CORNWALL — A 17-year-old girl was rescued from the Housatonic River Sunday afternoon, May 8, with what appeared to be serious injuries, including head and back trauma and a possible broken ankle but which turned out to be just bad bruises.Cornwall Rescue Chief Skip Kosciusko said she was airlifted to the St. Mary’s Hospital Level 1 Trauma Center in Waterbury. The teen was able to walk out of the hospital later that day, according to Nancy Wolf, who is head of school for the Darrow School in East Lebanon, N.Y. The young woman was one of a group of students on a canoe trip from the school. Wolf responded to questions from The Lakeville Journal in an email that praised the work of local volunteers. She said all the faculty members on the trip also have first aid and/or wilderness responder training. She credited their expertise, combined with the “speedy, quality care” provide by the local responders, with preventing what could have been a tragedy. Wolf passed along a description of the incident, provided by a chaperone. The canoeists had just passed under the Covered Bridge and were heading through a river bend a little before 2 p.m. As they negotiated some rapids, the girl fell out of a canoe and hit her head on a rock.Two chaperones in a support canoe keeping track of the students and helping them through the rapids were able to get to her quickly. One of them stabilized the girl against the canoe and brought her to a beach on the eastern shore of the Housatonic (near Trinity Conference Center). Another stabilized her neck as she was lifted out of the water. A call went in to 911. Zach Sawicki, an EMT who lives near the scene, climbed down a steep hillside to get to the injured girl and assess the situation. “It was obvious we needed to get her out of there fast, but we weren’t going to be able to do it from that side of the river,” he said shortly after the accident.The Cornwall Fire Department’s Zodiac rescue boat was launched from the opposite side and she was taken downstream to a spot where she could be brought out more easily.About two miles downstream from the incident site, the Housatonic Valley Association was setting up for its 70th anniversary picnic at Housatonic Meadows State Park. The scene changed briefly, but dramatically, as the field on the edge of Route 7 was turned into a Life Star helicopter landing zone. A short time later, the school’s bus, loaded with students and escorted by Department of Environmental Protection police, left the park at the spot where they had ended their trip.The emergency services volunteers also responded within the hour to two boaters who had capsized in Cornwall Bridge. One was hypothermic upon rescue. Both were treated at Sharon Hospital and released.
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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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