The 1,700-acre resort property and historic 141-room hotel were acquired by New Hampshire-based Hay Creek Hotels on April 27 for $24.2 million, according to documents from the Coos County Registry of Deeds.

Two female inmates sued Grafton County, its commission, Department of Corrections and jail staff and a former corrections officer accused of sexually assaulting them in 2019.

The Northeast Kingdom saw COVID cases spike last winter with the Omicron surge. Case counts shot past the 10,000 mark in mid-January as the region experienced the highest average daily new cases of the pandemic, when the three counties were averaging just over 150 confirmed cases per day on Jan. 15.

The community mourned the passing of Dick Lawrence as friends and colleagues recalled a humble man who was dedicated to his community and was known for a legacy of service that could have filled multiple lives.

ST. JOHNSBURY — A familiar face in the town’s fire department from a St. Johnsbury firefighting family has been hired to serve as the department’s next fire chief.

NEWPORT — Elaine Collins was announced in early February as the new superintendent for the SU, succeeding longtime superintendent John Castle to lead the North Country Supervisory Union.

ST. JOHNSBURY - In May, The St. Johnsbury School District School Board selected Karen Conroy as its next superintendent. She was selected following a search to replace the outgoing superintendent of schools Dr. Brian Ricca, who departed to take a job in Rhode Island.

Former Caledonia County Deputy Sheriff Stephen Bunnell reached a plea agreement in February and was convicted in March of two criminal charges in Caledonia Superior Court.

Lyndonville Electric Department hired a new manager.

The Kingdom All Stars won the 2022 “Beats for Good” high school band contest and earned the chance to open for the Do Good Festival in Montpelier on July 16.

In 2022, the Littleton community mourned the loss of Gerald Winn, who had served as town moderator for over half a century and was New Hampshire’s longest consecutively serving town moderator.

Beloved 2020 Academy graduate Jillian Hegarty, 20, was killed on April 1 while walking with two friends from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., when an SUV struck them as they crossed a street. The driver immediately fled the scene. All three were transported to area hospitals. Hegarty succumbed to her injuries. Another of the students suffered serious injuries, and the third was treated for minor injuries.

LYNDONVILLE — A Center Street apartment fire March 29 claimed the life of a resident.

ST. JOHNSBURY — Separate buyers sought to purchase Maple Center Motel from St. Johnsbury Academy in 2022, but both efforts stalled.

The name of retired Littleton fire captain and state fire academy instructor Jeff Whitcomb was added to the New Hampshire Fallen Firefighter Memorial at the state fire academy in Concord on Sept. 25, 2022.

Jerry “Mike” Ramirez 36, of New York City, is accused of shooting and killing 44-year-old St. Johnsbury resident Vincent Keithan in the parking lot at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital on the morning of March 1.

An investigation at the St. Johnsbury Health & Rehabilitation determined the director of nursing lied about her COVID-19 vaccination status and that the facility’s administrator knowingly maintained the lie.

A 16-year-old Connecticut teen was charged with shooting a man in the neck in St. Johnsbury during a drug dispute on Lafayette Street in January.

A Northeast Kingdom mother and her adult son were shot on Saturday, Jan. 1. The pair were found wounded inside a vehicle on School Road in Holland at about 8:20 p.m.

ST. JOHNSBURY — Caledonia County Sheriff Dean Shatney did not be seek re-election this year, completing three terms as sheriff. He began in 2011 when Mike Bergeron retired.

Hardwick Police Chief Aaron Cochran was placed on paid administrative leave in February due to an internal investigation.

Wells River Chevrolet was purchased by Autosaver Group in November.

A domestic and sexual assault trial ended in a mistrial in February after Orleans Superior Court Judge Lisa A. Warren announced that she had just tested positive for COVID-19.

Communities across the region mourned the loss of Hazen Union Athletic Director Jared Cushing, who died by suicide on Oct. 16. He was 21.

Friends and community members mourned the death of Schuyler Sweet, a former Littleton selectman and Littleton Water and Light commissioner who served on a host of local boards and nonprofits in an effort to better his community.

Former Lunenburg Fire Chief Phil Harris and his wife, Elaine, escaped their single-family home at 82 Riverside Ave. on Nov. 1 following an early-morning explosion that rocked the close-knit neighborhood located along the western shore of the Connecticut River.

ST. JOHNSBURY — Symbols of hate etched into St. Johnsbury Academy walls spurred school-wide attention, reflection, and administrative ire.

A St. Johnsbury man with 24 open criminal cases in Caledonia County was identified in December as a possible ‘person of interest’ in the fatal shooting of a 66-year-old man in the town of Eden.

Ralph Porfido was struck and killed by a tractor trailer while crossing Litteton’s Main Street within the crosswalk on Feb. 9. He was 79.

Vermont candidates for statewide office who live in the Northeast Kingdom are rare, and when Joe Benning, of Lyndon, announced in January that he would be seeking the lieutenant governor position, it was news.

The Vermont House passed Proposition 5, the “reproductive autonomy” constitutional amendment proposal, on Feb. 8, 2022 by a better than 2 to 1 margin, but among Northeast Kingdom lawmakers the nays nearly doubled the yeas.

Early March brought welcome news to supporters of the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury in their effort to construct a Science Annex on the back of the venerable institution.

A St. Johnsbury man stepped off an ice shelf in the Passumpsic River on Feb. 27, 2022, and into the ice-cold water where he drowned.

North Country Hospital CEO Brian Nall resigned in late October on the heels of a no-confidence vote passed by the medical staff the week before.

LYNDON — The Wildflower Inn and Juniper’s Restaurant changed hands this year.

Allen Draper was convicted in February of killing St. Johnsbury resident Tim Persons.