10/15/04 - PLAISTOW - Democratic challenger for the governor’s office John Lynch held a town meeting at Timberlane Regional High School this week and said he is going to restore integrity to the office, which he said has been missing since Gov. Craig Benson took over.

10/15/04 - EXETER - Former State Sen. Rick Russman last week endorsed Maggie Wood Hassan in the Senate District 23 race. Russman is a Republican. Hassan, a lawyer from Exeter, is a Democrat challenging incumbent Russell Prescott, who succeeded Russman in the seat.

10/15/04 - PLAISTOW - Spirit Week at Timberlane Regional High School is meant to be a time to bring together classmates. However, recent acts of vandalism have tainted the 2004 festivities.

10/15/04 - PLAISTOW - A $300,000 grant has given the Timberlane Regional School District the capability to interact with people around the globe. The innovative system will provide a distance learning program through each of the district schools.

10/15/04 - ATKINSON - Residents who live near the telecommunications tower on Hog Hill plan to attend a Monday, Oct. 18 meeting with the owners of the tower, but that does not mean they’re prepared to settle the ongoing dispute out of court.

10/15/04 - RAYMOND - A local man was pronounced dead at the scene of a tragic home accident after he was found trapped underneath a concessions trailer that he was working on in his driveway.

10/15/04 - The ground is still bare and water isn’t even close to freezing over, but snowmobile enthusiasts unable to wait for the snow to fly dusted off their sleds, revved them up, and took to the grass and water last weekend at the annual Grass Drags and Water Crossing Championships in Fremont.

10/15/04 - EPPING - Nine months after the West Epping Village Market was held up during a string of armed robberies on the Seacoast, the store on Route 27 was allegedly robbed again Saturday night by a masked man with a gun.

10/15/04 - RAYMOND - Voters may have to decide whether the old red schoolhouse behind Iber Holmes Gove Middle School is worth investing money to preserve.

10/15/04 - RAYMOND - Creating a piece of art can be a reward in itself, but for several local teens it has also earned them numerous ribbons of recognition.

10/15/04 - PLAISTOW - Fewer students from Timberlane Regional High School are leaving the school without a diploma in hand, according to school officials. One reason for that is a reconstructed set of evening class options that allows students to still make the grade.

10/15/04 - PLAISTOW - A Route 121 tack shop that called Plaistow home for the last seven years closed its doors without warning last month. Its Web site still directs people to the now-shuttered building.

10/15/04 - PLAISTOW - Plaistow Human Services coordinator Carrie Chooljian hosted a meeting last week to reach out to various civic groups, charities, and businesses to informally coordinate their efforts for the upcoming holidays.

10/15/04 - EAST HAMPSTEAD - It’s been only seven weeks since J & B Butcher opened its doors, but brothers and owners Jim and Bobby Ward said the shop has been a lot busier than they had expected.

10/15/04 - RAYMOND - As former president Richard Nixon was preparing for his historic visit to China in the early 1970s, Paul Brown was launching his real-estate appraisal business Paul Brown & Company of Raymond. During the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, Brownstarted looking at residential lots and plots as a real-estate broker.

10/15/04 - Here are my top 10 e-mail and Internet etiquette tips: 1) Keep messages brief, as reading from a computer screen is tough on the eyes.

10/15/04 - HAMPSTEAD - The town of Hampstead is considering bids from several solid waste disposal and recycling companies. The town’s contract with Cape Disposal will end on Dec. 31, 2004. A recent request for proposals has four companies vying for the towns’ business.

10/15/04 - HAMPSTEAD – The generosity of two Hampstead restaurateurs has netted the East Hampstead Union Church a sizable donation to its steeple fund.

10/15/04 - HAMPSTEAD - Sixth-graders from Hampstead Middle School walked to nearby Sunset Lake last week for the seventh annual lake ecology field experience.

10/15/04 - DANVILLE - Last week was Fire Safety Week, and Danville Elementary School was swarming with the town’s fire department personnel, who came to teach the children what to do, and what not to do, in case of a fire.

10/15/04 - DANVILLE - In the past, students in second grade at Danville Elementary School would build models of their town using empty, covered milk cartons for houses and buildings and construction paper for roads. The project will have much more meaning this year, now that the students have taken a walking tour of the town.

10/15/04 - ATKINSON - The flu clinic scheduled for Oct. 27 at the Atkinson Community Center has been canceled because the vaccine producer for the Rockingham Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice (RVNAH) - and much of the country - had its license revoked.

