EASTHAMPTON—Vinny Valetutti has created a traveling 30-foot high mock Sea Level Rise Ruler to spread awareness of the rising sea levels the world faces today due to climate change and ice cap melting. 

“I simply hope to make people aware of the reality of sea level rise, as it is a unique part of the global warming discussion,” said Valetutti, of Easthampton. “People tend to not focus on sea level rise because, at first glance, the daily effect is insignificant, but ice melt has a cumulative effect.”

Valetutti stressed how rapidly sea levels could rise in our world and how little the problem is discussed. “Sea level rise is real. It is scary, and there is no way to time it,” he said. “Mother Nature can work fast.” 

The movable educational tool has been parked in Northampton, and Valetutti also hopes to take it all along the East Coast to raise broader awareness. 

A retired professional engineer with a passion for energy conservation, Valetutti keeps current on the science of climate change and awareness and was inspired in 2019 by young activist Greta Thunberg, who lives Sweden. 

“I wanted to take a stance on the side of climate change that is not always talked about—rising sea levels due to global warming,” he said. 

With his engineering background, Valetutti designed and constructed the traveling flagpole assembly that holds the 30-foot high banner that replicates a ruler, with exact measurements in feet. 

“I marked the 11- and 22-foot levels in red, because those indicate where our sea level would rise if only 5 or 10 percent of Antarctica and Greenland were to melt,” he said, adding, “When people stand next to the flagpole and see how high that really is, it shows how legitimate and scary the reality of rising sea levels is. If sea levels rise this much, we will face an economic disaster that will be very significant, drastically changing the world as we know it.”

Valetutti hopes to reach concerned groups across the country and have them help share his project and message. To learn more, visit www.sealevelriseruler.com

Valetutti can be reached at vinny@sealevelriseruler.com.

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Free podcast intended to give children home on summer vacation encouragement, entertainment, and inspiration

EASTHAMPTON—Janice Beetle of Janice Beetle Books will launch a 20-day series of free podcasts for children and families on her website at JaniceBeetleBooks.com starting June 22. 

Called Poem Pods, the homegrown broadcasts are narrated by Beetle and her feisty 11-year-old grandson Eli.

A blog that will post on June 22 will offer a complete Poem Pod schedule, outlining posting dates, the names of interviewees, conversation topics, and that day’s activities. The pods themselves will begin on June 23 and post daily through July 12.

“As Eli and I say in our homegrown broadcasts, Poem Pods are fun poems and fun stories for fun people,” Beetle said. “My hope is that they give children encouragement, entertainment, and inspiration to get them thinking creatively as a summer without camps and public swimming pools begins.”

Poem Pods are theme-based and explore concepts like family, friendship, inspiration, vulnerability, fears, and asking for help. When the day’s poem is about family, for instance, Beetle and her grandson discuss the importance of family, and they interview a family member. 

At the start of each segment, Beetle and her grandson talk about Beetle’s writing inspirations and education, starting when she was six years old, and her grandmother gave her a notebook. 

The poems, written by Beetle years ago for her two daughters, are short and silly and cover topics from dogs and cats to family, raindrops, love, and friendship. They follow the introductory conversation and are in the middle of the podcast. “Much like a pea is in the center of a pea pod,” Beetle said.

After the day’s poems are read, Beetle and her grandson have lively and interesting conversations on that day’s theme and offer children an activity. And in 11 of the pods, they bring on a guest, and Eli conducts an interview that extends the discussion. 

The interviews also offer a closer look at the inspirations of others along with an education into what it’s like to be a writer, a medical professional, or an air traffic controller, for instance.

Along with each audio post, each episode will also feature a written transcript in the blog feed for those who would rather read than listen. Or, some could choose to listen while reading along.

To receive an email when the Poem Pod schedule posts, and to receive each day’s new Poem Pod post, sign up for the blog at JaniceBeetleBooks.com.

Beetle is a longtime writer and editor from Western Massachusetts. Janice Beetle Books LLC centers around book development and publishing and is based in Easthampton.

