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Keyword search: Hometown hero

By RAY DUCKLER

Joan O’Connor wonders how her good friend, Monica Rico, reaches out in so many directions.With her daily schedule of volunteer work and dedication to bringing healthy, organic food to the Granite State, it’s a wonder how she gets it all done.“She’s...

By RAY DUCKLER

Dawn Shimberg of Campton worked at a vendor booth last month at the annual Tilton-Northfield Old Home Day.There, as the director of the Youth Assistance Program in Tilton, she promoted a service that she’s led for a dozen years, aimed at troubled...

By RAY DUCKLER

Tim Blagden is heading in the right direction.For several years, he’s been dreaming of a hiking, biking and walking trail 34-miles long that, with a landowner’s permission, would allow snowmobiling in certain spots. As Blagden saw it, a trail...

By RAY DUCKLER

Steve DeStefano looked terrific. He wore a blue button-down shirt in his real estate office on Pleasant Street, highlighting his deep blue eyes. His hair was silver, but his hairline remained at the front line like a good soldier, unwilling to...

By RAY DUCKLER

Scott Carpenter travels for work.One day, he may have an appointment on a mountain somewhere, other days on a huge rock, still others trudging through waist-deep snow. And sometimes, he’ll work at a senior housing complex, breathing life into people,...

By RAY DUCKLER

At 84 years old, Fran Philippe earned the right to change the name of the hiking groups she’s been leading for years.After all, Philippe runs three to four miles each Monday through Friday. She was instrumental in saving 272 acres at Broken Ground,...

By RAY DUCKLER

Mother’s Day was meant to honor people like Cyndi Magee.Magee has navigated through life juggling responsibilities like a circus performer. She’s a registered respiratory therapist who works through the night, treated patients with COVID at the height...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Sometimes when Kaleigh Greene tries to list her volunteer roles, it’s hard to know where to start. There’s her stepson’s Boy Scout Troop, his school parent-teacher organization in Northfield, the Concord Young Professionals Network and the Greater...

By JAMIE L. COSTA

Without the help of a community organization dedicated to supporting and assisting refugees and New Americans in Concord, soccer prodigy Boris Hirwa wouldn’t be as successful or as talented as he is today.Project S.T.O.R.Y, which stands for Supporting...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

For Maria Manus Painchaud, the Capital Region Food Program is a family affair. She served as vice chair under her late father Mark, who helped spearhead the organization. Now, she’s watched her own children join the board.And in the four decades...

By RAY DUCKLER

Finding an impartial voice these days, especially when it comes to certain topics, seems difficult. But when it comes to the world’s religions, Art Rosen plays it right down the middle.He lectures in schools, makes speaking engagements, writes books...

By RAY DUCKLER

Connie Fellows appreciates the offers to help.Her nonprofit – giving homemade Easter baskets to children – has grown over the past nine years, to the point where an ordinary individual might welcome help packing all those baskets, containing...

By RAY DUCKLER

Sarah Stanley’s family name, Griffin, is forever part of the Frankin landscape.Her married name, meanwhile, has had its own impact on the town, this one centered at the Veterans Home in Tilton. That’s where Stanley has worked the past three years,...

By RAY DUCKLER

Hold the phone. Don’t count Soula Maloutas and her popular downtown restaurant out just yet.She thinks that, perhaps, no news is good news.Maloutas, one of many unknown stars in the universal book known as Reaching the American Dream, is hopeful that...

By RAY DUCKLER

Debbie Miller would have made a nice complement to Dr. Dolittle.While Dolittle carried on conversations with the animals, Miller would have done practically everything else: fundraisers to help homeless cats and dogs, opening the farms she’s lived on...

By RAY DUCKLER

Mary Aranosian of Concord says she doesn’t always follow the rules.Once, while volunteering at the local winter homeless shelter, Aranosian saw a mother drop off her 18-year-old daughter on a cold night, later discovering that the young woman hadn’t...

By RAY DUCKLER

The doctor’s old friend and colleague, Dr. Jim Potter, retired and moved to Maine years ago, but he and Dr. Oge Young share a bond that will live forever.They don’t speak as often as they once did, of course, but their affection and respect for one...

By RAY DUCKLER

Apparently, it’s going to take more than legal blindness to force John Golembiowski of Hooksett to pull over and stop reaching out.Even with macular degeneration limiting his field of view to the outer edges of what he’s looking at, Golembiowski sees...

By RAY DUCKLER

In another life, Dan Gagnon, a truck driver from Center Barnstead, smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.Just like his dad, Leon Gagnon, once did. Leon died from lung cancer when Dan was 9. Dan later had a 20-year struggle, forever trying to quit smoking...

By EILEEN O’GRADY

Judy Tibbetts recalls that when she was interviewed for her first teaching job at Franklin High School back in 1970, the superintendent at the time told her he was interested in hiring her only if she planned to stay in the district.“I said, ‘Yes,...