Engineers from the state Department of Transportation met with the Board of Selectmen to update them on the progress of the I-93 and Route 111 improvements, a project that is chugging rather than gliding forward at this point, due to deep gouges in the state’s budget.

The Windham section of the project, which includes adding lanes to I-93, shifting Route 111A to the north and reshaping the interchange of Route 111 and I-93 by Exit 3 and exchanging the loop ramps for a diamond-shaped design, is projected to be completed by 2015, said project manager Peter Stamnas. The entire I-93 project is supposed to be complete by 2017.

The Board of Selectmen pondered issues of limited access to Route 111, landscaping and future surplus land that could eventually be sold to bring commercial development to Windham.

When Route 111A is moved north, motorists will only be able to make a right hand turn onto it from I-93, said Stamnas. The remaining part of it would become a town-owned road.

“One of our biggest issues in this town is economic development. By making that limited access, that kind of bars us from doing stuff in the future,” said Selectmen Chairman Dennis Senibaldi.

Selectman Roger Hohenberger voiced concern over the transition from four lanes down to two on I-93, which will also take place by Exit 3.

“Now we’re going to be the bottleneck where Salem used to be the bottleneck. It didn’t work in Salem, what you guys did, so I was just wondering how you’re going to make it work in Windham,” Hohenberger asked Stamnas.

Stamnas said the location of the bottleneck allows ample time for people to merge and that it is the least complex way of doing it. “We looked at three or four different versions and we came up with one that we feel is best suited not only for traffic volume but also for finance,” Stamnas said.

Hohenberger said the change is going to cause commuters coming up I-93 to detour onto back roads through Windham.

The state is also still trying to figure out where to install one or more conduits for sewer and electricity through I-93, a piece of the project that has become tricky with the grading associated with the added lanes.

Stamnas said the state has some ideas for the installation, but said the DOT and Selectmen need to meet “immediately” to discuss where, when and how to install that conduit.

“I don’t have any information for size. There really isn’t a great spot,” Stamnas said. “It’s not going to be an inexpensive piece of work. The town would have to pay for the installation,” he said.

Hohenberger said the state promised to pay for the installation several years ago, and Selectman Charles McMahon said if something has changed since that promise, Stamnas should look into it and inform the town right away.

Stamnas was also trying to get the board’s feelings on a $225,000 landscaping layout that would surround the interchange by exit 3. The plan includes hundreds of trees which Stamnas described as low-maintenance.

The state would install all the greenery for that plan, but after a year the town would take on ownership and responsibility for maintaining them.

Both McMahon and Hohenberger thought the money the town would have to spend to maintain the landscape each year would be too much. Final maintenance costs have not been calculated yet.

Senibaldi said the board needs to sit down with a professional to go through the plans and get the best estimate for how much the maintenance wold cost the town each year.

“We’re making a decision for the future taxpayers of Windham, and we need to be sensitive to that,” Senibaldi said.

Breton said the board should go with the landscaping plan, as previous boards had approved it and the location is the gateway to the Windham community.

“We spend money on other projects that don’t have the magnitude of what this project is,” said Breton.

The summers she spent as a playground supervisor in Methuen, Mass., taught Beth McGuire that she loved working with kids.

She would spend three decades working as an educator to children, including 18 years in Windham.

On June 30, McGuire will retire from her position as principal of Golden Brook School.

“I love seeing the kids (here),” said McGuire, who held the job for eight years. “I’ll miss them for sure.”

McGuire’s husband, Jim, a former middle school principal in Tewksbury, Mass., retired two years ago. The couple wants to travel, including visits to see their son, Jared, who lives in California, and to do volunteer work for the elderly and in schools. They are also caring for elderly parents.

“I’m very excited about retirement because I have some specific things I want to do,” Mc- Guire said.

McGuire became principal after serving two years as associate principal of Hollis Primary School.

Before that, she had spent a decade teaching at Golden Brook, spending six years with second-graders and four years with third-grade students.

Two accomplishments she is most proud of during her work as principal have been developing a school-wide approach to promoting positive behavior and developing the school’s own approach to teaching reading and writing. Both efforts have paid off well, she said.

