Williston Observer

By Kim Howard
Observer staff

Senior police dispatcher Debbie Davis can now see through walls.

Before Monday, Davis dispatched calls out of the old police station behind a glass window, wedged next to the planning and zoning offices on the first floor of the Town Hall Annex.

Tuesday morning she and new part-time dispatcher Jon Wheeler were behind bulletproof glass and bulletproof walls in the new Williston Police station. Looking at two monitors connected to security cameras around the inside and outside of the building, the dispatchers are able to see more than 20 locations simultaneously.

“It feels great,” Davis said, taking a break from sorting through huge piles of records as a result of the move. “It’s a lot more space. It’s a lot more secure.”

On Monday, Williston police moved into the new station, more than five times the size of the old one. The station is adjacent to Town Hall, on the site of the former firehouse. Town officials will formally dedicate the new station in a 10 a.m. ceremony this Saturday; public tours of the facility will follow until 2 p.m.

On June 1, the Williston Fire and Rescue Department moved into their new station at the corner of Talcott Road and Route 2. That station’s dedication and traditional building wet down ceremony will be held Saturday, June 23 at 10 a.m. with public tours to follow.

Police Chief Jim Dimmick hopes tours of the police station will help give community members a chance to better understand the processes his officers follow: An interview room in the public area of the facility is for taking initial complaints from community members; evidence lockers ensure optimal security for items necessary in court proceedings; the sally port, or garage, enables officers to securely bring an offender into the station, and take them into a processing area and then a holding cell.

“Officer safety is key,” Officer Randy Tucker said. “We didn’t have that before. With the interview rooms and the secured doors, it’s a world of difference.”

Tucker described how in the old station one or more offenders might have to sit in the officer work area; the holding cell in the old station could not adequately house multiple offenders. Now there are four secure holding cells.

Of potentially enormous benefit to the Williston community is the Howard P. Lunderville Community Room. Lunderville was the first Williston police chief. When not in use for police training, the room will be available for Williston civic and school groups to book. The space, which fits about 30 people, can be scheduled starting June 18 through the dispatch staff at 878-6611.

Dimmick said the public also should know that in the entryway to the station there is an emergency response phone that is accessible 24 hours a day, even if no one is in the building; the phone can be used to contact Williston or State police.

The station was designed to meet the long-term needs of a growing police force, officials have said. The construction of the new police and fire stations cost about $8 million combined.

“It’s very, very smart of the community to think 30 years down the road,” Dimmick said. The new police station will not require expansion in his lifetime, he added. “I can’t imagine it’s ever going to outgrow the community of Williston.”

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By Ben Moger-Williams
Observer staff

Mary Hester Brownell, devoted mother and wife, who kept track of her husband’s top secret activities during World War II through her job at the Office of Strategic Services, and who moved with her family to Williston after evacuating Saigon in 1975, died peacefully on Sunday, June 24, 2007. She was 91.

Mary Hester was born in Mays Landing, N.J., on Feb. 12, 1916, the daughter of lawyer Burton A. Gaskill and Irene Gordon Gaskill. She graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, after which she taught junior high school French and English in Decatur and Knoxville, Tenn.

In 1941 she met and married Air Force officer Lincoln Brownell. However, the new couple was soon separated due to World War II when Lincoln was sent overseas to gather Air Force intelligence in China. Mary Hester got a job working at the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C. – the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency. Lincoln could not tell his new wife what he was doing or even where he was since that information was top secret. But that couldn’t stop the newlyweds from staying in touch.

“Turned out that my reports back to Washington, copies crossed her desk, because she was in the China Section,” Lincoln, now 93, recalls. “I couldn’t tell a lot of the things I was doing to her in letters, it was against military rules … so she learned from the secret reports that I filed what I was doing.”

After the war, Mary Hester and Lincoln moved to New York, and had three sons, Peter, Richard and Bartlett. The family moved to Saigon, Vietnam, in 1961 and lived there for 14 years. Lincoln ran an export business, and Mary Hester worked as the principal of the American Community School, and was heavily involved in several organizations in Saigon, including the Vietnamese-American Association, the Saigon Museum and the Saigon USO – a nonprofit group that supports U.S. troops through entertainment and social activities.