10/15/04 - SANDOWN - Officials are working to secure part of a 45-acre parcel in the center of town for conservation. For the second time in a year, a Sandown family has agreed to put a conservation easement on its property, ensuring that the land will be permanently protected from development.

10/15/04 - ATKINSON - The number of current use properties not recorded at the Registry of Deeds may not be as high as stated at the selectmen’s meeting on Oct. 4.

10/15/04 - NEWTON - A federal grant has allowed the Newton Police Department to replace an old police cruiser with a sport utility vehicle, which will be fitted with new communications equipment, compliments of the University of New Hampshire.

10/15/04 - KINGSTON - Nichols Memorial Library has a new addition – and it’s not books! On Oct. 1, Andy Richmond of Portsmouth took on the position as the library’s new director.

10/15/04 - EPPING - For residents who will soon be neighbors to the state’s first Lowe’s home improvement store, the 11 weeks of pile driving during construction will likely sound no worse than a Shop-Vac running in their back yard, a company official insisted.

10/15/04 - RAYMOND - A Derry man remains in serious, but stable condition following a motorcycle accident in Raymond last Saturday, which ended an alleged two-hour police pursuit through two counties.

10/15/04 - Sometimes it is easy for us to spot the villain - to point a finger and say, "Ah, you are at fault" for the transgression or lousy decision or ill-conceived notion. Other times, the circumstances are not so clear cut, and there is blame enough to go around for all. This is the situation in Epping, as town officials grapple with residents doing battle with home improvement giant Lowe’s over its plans to build a 162,927-square-foot store at Epping Crossing.

10/15/04 - The following people passed away recently. . .

10/15/04 - Area police made the following arrests and conducted the following business recently...

10/15/04 - At 14-0-0, the Raymond High School girls soccer team has already secured the No. 1 seed for the upcoming Class M tournament and the Rams were only two steps away from completing an unprecedented perfect regular season.

10/15/04 - The Timberlane Regional High School field hockey team will be out to defy the odds when the Owls begin their quest to make a fourth straight trip to the finals as the Class L tournament is set to begin on Oct. 21.

10/15/04 - The idea of an undefeated, perfect season is not openly discussed at Sanborn Regional High School. But you know the Indians have to be thinking about it.

10/15/04 - As the high school football season approaches its seventh week, many questions have been raised while few answers have been reached in trying to sort out the Division II playoff possibilities.

10/15/04 - Several skaters from the Ice Skating Club of Exeter recently competed in the Cranberry Open in Cape Cod, Mass.

10/15/04 - Doug Dawkins had himself a heck of a weekend, both on and off the race track. He started the weekend in style, hitting the daily double at Star Speedway last Saturday night, picking up the feature win and capturing the 2004 Roadrunner championship as well.

10/15/04 - The Seacoast Hawks are now one win away from their second straight trip to a New England Football League championship game after the Hawks rolled to a 42-14 victory over the Monadnock Marauders in the opening round of the Division AA playoffs, in a game played at Raymond.

10/15/04 - CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A Harvard University graduate student was convicted of manslaughter Thursday and sentenced to six to eight years in prison for fatally stabbing a teenage father who made fun of him.

10/15/04 - BOSTON - The state attorney general said Thursday he was looking into possible price gouging as residents seek a limited supply of flu vaccine.

10/15/04 - BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents struck deep inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone on Thursday, setting off bombs at a market and a popular café that killed at least 10 people - including four Americans - and wounded 20 others in the compound housing foreign embassies and Iraqi government offices.

10/15/04 - BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - A new Russian-U.S. crew headed to the international space station Thursday, surging into orbit aboard a Soyuz spacecraft none of the three astronauts has piloted before.

10/18/04- NEW CUMBERLAND, Pa. -- Marshall, a Labrador retriever, is none the worse for wear after surviving a house fire -- with the help of two firefighters who performed CPR.

Get behind the lens with our award winning photographers. Check out their photos, read their bios, and see why Portsmouth Herald Photographers are consistently judged as some of the best and most talented in the New England area.

Read the work of many of your favorite Seacoast Newspaper columnists. Whether it be the cerebral slapstick humor of John Breneman or the witty humor of baby-boomer columnist Paul Briand you'll enjoy getting behind the stories with enlightened and often humorous takes on current news.