Dominating the Vermont headlines recently has been our state’s workforce shortage. For the economy to thrive, we need more people, plain and simple. One solution crosses the border into our state 13,000,000 times per year: tourists. If we could convert just one-tenth of one percent of those visitors into residents, we’d have an adequate pool of workers to support healthy, growing businesses.

I asked a group of graduating college students their plans recently.

Gender roles in politics usually get discussed in relation to women and the pressure they face always to be nice and unthreatening — competent, but not too smart.

My mother was politically engaged and her driving issue was abortion. Before Roe v. Wade was passed, she’d had friends who’d desperately sought illegal abortions in the tenements of Harlem, sometimes with tragic results.

For many years, I’ve been part of a small group of Craftsbury residents that’s been working to build community support for bringing high-speed internet service to our town.

Without a doubt, times have changed. Time was when access to the internet was considered a luxury - even a novelty – but those days are long gone. Today, fast, reliable and affordable access to the internet is as much a necessity as electricity. And the digital revolution touches all aspects of our lives – from our children needing access to do their homework, to businesses requiring a connection to serve their customers and everybody’s need to stay connected with friends and family.

Just last week I was standing in a meeting room at a prominent Burlington-area hotel and I could not get onto the Internet. I went over to a window. Still nothing. I finally had to track down a password to access their WiFi.

Lilla McLane-Bradley was dogged; she was fearless; she showed up and she put us to work. I met Lilla in 1987, when I was hired for a part time bookkeeping and secretarial position. She was incoming chair of the Upper Valley Land Trust’s Board – UVLT for short - a group with a big idea – land conservation from the grassroots; sustainable and permanent protection of our region’s most special places.

One of the most important women in Vermont history is not known by her full name. A year before the national Roe v. Wade decision, “Jacqueline R,” was part of a landmark court case in Vermont that provided abortion access here.

In the ‘70s no one worked harder than social activist Lenore McNeer to ensure that Vermont ratified the federal ERA - the federal amendment to guarantee equality based on sex.