Through Janice Beetle Books, Beetle works with writers of all skill levels—as well as nonwriters—to help them carry a book idea through to publication. She also offers writing coaching services.

Beetle, of Easthampton, holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Westfield State College. She also runs Beetle Press, a PR firm offering writing, editing, and digital marketing services to business owners and leaders of nonprofit organizations.

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The relocation comes during the agency’s 65th anniversary year and symbolizes a future shift to fourth-generation owners

EASTHAMPTON—Taylor Real Estate, which is celebrating 65 years of operation this year, announced recently it will move to a new location on Liberty Street in Easthampton in June.

Chuck Conner, a third-generation owner of the business founded by his grandfather in 1955, said the new office space offers convenient off-street parking for clients and staff as well as on-site storage for the firm’s plentiful “For Sale” signage, and a newer, brighter work space for staff.

“We have been helping clients move for 65 years, and now it’s our turn to pack up and go,” Conner said.

He noted that the move is symbolic of moving the firm into the future, when ownership and operations will be assumed by Conner’s daughters, Megan Conner and Danica Achin, both licensed Realtors with the firm. In addition to working with buyers and sellers, Megan Conner handles administration and advertising, and Achin is the rental division manager.

“We’re moving toward the future—Danica and myself being the fourth generation coming in,” Megan Conner said. “We’re moving forward.”

For most of the past 65 years, the real estate firm run by the Conners has been located on Main Street—otherwise known as Shop Row.

Chuck Conner’s grandfather Charles Taylor founded the Charles W. Taylor Agency at 85 Main St. in 1955. In 1965, when Taylor passed the business to his daughter, Bernice, and her husband, Bob Conner—Chuck Conner’s parents—the business was run out of the Conners’ Easthampton home. 

Around 1980, the Conners reopened the office at 77 Main St., later moving to 87 Main St.—until now. Chuck Conner expects the move to 4A Liberty St. will be complete by mid-June. Liberty Street is off of Union Street, making the new space equally central to downtown and also accessible to walkers and bicyclists arriving via the Manhan Rail Trail.

“We’ll still be steps to downtown,” Megan Conner said. “We are really excited. We’ve all been saying it will be a really nice, fresh start, especially as people are getting back to work after the pandemic closures and getting back to regular routines again. It will be really nice.”

Megan Conner added that the inconvenience of change is dwarfed by the improvements the new space will offer clients and staff. 

Chuck Conner said the new office for Taylor Real Estate will provide the same amount of square footage as the Main Street space at about 1,500 square feet. The Liberty Street space will allow for a more open floor plan for Taylor’s roughly 12 full- and part-time agents.

“It has more natural light and good acoustics, which creates a more open-concept and pleasing environment,” Conner added.

While Taylor Real Estate has been a Main Street staple from the start, there have been many changes in its rich, 65-year history, among them a name change. The business was originally the Charles W. Taylor Agency; the name was changed in 2013 to Taylor Real Estate, over three decades after Chuck Conner started working full-time with his parents. 

Conner said additional change has come in the form of new technology that allows a digital approach to marketing and communication and the execution of documentation. Houses can be shown to potential buyers via virtual visits made possible by professional photography, and closing papers can be signed electronically.

“We can do almost every aspect of our work remotely with cell phones,” he added.

These advances have come in handy over the past few months, as COVID-19 spread across the region. “People have been very hesitant to be around other people, interacting,” Megan Conner said. 

Achin said, “Technology has saved us during this time.”

For more information on Taylor Real Estate, visit www.taylorrealtors.net.

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Zachary Reiff has focus on treating patients with sleep apnea

EASTHAMPTON—Mountain View Dental has hired a third dentist, Zachary Reiff of South Hadley, a 2015 Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine graduate who brings a focus in treating patients with sleep apnea and other sleep disorders.

On Aug. 12, Reiff joined dentists Seth Eichenlaub and Michael Szostak at the practice. Eichenlaub has worked at Mountain View Dental since 2010 and Szostak for 34 years. Reiff brings the total number of staff at the practice to 15.

