Clarksburg Board Endorses School Project Application

CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The Selectmen on Wednesday night unanimously approved the School Committee's application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

The condition of the kindergarten-through-Grade 8 school has been of concern for some years and the school district last submitted an SOI in 2010. No significant renovations or reconstruction has been done since 1970, although two classrooms were added in 1977.

The town has been putting money away in a stabilization account to ensure it would have enough to fund its share of a feasibility study.

Selectmen Chairman Carl McKinney noted that the kindergarten addition was a 20-year construction but was built 40 years ago. Principal Linda Reardon said the school's gym (really a multipurpose room) is only one-third the state's recommended size.

The 2013 SOI calls for the replacement or renovation of the 60-year-old building. The letter and the Selectmen's certified vote must be submitted to the MSBA by April 10 to be considered in the next round. The feasibility study would be undertaken once invited into the program.

Submitting the SOI is no guarantee of selection: It was passed over before. Mount Greylock Regional High School also failed to be selected in the last round and has sent in an updated statement.

A new school could take into account the desire for a preschool expressed by the 83 residents who signed a petition by Kim Rougeau, and the nearly dozen who attended the Wednesday's meeting in support.

"It's been my concern for many years there was no preschool in Clarksburg," said Rougeau, who has taken her son and daughter to the program in Stamford, Vt. "It saddens me in our town we don't having anything for the youngest of our community."

Rougeau's idea was to use some of the space available in Town Hall since the school has no room. Officials have been consolidating departments and opening up room they would like to lease for revenue. The preschool could be self-supporting, similar to Stamford, depending on the number of children and tuition rate.

McKinney said he was supportive but thought Rougeau's idea of asking for money out of the school stabilization fund to have a contractor or engineer reveiw and estimate cost was problematic since it would require a two-thirds vote at town meeting.  

He suggested she put a committee together first to research the idea. "I know they can be laborious but there are a lot of issues," he said. He said he would support putting a separate article on the town meeting warrant to take funds from free cash or to raise and appropriate (which would raise the tax rate) to fund a design.

North Adams Becomes a Purple Heart Community

By Jack GuerinoiBerkshires Staff
05:16AM / Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Veterans Service Officer Kurtis Durocher, a Purple Heart recipient, tells his own story of how he was wounded in Iraq.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — City leaders last week held a ceremony marking the city as a Purple Heart Community to honor local military service members wounded or killed in combat.

 

"This designation is much more than a sign that will stand at the entrances to our city," said Kurtis Durocher, Northern Berkshire veterans service officer at City Hall on Friday. "It is a lasting commitment and a promise to this community. We'll never forget the sacrifices made by those who are wounded or killed while serving our nation. It is a public declaration of the courage and sacrifices of combat wounded. Veterans will always have a place of honor here in North Adams."

 

As a Purple Heart Community, North Adams will place signs throughout the city acknowledging the designation. The city will also hold a ceremony every Aug. 7 on National Purple Heart Day.

 

During the inaugural ceremony, Durocher said he was asked by the Military Order of the Purple Heart to find a keynote speaker for the event, preferably a Purple Heart recipient. But he was unable to find someone willing to speak. With the date approaching, he decided to tell his own story.

 

"I don't like standing up and telling my own personal story ... But I realized, in my position as a VSO, I get so many ... children of veterans who will say, 'I didn't know anything about my father until after he passed because he just didn't talk about it,'" Durocher said. "... I have been that way until I've gotten into this position, and so, now, I try to tell my story as much as I can when it is brought to me."

 

Durocher served in the Army for 20 years and retired as a master sergeant. On Friday, he recalled a time early in his career while serving in the 82nd Airborne Division deploying to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. On Sept. 12, 2003, his squad was conducting a patrol on Route Irish in Baghdad. He was serving as a gunner on an LMTV when it was struck by a 155-millimeter artillery shell. He said the explosive had been hidden behind a guardrail and detonated using nothing more than a washing machine timer.

 

"In an instant, everything changed. The blast knocked me unconscious. When I regained consciousness, I instinctively was removing my helmet," he said. "Almost immediately my training took over. We had been taught repeatedly that attacks like this were often followed by a secondary attack or an ambush. I quickly put my helmet back on and began searching for my machine gun."