HANSON — Pastor Kristian Skjerli of Calvary Baptist Church, may not have planned on leading a church, but since he was a teenager he knew he had a calling to serve God in his community.

“It’s something I knew God was calling me to do back when I was 17,” he said. “It just took a little bit of a winding road that I didn’t expect. But it was a good road.”

Skjerli, 56, was approached to become senior pastor at Calvary Baptist about a year and a half ago, while serving as a deacon and member of the search committee to fill the vacancy in the pulpit after the Rev. Jeffrey Lavoie left to found The Well Community Church in Halifax.

“The thing that we want to make sure of, is yes we’re here to serve the needs of the community — whatever that is,” Skjerli said during an interview at his church Thursday, Dec. 1.

The church is a center to administer vouchers for families in need to contact the Salvation Army — the Hanson Senior Center fills that role for the elder population. The church also has begun an annual Thanksgiving dinner for dementia patients as well as an occasional thank you breakfast for the region’s first responders.

The church works with the Hanson Food Pantry as a collection location, as well as hosting a monthly support group for families who have lost children to addiction and is reaching out to determine how it can assist a program at East Bridgewater’s Covenant Community Church.

A group of Calvary Baptist members with trades backgrounds are joining forces to help people in need of minor repairs on their homes but can’t afford to hire a repairman. Residents purchase the material and the group performs the labor.

Calvary Baptist is also becoming involved as a participant in the Hanson Holiday Fest. Church member Jamie Bevelaqua is leading community outreach initiatives.

“The goal is to extend the hands and feet of Christ — that we are, literally, those hands and feet — so that as there is a need people can sense that we’re reaching out not only because we’re nice people, but because we have a message that drives us,” Skjerli said. The church also supports 39 mission projects around the world, as a way to aid its global community.

It’s the type of community outreach to which Skjerli has always been called.

“I started public speaking when I was 12 through a mission down in New York [City],” he said of a Baptist church group he belonged to that volunteered at an Episcopal mission, ministering to the homeless.  “I started sharing my faith and scripture as simply as a 12-year-old could.” Skjerli recalled.

Their mission was to provide information about services available to the homeless and to “give them hope because of Christ.”

“You have to look at things through their eyes,” he said. “Walk beside them at least, and feel what they feel, to get an idea of who they are.”

He recalled one man, a journalist from Los Angeles named Thomas O’Brien, who had struggled with alcoholism, and moved to New York for a job he was unable to find.

God’s love

“I asked him what the hardest thing was on the street, and he said, ‘Knowing that nobody cares about me. That — if I were to die today — nobody would know,’” Skjerli said. “I was able to share God’s love with him and that transformed me into recognizing the deepest need of people is to understand that somebody loves them, and God’s love is real and we understand it as we talk about this time of year through Christ.”

As a teen, Skjerli also helped found a program in his home church in the Brewster, N.Y., area to pick up kids and families who had no transportation on a church bus to provide rides to church and Sunday school.

“My heart was beginning to expand then, and my mind toward the needs of a community,” he said.

Born in Stamford, Conn. and raised in Danbury and in Brewster, N.Y., Skjerli, he and his family have lived in Scituate since 1994 — moving to care for his wife’s ailing parents. He graduated from Word of Life Bible College in upstate New York and at Cedarville College in central Ohio where he studied liberal arts and a Bible major.

His first ministry experience was as a teacher in a Christian school in Danbury. Eight years later they moved to Massachusetts, joining New England Baptist Church in East Bridgewater, where he was again asked to teach in a church-run school, doing so for 10 years.

While he never had the opportunity to go to seminary, Skjerli has preached at church and in a home church setting in addition to working with kids and learning sign language while at New England Baptist, which brought them to Calvary Baptist seven years ago. Skjerli now plans to continue study toward a master’s degree in counseling. It has been an unusual journey to the position of pastor, but one the church elders felt was strong enough in Biblical and pastoral knowledge to earn him the job.

“I have a strong Biblical education … I have a lot of experience in the pulpit,” he said. “Ministry has always been a part of my fiber.”

Skjerli served as a deacon under Lavoie and, as chairman of the deacons, the “leadership kind of fell into my lap when Jeff left,” due to a difference in philosophy. Skjerli then shared ministry with others trained in ministry while the search committee did its work.

