Vermont

KILLINGTON, Vt. - At the annual town meeting yesterday, the agenda moved quickly from item to item: Elect a library trustee, discuss grants and serve the coffee and doughnuts. But even before all that, the residents decided literally to move on, by seceding from Vermont and joining New Hampshire, 35 miles to the east. The overwhelming voice vote will most likely prove only symbolic: Killington's secession would require approval from the legislatures of both states, and Vermont lawmakers have given no indication that they will support it. But there is no denying that the issue brought out the largest crowd for a town hall meeting in years, attended by perhaps 300 of this ski resort's 1,100 people.

If Towson State hadn't hit rock bottom before last night, the Tigers were close enough to touch it. But senior guard Michael Keyes and junior forward Ralph Biggs grabbed them by the collar and lifted them out of the doldrums -- and out of the ranks of the winless in America East.Keyes hit a jumper from about 16 feet out with no time left to force overtime, and Biggs scored a career-high 32 points to lead the Tigers past Vermont, 92-82, at the Towson Center.A crowd of only 695 watched Towson State (4-8, 1-4)

WAITSFIELD, Vt. -- At what he calls "the fringe of the empire," George Schenk strips bark from a stack of sugar-maple saplings. He sits outside the tiny shed on the Lareau Farm from which he runs American Flatbread, a multimillion-dollar company that crafts frozen premium pizzas for retailers around the country. The saplings will become scaffolding for wigwams that Schenk and his employees plan to erect for the 20th-anniversary celebration of the company he founded with a single pizza made in a backyard oven.

For the past two weeks, the Towson University women's basketball team looked at its 22-point loss to Vermont as an aberration. Last night, the Tigers proved it.Shniece Perry scored a career-best 17 points as Towson upset the Catamounts, 62-58, in an America East game at the Towson Center.Towson (11-8, 7-4), which matched last season's win total, also ended Vermont's nine-game winning streak, bumping the Catamounts (13-5, 8-2) out of a first-place tie with Maine."This is the biggest win we have had and the biggest for the program," Towson coach Ellen Fitzkee said.

WASHINGTON - Colleagues on both sides of the aisle have some advice for Sen. James M. Jeffords: Now is probably not the best time to get money for a new bridge in Vermont. Officially, the word from the Republican leadership is that there will be no public retribution against Jeffords, the Vermont senator whose defection from the party last year cost Republicans the control of the Senate. Unofficially, Republicans are amusing themselves with other scenarios as they return to power. Would Vermont's Mount Snow be a good spot for the national depository of nuclear waste?

Forget fifth place. Sixth is a stretch and so is seventh place.The Towson University basketball team is headed for eighth or ninth place in the final America East standings.That means the Tigers are most likely stuck with playing one of the two Friday night first-round games when the America East tournament opens in 10 days at the Carpenter Center on the University of Delaware campus.That is the fate of a Towson team that lost its seventh straight game last night when a go-for-broke second-half rally fell short against the University of Vermont, 66-57, at the Towson Center.

By Maryland standards, this has been an unusually cold March. But to Havre de Grace resident Lucille Maistros, the brisk, windy days are no big deal. Maistros grew up in northern Vermont, where March is considered the dead of winter. "It's only 500 miles away, but up there it's going to look like January for another six weeks," she said last week. Her hometown, St. Johnsbury, just got 6 inches of snow, she said. Maistros describes her Vermont childhood in her first book, Growing Up Cold: a memoir of growing up cold, but longing to be cool, in 1950s Vermont.

I PULLED INTO WHITE River Junction in July anticipating a born-again Vermont town crackling with artistic energy and a glam organic vibe. Instead, I found a tidy, nearly deserted village and nary a hint of cool. So much for Internet intelligence -- or so I thought. White River Junction's facade served as an ideal ruse for this unsuspecting traveler. I quickly discovered that the village exults in its persona as an arts hub masquerading as a sleepy way station to elsewhere. That anyone would stumble into town expecting instant coolness only escalates the amusement of residents such as Kim Souza, who abides by the village's unofficial motto: "Make your own fun."

CHARLOTTE, Vt. -- When my family moved here four years ago to escape the urban-industrial rat race, we knew it would be cold in the Green Mountains. And cold it is. Temperatures of 20 degrees below zero, 40 mph winds from across Lake Champlain and annual snowfalls of 120 inches are not uncommon.So accustomed are Vermonters to snow that a 10- to 12-inch snow- storm creates hardly a blip on the radar screen. Life goes on as usual. Most Vermont communities are well equipped to deal with repeated winter storms.

WORCESTER, Mass. - As T.J. Sorrentine's three-point shot fell through the net in overtime last night, it's quite possible the roar emanating from the DCU Center could be heard all the way to Burlington, Vt. Retiring Vermont coach Tom Brennan, who went into the evening contemplating the end of his career, wasn't sure he would survive the excitement of the Catamounts' 60-57 upset of fourth-seeded Syracuse in the first round of the NCAA tournament's Austin...