12/10/04 - RAYMOND - Warren Taylor of 17 West Shore Drive got a shock on Monday when he went out to work in the yard and came back in the house 15 minutes later to find the interior filled with smoke.

12/10/04 - KINGSTON - Derek George Jr., 17, loves to watch TV, dance and nap with his new best friend Sosa. The two have been joined at the hip for about three weeks.

12/10/04 - KINGSTON - The Sanborn Regional School Board may ask voters to approve a cooperative school district planning committee when they go to the polls in March. The committee would work on drafting a plan for creating a joint district that would include Fremont.

12/10/04 - As many residents of Rockingham County are ending their day, work is just beginning for police officers on evening patrol. Rockingham News presents a peak into what it is like to be a Friday night patrolman in three of our communities.

12/10/04 - KINGSTON - A new full-time police officer, a full-time fire chief, funds for replacing fire apparatus and the central fire station are possible petition warrant articles for the March ballot.

12/10/04 - KINGSTON - Before Santa slides down the chimney in the middle of the night to bring presents to the town’s good girls and boys, Mr. Claus will ride by their houses in his sleigh during the town’s annual Christmas ride.

12/10/04 - FREMONT - Santa Claus will ride down every road in town on his sleigh this Sunday during the third annual Fremont Santa Parade.

12/10/04 - RAYMOND - The Board of Selectmen is discussing potential warrant articles for the March ballot.

12/10/04 - RAYMOND - Resident and former budget committee member Peter Buckingham has penned a citizens’ petition warrant article for the March ballot, which will change 215 acres of town-owned land near the high school from residential to industrial zoning. His goal is to help bring more business to town.

12/10/04 - PLAISTOW - The defense attorneys for Joseph Sawtell, who is serving a life sentence in jail for the murder of his girlfriend, are asking the state Supreme Court to reverse the conviction and remand the case to Superior Court for a new trial.

12/10/04 - RAYMOND - While most school districts have made the transition into technology of the new millennium, the Raymond School District is just now attempting to move its technology from the 1980s to the 1990s.

12/10/04 - PLAISTOW - Parents picking up Pollard School students from school will have to start queuing up on the other side of the road as the town attempts to mitigate hazardous conditions caused by traffic congestion.

12/10/04 - DERRY - Pinkerton Academy Treasurer Michael Fox has announced that the school’s regular education tuition rate for the 2005-2006 school year will rise 5.75 percent.

12/10/04 - HAMPSTEAD - Hampstead native Ben Simpson is a self-described "outdoor guy," probably an understatement considering the wildlife career he is building that, so far, has included tracking migration patterns of birds and bats, collecting bear DNA samples, and researching metabolic rates of white-tailed deer.

12/10/04 - HAMPSTEAD - Hampstead native U.S. Air Force Lt. Kevin Sullivan recently presented Hampstead Middle School’s Military Support Club with an American flag, which was in his plane when he flew in a mission into Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Al-Taqaddum, Iraq on Sept. 11, 2004. Sullivan is a navigator on a C-130 cargo plane.

12/10/04 - PLAISTOW - A letter from the Department of Transportation (DOT) inquiring about the town’s stance on detaching Walton Road from Route 125 prompted selectmen to reaffirm their original ruling that the road should remain connected.

12/10/04 - PLAISTOW - Santa Claus is coming to town.

12/10/04 - NEWTON - The town decided this week that it will require contracted snowplow drivers to be covered by a minimum of $350,000 worth of auto liability insurance. Selectmen also voted to raise the pay rate for those drivers by $4 per hour to offset the increased cost of the insurance. The changes were made as part of Newton’s 2004-’05 snow removal policy, being hammered out by selectmen.

12/10/04 - KINGSTON - After 14-year-old Allison Fillio of Newton unexpectedly died from undiagnosed juvenile diabetes last month, many parents and students in the Sanborn Regional School District began voicing personal concern about the disease.

12/10/04 - DANVILLE - The Board of Selectmen had the pleasure of accepting a model of "Ye Olde Cemetery," on Route 111A this week, given to the town by young resident, Colin Sloane. Colin is a sixth-grader at Timberlane Regional Middle School and made the model in response to an assignment by language arts and social studies teacher, Lois Paul.

