Art in Bloom set for March
Meet Needham’s English big brother
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By Amelia Tarallo
Hometown Weekly Special Correspondent
Many towns in Massachusetts share names with with English towns. From Boston and Cambridge to Worcester and Salem, a great number of cities of the Commonwealth carry monikers that harken back to the area’s British colonial history.
Needham is one of them. When the former section of...
Needham native releases debut solo album
By Alex Oliveira
Hometown Weekly Reporter
A young jazz musician from Needham, James Fernando, has just released a piano and electronic based album, titled “The Lonely Sailor.” Raised largely in Needham and a 2014 graduate Needham High School and Berklee College of Music, Fernando now plays professional piano out of Washington, D.C.
Fernando has previously released a collaborative...
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Needham students win art awards
Needham’s regional award recipients for the prestigious Boston Globe Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for 2019 have been announced. This program, sponsored by the Boston Globe and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts (SMFA), introduces Massachusetts communities to a new generation of young artists. Competing against thousands of other young Massachusetts...
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Folk titan John Gorka coming to Needham
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By Pam Steinfeld
Hometown Weekly Correspondent
Editor's note: John Gorka, an artist Rolling Stone referred to as "the preeminent male singer-songwriter of the New Folk Movement," is set to perform at the Homegrown Coffeehouse on Saturday, February 9. To mark the occasion, the editor has interviewed Needham's Pam Steinfeld, herself a singer-songwriter, to put...
Needham smokes out underage tobacco use
By Amelia Tarallo
Hometown Weekly Special Correspondent
On July 1, stores in Needham will no longer be able to sell mint, menthol, and wintergreen flavored tobacco products and vape products. The restriction is the result of an effort to reduce the underage use of tobacco products.
Needham previously banned other flavors of smoking products. However, prior legislation...
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Needham native Orenstein to discuss book
The Needham Free Public Library will host author and Needham native Hannah Orenstein, who will be discussing her new book, "Playing with Matches," and the evolution of dating in the age of online matchmaking services, on Sunday, February 10, at 2:00 p.m., in the Community Room. The presentation will be moderated by Meredith Goldstein, a...
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NHS Life Skills Conference a success
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‘Ragtime’ Jack Radcliffe wows Needham seniors
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By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
On Thursday afternoon, Needham’s seniors were treated to “Ragtime” Jack Radcliffe’s unique brand of great music and self-proclaimed terrible jokes as he gave an hour-long concert at the Center at the Heights (CATH).
Radcliffe began by giving the crowd a brief history of country music, introducing himself as hailing...
Line dancing provides stress-free exercise
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By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
While vacations and cold and flu season cut the number of dancers at Needham’s Center at the Heights, the enthusiasm did not seem diminished in any way as Hsiu-Hui Chen led her pupils through stretching exercises, “The Cupid Shuffle,” and a John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”-inspired number...
Van Duser, Novick playing Homegrown Coffeehouse
Guy Van Duser and Billy Novick are set to play the Homegrown Coffeehouse on Saturday, January 26, at 8:00 p.m.
Together as a duo for more than forty years, Guy Van Duser and Billy Novick have performed in concerts, clubs and festivals all over North America and Europe. Like a good marriage, their music has wed...
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Evan Anderson, Eagle Scout
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Evan Michael Anderson, son of Ed Anderson and Tee Stock of 49 Hillcrest Road, received his Eagle Scout award at a Court of Honor held Sunday, January 6, at the VFW Hall in Needham.
Although Boy Scouts of America has existed for 106 years, only 6 percent of its members have attained this highest...
Needham to celebrate MLK’s legacy
Needham’s celebration and observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is scheduled for Monday, January 21, in the Pollard Middle School auditorium. The program will be from 10 a.m. to noon, and doors will open at 9:30. Refreshments will be served.
The program is sponsored by the Needham Diversity Initiative, Clergy Association, Human Rights Committee, Public...
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Needham’s kids read to Tucker
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By Alex Oliveira
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Tucker is a seven-year-old collie-shepherd-something. “When his ears go back, he kind of looks like a greyhound,” said Tucker’s owner, Adam Cutter, “but we really don’t know.”
Tucker is a trained therapy dog, he has brown inquisitive eyes, and when he’s not comforting residents at rehab centers and...
Cutler Park, hidden in plain sight
By Alex Oliveira
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Hidden along the walls of I-95 north and behind a bland park of Needham offices, a far more remarkable park is waiting to be explored. Cutler Park, roughly 600 acres of state preserved trails, trees, ponds, paths, wetlands and boardwalks, is an unexpected piece of nature hiding behind a concrete corner...
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Needhamites swim ‘Miles for Marly’
Twelve Masters Swimmers from the Needham YMCA swam “Miles for Marly” at the Harvard Blodgett Pool on January 6. This memorial swim is 100x100 yards, or 6.2 miles, of an endurance challenge. The 100-x100 yard event is steeped in history, as it was famously and routinely done by Bobby Hackett, 1976 Olympian, as a workout...
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Chamber to honor Paulette Harwood
The Newton-Needham Regional Chamber will present Paulette Harwood with a lifetime achievement award at the chamber’s annual Needham Night Dinner on January 30 at the Needham Sheraton Hotel.
After nearly 60 years of teaching dancers in Needham and Newton, Harwood retired and closed her business, Paulette’s Ballet Studio, in July of 2018.
“Paulette Harwood touched the lives...
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DA hosts Rockets at leadership conference
Needham High sent a strong student team to Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey’s 2018 Peer Leadership Conference at Gillette Stadium – the first in a season of events designed for students supporting healthy decisions in their school communities.
“Having a core of motivated peer leaders is an important part of keeping high school cultures healthy...
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CRBA performing at New Years Needham
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Forty-one students, ages 8-18, from Needham’s classical ballet school, Charles River Ballet Academy (CRBA), will perform on the Needham Town Hall stage on December 31 at 3:15 p.m. as part of New Years Needham. The performance will feature classical pieces from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Giselle and Coppelia,” as well as...
A Christmas Memory
By Thomas Keating, Jr.
There isn’t a worse time to be in a hospital than during the holiday season, but there I was. I was in the Army hospital at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, falling ill with severe pneumonia during basic combat training, caused, no doubt, by training outdoors that cold, snowy November of 1968.
My high...
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