When the time came to decide on whether to call three final candidates to serve as a guest minister so the church could get to know them, one of his fellow deacons asked Skjerli he would first consider being the new pastor.

He felt the decision needed thought and prayer, but accepted the post after undertaking a two-and –a-half hour question and answer session that ordained him.

“They needed to know who I was,” he said. He then preached a Sunday as a candidate pastor before being overwhelmingly winning votes from the congregation.

HANOVER — A proposed horticulture curriculum at South Shore Regional Vocational Technical School has taken another step forward.

Science Department Chairman Matt Fallano gave a PowerPoint presentation to the SSVT District School Committee during its Wednesday, Nov. 16 meeting, outlining how the program would start by offering a landscaping program. No vote was taken on the proposal.

Scituate member John Manning, of the Capital Projects Subcommittee, reported that Fallano and the group has toured facilities at a couple vocational schools that offer horticulture programs. School officials have met with counterparts at Silver Lake and Upper Cape regional schools regarding the cost and logistics of starting such a program.

All specializations would cover botany as well as soil properties and sciences, according to Fallano, who noted that small engine maintenance would also be covered.

“Right off the bat, if you’re starting to think what kind of jobs [are students being trained for], you can imagine what sort of background could be used or applied for,” he said.

The landscape and turf management program would include instruction on safety, design and estimation, maintenance and installation as well as turf management practices. Arboriculture, or tree sciences, would involve safety, equipment standards, tree climbing, tree maintenance and removal. Floral design and interior landscaping would teach greenhouse management, production and floriculture business operations.

“We would never start off with all three of them, so what we’re looking at is the soil sciences to begin with,” Fallano said. “You would not get this type of training at any other normal sending school. It’s perfect for a vocational-based school.”

It would eventually be a training ground for students interested in careers such as hardscape designers or architects, greenhouse and grounds workers, arborists, nursery or turf grass mangers and even farm managers.

“There’s a big push for small farms in the local area,” he said. “Having a resource that those farms can reach out to has been a [goal] for this area.”

There is also no feeder program for local horticulture businesses and a program at SSVT can also lead to college degrees. Students can also graduate with licenses or the bookwork for a license test when they are 18. That can boost earning potential.

Fallano also touched on the credentials the district should look for in a program director and committee concerns about accreditation. Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas Hickey is also looking toward grants to help fund the program startup.

Committee Chairman Robert Molla of Norwell indicated the start-up cost estimate would be included in preliminary fiscal 2018 budget figures when the committee meets again on Wednesday, Dec. 21.

In other business, Principal Margaret Dutch reported the MCAS performance of SSVT students in the Class of 2018 has been akin to moving mountains, describing how it translates to a graph.

“Because we are a regional school, we do not educate anybody until they get to grade nine,” Dutch said. “We take our students as they come from the eight sending towns, and wherever else they come from, and we try and get everybody on the same page and get them ready in less than two years to be successful on MCAS.”

The current junior class had 51 students who had failed the exam in grade eight — the first “mountain” on the grade chart, Dutch said. As sophomores taking the MCAS exam at SSVT, the same class had shown vast improvement.

“We [had] decided there was something we needed to do in order to make sure we didn’t have 51 10th-graders failing the MCAS,” she said. Targeted remediation and working with teachers to address problem areas for those students made that improvement possible. The high point of the scores curve last year — the second mountain — showed an increase in higher scores over the class’ grade eight marks.

“We’re not trying to compare ourselves with anybody else or what anybody else is doing because we are a unique entity,” Dutch said. “We are very proud to know that our teachers, with targeted intervention, can move mountains.”

Whitman Committee member Daniel Salvucci reported on some of the innovative vocational school projects highlighted at the recent Massachusetts Association of School Committee conference. The projects were tiny houses built by Southeastern Vo-Tech in Easton; an applications project at Assabet Valley to show teachers how effective a lesson plan was by symbols scanned by a free app on a teacher’s smartphone; a veterinary program offered at Norfolk Aggie and Massasoit as well as the new Essex Agricultural and Technical High School’s teacher mentoring program.

Salvucci said the tiny house project was popular with students because of the size.

“What they liked about doing it is that you had carpenters and electricians working so close together that they taught each other, and they worked together,” he said.

The committee also recognized Abington Graphics Communications senior Ryan Glynn as November Student of the Month and English teacher Allison Provost as Staff Member of the Month.

