The 2008 Robert Frost Youth Poet for the state of New Hampshire is Ellie Pschirrer-West, a fourth-grader at the Crossroads Academy in Lyme.

A student of Cynthia Williamson, Pschirrer-West’s winning poem is titled “Home.” The poem was selected from the 600 poems submitted to the 2008 Robert Frost Youth Poet Program, sponsored by the Trustees of the Robert Frost Homestead and the University of New Hampshire Library.

The winners will be honored Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008, at 1 p.m., at the Robert Frost Farm, Route 28, Derry.

The contest was open to all New Hampshire fourth-graders who submitted poems on the theme of “My Home.” Students wrote poems about their homes whether it is the house they live in, their communities, or, especially, the natural world, that makes them feel at home. Like Robert Frost at his family farm in Derry, they wrote about the many ways families in New Hampshire create a strong sense of home.

William Ross, UNH Library director of special collections, and UNH professor David Watters, trustees vice chair and director of the UNH Center for New England Culture, announced that the poems will be kept in a permanent archive at the university, which houses a distinguished collection of Robert Frost’s works. Ian Veitenheimer, Jen Gentile, Ann Bienvenue, and Sue Easter, members of the faculty at Pinkerton Academy, where Robert Frost taught, served as contest judges.

The Robert Frost Youth Poet Program was established to foster the writing of poetry by New Hampshire children. In his years at the Derry Farm from 1900 to 1910, Frost wrote some of his best-known poems, such as “Mending Wall,” “The Pasture,” “Ghost House” and “Hyla Brook.” He encouraged his own children, who were schooled at home, and his students at Pinkerton Academy, to write poetry. The contest keeps Frost’s legacy alive and recognizes the talents of New Hampshire school children. The Robert Frost Youth Poet Program is supported by funds from the Finisterre Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.

Starting May 27 and until September 2, Milne Special Collections and Archives will be closed to the public between noon and 1pm (except by appointment). The new hours are 10am to noon and 1-4pm. Normal hours will resume at the start of the fall semester.

The Clamshell Alliance, a loosely-knit coalition of antinuclear groups, was formed in July 1976 to protest the construction of a nuclear reactor in Seabrook, New Hampshire. Inspired by successful antinuclear citizen protests in Germany and Western Massachusetts, the Clams put a spotlight on the issue of nuclear power by means of public education and nonviolent civil disobedience, petitions and picket lines, rallies and site occupations.

Committed to a policy of inclusiveness and equality, giving equal weight to every voice, the Clams adopted - and eventually struggled with — consensus decision-making and they deliberately eschewed elected leaders. But perhaps their most important legacy was demonstrating that ordinary people have the right, the ability, and the responsibility to challenge and change the direction of energy policy in the United States.

In 2007 veterans of the Clamshell Alliance marked the 30th anniversary of its founding with the creation of a website To the Village Square: Nukes, Clams and Democracy, which relates the story of the Clamshell Alliance and why it matters today.

The Clamshell Alliance collection contains primary source materials related to the functioning of the organization – correspondence, office records, committee minutes, press releases, financial information - as well as information pertaining to the Alliance’s interactions with the courts of New Hampshire. There are also documents relating to the decommissioning of the Seabrook reactor.

Rest assured, it’s no joke. On April 1, Milne Special Collections officially launched its new website. More comprehensive, with a consistent look on each page, and better integrated into the library pages, the new site is designed to provide seamless access to information about the extensive manuscript and book collections and online resources within the department. To facilitate navigation within the site, collections are listed both by subject and alphabetically, and each page features breadcrumbs that give users a way to keep track of their location.

So, be sure to bookmark the new address: http://www.library.unh.edu/special. And feel free to send us your comments.

Oh, those fairies? Just a hoax to get your attention. The Cottingley Fairies are an interesting story, though.