“We’re very happy to have recruited Zach,” said Eichenlaub. “He’s a very talented dentist and will no doubt complement our practice with his unique skillset that includes his expertise in sleep medicine.”

Reiff takes the work of fitting patients with a dental appliance to treat a sleep disorder to a level he said is uncommon in dentistry; he partners with a sleep physician to ensure that the appliance he created is effective in improving the patient’s sleep pattern and, thus, overall health.

He learned this approach from his brother Mark, a sleep physician in North Carolina.

Reiff begins the process of working with a patient on a sleep issue by obtaining his or her sleep study prescription from their physician. After a conversation about insurance and cost, he makes impressions, from which the dental appliance is created.

“There are 180 different devices and based on what the patient is experiencing, we custom select the appropriate appliance,” he explained. “These devices, which look like clear retainers, are typically for people who don’t want to or can’t use a CPAP machine.”

Once a patient is fitted for an appliance, Reiff conducts a sleep study, and when he is satisfied the device is working, he refers the patient back to the physician for a final study and medical evaluation. “We don’t send them off and say, ‘Good luck,’” Reiff said. “We need to make sure it’s doing what it should be doing, which is ensuring that someone is still breathing at night.”

Reiff hopes to learn more about sleep apnea as his career advances.

He said Mountain View Dental’s reputation for providing quality dental care with compassion is what attracted him to move to this area from Virginia, where he worked at the Morrison Dental Group in Williamsburg for the past two and a half years. Reiff and his wife, Rebecca, now live in South Hadley.

He said he and Mountain View Dental both have a patient-centered approach. “I’m looking forward to working with an experienced, cohesive team at an office that has good staff retention,” he said. 

“It is critical to create a mutual relationship of trust between dentist and patient,” Reiff added, noting he understands peoples’ anxiety about dentistry and works to have a light demeanor with patients. “I’ve been in the chair quite a bit in my own life, including having eight teeth removed at the same time, so I can empathize with what they’re experiencing.”

Mountain View Dental was founded over 50 years ago by solo practitioner Joseph Zilewicz in its current location of 5 Campus Lane in downtown Easthampton. Staff specialize in all aspects of general dentistry including implant restoration, child dentistry, root canals, extractions, dentures, cosmetic work and, now, producing dental appliances for sleep apnea patients.

Eichenlaub said Mountain View Dental is well-respected in the community. “Our patients are our neighbors and friends,” he said. “We’ve created an environment where we help patients arrive at a decision that best fits their needs. We do cosmetic work, but our practice is more about keeping people healthy.”

For more information about Mountain View Dental, visit www.mv-dental.com. To learn about the dentists, visit www.mv-dental.com/about-mvd/meet-our-doctors/.

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Janice Beetle Books LLC centers around book development

EASTHAMPTON—Janice Beetle, a longtime writer and editor from Western Massachusetts, has launched a second business, Janice Beetle Books LLC, which centers around book development and publishing.

The owner of Beetle Press, a PR and communications firm, Beetle has offered the book development expertise through Beetle Press for nearly a decade. She has now built Janice Beetle Books around that creative service line. 

Beetle works with writers of all skill levels—as well as nonwriters—to help them carry a book idea through to publication. She also offers writing coaching services.

“My clients need help with some part of the work—whether it’s developing the idea, writing or editing the manuscript, or navigating the publishing process,” Beetle said. “It’s very exciting to help people bring a long-held desire from book idea to bookshelf.”

The website for Janice Beetle Books is at JaniceBeetleBooks.com and was developed by Danaë DiNicola of Turn Signal Media. The site showcases services, Beetle’s own creative writing to date as well as her clients’ books. 

Others who helped in the development of the business are: Val Nelson, a business and life coach; Mark NeJame, a Northampton attorney who created the LLC; Teresa Adams, a creative writer in the region; and summer intern Anthony Aquadro.