“Ryan is a focused, high-achieving student in class, but is also a great and caring person,” one of Glynn’s teachers wrote.

Another nominated Glynn as a “great overall citizen of the [SSVT] community” another noted he is a well-liked student-athlete saying, “No one had had a bad thing to say about Ryan.”

Assistant Principal Mark Aubrey said Provost was the student’s honoree for Staff Member of the Month after only two months as a teacher at the school. She had been a student teacher at SSVT about 10 years ago.

“When students nominated her they spoke of her being ‘very helpful, patient and kind, is that not something we want from every person in our lives, not just our teacher,’” Aubrey said.

There is no early release day at the high school Friday, Dec. 2. Lunch served that day will be: Cheese pizza, tossed salad, carrot sticks with dipping sauce, chilled and fresh fruit and milk.

HANSON — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Nov. 15 voted 3-1 to approve a request by the Watershed Action Alliance of Southeastern Mass., to use Camp Kiwanee for a one-day conference at a reduced rate. Selectmen Bill Scott voted against the discount based on his concern over the group’s intent of charging participants a registration fee.

“We had asked that any deviation from the rates of usage of Camp Kiwanee — any reduction in the rate — be brought forward to this committee,” said Selectmen Chairman James McGahan in the meeting broadcast on Whitman-Hanson Community Access TV. Selectman Kenny Mitchell was absent from the meeting due to illness.

The WAA submitted their request in a letter to selectmen, outlining their purpose and explaining that the alliance holds biennial conferences and workshops in intervening years. The coalition of 12 watershed groups’ regional conference was last held at Plimouth Plantation, which waived a fee in return for publicity as an event partner, in 2015.

They are seeking a similar sponsorship from the town to use Camp Kiwanee from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., March 16, 2017. The usual one-day conference rate for Camp Kiwanee is $1,000. The WAA requested a 50-percent discount.

Many conference attendees either work or volunteer for nonprofits with small budgets, the letter explained. It also offers reduced registration rates for students and low-income participants.

Two participating organizations, the Taunton Watershed and the Jones River groups, have connections to Hanson.

Town Administrator Michael McCue created a form for a discount request, which WAA representatives filled out, including backup information about the program and participating agencies.

“This would be a positive advertisement for Camp Kiwanee,” McGahan said.

“They charge a fee for people to attend, they’re not considered a nonprofit organization,” Scott said. “They generate funds from outside groups. I think it’s a good idea what they’re trying to do but I just wonder if we’re setting a precedent.”

McGahan and Selectmen Bruce Young suggested the registration costs might be a mechanism for covering the cost of the event and asked McCue to advise them if there is any reason to believe the fees are a profit-making device.

In other business, the board approved revisions to the complaint and service animal policies.

The only change to the complaint policy is that persons filing a complaint be the offended party or a parent or guardian. The service animals policy is a new one, allowing admission of service animals to town property for handicapped persons who need them. Under the guidelines, therapy animals are not considered service animals.

Selectmen also voted to place a Board of Water Commissioners vacancy, created by the Nov. 1 resignation of Mary Lou Sutter on the May 20, 2017 Town Election ballot, because the appointment made to fill the post was a short-term one.

Selectmen and Water Commissioners then voted 7-0 to appoint William Garvey of 66 Morton St., to fill the vacancy for now. If Garvey wishes to remain on the board he would have to run for election in May.

A South Shore Vo-Tech graduate, Garvey has an HVAC trade certificate, an applied science degree from Massasoit Community College in HVAC service and design and work experience in the field and has served on the Indian Head and Maquan Priority Repair Committee.

WHITMAN — Sometimes a muse finds their writer — and won’t let go until their story is told.

For retired Falmouth nurse Terri Arthur, British nurse Edith Cavell was one of these muses.

“Edith who?” one might ask.

Cavell’s work, dedication to humanity and determination to save the lives of about 200 British soldiers in German-occupied Belgium during World War I, led to her Oct. 12, 1915 execution by firing squad when the Germans caught up with her. The only woman so executed by the enemy during that war, Cavell’s death became an emotional recruiting tool for the British Army and launched a letter-writing campaign by American women’s groups to President Woodrow Wilson that is now recognized as a first step toward American involvement in WWI.

