News Clips

Desrochers, DeRosa and GCEDC honored for local civic efforts

THE CAMPUS COMPACT for New Hampshire 2013 award winners were honored in Bedford. Plymouth State University's recipients, from left: Mark Scarano, Grafton County Economic Development Council — Community Partner Award; PSU student Chelsea Desrochers — President's Leadership Award; and Professor Robin DeRosa — Good Steward Award. The winners were congratulated by PSU President Sara Jayne Steen, right. COURTESY

A Plymouth State University student, an English professor and the region’s economic development agency were chosen by Plymouth State University to be honored by the Campus Compact for New Hampshire at its annual Presidents’ Awards presentation in Bedford.

CCNH is a statewide consortium of college and university presidents dedicated to advancing the civic purposes of higher education. PSU president Sara Jayne Steen said that such engagement characterizes PSU.

“Each of these awards represents people who are a force for good in our region, people of whom we are proud,” Steen said.

Chelsea Desrochers was honored with the President’s Leadership Award, which recognizes students or student groups who have made outstanding contributions to civic engagement.

Desrochers is the President of PSU’s Habitat for Humanity chapter, oversaw student volunteers in PSU’s Alternative Spring Break, has served in the US and in countries such as Nicaragua, and is vice president of the Student Support Foundation.

She was also named a 2013 Newman Civic Fellows Award winner, a recognition bestowed on college students who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country. As such, she is considered to be among the next generation of the nation’s civic leaders.

“I was speechless when I first found out that I won. It means so much to me to receive such a prestigious award,” said Desrochers. “There are many students on campus that are involved in the community and have a passion for service, so I know it must have been a tough decision. I am proud of all that I have accomplished here at PSU and will continue my commitment to service from here on out.”

Robin DeRosa, a PSU English professor and trusted student advisor, received The Good Steward Award, which recognizes faculty or staff members who contribute professional expertise in service to the wider community.

She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Voices Against Violence, a regional domestic violence counseling organization which provides information and support regarding all aspects of domestic and sexual violence and serves fourteen towns in our region.

“This award is very special, since I really think of my job as a professor as being deeply connected to my role as an activist in our community,” DeRosa said. “I think that, at best, professors can be public intellectuals, working to use our academic expertise to help organizations that are working for the greater good. I am so happy to feel that PSU is a partner with me in this, and that my home institution supports the service work that I do and understands it to be connected to my job here at the university. I am very grateful.”

DeRosa received PSU’s Faculty Advising Award in 2011, is a distinguished and widely published scholar in her field, and was the Theo Kalikow Award winner in 2008 for her service to women’s issues. She earned her doctorate from Tufts University and has taught at Plymouth State since 2000.

The Grafton County Economic Development Council received the President’s Community Partner Award, which is presented to a non-profit organization that has enhanced the quality of life in the community in meaningful and measurable ways and engaged in the development of sustained, reciprocal partnerships with a college or university.

GCEDC Director Mark Scarano said he was thrilled the organization was recognized, and noted PSU is a valuable partner in achieving their goals of business and job growth.

“Because PSU works with many community groups and organizations throughout northern New Hampshire, we’re overjoyed that President Steen chose to recognize our partnership for this award. We’re very honored to receive this,” said Scarano.

Plymouth State University’s Linda Corriveau, Community Services Program Advisor, said the award recipients illustrate a strong campus-community connection.

“The recognition what of these award winners are doing encourages other people to also become engaged with volunteer opportunities, and we look forward to continuing the relationships we have built with our partners,” Corriveau said.

Annually, more than 23,000 student volunteers from CCNH’s member campuses serve some six million hours in local communities through initiatives run or supported by their institutions, providing millions of dollars in services.

Identity of men in portraits sought

By BEA LEWIS

blewis@citizen.com

DARA DIKE of Manchester, a graduate student at Plymouth State University, is seeking the public’s help in identifying the subjects of these two early photographic portraits discovered in the attic of the Belknap County Courthouse. BEA LEWIS/CITIZEN

 LACONIA — A graduate student at Plymouth State University is seeking the public’s help in solving a mystery at the Belknap County Superior Courthouse.

Dara Dike of Manchester, who is working to obtain a masters of arts degree in historic preservation, is hunting for clues to identify the subjects of two photographic portraits discovered in the attic of the 1894 building.

Dike, who holds an undergraduate degree in history from Shepherd University in West Virginia, said she chose to enroll at PSU because of the brand new course of study developed by Professor Stacey Yapp.

Attorney Rick St. Hilaire, a former chief prosecutor who specializes in cultural heritage law is among Dike’s professors and suggested she might like to research the identities of the late turn of the century portraits set in oak frames. While pulling away the brown paper backing of the portraits didn’t reveal the identities of the men, it did allow Dike to find evidence that three of the four photographs originally found in the attic cache were produced by Kimball Studios, which she determined had operated in the city since the 1840s. Her dogged detective skills paid off when she connected with Brenda Polidoro the executive director of the Laconia Historical Society who pointed her to the 1862 volume the “Illustrated Laconia” that is available on-line and the pair were able to positively identify two of the four portraits as Laconia lawyers Samuel H. Martin and Erastus P. Jewell.

Buoyed by her initial success, Dike said, she headed to the New Hampshire State Library in Concord next and poured over early telephone directories and other resource books that contained the names of many of the Lakes City’s earliest lawyers but appears to have hit a dead end.

