MILLBROOK — Bill Augerson, who has been in and out of Millbrook for 60 years, has dedicated his working career to science and military service. Now in his retirement, he is devoted to promoting a new museum that showcases the history of the U.S. Army.Augerson began his military career with the U.S. Navy in 1945, serving in the Pacific during the end of World War II and the Bikini nuclear test. He left the Navy in 1946 and was commissioned in the U.S. Army in 1951, beginning active duty in 1955. He worked as a general practicioner, flight surgeon and internal medicine specialist.Augerson has earned a number of awards, including the Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Combat Medical Badge, Master Flight Surgeon wings, Parachutist and Free Fall Parachutist wings and five air medals. Augerson retired from the military service as a major general. He is now coming forward to raise awareness of the Army’s history. “The Army is America’s Army; without it we wouldn’t have a country or might have lost it,” said Augerson. “People tend to think about the Army only by focusing on the all the wars the country has been in, which is a big part of the Army’s history. However, through the years the Army has done a great deal in building the development of this country.”Augerson is now speaking out about a new museum being built to help preserve the United States Army’s history. The National Museum of the United States Army’s anticipated completion is 2015 and will be located at Fort Belvoir, Va., outside of Washington, DC. The museum is being built through The Army Historical Foundation, and is set to become the United States Army’s national landmark. “It will serve as a landmark to celebrate the contributions of the 30 million men and women who have served in the Army,” said Augerson. “It’s intended to be a lively museum. They will have it set up so it seems virtually real.”Augerson said that the museum will be designed to have educational programs, preserve Army history, honor Army values and pay tribute to 14 generations of soldiers. The museum will have a section that tells individual stories, space for living history re-enactments and public performances, an amphitheater and a memorial walk to honor soldiers. In addition to educating its visitors, the museum will also be a place for unit reunions with meeting rooms. Augerson settled in Millbrook in 1996 with his wife, Virginia Benham. He hopes to get the Millbrook community and other areas aware of the national landmark for all the men and women who were a part of the Army to help preserve their history.“We aren’t very strong on history in this country,” said Augerson. “My personal view is if you don’t have any sense of how you got where you are, it’s a little hard to figure out where you are going. For me, history is important. The museum is a way to bring things together to remember who we are as a people and what the Army has done.”
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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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