“Literacy was big with her, making sure all the students performed as best they could,” said School Board member Barbara Coish. “She just really cared about the children’s success educationally.”

In 2005, the New Hampshire Excellence in Education Awards program named Golden Brook the state’s top elementary school.

Ironically, the school had applied for the award, not with the intention of winning, but rather to learn from the program’s selection committee how it could improve.

“My goal is to analyze what you’re doing and get better at it,” McGuire said.

As a principal, McGuire had the difficult task of setting direction for the staff to move in, and to build consensus for the move.

“I thought it would be more powerful for a group to come in and show us where we need to improve. But when they came in and analyzed everything we were doing, we ended up getting the award that year,” McGuire recalled with a laugh.

McGuire has two bachelor’s degrees – one in education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the other in computer science from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston.

She earned the second degree on Saturdays when she took a break from teaching to be at home with her son. Jared, now 26, works for Google’s legal department.

McGuire also earned a master’s degree in education from Notre Dame College, and obtained a certificate in advanced graduate study at Rivier College in Nashua.

She will be succeeded at Golden Brook by Deb Armfield, the assistant principal at Center School.

As an undergraduate student, McGuire switched majors several times before deciding to major in education during her junior year.

UMass couldn’t place all its education majors in student teaching assignments around Amherst, however, so McGuire did her student teaching in California.

When she began her professional career at North Salem School, teaching was hard. The teaching structure was different from the open concept system she experienced in California, and Mc- Guire experienced a bit of culture shock. She signed up for a computer course, not knowing if her teaching career would work out.

But by the end of the year, the situation was looking better. Her students were learning a lot, and McGuire was confident she could keep going.

One of her first students was John E. Sununu, who is now a U.S. senator representing New Hampshire. Six years ago, when Sununu won election to the Senate, McGuire, a Democrat, cast a vote for him.

“The only time I ever voted Republican was when he was running, because he was a former student and I wanted to vote for him,” McGuire said. “Plus, I knew he was really smart, and I knew he'd do a really good job."

Windham’s Board of Selectmen is planning a special election in September to obtain funding for a secondary access road for the new high school currently under construction.

The new road would overlap the current London Bridge Road, connecting the entrance to the high school on Route 111 to Castle Hill Road behind the high school, said Town Administrator David Sullivan.

The proposed warrant for the special election asks for voters to authorize taking out a $1.25 million bond and to accept any forthcoming grants toward the project costs. The Board of Selectmen approved the warrant at their meeting on Monday, June 9.

Sullivan said the town had planned on putting the project on its budget, but Selectman Charles McMahon submitted a petitioned warrant article for the townwide vote last March to put it on the school district budget, which would allow the project to qualify for 30 percent state reimbursement.

That warrant article failed with voters. The project does not qualify for state reimbursement, Sullivan said, because it will not be a part of the school district’s budget.

“The way we’re moving forward, it’s going to be part of the town’s budget,” Sullivan said.

A hearing on the conditional layout of the road, which would include construction parameters, width and a Board of Selectmen decision on whether the road is necessary will take place Monday, July 21, Sullivan said.

Prior to taking public input, the board will attend a site walk of the future road starting at 6 p.m. Sullivan said a deliberative session for the warrant will take place the week of Aug. 6, with the hope of including the warrant on the primary ballot for Tuesday, Sept. 9.

The Windham School Board and the Fire Department are looking to pool their resources to purchase 11 new automated external defibrillators for town buildings and the new Windham High School.

The Windham Board of Selectmen gave their conditional approval to the Fire Department to waive the bid process pending some further price shopping after Assistant Fire Chief Robert Leuci explained at a meeting on Monday, June 2, that he believed the model being sought was the best value.

Six of the defibrillators will go into the high school and the town’s five will go into the library, town hall, senior center, transfer station and Griffin Park, said Leuci.

Only two town buildings, the administrative building and the cable station, will not have defibrillators, but both have easy access to them at the town hall and senior center, respectively. In purchasing the machines together, the distributor being considered is offering a 20 percent discount, Leuci said, for the defibrillators and the required cabinets required for them.

