GREENSBORO – The Greensboro Historical Society’s (GHS’s) summer exhibit last year, Rails to Trails, offered an expanded history of the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad, its role in creating and sustaining The Bend, and the conversion into the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail.
Skip Hoblin installed a bulletin board and the summer opening of the museum featured punch in memory of Martha Niemi.
The society held an ice cream social and two book sales in the village and facilitated fundraising to acknowledge the legacy of Tom Hurst with the installation of a Woodbury Granite memorial bench on the GHS lawn.
With the help of a grant from the Greensboro Association, the society began reorganizing and renovating the historic garage behind the GHS Museum, with the goal of having new space for exhibits and programming by next summer.
The society hosted two presentations at Fellowship Hall. In March, a panel of 15 Greensboro High School alumni gathered to share their stories. Guests and panelists explored high school artifacts and ephemera from the museum’s archives.
In August, local historian Timothy Breen presented his history of the Great Maple Sugar Bubble in late eighteenth century Vermont, as he shared sometimes serious and sometimes humorous tales of financial successes and failures.
With funding from Vermont Arts Council and the Greensboro Association, displays in permanent exhibit space at the museum are now protected by window shades and film designed to mitigate the effects of ultraviolet light.
The society has accepted the Lakeview Union School records collection, while earlier accessions of the Alpha Tolman papers are processed.
Society members have organized and digitized information on Greensboro’s heritage, researched and answered questions from the public and worked to make resources more searchable and accessible on the website.
With experience as a freelance writer and editor, Dan Penrice has became editor of the historical society’s annual “Hazen Road Dispatch” and two editions of the Greensboro Historical Society Newsletter for spring and fall, were produced and mailed.
The annual holiday party was hosted by Nancy Hill and Clive Gray.
The town’s appropriation helps cover the costs of an archivist, IT support, utilities, supplies and upkeep of the museum’s interior. Donations and project grants from the Greensboro Association and the Vermont Arts Council help fund many of the organization’s activities. The historical society is a volunteer organization with about 15 volunteers who tend to GHS administrative and financial tasks, research, design exhibits, publish newsletters and the historical journal, maintain museum spaces and more.
The winter meeting on March 1, will feature the film, “The Farm Boy.” The upcoming summer exhibit will feature the homefront during WWII.
Greensboro Historical Society’s next meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 10. at the GHS Museum, next to Willey’s store. The society meets on the second Tuesday of each month.
