12/17/04 - It goes without saying their son’s heroin overdose was one of the most difficult trials Ric and Carol Waleryszak would ever face.

12/17/04 - HAMPTON - Saying that the Hampton and Exeter district courts are unsafe and causing health problems for employees, the state Court Accreditation Committee voted Thursday to move the personnel of the two courts to temporary locations.

12/17/04 - EXETER - Richard Pratthas seen the routine at Exeter High School from two vantage points: that of a teacher and that of an administrator.

12/17/04 - SEABROOK - When 2-year-old Drew Dennis sees his mother, Melissa, spread out a white sheet on the ground, he runs around and squeals in excitement. The white sheet means that Drew’s speech therapist, Sharon Griffin, is coming to play.

12/17/04 - EXETER - The Board of Selectmen denied the Exeter Conservation Commission’s proposed warrant article to turn over funds from the 10 percent "current-use" tax to a conservation fund for land purchases.

12/17/04 - EXETER - The Linden St. Re-Use Committee is close to making a recommendation to the School Board for the old high school property.

12/17/04 - On Dec. 25, 1860, B. Judson Perkins, a 19-year-old Exeter boy, noted in his diary: "It is Christmas and there is no school. I staid at home. Father hauled a load of hay."

12/17/04 - EXETER - The Chamber of Commerce announced Thursday that it has raised and disbursed more than $38,000 this holiday season from its Children’s Fund.

12/17/04 - EXETER — Come next May, Tyco International will be severing its final link to the town where the multinational conglomerate once had its corporate headquarters.

12/17/04 - EXETER - Nancy Decker, an Exeter High School sophomore from Stratham, nibbled on her squash and looked at the rest of the holiday dinner provided in the Exeter High School cafeteria.

12/17/04 - STRATHAM - The squeaky wheel is reputed to get the grease. Or, in the case of the Town of Stratham, the ride control.

12/17/04 - KENSINGTON - Two men have been indicted in Rockingham County Superior Court in connection with a Sept. 9 burglary of a Towle Hill Road home. Police subsequently recovered about $100,000 worth of stolen property.

12/17/04 - BRENTWOOD - Residents can expect the Police Department to ask for another increase in its budget for next year, although exactly how much remains to be seen.

12/17/04 - NEWMARKET - A possible oasis in the desert of Newmarket’s recent water crisis is in the offing.

12/17/04 - PLAISTOW — “Season of giving” took on a different meaning for the Robie family this year after it was given a notice of foreclosure just weeks before Christmas. But hope still looms.

12/17/04 - FREMONT - Jessica and Greg MacNeil of Sandown Road want nothing more than to adopt a baby Chinese girl, but it could cost between $15,000 and $30,000.

12/17/04 - We’re here already at the holiday season. Along with the traditions, joy and fun of the season comes the stress and temptations that many of us dread.

12/17/04 - Day spas have many things in common. Most have a salon in which to get the hair "done," whether colored, cut, permed, ripped out with wax or electrolysized away, along with massage and body treatments and facials.

12/17/04 - Human beings are very good at sweeping things under the carpet. Bureaucrats and administrators are particularly adept at this. Don’t want to face something? Don’t want people to know? Sweep. Have something to hide? Want to bury the facts? Sweep. And so the matters stay hidden away. Sometimes, they never see the light of day. Other times, they are so problematic, so pervasive, that they seep out anyway.

12/17/04 - The following people passed away recently. . .

12/17/04 - Area police made the following arrests and conducted the following business recently...

12/17/04 - PORTSMOUTH — As Portsmouth High School coach Tim Hopley watched Exeter Tuesday night, the team in blue had to look familiar to the fourth-year Clipper coach.

12/17/04 - EPPING - The scoreboard didn’t work at Tuesday night’s Epping/Newmarket High School girls basketball game. There was a winner, though, and Epping, led by Ashley Fiore’s game-high 17 points, defeated the Mules, 57-35.

12/17/04 - NEWMARKET - If Duncan Szeliga, David Moore and Derek Smith didn’t put the basketball in the hole the first time, they did the second. Or third.

12/17/04 - Sean McDonnell, sixth-year head coach of the University of New Hampshire football team, was named Region 1 Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association on Monday.

12/17/04 - I have to admit, that Okemo Mountain Resort (Ludlow, Vt.) is an area I’ve often overlooked. No particular reason, except that, in the past, it’s been a little short of the kind of terrain I like to ski best.

12/17/04 - BOSTON - Federal transportation officials are threatening to withhold $81 million in Big Dig funding next year because of uncertainties about how much it will cost to repair hundreds of tunnel leaks and how that money will be recovered, Gov. Mitt Romney said Thursday.

12/17/04 - BOSTON - Two Boston police officers were justified when they fatally shot a Roxbury man in June, prosecutors said Thursday, a month after delaying the announcement after protests by the man's family and community activists.

12/17/04 - BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein met with a defense lawyer Thursday for the first time since his capture a year ago, days before several of his top aides are due to appear in court for hearings on alleged war crimes.

12/17/04 - JERUSALEM - Britain has yet to propose it officially, but Israeli and Palestinian officials are already arguing about the purpose and agenda of a Middle East peace conference in London.

12/17/04 - BURLINGTON, Vt. - A Milton man who crashed a car at high speed and then wandered into a house and kissed a sleeping couple is facing a variety of charges.

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