WEBUTUCK — The North East (Webutuck) Central School District Board of Education accepted the resignation of Eugene Brooks Intermediate School Principal Jay Curtis during a meeting on Jan. 2.The resignation was retroactive to Dec. 27, 2012, meaning Curtis would not return from winter break.“Mr. Curtis resigned for family reasons, and the board and myself understood and accepted that,” Superintendent James Gratto said.Webutuck has a long history of losing faculty and administrators.“Unfortunately that has been a real issue for our district. We all thought we were beyond that, but you never know what can happen,” Gratto said. “Our current faculty and staff is very stable. We didn’t anticipate this at all but we do understand.”After the resignation, Gratto went to each classroom in EBIS to explain the situation to the students.“We really wanted them to know what was happening and why. They needed to know that it wasn’t because Mr. Curtis didn’t like Webutuck or anything of that nature. We want to make the transition as easy as possible for the students,” he said.Gratto is viewing the timing of the resignation as an opportunity for the district.“We’re in a unique situation. If we can get a really great candidate in to finish the school year, then that would be great. But if, in a worst case scenario, that did not work out, we could then repost the job at the end of the year, hire over the summer and be ready to go for the fall. If this had to happen, this is an opportunity for us. It’s in the district’s best interest to post now with an option to post later if needed,” he said.According to Gratto, Curtis will be missed by both the faculty and the students.“He was a great administrator, and it’s a huge loss for us. He will have left some big shoes to fill, but myself along with the board are confident that we can get a transition plan in place. The board created the middle school principal position back in summer 2011, and the current board wants to honor that decision to fill the position with a great candidate,” he said.The district has sent information to parents on the numerous contacts available at EBIS and Webutuck High School to deal with any issues, and has also posted the full list of contacts to its website at www.webutuckschools.org.“It’ll be a small rough period to adjust, but this can really be looked at as another opportunity for our district to grow in a positive way,” said Gratto.
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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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