Interview of Matt Kanner

 Max Jasper and Mae Rines

1/3/11

Living Local History

Matt Kanner

Matt Kanner, editor for the Portsmouth based newspaper ‘The Wire’ has been working with the production for four years on a full-time basis, also having written free-lance articles for The Wire beforehand. He wrote for his high school newspaper at Exeter High School, but never really planned to pursue journalism as a career at the time. He was an English major in college but wasn't really sure what he wanted to do. He returned to the Seacoast (after five years out west) right around the time The Wire was starting up in the fall of 2003. They were looking for music writers and he started doing some freelance work. That was his first experience getting published. He later worked as a daily reporter for Foster's Daily Democrat for a couple of years, covering the police/court/fire beat in Rochester and then Portsmouth. When an opening came up at The Wire, he left Foster's and hopped aboard. ‘I've been here ever since.’ Kanner said.

He stated the most difficult part about his job was deciding who and who not to interview. There’s so much going on locally, in politics, culture, arts and entertainment. It's difficult to cover it all in a weekly 24-page publication with limited resources. Having to make decisions every week as to which pieces of news, events and trends are the most significant and of the most interest to The Wire’s readers is tough.

Although Mr. Kanner does have the difficult job of finding the best of the best out of the collection of stories, he did say that the flip side of the previous statement is that he gets to cover all kinds of interesting stuff. He gets to interview lots of cool, smart, creative people engaged in all kinds of neat projects. In addition to hundreds of local figures, He has talked to famous musicians like Les Claypool, George Clinton, John Scofield, Rufus Wainwright; authors like Augusten Burroughs, Chuck Palahniuk, Paul Harding; comedians like Cheech and Chong; and politicians like Barack Obama and Joe Biden (when they were both U.S. Senators). Every week he is immersed in fascinating new stories, and says he is always learning and it never gets dull.

He also told us some of the more interesting stories he has come across. One was a story he did story he did about the area's hardcore music scene. The author of the book "American Hardcore" was giving a presentation at Portsmouth Library. Kanner interviewed him and talked to a number of local musicians, including Dropkick Murphys front man Al Barr, who lives in Portsmouth. It was interesting to learn about what the scene was like back in the 1980s, when it was at its peak, and how it's evolved over the years to the present day.

Another that came to mind was a story he had written late in 2008 about the historic election results of that year. For the first time in the history of any state, New Hampshire had voted in a majority of women in the State Senate, and also elected a female U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative. The Speaker of the House and Senate President were both women, too. He had spoken with many of these elected officials about the significance of the election and what it meant for the state and nation.

In regards to those who seek to be journalists in the future, he said his best piece of advice would be to “put in the work with some hard news reporting. People often refer to Foster's as boot camp for journalists, because they demand a high volume of stories with strict deadlines. That experience really hammered me into shape as a reporter. It can be stressful to meet daily deadlines and answer to cranky editors, but if you can't handle that stress than you're just not going to hack it as a serious journalist. If you do, though, journalism can be immensely rewarding.”

Interview of Karen Marzloff

By: Max Jasper and Mae Rines

Karen Marzloff is a truly upstanding citizen. She co-founded the non-profit organization, Seacoast Local. It’s first “Buy Local” campaign was during holiday shopping in December 2006. Seacoast Local encourages citizens to buy from local businesses to help support a healthy economy. Her job at the Portsmouth-based headquarters is to make sure everything functions properly. For co-founding the organization she received the “Citizen of the Year” award in 2009. Though the award was shared with the other founder Tom Holbrook, it is no less prestigious.

“Our mission is to educate the public on the value of our local economy here on the seacoast. The healthier we make our economy, the healthier our community will be” said Marzloff when asked what her organization did. “What difference does that make? Well, when we spend our money at locally owned, independent businesses as compared to national chains, three times as much of our money stays in the community, thanks to profits that stay in the pockets of local owners, payroll of more local employees, philanthropy to local charitable causes, and purchasing of local goods and services. The bigger the national chain, the more of each dollar spent at the cash register goes straight to corporate headquarters somewhere else.”

