NORTH EAST — Deputy Town Clerk Ellen Owens is on a mission. She’s determined to get every dog living in the town of North East vaccinated for rabies and officially licensed. “This is my passion,” she said.That’s why when residents receive their tax bills in the mail, they’ll also receive a notice about the upcoming dog census.“It will save on postage,” she told the Town Board at its meeting on Thursday, Dec. 13, adding the terms of the census. “They’ve got to come in [to Town Hall] and license their dogs, and if they don’t we will follow up with a court ticket and a fine.”Owens said she is “borrowing” the policy from the neighboring town of Stanford, which she said had great success with its recent dog census.The deputy town clerk also acknowledged that sometimes licensing one’s dog can get pricey, especially because it requires the canine be up-to-date on his or her rabies vaccine. Often times when one takes his or her pet to a veterinarian for a rabies vaccine, the pet also has to be up-to-date on other vaccines and may even require an annual visit. That’s where a simple visit could run into the hundreds of dollars.“To help offset the cost, in March we’re going to be having a free rabies clinic,” Owens said, offering a solution to those hesitant to pay out-of-pocket fees to their veterinarians at this point in time. “So people know if that’s what’s holding them back it doesn’t matter anymore.”She added that the free rabies clinics have been very popular in the past.“We did one three years ago and I thought we would have about 10 dogs or so,” she said, stating the clinic was, and will again be, at the firehouse on Century Boulevard. “Three-hundred dogs showed up.”Owens told the Town Board she was willing to bet there were more than 300 dogs in the town of North East.“There are people who don’t know you have to license your dog,” she said. “This is how we make sure they get their rabies shot, and that is a public heath issue.”The board agreed, and then unanimously approved Owens’ request to include notice of the dog census in the town’s outgoing tax bills.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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