“Her death was [headlines] in every country all over the world,” Arthur said. “When they saw the headlines on Edith Cavell … [women’s groups] took her on as a cause celebré and they inundated Wilson with letters.”

In a way, Cavell’s stated life’s goal may have foreshadowed the circumstances of her death.

“Someday, somehow, I’m going to do something useful, something for people,” Cavell once wrote. “They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy.”

But who was Edith Cavell?

That question took Arthur on a journey of coincidental events that led her to write “Fatal Destiny: Edith Cavell, World War I Nurse,” [2015, $19.95, HenschelHAUS Publishing], a book so well received in Britain that she was asked to adjust spelling and syntax for a British edition.

Arthur’s visit to the Whitman Public Library’s Local Author Series on Monday, Nov. 10 traced both Cavell’s story and how she came to write it. The Friends of the Whitman Public Library fund the series.

“It’s time to resurrect Edith,” Arthur said. “She has a message for us today. She showed courage and strength at a time when it was very difficult to do.”

Arthur began her talk with an anecdote of how DNA left in bloody fingerprints by ancient native peoples who constructed New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon settlements helped answer some questions about possible connections to other Anasazi dwellings in the region.

“The person I’m going to talk about today also left her fingerprints in history, but she’s been basically forgotten, like those builders were forgotten,” Arthur said. “It’s time to bring Edith back.”

The centennial of Cavell’s execution was observed last year and the centennial of WWI is ongoing through Nov. 11, 2018.

For Arthur, the journey began with one of those nursing-related gifts many nurses receive and are never sure what to do with: a book titled “Postcards of Nursing” by Michael Zwerdling. She finally leafed through it on a stormy night and ran across postcards depicting Edith Cavell, some of which depicted her death and images of the Grim Reaper. She read an outline about Cavell in the back of the book and was “blown away.”

“How is it that I, as a nurse, had never heard about this nurse?” she said.

It launched her on a search for information, which led her to others whose response was “Edith who?” Even during a trip to the UK, where she made a special trip to the memorial statue to Cavell in Trafalgar Square, Arthur was unable to find anyone staffing tourist gift shops nearby who had heard of Cavell, either.

Arthur then made a side trip to Cavell’s burial site in  Norwich where, as fate would have it, the city’s cathedral was holding a 90th anniversary service for Cavell the next day — Oct. 12, 2005.

A BBC reporter caught the sound of Arthur’s American accent and asked what brought her to the event.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m a nurse and I believe that what Edith Cavell did really represents nurses in every country,’” Arthur said, adding the next thing she new, she was being interviewed for BBC-TV news.

Arthur was hooked.

“I don’t know who got who first,” Arthur said. “I don’t know if I got Edith Cavell first or if she got me first, but after that, I was hooked.”

Arthur’s research took her from the Imperial War Museum, where she was able to purchase copies of Cavell’s letters, to Belgium, the Royal London and the Brussels Hospital named in honor of Cavell as well as the Tir National Prison where Cavell was executed.

Before she began writing, however, Arthur also had take classes in creative writing techniques such as finding the voice of a narrative and setting the pace.

The eldest daughter of an Anglican minister, Cavell studied nursing at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel about the time of the Jack the Ripper murders, because that section of London was where she felt she was needed. She worked there until she was asked to begin a nursing school in Brussels in 1907. She had worked in Belgium before as a governess.

When WWI broke out in August 1914, Cavell was visiting her family in England but felt it was her duty to return to Belgium. The Germans occupied Belgium, reaching Brussels by Aug. 20, 1915. Since September 1914, Cavell had been helping smuggle British soldiers into the Netherlands after initially caring for two wounded British soldiers who had sought her out. She took them in despite signs posted by the Germans all over Belgium warning of the fatal consequences of helping allied soldiers escape.

She was arrested with 33 others on Oct. 5, 1915 after a German spy had infiltrated the underground, was tried for treason by a German court martial on Oct. 7 and executed on Oct. 12, 1915.

After the war, she was exhumed by the British and returned to England for a state funeral in Westminster Abbey [a rare film clip of which may be viewed at iwm.org.uk] and reburied at Norwich Cathedral. Her pallbearers included soldiers she had saved.

Since writing her book, Arthur has been the only American invited to participate in anniversary ceremonies for Cavell in both Norwich and London.