The model being sought, a Phillips FRx 2, is a newer model that will result in cost savings long term, said Leuci.

“With the on-site machines, we have to replace the pads every two years. This saves us about $1,500 each year on purchasing and replacing child pads,” Leuci said.

The child pads emit a different charge than the adult pads. The model has a key to automatically switch the defibrillators to the child pad setting.

There is $8,500 budgeted for the town’s five defibrillators. To buy five of the FRx 2 machines, the department will run about $1,300 over budget, said Town Administrator David Sullivan.

The Windham School District moderator will select several residents to join two School Board members to study withdrawing from School Administrative Unit 28.

Currently Windham shares SAU 28 with Pelham, but the addition of the new Windham High School could prove too much for the current school administration staff to handle, said Windham School Board Chairman Barbara Coish.

“The towns are both growing, and with Windham now going to have its own high school in the next couple of years, just the work load is so much for the personnel there,” Coish said. “If we’re going to do it, it’s probably the right time.”

Windham voters overwhelmingly passed an article on this year’s ballot authorizing the Windham School Board to form a committee to investigate the possibility of withdrawing from the district.

At a meeting of the SAU 28 board, which includes Pelham and Windham school board members, on Tuesday, May 13, it was announced that Windham board members Michael Hatem and Mark Brockmeier would be on the withdrawal study committee.

School District Moderator Elizabeth Dunn is in the process of seeking volunteers for the five seats on the committee that are reserved for community members.

Superintendent Frank Bass will be present during the withdrawal committee’s meetings to provide information and guidance as needed, but will not be a voting member, Coish said.

Once the committee is established, members will gather information regarding the costs, consequences and benefits of separating from Pelham.

Coish said the goal is to have the withdrawal committee give its final report and findings to the Windham School Board by January, giving the board time to draft another warrant article before the March 2009 election, should the findings be in favor of withdrawal.

Should Windham withdraw, it would retain the ownership of the SAU 28 office at 19 Haverhill Road, Route 111, and Pelham would be responsible for finding its own facility.

Pelham would keep the SAU 28 title, but not the staff. They would have to hire a new superintendent and school administration staff.

The state Board of Education, which has to approve the withdrawal application, would then issue Windham a new SAU number.

Bruce Couture, chairman of the Pelham School Board, said Pelham has not taken an official stance on Windham’s desire to pull out of SAU 28, but said the board is preparing for it in the event it happens.

The Pelham Board will reserve making any decisions until after the withdrawal committee has reported its findings, he said.

“There are probably pros and cons to both things,” Couture said, adding there are a lot of things to consider, including the financial situation Windham’s exit from the SAU will put Pelham in.

“I think in some ways it could probably make sense, and in other ways it could make sense to stay together,” he said.

Couture did say that the current school administration staff is at its workload capacity, and the opening of Windham High School in September 2009 will tax them even more, something else the committee will have to look into.

“I would think they’re close to being pretty full, to be honest with you. I don’t know if it’s in a crisis mode at this point ... it’s pretty tight,” Couture said.

The School Board once again closed the book on protests and discussion of the future high school’s colors and mascot last week.

Reading a six-sentence statement adopted by the School Board on May 6, Chairman Barbara Coish said there would be no further discussion on changing the school’s colors to green and gold.

Since last summer, the board has held several hearings and meetings with input from children and parents who wanted to change the planned dominant color of Windham High School from blue to green in keeping with town traditions.

The board voted against revisiting the colors that were decided by Windham students in a district-wide election in 2005, but green was later added as an accent color.

“In an effort to avoid divisiveness, the School Board voted to add the color green to the color scheme,” Coish said.

Although parents voiced concern that green wouldn’t be the dominant color, the School Board said the amount each color is used would be left up to the school administrators and athletic director.

Resident Jeff Domogala was the only person supporting the switch to green present for the announcement, but said it’s still an issue that gets attention in social circles in town.

“A lot of people still talk about it,” Domogala said. “I’m just disappointed that they really won’t revisit this.”