“What I love about the book development work is that there is nurture involved as well as skill and knowledge,” Beetle said. “People come to me, and they think their idea is not worthy, or that no one will want to read their story. They have fears—that they can’t complete a book, that it won’t be good enough, that they won’t be able to get it published after doing all the work. They look to me for validation, motivation, inspiration, and resources.”

Beetle added, “I still love the deep sense of satisfaction I see on their faces when they hold their books in their hands for the first time. That doesn’t get old.” 

The following are recent clients and their book titles: Jim Ricci, author of Hand, Horse and Motor: The Development of the Lawn Mower Industry in the United States; Tom Zink, author of Seasoned: A Memoir of Grief and Grace; and Peter Cichon, who wrote Flight of Integrity with Beetle. 

Flight of Integrity is a novel that fictionalizes a turn for the worst in Cichon’s career at an airline. It will be published by Off the Common Books in Amherst, Massachusetts, in September. 

Beetle, of Easthampton, holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Westfield State College. 

Since 1998, she has operated Beetle Press, offering writing, editing, and digital marketing services to business owners and leaders of nonprofit organizations.

A former journalist, she writes and distributes press releases to local media and also does media consulting. 

She also writes content for print publications of all types, and she writes blogs, enewsletters, and website content.

For more information about Beetle Press, visit BeetlePress.com.

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Brave Moments series helps women gain self-acceptance

EASTHAMPTON—Diane Donnellan was a widow and mother of four grown sons in March 2017. She was about to turn 70 and had lost nearly 100 pounds. To mark the milestones, she sought out a session with photographer Sandra Costello.

“I found myself that afternoon,” Donnellan, of Newton, told Costello after seeing the portraits Costello later bound in a hard-cover album as part of the package. “I find myself looking at that book now and then, and just smiling. That’s me. It really is. I don’t know where I was hiding, but here I am.”

Photographing women is a new specialty for Costello, owner of Sandra Costello Photography. She calls these sessions her Brave Moments series, and her vision is to help her subjects come to a place of self-acceptance and see their own beauty.

“I believe that the photographs I take and the way that I interact with my clients is about empowering them to really love themselves,” Costello said. “We as women need to stop believing the negative things that have been said to us that aren’t true.”

The relevance of Costello’s work is greater now, she said, in this time when women are raising their voices in campaigns such as #MeToo and are wanting to be seen.  

“We hear that we are fat. We aren’t smart enough. We aren’t capable. When we believe these stories, we lose ourselves,” she said. “We can change those stories, and that is part of what my Brave Moments sessions do.”

Open house, new space

Costello will celebrate her new direction at the opening of her new studio space in Eastworks in Easthampton on Sunday, Feb. 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Suite 147. The event is free and open to the public.

Visitors will see a gallery of Costello’s brave women on the walls and have a chance to tour the bright, 1,100-square-foot space, complete with a growing costume closet and a living room area for conversation.

Sandra Costello Photography

Costello began shooting photos in high school; as one of five children, her parents and siblings were her subjects. She also took photographs for the Daily News Tribune newspaper in Newton, where she grew up.

The first of her siblings to attend college, Costello didn’t see photography as a valid focus and instead earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Simmons College in Boston.

She began doing design work after college and started to freelance as a photographer in 1997. She moved to the Pioneer Valley in 2005 with her wife, Brett Costello, and worked full time as a designer while also making connections in the area.

Costello opened her own business in September 2010. Before moving into Eastworks, she ran her business out of her Easthampton home.

In recent years, she has shifted from primarily photographing weddings to having clients sit for portraits—professionals, families, high school seniors and women.

Her work is highlighted on her website, SandraLovesYou.com.

‘The kindest badass’

Feeling self-acceptance was an overwhelming result of Costello’s work with Gayatri Guhanarayan of Holyoke.

In February 2017, Costello asked Guhanarayan to model for her as she began her new Brave Moments direction.

“I was a nervous wreck before the photoshoot,” Guhanarayan said. “I felt fat, ugly and
unworthy of being a ‘model.’ I almost called to cancel the shoot.”

