St Johnsbury Vermont

Donnelly, Tucker Double up in Front of Huge Bear Ridge Crowd

BRADFORD, Vt. -- Chris Donnelly made stock car history at Bear Ridge Speedway on Saturday night by becoming the first driver to win feature races in two divisions at the same program. In one of the biggest events in the 44-year history of the quarter-mile, DIRTcar-sanctioned clay oval, nearly 100 race cars and a near-capacity crowd watched eight divisions run 12 feature races on Miller Auto Group/Noise-R-Us Fireworks Night, plus a match race and Independence Day fireworks.

Donnelly, of Piermont, NH, opened with a Bond Auto DIRTcar Sportsman Modified victory in a 35-lap race postponed by rain from the Wells River Savings Bank program on June 25, then capped the evening with a win in the WYKR Sprint Cars of New England (SCoNE) 25-lap feature. Robert Tucker matched Donnelly’s victory total with a pair of feature wins in the A Notch Above Automotive Limited Late Model division.

Donnelly drove his No. 60 Forward’s Garage Bicknell chassis to the victory over Thetford Center, VT driver Dan Eastman in the Wells River Savings Bank Modified race. Eastman’s finish matched his best effort of the year with the runner-up effort. Adam Pierson of Fairlee, VT passed Jason Gray late to finish third, followed by Gary Siemons, who crashed early in the race.

Donnelly’s second victory came in the WYKR SCoNE event, where he started tenth on the 16-car grid and quickly worked to the front. Donnelly ran in second place from lap 8 until he passed leader Lacey Hanson of Orwell, VT on lap 15. Two late restarts allowed Kevin Chaffee and Dan Douville to reach Hanson and pass her for podium positions. Hanson finished fourth with rookie Jim Lowrey, Jr., fifth.

“That’s an awful tough task to fulfill, but the car was just super,” Donnelly said after his SCoNE victory. “I’m having so much fun. It’s a great race track, it’s so nice you can move around and race good.”

The Miller Auto Group feature for the Bond Auto DIRTcar Sportsman Modified division was won by 20 year-old East Thetford, VT driver Jason Gray. Gray’s No. 00 C.W. Gray & Sons, Inc. Auctioneers Bicknell had pressure over the final 15 laps from Fairlee, VT Chaffee -- who, like Donnelly, pulled double-duty -- but Gray held on over a series of late restarts for his first win of the season. Chaffee earned his second runner-up finish of the night, and Donnelly capped a memorable night with his third trip to the podium in third place.

VPR News: St. Johnsbury Boy Creates Soda ... - Vermont Public Radio

(Host) If you're feeling thirsty and you happen to live in the Northeast Kingdom you might try "Kent's Soda," a soft drink developed by a nine-year old entrepreneur with autism. 

Following a recent media blitz, Kent Melville's company is searching for a national distributor and market.

As VPR's Charlotte Albright reports, it all started when Kent decided to launch a business that could help other people with autism.

(Kent Melville) "Well, I think we better start with the whole stories."

(Albright)  Surrounded by cases of lemonade, orange, raspberry-lime, root bear, cream, and grape soda, the bright-eyed, the fast-talking nine-year old takes a seat at the head of the table, happily poses for photographs, and recalls how his company grew from a front-yard lemonade stand.  Kent's Plan A was a restaurant.

(Kent Melville) "I talked to my dad about it, he said we didn't have the money, so I thought of a back-up plan, a soda company, with lemonade also, and he said no, but once he heard about it to help kids with autism, then he couldn't resist it."

(Albright)  Aaron Melville is an attorney and father of five who sits on a couple of  non-profit boards. He also serves as a Mormon bishop.  He was understandably hesitant to take on another challenge.  But Kent kept selling the idea of sharing profits with a club for people with autism where he's made lots of friends. He functions at the high end of the spectrum of this brain disorder.  Kent and his father took his idea to a small business incubator at Lyndon State College. By this spring, the soda, which is bottled in New Hampshire, was selling well at a Maple Festival and a Thai Restaurant in St. Johnsbury.

(Aaron Melville) " Kent continues to sell soda in our front yard and two weeks ago we were really surprised to find that Kent had gone viral-somebody had taken a picture of him and all of a sudden we're world-wide."

(Albright) Starting with the online news site, the Huffington Post. Kent is excited by all the media attention, yet seems not all that surprised by success. Sometimes during the interview, his mother Michelle has to wrap her arms around him and calm him down a bit.

(Michelle Melville)" Kent has been Kent from day one. I think the one change I've seen in him is his view towards money."

(Albright) He now understands that you have to plow some of your profits back into your business to help it grow. But the even bigger lesson, his dad says, is about coming out of your shell.

St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and an important industrial beginnings, 1830

St Johnsbury, Vermont, Northeast Kingdom Community Action, Passumpsic River, St. Johnsbury Academy, Caledonian-Record, St. Johnsbury Athenaeum

St. Johnsbury, Vermont

St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the Maple Sugar Center of the world and the home of the Fairbanks Scales

St. Johnsbury, Vermont, souvenir program : Railroad Station Agents, July 21, 22, 1911