Literacy Network Welcomes New Board Members

12:13PM / Wednesday, August 28, 2024Print Story | Email Story

LEE, Mass. — Literacy Network (LitNet) welcomes the additions of Sandra Rodriguez Aponte and Jane Lehman to its Board of Directors.

Aponte, a native Colombian, is a Certified Public Accountant, and Financial Audit Specialist. She holds a master's degree in risk management and has more than 17 years of professional experience. She volunteers as a member of the English Learners Parent Advisory Council (ELPAC, or CAPEI in Spanish) in the Berkshire Hills Regional School District. She supports the improvement of English Learner programs for the Latino community in the Berkshires and works to get the Latino community more involved in their children's educations by strengthening their presence in BHRSD school activities.

Aponte has worked on her English with LitNet tutors since June 2021 and is an advanced-level speaker. She also serves on LitNet's First-Generation College Council, co-leading FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and MASFA (Massachusetts Application for State Financial Aid) workshops, and otherwise working on behalf of first-generation college hopefuls and their families.

Lehman is a retired attorney with a BA from Mount Holyoke and a JD from Albany Law School. After a stint as a traditional associate, Lehman worked for a firm that provided research services for other attorneys. She then spent nearly 20 years writing legal treatise material for major publications. She has served on several nonprofit boards relating to at-risk and underserved populations and social justice issues and is a certified trainer in Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Resolution. She has sung with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Berkshire Opera, and opera companies in Connecticut. She currently sings with the Berkshire Hills Chorus, Berkshire Lyric, and the Threshold Choir. She is also a Hospice volunteer.

"Sandra and Jane both have valuable personal experience and relevant professional skillsets to contribute to LitNet. I'm excited to be working with them as LitNet grows and evolves," said LitNet Executive Director Leigh Doherty.

"We are grateful and excited to welcome these two dynamic women to our Board of Directors," says Board President Merle Kailas. "Their expertise and passion will be instrumental in advancing LitNet's vision of creating an engaged, welcoming, and literate Berkshire community."

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South County Celebrates 250th Anniversary of the Knox Trail

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
06:18PM / Sunday, January 11, 2026

State Sen. Paul Mark carries the ceremonial linstock, a device used to light artillery. With him are New York state Sen. Michelle Hinchey and state Sen. Nick Collins of Suffolk County.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. —The 250th celebration of American independence began in the tiny town of Alford on Saturday morning.

Later that afternoon, a small contingent of re-enactors, community members and officials marched from the Great Barrington Historical Society to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center to recognize the Berkshire towns that were part of that significant event in the nation's history.

State Sen. Paul Mark, as the highest ranking Massachusetts governmental official at the Alford crossing, was presented a ceremonial linstock flying the ribbons representing every New York State county that Henry Knox and his team passed through on their 300-mile journey from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston in the winter of 1775-76.

"The New York contingent came to the border. We had a speaking program, and they officially handed over the linstock, transferring control of the train to Massachusetts," said Mark, co-chair of Massachusetts' special commission for the semiquincentennial. "It was a great melding of both states, a kind of coming together."

State Rep. Leigh Davis called Knox "an unlikely hero, he was someone that rose up to the occasion. ... this is really honoring someone that stepped into a role because he was called to serve, and that is something that resonates."

Gen. George Washington charged 25-year-old bookseller Knox with bringing artillery from the recently captured fort on Lake Champlain to the beleaugured and occupied by Boston. It took 80 teams of horses and oxen to carry the nearly 60 tons of cannon through snow and over mountains.

Knox wrote to Washington that "the difficulties were inconceivable yet surmountable" and left the fort in December. He crossed the Hudson River in early January near Albany, crossing into Massachusetts on what is now Route 71 on Jan. 10, 1776. By late January, he was in Framingham and in the weeks to follow the artillery was positioned on Dorchester Heights.

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