Vermont welcomed the first portrait of a person of color onto the Vermont State House’s walls on May 5. The portrait of Alexander Twilight (1795–1857), the first person of color to serve in a state legislature (Vermont’s, 1836) and the first person of color known to have graduated from a US college (Middlebury College, 1823), was painted by Katie Runde of Middlebury. It now hangs […]
Category Archives: Vermont State House
Vermonters Demonstrate for Ukraine
Two demonstrations at the Vermont State House in Montpelier last week expressed outrage over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On Sunday, the first, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-VT, featured Ukrainian-American Vermonters and others with ties to Ukraine. The second, Tuesday night, was a candlelight vigil that included the signing by Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, of a bill that will send about $640,000 […]
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Vermont Teachers Protest Pension Reductions
Vermont public school teachers gathered at the State House in Montpelier last week to protest proposed changes in pensions for teachers and other state employees. The state legislature, which had not funded the pension plans adequately in past years, creating an ever-increasing deficit in the retirement system, considered a proposal to reduce pensions and require larger pay-in amounts, among other changes. The changes would not […]
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All Quiet on the State House Front
Despite concerns about demonstrations in the wake of last week’s attack on the US Capitol, Vermont’s State House was practically deserted Sunday except for media and law enforcement. Police, reporters and a few curious citizens chatted, and it just another quiet, gray and snowy Vermont day, but one with security unheard of on a winter Sunday afternoon. The only demonstrators were down at Montpelier’s city […]
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Agriculture on the Move
It was the end of Agriculture, at least temporarily. Ceres, the god of Agriculture, came down from the dome of the Vermont State House in Montpelier yesterday. Carved from pine by State House Sergeant-at-Arms Dwight Dwinnell and associates in the 1930s to replace the 1859 version made by sculptor Larkin Mead, she was rotting away. A new one will be made, based on Mead’s original. […]
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