Midday Report: March 16, 2006

Senator Jim Jeffords welcomed the director of the Lake Champlain Basin Program to Washington this morning, to testify before a Congressional committee; a retired Air Force colonel who has been on the board of the Vermont Veterans Home in Bennington for two years is the new president of that board. the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Hyde Park is defying a six month-old state law that prohibits smoking in private clubs. Today, Match Day, is intensely important to eighty graduating medical students at UVM. Rutland business owners say they’re concerned about what effect a proposed 27% increase in water fees would have on their businesses. twelve-year-old Lucy Weber of Weybridge, a part-time student at Middlebury Union Middle School, beat out 27 other local spelling bee champions to win first place in the Vermont State Individual Spelling Bee, the Department of Education announced today in Montpelier.