“I’m hoping that an older member of the community might recognize them,” Dike said as she stood next to the portraits that are now hanging in the ground floor hallway of the group of courthouse offices used by the County Attorney and her staff.

Once the mystery is solved, Dike said she’d like to affix engraved plaques to the portraits identifying the men. The walls of the second floor lobby in the courthouse are lined with a series of similar early portraits of local judges, city solicitors and lawyers some of which are old enough that the inscriptions detail that the sitter also served in the Civil War. The portraits join an eclectic mix of other legal memorabilia that can be found on display at the courthouse including a typewritten letter from retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, recalling his fondness for courtroom one in the building while serving as a Superior Court Judge in New Hampshire. In the clerk’s office is an early photograph of a toppled horsedrawn wagon resting against a utility pole and if inspected closely the caption details that it depicts the scene of a fatal accident.

Dike said she has always had an interest in cultural property law and would like to use her advanced degree to land a job in that field with the U.S. Government or a museum.

“These men were obviously influential members of the community and I’m hoping that we can give them back their names so that they can be remembered decently,” Dike said.

Anyone with information about who the portraits may depict are encourage to e-mail her at dara.m.dike@gmail.com.

New England tourism industry enjoying rebound

Vacation area businesses have high hopes after a strong start to the season

Not even the rainy and chilly weather last weekend could dampen a growing optimism that the New England tourism industry is nearly fully recovered from the Great Recession and on its way to busy summer season.

From Maine’s Old Orchard Beach to Cape Cod’s Yarmouth Port, hotels, restaurants, and other tourism-related businesses said they had a strong Memorial Day weekend, and expect the rest of the summer to be even better as improving job, housing, and stock markets lift consumer confidence and spending.

“It seems like the economy is finally working for us, not against us,” said Erik Lindblom, who with his wife, Sarah, owns the 15-room Captain Jefferds Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The Captain Jefferds Inn was booked solid over the weekend — and not one guest canceled a reservation, despite the nasty weather on Saturday, in an apparent sign that people are determined to enjoy summer vacations this year.

“So far this month, we’re up 50 percent in bookings,” said Sarah Lindblom. “We’re very optimistic about the summer.”

The summer is the most important season for tourism in much of New England, accounting, for example, for about 40 percent of annual visitors in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, according to tourism officials.

In Portsmouth, N.H., tourism officials expect hotel occupancy to continue to climb this summer after rising above prerecession levels last year. The outlook is bright enough that Colwen Management Inc. is pushing ahead with a new, 120-room hotel, now under construction as part of a mixed-used development in the city’s downtown.

Bookings at the three other hotels Colwen owns in Portsmouth are above last year, said Mark Stebbins, a partner Colwen, which owns 24 hotels in New England and New York.

“All our hotels are doing better,” said Stebbins. “The economy has improved, and it’s definitely helped a lot

On Cape Cod, hotel occupancy rates hit lows, respectively, of 65 percent and 81 percent in ­July and August of 2009, the worst year of the recent economic downturn, according to the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. But hotel occupancy rates on the Cape last year steadily climbed back, hitting 84.8 percent and 92 percent in July and August last year, pushing occupancy rates and prices above their prerecession levels, according to data.

Meanwhile, advanced summer bookings are ahead of last year in many cases, leading some to believe the Cape could experience a tourism boom this summer — as long as the weather holds up, said Wendy Northcross, chief executive of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.

“We’re crossing our fingers,” Northcross said.

But sometimes, even the weather isn’t a deterrent. On Saturday, the Old Yarmouth Inn restaurant in Yarmouth Port was packed with customers, despite the raw weather. Business was up 20 percent over the holiday weekend compared with the same time last year.

“There are three things people do on the Cape when it rains: They shop, they go to the movies, or the go out to eat,” said Arpad Voros, the restaurant’s co-owner.

“It was a great start to the summer. All indications are we’re going to see a strong season.”

For some Cape businesses, improvement is coming more slowly. Retailers say consumers remain cautious about spending. Jerry Swartz, a manager at the Glass Half Full, a popular liquor and cigar store in downtown Provincetown, said customers were mostly buying bottles of wine in the $10 range when the economy was at its weakest a few years ago; today he’s seeing more people requesting slightly finer wines in the $15 to $25 range.

“We’re still not at the ‘give me the best’ stage of people buying wine,” said Swartz.

“The recovery has come in fits and starts. But it’s getting better.”

In New Hampshire, the data also point to improving trends. Last year, the number of summer visitors to New Hampshire was about 13.5 million, up from about 12.9 million in 2006, while summer spending hit about $1.8 billion last year, up from $1.6 billion in 2006, said Mark Okrant, a professor of tourism management at Plymouth State University.

As a result, many business owners are optimistic. “It could be huge, an extraordinarily busy summer,” said Evan Mallett, owner of the 68-seat Black Trumpet Bistro in downtown Portsmouth.

In Portsmouth, the 150-seat Oar House restaurant had to close its outdoor patio due to Saturday’s unremitting rain and strong wind gusts.

But Juliet Introcaso, the ­general manager, viewed that as a short-term setback.

“You can just sense people feel better about the economy,” she said.

“It will pick up. We’re hopeful about the season. Very hopeful.”