Instead, Guhanarayan showed up, relaxed into the experience, and was overcome at the reveal of her portraits. “For the first time in my life I got to experience the exuberance, comfort and lusciousness of being in my own skin and have it be captured by someone who truly values this ‘coming out’ of sorts,” Guhanarayan said. “Sandra made me actually believe that I am beautiful. I look like the kindest badass you’ll ever meet. She truly captured the real me.”

Costello’s clients often credit Costello with helping to draw them out. “Thank you for seeing a version of me that I wasn’t sure existed anymore,” one recent client told her. “Thank you for bringing me to a place where I can look at my photos and not find a reason to criticize myself.”

Said Costello, “I enjoy making those connections with these women and watching them come alive. It’s a relationship we develop. If they can open themselves to me, there’s magic.”

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Event to be held December 1 in Easthampton

EASTHAMPTON—The second annual TEDxEasthamptonWomen event will take place on Dec. 1 at The Boylston Room East in Keystone Mill from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with a reception to follow at Mill 180 Park.  

The independently organized program, licensed by TED, will feature local speakers and TEDWomen videos under the theme of Showing Up.

Launched in 2009, TEDx is a program of locally organized events that brings the community together to share a TED-like experience. Some of the best talks from TEDx events have been featured on TED.com and garnered millions of views from audiences across the globe.

TEDWomen, in its ninth year, will take place in Palm Springs, California. The conference will be streamed to thousands around the globe at nearly 150 TEDWomen events in dozens of countries.

TEDxEasthamptonWomen has filled its seating limit of 100 attendees. The program will also be streamed live and accessible via the internet and at local viewing parties. Viewing party information can be found at https://www.tedxeasthamptonwomen.com/livestream/.

“The members this year felt the need to keep the event going for the community to foster learning to the people of Easthampton and the rest of the Pioneer Valley,” said marketing coordinator Laura Heisig. “The hope is for other women to hear these stories and feel empowered by them to make some change in their own communities.

“We’re all connected in some ways, but it also can affect the larger picture of things. I think that’s what’s so powerful about this event,” Heisig added. “It’s connecting us to this larger event.”

This year’s seven speakers are:

• Jane Fleishman, a certified sexuality educator on a mission to promote the sexual well-being of older adults.
• Caitlin Kelley, a supervisor of the Mason Square Branch Library in Springfield.
• Brianna Mangano, a graduate student at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work who has over six years of experience in mental health and social services.
• Christine Monska, a program officer at the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts as well as a continuing education advisor at Bard Microcollege Holyoke.
• Elizabeth O’Gilvie, Bay Path College’s Ethics Speaker in 2017 and a member of the Mass Farm to School advisory board.
• Cinzia Pica-Smith, an associate professor in both the Department of Human Services and Rehabilitation Studies and the Education Department at Assumption College in Worcester.
• Rachel Walker, an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, an associate director for the Center for Personalized Health Monitoring, and the first nurse ever to be named an “Invention Ambassador” by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

TEDxEasthamptonWomen sponsors include: Julia Mines, Boylston Rooms, bankESB, Cider House Media, CJC Lighting & Production, Easthampton Media, Finck & Perras Insurance Agency LLC, Illuminaria, Mill 180 Park, Northeast Solar, and WBOA.

For more information about TEDxEasthamptonWomen, including how to plan or attend a viewing party, please visit TEDxEasthamptonWomen.com.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or fewer) delivered by today’s leading thinkers and doers. Many of these talks are given at TED’s annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, and made available, free, on TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sal Khan and Daniel Kahneman.

TED’s open and free initiatives for spreading ideas include TED.com, where new TED Talk videos are posted daily; the TED Translators Program, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as translations from thousands of volunteers worldwide; the educational initiative TED-Ed; the annual million-dollar TED Prize, which funds exceptional individuals with a “wish,” or idea, to create change in the world; TEDx, which provides licenses to thousands of individuals and groups who host local, self-organized TED-style events around the world; and the TED Fellows program, which selects innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Follow TED on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TEDTalks, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TED, or Instagram at https://instagram.com/ted.