Karen’s interest in philanthropic endeavors originated from how she was raised. Church taught her that she was responsible for her brothers and sisters, both in the local community and around the whole world. Her parents were always involved in some sort of volunteer work while Karen was off at 4-H. Her time there taught her to take action and donate time back to the community instead of just going home and watching TV.

“I think I am influenced by a lot of things; authors, artists and musicians, or entrepreneurs who run interesting businesses, historical and contemporary figures who display genuine leadership and courage, even nature. I'm influenced a lot by how beautiful and diverse planet earth is. I know that's kind of a vague answer, but it's true. I think I do absorb a lot of what I'm surrounded by.” According to Karen, the trick to doing well, for both yourself and others, is to surround yourself with diversity. The reason for that is you can then do a trial and error in life by “seeing what works and what doesn’t”. She admires those who do whatever they do, as well as possible. It may be very difficult to perpetuate such behavior. Her advice for that is to “have a lot of inspirational examples to help stay on track”.

Seacoast Local is a non-profit organization and you can find them online at http://www.seacoastlocal.org/

Colin Nollet

10-8-10

Shannon Nollet

Shannon Nollet was born on May 23, 1993 in Beverly Massachusetts. The hospital where she was born could be seen across Beverly Harbor from Salem Willows. She explained that Salem Willows was an arcade area and park that her family would bring her to when she lived in Lynn, MA. Shannon lived in Lynn for six years; she went through both pre-school and kindergarten while there. Her family ended up moving to Epping, New Hampshire, cutting short her first grade career in Lynn.

Once in New Hampshire, Shannon started her first day of first grade at Epping Elementary School. She had gone there with her mom, but she was soon pulled away by three of her new classmates: Cacia King, Taylor Fiore, and Taylor Dahme. Telling Shannon's mom that they had it handled, the three friends told Shannon all she needed to know about Epping. They told her who to be friends with, who to avoid, all about the teacher, how the school was run, and what boys were cute (at the time, the cutest boy was a Michael Seamen). From the teacher, Shannon found out that they were learning the alphabet and were at the letter E; she was not impressed. Her first grade teacher in Lynn had already started reading Harry Potter to her. When Shannon left Lynn, her teacher gave Shannon a copy of Harry Potter and Shannon ended up taking turns reading it with her mom after she moved to Epping. This didn’t help her opinion of Epping kids because she started to think that all Epping students really had no brains, because they couldn’t even read yet.

She admitted that she turned out to be wrong as she grew up with the same group of people for the entirety of elementary school. She still goes to Epping and has many friends that live in Epping with her. Her best friends are Becky Weaver, Kim Lemieux, Sam Leclerc, and Cacia King. She has been in the same grade with all of them since fourth grade and has been friends with them just as long. Just recently she has earned a brand new hoard of friends.

Over the recent summer Shannon went to St. Paul’s which is a private high school that opens its doors to smart kids all around New Hampshire for the summer. It is known as the Advanced Studies Program and the people who attend have a specific class which they take for the five week program. Shannon took Shakespeare for performance where she performed in two plays: All’s Well that Ends Well and Twelfth Night. They had 17 days to rehearse for Twelfth Night and only thirteen days to rehearse for All’s Well that Ends Well. She got to play Maria in Twelfth Night where she brought a new light to the word saucy!

She definitely loved the experience and got to take a lot away from it. She got tons of new friends, from her Shakespeare class, her dorm, the boy’s dorm, and even from the lunch room. Her room mate, the amazing Katherine Kessler, became one of her greatest friends during St. Paul’s and they will probably be best friends for a while. The long future ahead will tell us what comes next for the biography of Shannon Nollet.

