NH Secrets Legends and Lore

If you saw a photograph of Dick Backus and you thought - "I know him!" it may be because you are of a certain age where you watched daytime soaps like Ryan's Hope or went to see Eugene O'Neill's "Ah Wilderness" at the Ogunquit Playhouse, or you even went to see "Butterflies are Free" on Broadway. These are just a few of the gems that Richard Backus, born, and still living, right here in New Hampshire, has to his credit. I caught up with Dick recently over Zoom and we chatted about his illustrious career.

Plymouth State University and NH Electric Coop Launch Pilot Vehicle to Grid Project

Will Electric Vehicles form an important Component of Energy Storage in the Future?

Hosts Wayne King and Don Kreis - NH Consumer Advocate before the Public Utilities Commission - speak with Bill Johnstone, business development executive, and Brian Callnan, VP of Power and Resources Access at the NH Electric Cooperative about a pilot project with big implications for energy storage and cost control with respect to electric rates.  

New Hampshire’s first woman Speaker of the House was renowned for appropriating the phrase “herding cats” as her way to humorously describe the process of governing the 400 member House of Representatives aka the General Court in New Hampshire. Over time that description has caught on, not only because it accurately describes the process of trying to guide the second largest deliberative body in the US (3rd in the world, after the Japanese DIET), but because it also reflects the humor and grace that Speaker Sytek brought to the job.

First elected to the NH General Court in 1977 she served until 2000 rising to be the first woman Speaker of the House.

In this podcast Speaker Sytek reflects on her distinguished career in the legislature, the women who dominated the legislature upon whose shoulders she stood, and the current state of legislative affairs.

Born in the same year as his Groton School classmate Robert F. Kennedy, Edward Jackson Bennett “batted” his whole life for the other team - the Republicans - as an elected official; but just as often he was the fellow calling balls and strikes as a member of the media as well - both journalist and editor/publisher - where he was called upon to provide unbiased journalism and fairness to both sides. It was a balancing act no doubt, but one he performed with grace and wisdom and - most of all - a sense of humor.

Bennett’s father - a graduate of Harvard who hoped his son would follow in the family tradition gave up that ghost after Ed was expelled from his second expensive private high school. Upon questioning, Ed told him that his first ambition in life was never to return to school again. His second was to become either a fireman or a tugboat captain.  As an after-thought he suggested that he might be interested in being a newspaperman.

When Charles "Bud" Thompson was 7 years old, a Paucatuck Chief urged him to find his talent and use it. Now in his 90s, Bud has found and used many talents. Yet the founder of the Canterbury Shaker Museum and the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner shies from limelight. After all, he's just doing his part: making the world a little better, finding his place in the Circle.

Take a trip back into history with your kids, your students, your friends and neighbors with this fantastic collaboration between Author Beverly Stoddart and educator Ann Welch as they describe their collaboration built upon the extroardinary storys of journalists from United Press International in the latter half of the 20th century.

In the final days of the Boston office of UPI , Beverly Stoddart who was working for the Boston Herald wandered into the offices of UPI to say her goodbyes. She was captivated by a huge Rolodex still among the detritus of the quickly vanishing equipment and memorabilia and she inquired what was to be done with it.

When she was informed it would be thrown out Beverly immediately asked if she could have it, thus beginning a 20 year journey to "Stories from a Rolodex" where Beverly becomes investigative journalist to some of the most consequential investigative journalists of their time reporting on everything from integration and busing in Boston to the largest mass murder in New Hampshire history.

Finally, as if sharing these life-altering stories with us were not a generous enough act, Beverly teamed up with Ann Welch a curriculum development specialist (among many other things!) to build a study guide around the book and to offer it at no cost to teachers, parents and schools at no cost so that their work could serve as a template for experiencing the thrill of journalism and history first hand and learning to discern between real news and the fake news that now lurks in every corner of the Web.

According to Bernie Marvin he began his career as a photojournalist in the sixth grade at the Wyman School in Winchester, Massachusetts, “where I shot photos and wrote little ditties about fellow students or events at the school. I posted those stories and photos on a school bulletin board for everyone to read. Teachers and students enjoyed seeing the activities covered by a Wyman School youngster with his Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera he had with him every day. That led to better cameras, and by the time I was in high school I was shooting with my own 4X5 Speed Graphic, just like the big guys on the Boston Globe, the Boston Post and the Boston American newspapers.

Bernie enlisted in the Marines in 1956 and was assigned to be a combat photographer and during the next four years he captured images of everything from the mundane to the mendacious, including the very first US foray into the Middle East. 

In 1978 a change of venue brought him to the North Country of New Hampshire and he has never looked back, establishing himself as a newspaperman, journalist, storyteller and entrepreneur. He’s ridden the “Straight Talk Express” with John McCain. Munched burgers with John Kerry and watched as the “Good Ol’ Boys” of Haverhill became the “Good Old Boys and Girls” without losing a beat (or their ornery independence). 

Ever since his father took him on tours of a hydroelectric dam and a nuclear reactor as a young child Clifton Below has had an outsized interest in technology, electricity and energy from both a scientific perspective as well as a public policy one. As a result of this Clifton Below has become one of the foremost thinkers and policy innovators in the country. New Hampshire’s good fortune has been that “Cliff” chose to live here and to grow and think here - instead of somewhere else. Over the course of 30 plus years that has led Cliff from election to the NH House, the NH Senate and then an appointment to the state Public Utility Commission.

Roger Larochelle was born and raised in Manchester but there were forces that compelled him north even with a series of jobs that had him hopscotching all over the place in his younger years the constant tug of the White Mountains and the Lakes Region exerted a gravitational pull that was irresistible, especially when his love Jennifer Kent Larochelle came into the picture. Together they have spent a good part of their lives conserving natural resources: Nurturing Kids and Conserving Land. Jennifer as a teacher in one of the last two room school houses in New Hampshire and later in the Newfound School district; Roger as the director of a unique program for boys at risk called The Mayhew Program - in many cases working with boys from the very same challenging neighborhoods where he grew up.

Roger would later sign on as the director of the Squam Lakes Conservation Foundation and dedicate his time to protecting the resources of the Squam Lake watershed through purchases of land, development rights, conservation easements and other conservation instruments.

When the long draft history of New Hampshire is written for the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st, Andru Volinsky will be among those held in the highest regard for his unwavering commitment to children, the natural environment and equal justice for all.

His choice as the inaugural Civic Scholar in Residence at Franklin Pierce University is less a punctuation point on an outstanding career than an exhortation to "stay tuned!" there's more to come from Andru Volinsky.