With 47.7 percent of America’s popular vote backing Hillary Clinton and 47.5 percent for Donald Trump, youths seem to be just as divided as adults by the 2016 presidential election.

Whitman-Hanson Regional High School students took part in the annual National Student Mock Election on Friday, Oct 28, in which they gave the win to Trump, with 282 votes to Clinton’s 253 — with 208 votes going to third-party candidates. Libertarian Gary Johnson received 173 votes and Jill Stein of the Green-Rainbow Party garnered 35 votes.

The national Scholastic Student Vote held last month, meanwhile, picked Clinton, with 52 percent of the vote to Trump’s 35 percent and 13 percent for “others.” In Massachusetts, the split was 65 percent for Clinton, 24 percent for Trump and 11 percent for others.

Johnson received the third-highest vote totals in the Scholastic voting, as well as at W-H.

On the four ballot questions, W-H students rejected another slot parlor by 141 votes and crushed the proposed expansion of charter schools by 505 votes. They approved Question 3 for better treatment of farm animals by 491 votes and approved the elegalization of marijuana by 309 votes.

The National Student Mock Election in Massachusetts is coordinated through the JFK Presidential Library.Results from Whitman-Hanson have been sent in to be calculated along with others from around the United States.

Lydia Nelson’s business law students and students on the Mock Trial Team have been working for weeks with curriculum materials, materials from the Secretary of State, news sources, and fact-checking websites to create legitimate resources for the school.

The school news broadcast daily information sent by the students.  Information was placed on the school network’s share drive for easy access. Posters were made and placed around the school. The results were tallied and submitted to the JFK Presidential Library.

Scholastic magazine touted the track record of its mock election as an accurate barometer for the real thing.

“Since 1940, the results of the student vote have usually mirrored the outcome of the presidential election,” according to Scholastic. They have only been wrong twice — picking Republican Thomas E. Dewey over President Harry S Truman in 1948 and Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960. In both those elections, the margin of victory was extremely close — for Truman it was 1,012,125 popular votes over Dewey and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond in 1948; for Kennedy in 1960 it was only 112,827 over Nixon.

WHITMAN — It’s a paradox of sorts that — while most of us may know someone living with a form of dementia — it’s a condition that can be isolating and lonely for them and their loved ones.

The Rev. Colette Bachand-Wood, priest of Whitman’s All Saints Episcopal Church knows of that isolation as both the daughter of a dementia patient and a member of the clergy ministering to patients in nursing and hospice facilities.

“I really began to be interested in how we as spiritual communities respond to, and help care for, people who have members of their families experiencing Alzheimer’s and dementia,” Bachand-Wood said. She also wrote a book, “Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of those with Alzheimer’s and Dementia,” [Morehouse Publishing, 2016, 111 pages, $14], which began a conversation in her church as to how those services can be offered.

Certified in several types of training to work with dementia patients and their families, Bachand-Wood has trained a six-member team of her church members in dementia awareness and has begun a dementia-friendly ecumenical worship service at All Saints from 10 a.m. to noon on the third Thursday of the month. The church, known as “the little brown church at the park,” is located at 44 Park Ave., in Whitman.

“What I find is that people become so isolated when they have this disease,” she said. “If you’re a couple who’s been married 55 years and you used to love going to church where everybody knew you. Your faith is really important to you, but now the wife has Alzheimer’s and it’s just too hard to get out of the house … what if I get to church and she starts acting up?”

It can also lead to isolation and tremendous stress for care-givers as well.

Bachand-Wood linked up with Dementia-Friendly Massachusetts, taking their training program, as well.

“I put all my experiences together and now have created a workshop for churches of any denomination for creating dementia-friendly congregations,” she said. All Saints is, as far as Bachand-Wood is aware, the first church on the South Shore, if not in the state, to achieve designation as a dementia-friendly congregation.

Her team at All Saints has taken three sessions over four months in which they learned what dementia is — as well as its forms, such as Alzheimer’s — as well as how to interact positively with dementia patients and the “dementia experience.” The latter involved creating experiences similar to the physical manifestations of dementia: bags of popcorn in shoes to mimic nerve pain, earplugs and semi-obscured sunglasses for hearing and vision loss and tying fingers together to hint of the frustration of arthritis and other loss of dexterity. Then they were asked to perform daily tasks with annoying noises played in the background.

“I had no idea until I did that how isolating and frustrating it can be,” Bachand-Wood said.