Jerry Boris Dorbin Interview

Jerry Boris Dorbin

By Emma Baker

Jerry was born in Slilana, Kansas with his older sister Rosanne and two younger brothers, Sanford and Gale. Jerry then moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where his parents grew up. His father owned a small store, but was forced to shut it down in The Great Depression. Jerry found out that his mother had cancer and that she died when he was seven. His father couldn’t handle her death so he sent his children away; Jerry was sent to a boarding school is Kansas City.

Jerry had replaced his family with the boarding school since he lived there and it was his home. Even though on long vacations he lived with his wealthy aunts and uncles his home truly was the boarding school that he forced to go to. Once a week for two years one very Monday, there was a morning assembly where the school would gather and sing college football fight songs.

Later Jerry went off to a private school on the edge of Los Angelous. At this school he had the chance to meet Jack Benny’s daughter, George Burns’ kids, and Hoagie Carmichael’s kids. After his high school, he went into the navy and he took quite a few photography classes, where he was trained to take pictures of the Korean War. In the navy he also wrote and took pictures for the navy newspaper. While writing for this newspaper, he realized his knack and love for writing.

Once he got out of the navy he went to be a football writer for a local newspaper. He worked on this newspaper for ten years. This was a very small town newspaper and one day when he was getting his story about a fire he accidentally mentioned the name of a store without their consent in the article and he was fired.

Jerry then moved to Santa Fe New Mexico where he lives and now and became a health inspector publicist. He would go on to be a stockbroker for twenty-one years, which was strange since he had been a writer up to that point. Now Jerry writes articles more magazines and some light verse; he also has completed a novel but cant seem to get it published.

An example of one of his light verses goes something like this:

A whimsical huckster named Pringle

Wrote ads that could make clients tingle

In endless staccato

He chanted his motto

“ For slogans just give me a jingle!”

Rob Marggraf

By: Colin Nollet and Mae Rines

Most people see death but once in their life; some see it every day of their lives. Rob Marggraf is one of those people who see death on a 9:00 to 5:00 basis. Rob is one of the lead workers at Tasker’s Funeral Home in Dover. He has been in the business since a very young age, following in the footsteps of his father. When he was young, Rob lived in Massachusetts where his father practiced as a funeral director. His father never owned a funeral home, but Rob frequently heard about his dad’s work at the dinner table.

His father never brought his “real” work home, so Rob didn’t see a dead body until he was around ten or eleven. While running errands, Rob’s dad took Rob to the funeral so that he could finish a few things. Rob waited for his dad in the embalming room while his dad picked up a few things. He described the room as having tables with bodies on them and that all he could help but do was just stand and look around. The bodies weren’t of people he knew so he didn’t feel sad; he was only impressed. When he saw his first embalming, Rob said that he wasn’t disgusted by it; instead, the process fascinated him.

His father’s field of work intrigued him, but he didn’t pursue that field at first; Rob went to college for European history in hopes of becoming a teacher. After college, Rob worked in the marketing business but was not happy with what he was accomplishing. Sometime in the ‘90s Rob started working on and off with his dad, helping out with all the different jobs. In 1994 he finally decided to go back to school at UNH to get his degree in mortuary science. He has been a licensed Funeral Director since ’96.

Rob didn’t start out at the Tasker Funeral Home. He first started working for a larger funeral company. He lived in Dover with his wife and three kids, during this time, and commuted to Manchester for work. He ended up becoming part of a Dover “Gravestone committee.” Rob met Grover Tasker through this board, for Grover was one of its head members. When Grover’s son, Lee, quit the family business, Grover asked Rob to take Lee’s place at the Tasker Funeral Home.

Rob has been a supervisor at the Tasker Funeral Home for five years now and does many things there. Rob acts as a head for parts of the business and does anything from taking phone calls to embalming the bodies. He is part of the process for every body and funeral and his part varies so that he always has something to do. He is grateful to the Taskers for the job but he is also very close to them. He described the Tasker family as very good people in their business and their community. He really loves his job and his family and he would love to meet you, but you might have to die first.

