Hometown Heroes
	OUR 2024 COMMUNITY PARTNER While the challenges continue, so do the good works done by our neighbors, our teachers, our health care providers, our volunteers and so many others. This is their story. Ledyard National Bank is proud to support the 2024 Hometown Heroes, who were nominated by members of the community and selected by editors of the Concord Monitor. Nominate your Hometown Hero today.

By RACHEL WACHMAN

Maria Pacelli remembers sitting at her father’s bedside as he took his final breaths. She was in college at the time and had, coincidentally, been taking courses on death and loss.She and her brothers held a vigil for the final four days before her...

By ALEXANDER RAPP

Jacob Adler, a junior lineman and middle linebacker for Franklin High School, walked into Dan Sylvester’s office to ask about meeting his community service requirements while also having a commitment to the football team practice before a big game...

By RACHEL WACHMAN

To some in her Pembroke neighborhood, Lori Rowe’s home is known as the “fairy house” or the “fairy garden.” It started three years ago when she put out a display of hand-painted fairy houses with little gnomes and knick-knacks. Nestled into the base...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

Since long before she moved to Concord six years ago, Mary McEvoy-Barrett has taken a daily walk through Rollins Park.It was part of why she and her husband, Ray Barrett, picked their house in the South End.“There were too many hills in Dunbarton,”...

By DAVID BROOKS

There’s a group of New Hampshire volunteers who are like mail carriers in that neither rain nor snow will keep them from their appointed rounds.That’s because rain and snow is the reason for their appointed rounds.“My husband and I really like...

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

When Linda Sarette laid her father to rest at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen in 2019, the section where he was buried had no garden.It was an omission that bothered the Sanbornton resident so much she asked the cemetery to...

By DAVID BROOKS

The volunteers who answer phones for the state’s Consumer Protection hotline hear a lot of sad stories, of business deals gone wrong, purchases that became expensive lemons and brutal scams that empty bank accounts. But every now and then, they get a...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Each time Glenn Morrill drives around the traffic circle in Franklin and the long grass blows in the breeze, he jokes the swaying blades are waving hello.The long grass at the rotary is one of many spots Morrill can look at in New Hampshire’s smallest...

By JEREMY MARGOLIS

On a January day in 1944, at a time when governors still worked day jobs, the physician who delivered Roger Phillips into the world was none other than New Hampshire’s sitting governor, Robert O. Blood.Perhaps the circumstances of Phillips’ birth...

By SOFIE BUCKMINSTER

As a photographer, Becky Field is always searching for the story.Her camera gravitates toward contrast. For the last 12 years, it has led her to the often-sidelined immigrants, refugees and New Americans who, one way or another, found themselves...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

Odette Kanzayire pulls a thin workbook from her purse, placing it on the table beside a spiral notebook whose edges are worn round. On its cover is splashed the title “Survival English.”Kanzayire has been tutored by Terry Irwin, a volunteer with...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

For Sindy Chown, dance is belonging: within one’s own body, within a culture, within a community. “When someone dances with their heart, you see it in their face,” Chown said. Their eyes will light up, and a smile will bloom on their face. “It’s like...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

People often go to the library looking for something quite specific: the next mystery novel in a series, a tax form or maybe a political memoir. But, as any regular knows, libraries hold so much more than books between the stacks: free and engaging...

By RAY DUCKLER

You might have seen some of Stacy Duffy’s Girl Scouts standing in front of grocery and convenience stores in recent days, selling those yummy cookies like Do-Si-Dos, Tagalongs and Samoas.She runs Troop 10162, and her lineup of girls has fanned out as...

By RAY DUCKLER

Bob Wolfe heard the story nearly 25 years ago about a 10-year-old boy sprawled out on the side of a road in Sierre Leone shortly after a rebel fighter had cut off his legs.“That was it,” Wolfe said. “That was all I needed.” He had been shown the dark...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Rebecca Carlman knows a new blanket can go a long way when you are living out of a tent. She did so herself for three years – with cold winters and wet mornings after a night of rain leaving a lingering chill. So now she loads what supplies she can...

By RAY DUCKLER

The latest candidate for the Monitor’s Hometown Hero award, Lawre Murphy of Boscawen, strongly believed that her partner in keeping seniors on their toes, Brenda Bartlett, deserved the honor more than she did.Bartlett happened to be the woman who...

By RAY DUCKLER

LLeanna Lorden has a diminished role when it comes to face-to-face meetings with students at White Birch Center in Henniker. She was promoted to chief operating officer last summer, shifting to an administrative role filled with meetings and phone...

By RAY DUCKLER

On Oct. 9, 2019, a stranger from North Carolina named Carson McLean noticed a photo of Kraig Emery on a website.Emery was raising a glass of beer, as though toasting someone. Shown alone, he wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look mean, sad or angry,...

By JOSH MORRILL

Dennis Pavlicek took over as Newbury’s town administrator nearly three decades ago on the heels of a high-profile tragedy. His first task was a big one – rebuilding trust in his beloved town.On a quiet Monday morning in the fall of 1993, while working...

By TIM O’SULLIVAN

Growing up in Andover, Mass., Iain Hamilton dreamed of flying. That’s what happens when you hear tales about the wonders of aviation from a grandfather who flew Corsairs for the U.S. Navy in World War II, an uncle who flew Huey helicopters in the...