One of Bachand-Wood’s care team members, who also do community outreach at nursing homes, is Regina Gurney, who was partly inspired by Bachand-Wood’s book. Gurney also led a special needs Girl Scout troop when she was younger.

“It was just something I wanted to do,” Gurney said of joining the care team. “I like helping people and these are people that, while they have some people who care for them, not enough people know about dementia to relate to them.”

The team is trained to aid spouses if a problem crops up, to reassure them there is no need for embarrassment or worry. A professional home health aid from North River Home Care will also be on staff during services.

“There are people out there in our community that have stopped going to church because it’s too much work, they’re afraid they’re going to be embarrassed,” Bachand-Wood said. “To sit and pray would be so helpful for them — to be reconnected to their faith, so they don’t feel so alone and isolated — that’s really who I’m hoping to reach.”

The service can also be used as a drop-off for spouses to give them a respite. Services are followed by an engaging activity and a snack.

The dementia-friendly service depends on tactile and colorful devices as well as music to communicate with patients who often have lost verbal skills.

“We use things that are very familiar to people,” Bachand-Wood said. The Lord’s Prayer and hymns such as “Amazing Grace” often make a connection as do the tools and icons associated with communion.

In her book, Bachand-Wood writes of a woman whose verbal communication was limited to repeated phrases, but when Bachand-Wood began to set up an altar for a bedside communion, the woman held up the chalise and clearly said: “Remember me.”

“It was such a really great lesson,” Bachand-Wood said. “People with dementia are still inside … they’re in there. How can we help them reconnect with faith?”

Crosses, candles and color — key for dementia patients with failing vision — help restore that connection.

Music helps with that because research shows what dementia patients do remember are “emotional memories” of feelings experienced during the turning points of life. Music, too, is often part of those experiences.

HANSON — With a little more than a month to go before we celebrate Thanksgiving, the Hanson Public Library, and its Foundation, welcomed author Susan Playfair Oct. 16 to discuss her book on a component of that feast — the cranberry.

Playfair answered audience questions and sold copies of “America’s Founding Fruit: The Cranberry in a New Environment” and signed copies during her Sunday, Oct. 16 talk at the Hanson Library/Senior Center.

Along with blueberries and Concord grapes, cranberries make up the trinity of America’s native fruits, Playfair noted.

The cranberry, originally known as the “crane berry,” derives its name for the graceful bend of the plant’s flower. Commercial growing dates back to 1812 in New England and, by 1865, cranberries were being shipped across the country by rail.

“It truly is our iconic fruit, because, among other things, it was sent to King Charles in 1677 as sort of a diplomatic gesture to show what we could provide [as a colony] and as a sign of good will,” she said.

Health benefits

Long used as a food and a medicinal fruit by Native Americans, her book traces the adaptation of the cranberry by colonial immigrants and poses questions about the fruit’s ability to adapt to a warming climate.

“I was really curious about the cranberry and how it might react relative to temperature increases,” Playfair said. “It would, presumably be an indication of how other agriculture would also [be affected].”

It turns out, for example, that cranberry plants are flowering earlier, she said of information gleaned from growers with whom she spoke — two of whom provided access to 30 years of records, including flowering and harvesting timetables.

The plants also need between 1,700 to 2,000 chill hours to set fruit, and scientists are predicting that, by 2099, the climate in this area will be similar to that of the Carolinas now.

Playfair, whose great grandfather owned and managed cranberry bogs, graduated from Bard College and studied at Parson School of design and the French Fashion Academy, among other programs and has worked as an investment broker, fashion merchandiser, fashion and interior designer and author. She has also written a book on the future of the fishing industry titled, “Vanishing Species: Saving the Fish, Sacrificing the Fishermen.”

“When I was researching this book I actually came to Hanson several times,” Playfair said, and interviewed the late Ellen Stillman, who had worked for Ocean Spray for many years.

Local roots

Local residents with roots in the cranberry business also took part in the event. Joanne Estes, whose grandfather, Marcus L. Urann, founded Ocean Spray, brought in an album of photos and postcards depicting cranberry harvesting operations as well as a 1951 issue of Eastern States Cooperator, a growers’ cooperative magazine, on which she was a cover model. Hanson Selectman Bill Scott, a cranberry grower, and his wife Louise donated an assortment of Ocean Spray cranberry drinks for the refreshment table.

