Road repaving projects to begin eek

CORNWALL — Ah, summer. Swimming, picnics, road work. The latter may not be very welcome now, but it will be when next spring arrives.Expected to begin this week is repaving of Cream Hill Road, from the school to the Cherry Hill Road intersection. Popple Swamp Road and roads south of the center of Cornwall Bridge will be resurfaced in various ways — asphalt, chip seal and sand and oil — in August.First Selectman Gordon Ridgway reminds drivers to expect some delays and road closures, and to be cautious on newly resurfaced roads, especially those with a layer of sand. Sanded roads will, once again, be an experiment. The state Department of Environmental Protection now prohibits the use of oils that outgas toxins as they dry. It has been left to private companies to come up with formulations that meet the new specifications — and are effective.Oiling roads is a fast and relatively inexpensive way to smooth out minor cracks and preserve paved roads. The practice of oiling began when (all) roads were dirt, as a way to keep dust down. It eventually became apparent it was a good way to harden and minimize the need to regrade roads.The oil emulsions used on Cornwall roads last year did not work well, drying too slowly. They seemed to work elsewhere, however, and it may have been that Cornwall got a bad batch. The town will try a different product this year — one that is hoped to be an improved generation.

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South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

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Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

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Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

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Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

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