“She was like the mother to all these military troops,” said son Peter, who lives next door to his parents’ home in Williston. “She would pick up these kids at the USO and make sure they wrote letters to their parents, and help them make telephone calls, and make sure they had ice cream.”

She also loved to entertain. “They had dinner parties every week,” said Peter. “They were always entertaining people and getting people together.”

The family evacuated Saigon on a commercial plane four days before the city fell to the North Vietnamese in April 1975. They moved to Williston and put down roots, but didn’t stay put.

Mary Hester was a good travel partner. “Best I ever had,” said Lincoln. “She never complained. She was a very good sport.” Good thing, too. Lincoln said that over the years he has visited 108 countries, most of them with Mary Hester.

Black and white photos of Mary Hester in various locations hang on the walls of their home on Brownell Mountain. In one she is riding a horse in Kashmir; in another she stands next to one of the towering Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, which were later destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

Peter and Bart remember their mother as a very positive person with a good sense of humor. The men could only remember two occasions on which they heard their mother swear out loud. Once was when she was stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City (“The damn tunnel!”) and once when she crashed her motor scooter into a wall in Bermuda and broke her collarbone (“Damn, damn!”).

“She was always cheerful,” Lincoln said. “Never an angry word passed between us.”

For most of her life she was called Jerry – a nickname given to her by Lincoln. But six or seven years ago she decided it was time to go back and start using her real name, Mary Hester, Lincoln said.

Mary Hester was friendly and good-natured, and spent a large part of her life volunteering and helping people.

“She was always very, very kind, particularly to the servicemen in Vietnam,” Peter said. “She touched a lot of people’s lives.

She is survived by her husband of 65 years, Lincoln Brownell; their three sons, Peter and his wife, Linda; Richard and his wife, Susan, all of Williston; and Bartlett and his wife, Michal, of London, England; nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, She was predeceased by her brother Gordon Gaskill and her sister Isabel Carlock.

Donations may be made in Mary Hester’s name to the Lund Family Center, P.O. Box 4009, Burlington, VT 05406.

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20-year-old man killed in Williston accident

By Marianne Apfelbaum
Observer staff

An explosion in Williston on Tuesday afternoon claimed the life of 20-year-old Colchester resident Anthony Boisvert.

The explosion occurred at the warehouse of Demag Riggers Crane Service, a large truck and equipment moving company off Demag Drive in Williston.

Boisvert, a Demag employee, was trying to open an old, industrial-sized safe at the time of the accident. According to Williston Police Chief Jim Dimmick, Demag Riggers had a “side business” picking up and refurbishing old safes, or using them for “scrap.” The safe’s contents were unknown at the time Boisvert was using a cutting torch tool to try and open the back of the safe, police said. Sparks from the tool “reached the interior of the safe,” and the “explosive material inside exploded and destroyed the safe, and killed Mr. Boisvert,” according to police reports.

Boisvert died instantly at the scene, the report notes.

When contacted on Wednesday, a man who answered the phone at Demag Riggers refused to comment on the incident.

Police were able to track down the previous owners of the safe, which had been sitting “dormant and in the way” at an apartment building in Winooski, according to Dimmick. The owner of the home called Demag Riggers to remove the safe, Dimmick said. The original owners of the safe were traced to “the Carolinas” and told police that the safe contained a box of M80s, which Dimmick described as large, high-powered fireworks, which are illegal in Vermont.

When Boisvert was trying to open the back of the safe with the torch tool, “sparks flew, hit the firecrackers, and literally blew the safe into pieces,” Dimmick said. No other injuries were reported, but a van parked in a “bay” adjacent to the area where Boisvert was working was damaged by the explosion. “It is likely others would have been hurt” that were working in a nearby area if the van were not there, Dimmick said.

Williston Police are working with the federal department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Vermont State Police Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team, the Vermont Occupational Health and Safety Administration (VOSHA), Williston Fire Department and the state’s Assistant Medical Examiner in investigating the incident, according to a press release issued by Williston Police.

The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms laboratory will assist investigators in determining and confirming some of the evidence collected at the scene, according to the release. At press time, representatives from VOSHA were continuing their investigation at the scene.

Anyone with information on the accident is urged to call Williston Police at 878-6611.

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Ski area needs $400,000 to buy equipment

By Greg Elias
Observer staff

Cochran’s Ski Area hopes to soon have a weapon to fight the fickle fates of winter.