Jen Palmatier Interview

Jen Palmatier

By Emma Baker 

Jen Palmatier moved to Milton Mills, NH in January of ’95. Jen, her husband and their three children moved to Milton Mills because it was inexpensive and not like other model “boxes” that people tried to sell off as homes. They loved the feel of the town. They said it felt a lot like Mayberry, and how it seemed like a great place to raise kids. Over the years, Milton Mills has changed and evolved but its still a decade behind the rest of the world. It is such a small town that you cannot find on accident and you have to want to be there.


Jen works at the Milton Free Public Library and she started to work for the library 9 years ago when a large problem arose. A patron with the library was supposedly censoring a book, but she just wanted to go to a librarian trustees’ meeting and talk about why it was bad. Then someone spoke against her and it had a snowball effect. Jen went to the meeting and realized that everything that was going on was ridiculous so she became a board member so she could do her part to help the town.


The towns of Milton and Milton Mills were conservative republic towns at first but they are slowly changing. Most of the community were people that have been in Milton Mills for a long time and not very welcome to newcomers. They were not very welcome to Jen and her family when they arrived. The town of Milton Mills is very old fashion and they have a lot of community spirit.


The New Hampshire Farm Museum was founded in the early 1900s to help support the community. It was an inexpensive and safe place for people of all ages and way to pass along history. Jen volunteers with the New Hampshire Farm Museum and does a lot of work in the gardens but she is slowly burning out with it. She also helps with a children’s day camp. It’s a junior’s volunteer camp, to be exact. They sell locally grown food, but in a place where they don’t have to compete with other farmers.


But the New Hampshire Farm Museum isn’t the only safe, local place for the residents of Milton and Milton Mills. The Milton Town Beach or Milton Three Ponds has always been a very special place for Milton. It is an inexpensive and safe place for kids. Awhile back, they offered free swimming lessons. After each year of swimming lessons completed there was a big party with prizes for the kids. Unfortunately, they had to shut down the swimming lessons because they couldn’t get a Red Cross certified volunteer teacher. One of the yearly things that takes place at the beach is the Beach Day, which is when the students from Nute high school spend a day at the beach.


Nute high school in Milton used to be a private but in the ‘50s it became a public school. The graduating class size is slowly lowering but rumored to be on the rise starting with next year’s class. Unlike many other schools they still honor the old fashion holidays like Veteran’s day by having the Veterans of Milton come in and talk to the kids.

Interview Hunter Williams by Mae Rines

Hunter Williams is a young man who was born at Wentworth Douglas Hospital in Dover, New Hampshire on September the 3^rd, 1995. As a child he contracted lead poisoning at the hospital, which is the reason for his speech impediment.  Later in life Hunter, his older sister Jassa, and his younger brother Parker went out into their enormous backyard on a snow day. The snow was slick and shallow. They went out on the one-inch of ice, thinking it was safe, but of course it wasn't. He fell through. It was ice cold and he couldn’t touch the bottom. There, in the freezing water he soon went numb. He waited for two minutes while his brother, Parker, went to go get their mother. Eventually she went in and saved them.

When his youngest brother, Kai, was born he asked his mother where babies came from (Hunter didn’t wish to elaborate on the explanation). When asked about Jassa, he said that his relationship with his sister is “A good one. We treat each other like crap but we help and love each other, and that’s what counts.” His favorite childhood memory is receiving his dog, Rex.

Hunter has lived his entire life on the border of Rollinsford and Dover in a fairly large estate near a horse barn called ‘Wishmaker Stables’. There, his family teaches riding lessons and raises several different horses. Hunter spends time taking care of the horses there; some of his jobs include feeding, watering, shaving, removing hay from the stalls, and bringing in the horses from outside.

Hunter seeks to be a writer and actor in the future after going to college. He wants go to either Prince Brown or UNH for university. When he is older he wants to stay in New England, live in a large estate, and have a family of his own and a dog. While Hunter Williams is still at a fairly young age, he sees a bright future ahead of himself and aspires to do his best.