12/10/04 - HAMPSTEAD - The Hampstead Education Foundation is so satisfied with the results of its first major fund-raiser, the Festival of Wreaths, that it plans to make it an annual event and, perhaps, even expand on the unique idea, according to the organization’s president, Mary White.

12/10/04 - ATKINSON - Selectmen and union representatives from the Police Department were scheduled to meet some time this week to discuss issues regarding benefits included in the union contract, which led to a heated argument at the Nov. 29 selectmen’s meeting.

12/10/04 - ATKINSON - Donations are being collected at Town Hall to give to the family of former Town Administrator Vic Richards as a special present during the holiday season.

12/10/04 - PLAISTOW - "Music is not something you buy; it’s something you do," according to Bill Melanson, co-owner of Northstar Music Center in the Great Elm Plaza on Route 125 in Plaistow.

12/10/04 - RAYMOND - Do you know how to do a PowerPoint presentation? In a few years every 9-year-old at Lamprey River Elementary School may.

12/10/04 - RAYMOND - At Iber Holmes Gove Middle School, students gain knowledge in English, science, math and social studies, but it is often in classes known collectively as "Unified Arts" that classroom knowledge is put into practical use.

12/10/04 - DANVILLE - Rough and tumble fourth-graders. Teeny tiny preschoolers. Sounds like an unlikely combination of children to be placed together for a reading buddy program, but this combination is a match made in heaven, according to school officials

12/10/04 - RAYMOND - The Raymond School Board settled on seven warrant articles to be put on the ballot next March, which includes a bond for a new middle school.

12/10/04 - The next time residents from the Sanborn Regional School District step into the voting booth, they will be asked to fund $30,000 for the initial expenses of starting a football team at the district’s high school. The school has been without a team since the late 1970s.

12/10/04 - The following people passed away recently. . .

12/10/04 - Area police made the following arrests and conducted the following business recently...

12/10/04 - The Sanborn Regional High School girls basketball team is looking to rebound off a disappointing 34-28 loss to Newmarket followed by a tough 71-36 loss to Somersworth, which dropped the Indians to a season-opening 0-3 record.

12/10/04 - After capturing its first victory of the season, the Raymond High School girls basketball team is 1-1 and looking to make it two wins in a row heading into action Tuesday at Sanborn.

12/10/04 - With five straight Class L titles to their name and after having gone undefeated in 2003-2004, it’s not surprising that the Timberlane Regional High School wrestling team is once again the team to beat.

12/10/04 - After losing only one senior from last year’s team that went 8-14 overall, including a trip to the Class L tournament, the 2004-2005 Timberlane Regional High School girls basketball team is looking to challenge for a top eight-berth and break the .500 mark.

12/10/04 - Sanborn Regional High School graduate and former All-State soccer goalkeeper Dan Simone is hoping the most frustrating of seasons is behind him.

12/10/04 - Repeat after me: "It’s still early ... it’s still early ... it’s still early." That should be the mantra that every New England skier and snowboarder chants every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

12/10/04 - PLAISTOW - Twelve-year-old Riley Cole of Plaistow is sure his father Roderic Cole is insane. During the week, his dad is a chemist and on weekends he morphs into a woodpile scavenger. Saturday errands are usually interrupted when the senior Cole spies logs lounging on the side of the road.

12/10/04 - BOSTON - David Brudnoy, the most recognized voice of Boston talk radio for more than a quarter of a century, died Thursday night at Massachusetts General Hospital, his radio station, WBZ-AM, reported. He was 64.

12/10/04 - CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley has asked the state to relocate all of her employees out of the county courthouse building that has been found to contain potentially dangerous asbestos.

12/10/04 - BAGHDAD, Iraq - Under the guidance of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric, Shiite parties presented a list Thursday of 228 candidates for next month’s elections. Minority Sunni Arabs, who had been favored under Saddam Hussein, must now decide whether to join the race or renounce a vote that will help determine the country’s future.

12/10/04 - BRUSSELS, Belgium - Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday accused France, Germany and four other European allies of "hurting the credibility and cohesion" of NATO by refusing to allow their soldiers to go to Iraq to help train the new Iraqi army.

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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