The Richmond ski area recently received an Act 250 land-use permit for snowmaking. Drawing water from the Winooski River, Cochran’s plans to use snow guns to cover slopes with artificial snow.

The ski area has been hurt in recent years by its lack of snowmaking capability. Last year, bare slopes kept it closed for the first half of the season. The previous year was even worse.

Despite heavy snow in the second half of last season, Cochran’s officials still wondered whether they should close for good.

“For us, the last couple of winters have been pretty devastating,” said Steve Kelley, president of Cochran’s board of directors. “Two years ago in particular, we went almost the whole winter without snow from top to bottom.”

The state permit allows installation of a snowmaking system that draws up to 500 gallons per minute from the Winooski River. The system will be capable of covering slopes with up to 6 inches of snow. Cochran’s current system can only produce a couple of inches of snow on the beginner’s slope using water from a nearby stream.

It’s been a tough couple of seasons for Cochran’s, Kelley said. Sales of season passes dropped. Few people made day trips to the ski area.

Worse, area schools were forced to cancel outings. Williston Central School’s program, for example, was able to visit Cochran’s on only two of its scheduled 10 weekly trips during the 2005-06 season, Kelley said.

That had Cochran’s governing board wondering if it should permanently close the ski area. After all, as a nonprofit, its mission is to promote skiing by offering families and children an affordable alternative to the bigger ski resorts.

“We decided either to close the place or start a capital campaign to buy snowmaking equipment,” said Kelley.

Much has changed in Vermont’s skiing business over the past 20 years, said Dave Healy, Cochran’s executive director. With virtually every other ski area now using snowmaking to supplement natural snow, customers no longer tolerate patchy snow and rocky slopes.

“Word of mouth is the best advertising,” Healy said. “When people say that Cochran’s doesn’t have any snow, that’s not a good thing.”

The inconsistent conditions prompted local high schools to abandon Cochran’s as a training ground and ski meet venue over the past couple of decades. Healy and Kelley think the acquisition of snowmaking equipment could bring those teams back.

The fundraising effort to date has brought in about $220,000, Kelley said. About $400,000 in cash is needed, with the remaining cost covered by in-kind donations of goods and services.

The goal is to raise most of the remaining money – or at least enough to make a commitment to buying the equipment – during an event this weekend featuring members of the U.S. Ski Team.

Eight or nine of the team members, including gold medalist Ted Ligety, will hold a “meet the athlete” session and a dry land skiing clinic. T-shirts will be sold that team members can autograph. The free event starts at 12:30 p.m. at Cochran’s and is open to the general public.

A cocktail party will be held that evening. A “who’s who of the Burlington area” will attend, Kelley said. The idea is to draw big-money contributions to supplement the many smaller donations already received.

Cochran’s was founded in 1961 by Mickey and Ginny Cochran. The ski area helped train three generations of Cochran children, some of whom went on to join the U.S. Ski Team.

Thousands of other children have learned to ski and honed their skills over the years at Cochran’s, which features relatively gentle slopes and low prices compared to bigger ski areas.

“The whole philosophy is to provide affordable skiing for Vermont kids,” Kelley said.

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Observer staff report

A car accident last week near Williston’s village area put Art “Tut” Tuthill, 90, into hospital intensive care.

His wife Mary Tuthill, 77, said her husband is recovering from the accident that aggravated his congestive heart failure. Mary said she did not suffer injuries, though she still can feel the contusions from the seat belt.

The couple was returning home from a cardiac rehabilitation appointment for Art at roughly 2:30 p.m. last Wednesday when Mary fell asleep at the wheel, she said.

Police reports indicate the vehicle veered off Williston Road, near the top of Monastery Hill, and crashed down an embankment on the south side of the road. The vehicle landed precariously on the passenger side. Several passers-by and members of the Williston Fire Department helped the vehicle from rolling over further onto its hood, according to the police report. Fire department personnel assisted Mary out of the car through the rear, and later removed her husband through the same door.

Mary said she expects her husband to be released from the hospital this week, though he may require rehabilitation assistance.

The families of their daughter who lives in Essex Junction and a son who lives in New Hampshire have been assisting on the farm since last week’s accident, Mary said. The couple has five children, three of whom live far away.

Art and Mary Tuthill celebrated their 57th anniversary on Wednesday, June 6. The couple has lived in Williston for 55 years.

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