MILLBROOK — Purple pinkies were prominent throughout the Millbrook Central School District (MCSD) on Thursday, Jan 10. Students were able to get their pinkie fingers covered in purple dye for $1 as a fundraiser to help fight and eradicate polio. Rotary International, the United Nations and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have done ongoing work to completely eradicate polio across the globe. “It’s a disease that mostly affects children and is a crippling disease and eventually will kill you,” said Tim Bucklin, member of the Millbrook Rotary. “It’s so easy to eliminate it totally. In first-world countries everyone gets vaccinated for polio as soon as they’re born.” When a child is inoculated against polio one finger of the child is dyed to prevent children from getting a double dose of the vaccine. On Thursday, students from Millbrook High School’s Interact Club and members of the Millbrook Rotary set up tables in each school’s cafeteria during lunch period. For $1 students could get their pinkies dyed purple with Gentian Violet. The project is intended to increase awareness and make local students a part of the solution in the fight against polio. Students throughout the district said they were excited to get involved and support the project, with some dying both their pinkies or even all of their fingers purple. This was the second year the Millbrook Rotary has done this event at MCSD. Last year, however, the event was only held at the high school. “Last year we had a really good turn out and raised over $100, so this year that we had it in all three schools,” said Marissa Williams, a junior at Millbrook High School and a member of the Interact Club.Bucklin said that polio is close to being eradicated around the world. Of the three types of polio viruses one has already been eliminated. In 2012, India was declared free of polio. The Millbrook Rotary has contributed $10,000 to the effort to stop polio and Rotary International has contributed $1 billion. Now students from MCSD are partnering to help with the effort to stop polio. The purple ink lasts on their pinkie for a day, serving as a reminder of their part in helping one more child to be saved from the disease.
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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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