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As I launched my career as a journalist over 30 years ago, the part of the work that made me most anxious was interviewing people, asking questions. I was painfully shy back then and had also yet to understand that good interviews form the basis for good stories, and good stories educate, entertain, and inspire.

In my work today, I see interviewing people as a privilege. For 30, 60 or 90 minutes, I have the unique opportunity to sit with perfect strangers and ask them deeply personal questions about their lives. I have heard stories of love and loss, ingenuity, luck, perseverance, need, and transformation.

It is those stories of change, in which people move from difficulty to stability, that I find most rewarding, and those stories come through in my work with all kinds of clients, from those in the for-profit sector, such as Florence Bank or Patrick’s Pub & Eatery, to nonprofits such as Glenmeadow and United Way.

This summer, I was honored to be asked to tell the stories that would be held in the Campaign Report 2018 for United Way of Hampshire County, which brings advocates for social justice together to bring about real, long-lasting change in our region.

In August, I interviewed Melissa Jensen of Montgomery and Sage Inglis of Easthampton, who have each been served by United Way partners and each have a story of hope.

Melissa’s compromised health had led to financial woes for her family of four, and her two children also have serious health diagnoses. Over the past eight years, every member of her family has been served in multiple ways by United Way of Hampshire County’s partner, the Hilltown Community Health Center.

Staff helped Melissa access disability payments, as well as parenting education and a wide range of health services for her and her husband. When Melissa was recovering from various operations, the center sent someone to her home to help with chores. Rides were also provided.

“They’ve helped in so many ways,” Melissa says. “I really don’t know what I would have done without the center. I feel safe and confident, going to talk to someone at the community center, knowing no one is judging me. Staff are there to help, and they care, and they want everyone to be happy.”

Sage was the single mother of four children under 8 in June 2016, when she headed to Easthampton from Maine as the hopeful candidate for a job here. Upon arrival, she found the home she’d rented was caught in a long-term probate snag, forcing her to move into a friend’s house. Sage slept on the living room sofa, her children on the floor.

“It felt like a crisis,” says Sage, who was able to find a landlord to rent property to a single mom with no job after several weeks. She was also later hired for the job she moved here to hold.

That first year in the Valley was difficult for Sage, though. The Easthampton Community Center, funded in part by United Way, offered everything from referrals to area professionals to donations of food and clothing and karate classes for her children.

“In the dozens of times I’ve been there, the center never failed to be helpful,” says Sage, who now lives with her new husband, Dan, and their children in a home in Easthampton.

Sage told me her story as I sat with her at her kitchen table; her son nibbled on Goldfish as we talked. I saw that Sage is absolutely awed to be stable, comfortable, happy.

In her gratitude, she gives to organizations that served her when she was in need. “I’m trying to pay it forward,” says Sage.

Note: Photo of Sage Inglis by Jim Gipe / Pivot Media in Florence.

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Longtime Easthampton restaurant changes focus from fine dining to barbecue

EASTHAMPTON—After 13 years in business, Amy and Larry Guyette, the husband-and-wife owners of Tavern On The Hill restaurant, have changed their menu to focus on barbeque fare and craft beer.

“We want to expand our market and get on the radar of a broader audience,” said Amy Guyette. “We don’t want to be viewed as a special-occasion venue. Looking at the national food trends, we see people moving away from fine dining toward a more casual experience, and we want to bring that model to our loyal customers and to others looking for good food in a fun, casual atmosphere.”

A longtime, local chef, Larry Guyette oversees the kitchen at Tavern On The Hill. Amy Guyette said he has offered barbecue-themed events in the past, and they were successful. These successes, along with the growing popularity of barbeque fare, prompted the two to move toward providing the cuisine on a permanent basis.

With the change, the menu has been pared down to make room for wood-fired meats, while still offering the favorites that regulars have come to love. “We expect our customers will welcome these changes,” Amy Guyette said.

