PINE PLAINS — The Stissing Mountain boys varsity basketball team started the winter sports season with a solid win over John A. Coleman on Friday, Dec. 9. The final score was 71 to 46.Stissing Mountain also dominated Coleman in rebounds, securing 55 against Coleman’s 23.Stissing Mountain’s top scorer during the game was Robert Lamont and the top rebounder was Zach Lydon.“We started to pound the ball into the paint and take advantage of our size in the second half,” coach Brendan LoBrutto said.At the end of the first half, Pine Plains was down 35 to 38, but the team came back strong in the second half of the game, letting Coleman score only eight additional points.“I was very impressed with how the team stepped up,” LoBrutto said. “It took us the first half to get into the flow of the game, but the guys responded to the challenge.”LoBrutto said he was also pleased with how the team dealt with playing without Justin Cooper, the starting point guard. Cooper was replaced on the floor by Tyler Lydon, who the coach said “did a great job of settling us down.”LoBrutto also called out Adam Miller for his strong game and how he used his towering frame “to shut down the middle on defense.”“Bryant Rosato and Charlie Nicolich also had an outstanding defensive game,” LoBrutto said.This is LoBrutto’s third year as a basketball coach and his second year in charge of the boys varsity basketball team. Last year, he lead the team to the Section 9 championships.“We’re excited about the year and looking forward to building on last year,” he said, noting that he was optimistic about his team.LoBrutto said his teams’s biggest strength is its height; despite having only four seniors, all but two of the players are over 6 feet tall, and four of the players reach 6 feet 5 inches, with one coming in at an impressive 6 feet 9 inches.LoBrutto said that kind of height is unusual in high school teams, especially in this region.He said that his team’s main focus is to work on playing a high-tempo game, which will strengthen their offense.LoBrutto said he and his team do not feel a lot of pressure to repeat the successes of last year because championships are not the main reason for being on the team.“It’s still a game. You still have to have fun doing it,’ he said. “It’s not worth it unless you’re having fun.”
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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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