WEBUTUCK — Space is the place to be if you’re a student (or teacher) at Webutuck Elementary School: the PARP (People as Reading Partners) reading initiative kicked off this month with the typical bang known as Theme Day.For the past six years, the PARP program has encouraged children to read for at least 15 minutes each day with their parents. Each Friday for the entire month of March, the students bring in their checklist, certifying that they have met that reading quota at least five of the past seven days. Students who complete the checklist get special prizes each week, and at the end of the four-week program, a certificate for participating.More recently, the “One School, One Book” program had added a fun twist to the PARP experience: One book is chosen to be purchased for all of the students in pre-kindergarten through third grade, made possible through budget funds as well as private donations.The book this year is “The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet,” by Eleanor Cameron, and 300 books were purchased for each of the students.Theme Day transforms the school to reflect the book chosen that year. Outer Space Adventure was the official title of what amounted to a lot of hard work by teachers, staff and parent volunteers, who decorated the halls and classrooms of Webutuck Elementary as a giant solar system.Theme Day is more than just a dressed-up school day. Students rotate through 21 stations during the day, where teachers have different projects and activities that have to do with space.Most teachers wore special T-shirts with planets on them; one even donned a costume space suit for a special reading about the moon.“Every single staff member is involved,” explained librarian Beth Murphy, who heads the PARP program every year (teacher Lynn Buckley coordinates the “One School, One Book” drive). “Quite a few stayed late this year and helped decorate the place.”Murphy said that over the years the program has encouraged more and more students to participate in the PARP goal of reading at least 15 minutes a day. Last year was the record high — 89 percent participation — but that hasn’t stopped Murphy from continuing to set the bar higher and higher.“Space is something we don’t delve into much here,” she explained. “For most of the students, it’s a completely new subject. So for today, every room they go into is a new adventure, and they are sucking in all this information without even realizing it.”After Theme Day, Murphy followed up with a quick anecdote, via e-mail, about how special and unique the day really is.“I was thinking about a librarian conference I attended, where everyone had to share amazing feats they attempted to get kids reading,” she wrote. “I was last for some wonderful reason, and when I told them about Theme Day they were in awe. They could not believe that our teachers would all agree to another project that required tons of extra work. They wanted to know how I convinced them to participate.“My response: I am truly blessed to work with such wonderful teachers. Our teachers are out of this world. Newbie or veteran, everyone I have ever worked with here at Webutuck has been willing to do what ever it takes to make an event truly memorable for our children. I guess we really love the jobs we hold.”PARP will continue for the rest of the month of March. Buckley explained that she will be giving out questions to the students at the end of each week about “The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet” that she hopes will stimulate conversation between parents and their children about the book. The book begins with a newspaper ad for adult-free spaceship constructors. The first question is: Does this ad spark your imagination? Where does your imagination take you?
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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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