The new menu—which is colorful and whimsical, as is the new website designed by cdeVision of Holyoke, at www.tavernonline.com/—features new house-smoked barbecue items, including pulled pork, ribs and sliced brisket, all of which are smoked using locally-sourced oak for eight to 18 hours.

The brisket is treated Texas-style with only salt and pepper prior to smoking; the ribs and pulled pork are seasoned with a gluten-free, house-made dry rub. Tavern On The Hill serves all its smoked meats “naked,” meaning without sauce. Three different house sauces are served on the side so guests can add it to suit their taste.  

Barbecue entrees all come with house-baked cornbread and a choice of four sides—mac and cheese, collards, cole slaw or pit beans.  

Many old staples remain on the menu, such as the Mt. Tom Burger, Grilled Faroe Island Salmon, Chicken & Wild Mushroom Risotto, and Pumpkin & Butternut Squash Tortellacci. There are familiar appetizers as well, such as Deep Fried Brussels Sprouts, General Tso’s Calamari and a variety of salads.

Tavern On The Hill’s guests can also experience an extensive collection of craft beer, with regular features like Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA and Anderson Valley Brewing Company’s Oatmeal Stout, and an ever-changing selection of brews on tap from brewers as close as Iron Duke Brewing in Ludlow and as far as Stone Brewing in California. An up-to-date beer menu can be found online at bit.ly/2ALhSui.

Tavern On The Hill offers picturesque views of the Pioneer Valley, with the opportunity to dine from the outdoor deck. The restaurant is open Monday through Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. It is closed on Sundays.

For more information, visit www.tavernonline.com/.

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Megan Conner and Danica Achin hope to carry on family-owned business’ legacy

EASTHAMPTON—When the day was over for Megan Conner in eighth grade, she’d head to Taylor Real Estate for a different kind of learning in the family business. She built up the courage to answer the phone that seemed to always be ringing, and her grandmother, Bernice Conner, taught her to transfer calls to individual Realtors.

Danica Achin remembers taking messages from clients who were calling their home, looking for her father, Chuck Conner. Her first actual job with the company came when she was 17 and answered the phone in the office and helped with administrative tasks.

Recently, Conner and Achin have taken on more responsibility with the business their great-grandfather founded in 1955, marking the beginning of an informal succession plan.

Both women are Realtors with the firm. Conner is also an administrative and advertising assistant with duties that include delving into financial management and handling requests for sponsorships. Achin is the rental division manager.

They hope to one day assume ownership of the company and teach the trade to their own children.

“It’s really important the business stay in the family,” Conner said. “My ancestors put a lot of time and work into maintaining the business and building up our reputation. We now have an opportunity to carry on their legacy.”

Conner and Achin’s great-grandfather Charles Taylor founded the Easthampton business as the Charles W. Taylor Agency in 1955. Taylor then passed the business to his daughter, Bernice, and her husband, Bob Conner—Chuck Conner’s parents, and Megan Conner and Achin’s grandparents.

In 2013, the name changed to Taylor Real Estate.

Chuck Conner started working full-time at Taylor Real Estate with his parents after graduating from college in 1981. Soon after, he took on management responsibilities for the firm.

Megan Conner earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a specialty in developmental disabilities and human services in 2017 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She obtained a real estate license in June 2017.

Over the years, Conner has prepared listings, photographed homes and apartments for sale or rent, and prepared advertising for listings and open houses.

After high school, Achin worked for her mother’s cleaning business while simultaneously working in the office at Taylor Real Estate. In 2014, she became the business’ rental agent.

Achin earned her real estate license in 2014 and took over the Rental Department.

“Chuck has instilled a great work ethic in both of us,” Achin said. “We work as a team and always help each other out.

“The goal is for us to take care of the business the way Chuck does now and stay as involved as possible in the community,” Conner added. “We are both young and driven, which helps us to work as hard as we can to help people every day. We love our community and the people in it.”

For more information on Taylor Real Estate, visit www.taylorrealtors.net.

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