“This may be the most learned group that I’ve spoken to,” Playfair said. “Many of you have connections to the cranberry industry.”

Ocean Spray’s products were a way to use berries deemed too imperfect to sell as whole berries — such as white berries or damaged fruit — as reduced waste while increasing profit, Playfair said.

Questions from the audience ranged from the number of cranberry varieties on the market, to the difference between wet and dry harvesting, how the berry is found in nature — in the bogs formed in kettle basins left by the retreating glaciers — and research now being done on climate change.

“It was always dry [harvesting] when I was growing up,” Estes said. Scott said dry picking is not only more time-consuming, it also puts more stress on the vine because of the nature of the machines used.

“It was the only way to get frost protection in the old days,” Scott also said of flooding bogs before the shift to sprinklers. “It looks like an easy crop.”

They also asked how craisins have improved the cranberry commercial market.

“There is a huge market for craisins,” Playfair said. “There is also a fledgling cranberry industry in Chile.”

The latter was started by a West Coast restaurateur to ensure a constant supply of craisins, part of which are used for a cranberry drink he featured on his menu.

“The benefits to him, which are not so good for everyone else in this country, is that because his operation is in Chile, they get very favorable tariff arrangements,” she said. “He’s able to ship them directly to China. As I understand it, that was bought out one or two years ago by Ocean Spray.”

HANSON — In a gesture of peace, and as a reminder how learning from history can create harmony in today’s society, Indian Head School students and staff joined in a circle of unity for a dedication Tuesday afternoon to celebrate a single tree — and its exceptional beginning.

Guest speaker and award winning playwright, screen writer and author Jeff Gottesfeld  joined students for a discussion of how he came to write his book, “The Tree in The Courtyard: Looking through Anne Frank’s Window,” an age-appropriate read based on the life of Anne Frank from the perspective of the horse chestnut tree. The tree bore witness to the changes in her life as she played and eventually the reality she endured throughout WWII, the hidden annex and the Holocaust.

A purple plum tree was planted recently at the front of the Indian Head School representing a tree filled with caring and kindness. The real Anne Frank tree seeds were extracted and shared around the world after it fell in a storm in 2010, according to the author’s webpage. The seeds were then shared to grow Anne’s trees as symbols of peace.

Gottesfeld called his visit “a special day.”

In addressing the school prior to the dedication, Gottesfeld reminded the children that their new tree will be here for a long time

“Long after we are gone off this Earth it will remain,” he said. “Here is the mission I give you. It is to make sure that any other kids who come to this school know that this tree is not to be treated like any other tree because it is not like any other tree. It will care and love … If the kids who follow you care for it, watch it and love it. It will live a very long time and be very meaningful.  On the other hand … we can forget about the tree and it will just be like any other tree.  Like so much in life the choice is ours.”

Following the tree dedication Gottesfeld said the event was spectacular.

He was impressed with the children and their response to his work.

“It reminds me on days like this … what is possible,” he said.

He called the children living examples of better human beings.

“It reminds me why I write for kids,” he said. The dedication was well prepared, planned and beautiful, he added.

He also received leaves cut of green paper with resilient words such as: courage, faith, strong, giving, beauty, believe, love, to name a few, which were written on the back representing remarkable character and how they (as students) are learning to create a  better world and a better community.

Each class received a signed copy of his book. Grade four teacher Dianne Zuzevich received flowers and recognition  as a thank you for organizing the dedication with the school and Gottesfeld.

Reports of “scary clown” sightings at some Massachusetts school districts has prompted Whitman-Hanson Superintendent of Schools Dr. Ruth Gilbert-Whitner and Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Support Services Patrick Dillon to assure the school community that safety is a priority.

“There has been a national trend of clown sightings designed to create disruption in the community and within school districts,” the district’s statement reads. “WHRSD has not experienced such a disruption, however, neighboring communities have. We continue to monitor such events and will work with Whitman and Hanson police departments to prosecute individuals for their actions leading to any disruption of school assembly.”

Gilbert-Whitner and Dillon assure students, parents and the community that all events that threaten the safety and security of students, staff, and W-H campuses become top priorities and are addressed immediately.
“The Whitman Hanson School District as well as the Whitman and Hanson Police Departments appreciate the community’s continued support in keeping students and staff safe,” they said.