Here are some brief thoughts on events making news from around the North Quabbin area: June is here, and most of the county’s high school seniors have commenced their new, post-secondary school lives.
We’re sure that at their graduation ceremonies in recent days, and later among friends and relatives, they all got a good dose of sage advice, most of which they may only appreciate later in life.
Nonetheless, we extend our best wishes for all, and hope they find a sure path to happiness and success in their lives, whether that path follows a straight line or a winding one.
A woman suffered serious injuries after crashing an all-terrain vehicle in Athol recently. The woman was taken to Athol Hospital by ambulance after she was removed from the area by the Athol Fire Department paramedics. Later, she was transported to a Worcester hospital.
With summer recreation comes some measure of risk, and so we encourage everyone to be careful and take sensible precautions while in the outdoors, whether it’s against disease-carrying ticks, while swimming or driving in the vehicle of your choice.
Monarch butterflies are now heading north by the millions after a slow and gradual start to the spring migration season from Mexico.
Can you think of a better project to celebrate this marvel of nature than what was planned at the Children’s Room at the Athol Public Library, which is working to make a section of the library gardens into a certified Waystation for some of the returning Monarchs.
A workshop will be held at the library on June 12 about how to plan for the gardens, and plant flowers and milkweed to sustain the golden fliers when they reach New England.
The Center for Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine at Heywood Hospital in Gardner has been presented with the President’s Circle Award for outstanding performance.
The center achieved patient satisfaction rates higher than 92 percent and a healing rate of at least 91 percent.
The center was awarded the prestigious honor by Healogics, the nation’s largest provider of advanced wound care services. Out of 340 eligible centers, 26 were honored nationwide, and Heywood Hospital is one of three in Massachusetts.
Athol Hospital is, of course, affiliated with Heywood Hospital, and with continued good report cards like this, it sounds like a good deal.
We can’t get enough of old-fashioned social gatherings that occur all over the North Quabbin in the warm months. Take Saturday Morning on the Royalston Common, for example.
What could be better and more locally sourced than a pancake breakfast in the Town Hall with organic blueberries, local maple syrup, homemade fruit salad and Dean’s Beans coffee?
There was a silent auction of original artwork by local artists, a Farm School meat share, local maple syrup to take home. And what better in the spring than traditional dancing by the Millers River Morris Men and an old-fashioned cake walk for children.
As American as apple pie.
As the new fiscal year looms, the work of volunteer town budget writers reaches a hectic pace.They spend many hours over the winter trying to reconcile unrelenting expectations of their fellow residents, with declining state aid, and often low local revenue and slowing economic growth.
So, let’s not forget to thank those members of our finance committees and selectboards who forge the budgets under such difficult circumstances in time for our annual Town Meetings.
Orange Finance Committee Chairman Robert Stack has already commented that for his town, this year has been the most difficult budget to balance since he joined the committee in 2012.
We suspect that few taxpayers in the region’s towns really appreciate how hard people like Stack work to tamp down property tax increases while maintaining vital services we all expect to get for those taxes.
Maybe we should make them take a bow at the next Town Meeting.