WINSTED — The Northwestern boys basketball team took the Berkshire League championship for the first time in 22 years with a 71-56 win over Litchfield Thursday, March 3.The Highlanders took down the No. 1 seed, Nonnewaug, Tuesday, March 1, in the first round of the Berkshire tournament.The Berkshire League win catapulted Northwestern to the Class M state tournament, where they faced the Ansonia Chargers. The Highlanders went into the tournament in the No. 12 spot, but the No. 21 Ansonia Chargers bounced them out of states with a convincing 82-62 win.The Chargers launched a speedy, effective offense right from the tip-off Monday, March 7. A quick glance over both benches revealed Northwestern’s height advantage throughout their lineup, but it would be Ansonia’s lightning fast offense that made the difference. The Chargers tallied the first points of the game in the opening seconds. Ansonia continued to score from all over the court, sinking most of their chances. Northwestern was able to hang on offensively with some fantastic shooting from the outside, but found a wall of Charger swats and defense around the net. The Chargers held a 25-17 lead at the end of the first quarter.Ansonia picked up their defensive pressure early in the second and forced a series of turnovers that they neatly converted into additional points. Northwestern remained resilient, however. Every time it appeared the Chargers were firmly pulling away, the Highlanders would respond with accurate three-point shooting. The Highlanders were unable to cauterize Ansonia’s offense long enough to cut the gap and found themselves trailing 44-36 heading into the halftime break.The second half mirrored the first as Ansonia continued to command the game while Northwestern just barely kept up. In the final quarter, the Highlanders began to rally off a three-pointer put up by Northwestern’s John Stevens. A quick turnover was sent back to Stevens, who tallied a second three-pointer from the same spot, sending an incredible surge of energy through the building. Northwestern trailed by only 10 points with the majority of the quarter to try and even things up, but Ansonia recovered and began to push hard late in the game to take the 82-62 win.Ansonia was led in scoring by Reggie Finney, who amassed 31 points. Northwestern found good scoring throughout their lineup, with Stevens and Connor Guiheen leading the pack with 12 apiece. Stevens tallied four from the outside while Guiheen sunk two field goals of his own. The Highlanders graduate three seniors this year, including Bobby Lippincott who tallied 12, Drew McCarthy with eight and Brandon Couloutte.
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Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton\u2019s Main Street in 1985.
Provided
For Hermans, the award has prompted some reflection about why he has spent so much of his life involved in community projects.
“I was thinking about it this morning: Why do I do what I do?” he said. “And I think no matter what I’ve done, whether it’s been school board or rail trail, I’m trying to be useful to the communities I’m associated with.”
Hermans is perhaps best known as the longtime co-founder and steward of Oblong Books in Millerton, a business that began almost by accident. He and his former partner, Holly Nelson, were living in Millerton and looking for something to do during the winter. They had been painting houses, including the Grange Hall in Millerton, a job Hermans got through his aunt, who belonged to the Grange.
At the time, Hermans was also working in insurance for his father, doing collections.
“It was fine except I was doing collections, and it really kind of left me cold,” he said.
He and Nelson began thinking about what they might do together. Nelson was an avid reader, while Hermans had studied journalism and had worked in a record store. They noticed a chain of book and record stores operating elsewhere in the Hudson Valley and decided to follow that model.
And so Oblong was born.
Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton’s Main Street in 1985.Provided
“We really learned it by the seat of our pants,” Hermans said.
The business would eventually become a beloved and integral part of Millerton’s commercial life. But although Hermans may have learned the book business as he went, his affinity for retail — and for the connections that happen across a counter — had begun much earlier.
As a child, his second-grade teacher operated a little cardboard pencil shop in the classroom, and Hermans still remembers the satisfaction of selling a pencil for a nickel.
“I really liked selling somebody a pencil for a nickel,” he recalled. “I can remember that experience, and it was so pleasant.”
Later, while living in Arizona, he helped establish a food co-op and worked at the counter.
“I kind of knew that I liked doing that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s a nice way to be pleasant with people, but without making too much commitment to them.”
His relationship with Millerton also predates Oblong. His grandparents lived in the village, and he first came to Millerton as a baby. Over the years, he has watched the town change through several generations.
He remembers a Millerton with a much broader array of businesses, when stores such as Delson’s, the Main Street department store that stood for nearly 40 years in what is now Millerton’s Antiques Center, seemed to carry almost everything a resident might need.
“You could find everything from a set of dishes to a shotgun,” he recalled.
The rise of shopping malls changed that kind of downtown retail, he said, but Millerton has remained a lively commercial village.
“For us, it’s been a great place to have business,” Hermans said. “It’s a busy village.”
For Hermans, running a store was never simply about selling books and records. It was a way of being part of a place.
Music has remained another constant. Hermans continues to sell music at Oblong and hosts the radio program “New Harmony” on WKZE. The business of selling music has changed dramatically over the years, particularly with the rise of streaming, but Hermans has adapted.
He was initially reluctant to bring vinyl records back into the store because of their expense. But about four or five years ago, he began stocking LPs again, and they have become the main form of music the store sells.
He finds that many of the customers buying them are reconnecting with music they loved years ago.
“I do best with classic albums that people may have had when they were young,” he said. “And now that they’re retired, they want to hear it again.”
Hermans still reviews between 700 and 1,200 new music releases each week through the store’s distributor, Alliance Entertainment, carefully deciding what belongs on Oblong’s shelves.
That same commitment to place has led Hermans into a wide range of community projects. His work with the Harlem Valley Rail Trail is among the efforts he mentions when reflecting on his years of civic involvement. He has also served on the school board and has been involved with the Millerton Business Alliance and the Irondale Schoolhouse. He is now involved with The New Pine Plains Herald, which he sees as complementary to the work of The Millerton News and The Lakeville Journal.
“I really think that the important thing about this award is that people understand what a newspaper does to connect them to their community,” he said. “And if that means anything to their lives, they gotta support it.”
Hermans knew Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook and remembers them as people who were deeply conscious of their responsibilities to the community.
“They were really nice folks,” he said. “They were very conscious of what their role in the community was.”
There is, in fact, still plenty on his plate. Hermans admits he needs to scale back because he has taken on more than his current abilities can comfortably accommodate.
“To be given this award is very special,” he added. “But I don’t feel like I’m done.”
This article has been changed to reflect that Hermans and Nelson were partners. A prior version states that they were married.
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