In protest of the board’s decisions over the past year, Domogala assisted with a petitioned warrant article on the 2007 ballot and has tied a large green ribbon around a tree in front of his house on Telo Road.

Jim Curtin, who drafted the petition, resigned his position as a volunteer firefighter from the town’s Fire Department over the issue, Domogala said.

Although the petition article requesting that school colors be green, gold and white succeeded on the ballot, it was a nonbinding referendum.

“They kind of just took anything in with what they wanted, and they ignored the students,” Domogala said. “They ignored the voters.”

Police shut down a rural stretch of Route 28 for six hours Friday, May 2, after a Derry man was killed in a single-car accident.

Police found the driver, Esau Stanley Jr., 32, of Derry, dead at the scene near the Libbey Road intersection of Rockingham Road shortly after the accident was called in around 7:30 a.m.

Police Chief Gerald Lewis said speed may have been a factor.

“It’s one of the things we’re going to look at,” Lewis said. “It’s still at the early stages where we’re collecting a lot of information.” Lewis said Stanley’s 2008 Chevrolet Corvette was found a short distance off the road on its side.

“It went off the road and into the woods where it did hit some trees and went over,” Lewis said. “We don’t believe seat belts were being used."

While the stretch of Route 28 where the accident happened has few traffic lights, Lewis wouldn’t characterize it as a road where speeding commonly occurs.

“It’s commuter traffic. They travel at roughly 45 to 50 mph,” he said.

Stanley’s wife Michelle, 32, a passenger in the car, received minor injuries from the crash.

The road was closed off to through traffic through 2:30 p.m. on May 2 as police investigated the scene with help from Derry Police Department’s accident reconstruction team.

Police are seeking information from anyone who might have seen the crash.

Anyone with information can call Windham officer Bryan Smith at 434-5577.

When thousands of bicyclists ride through Massachusetts to raise money for cancer victims, Windham’s Steve Horaj will be among them.

Horaj will put his endurance to the test when he rides 163 miles over just two days. He will be participating in the Pan-Mass Challenge, whose organizers hope to raise $34 million this year for the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute.

“Who doesn’t know someone who hasn’t been affected by cancer?” said Horaj, who will ride from Wellesley to Provincetown on Aug. 2 and 3.

Since 1980, the annual bike-a-thon has raised more than $204 million through the Jimmy Fund for cancer treatment and research. The event raises more money for charity than any other athletic event in the country.

More than 5,500 cyclists are expected to participate this year. Each cyclist chooses from seven routes and rides one or two days.

Horaj, 20, a 2006 Salem High School graduate, began cycling while doing a college externship in Los Angeles as a way to beat heavy traffic. His enthusiasm for riding grew – fueled in part by coverage of the Tour de France – and by the end of his time in L.A., he was riding about 60 miles a day for exercise.

“I got really into it,” said Horaj, who was cooking at a hotel in Beverly Hills at the time. “I loved riding, I loved exercising.”

Horaj has found inspiration from Lance Armstrong, the road cyclist champion who battled testicular cancer and won the Tour de France seven times. Armstrong established a foundation that helps cancer victims.

“I think he’s a great motivator. That’s what I look up to,” said Horaj, who is reading Armstrong’s autobiography, “It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.”

Horaj recently earned an associate’s degree in culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and is now working as a line cook at a Boston restaurant and bakery shop.

Although this will be his first charity bike ride, he has previously helped others. He participated in a Relay for Life, held at Salem High School, to benefit the American Cancer Society. And he was in a peer outreach program, No Butts About It, that brought an anti-smoking, anti-drug use message to younger students.

Horaj, who has committed to raising $4,000 for the bike-a-thon, is willing to put the name of cancer victims on his jersey if people would like him to ride in honor of a loved one.

The Pan-Mass Challenge can be an emotional event for its riders. Loved ones of cancer victims express their thanks and hold signs of cancer patients. Riders have been known to wipe away tears, said Horaj.

“It’s supposed to be a very emotional thing,” he said.

How you can help

To help Steve Horaj raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, go to www.pmc.org. Click on “Donate” in the upper left hand corner. When “Sponsor Rider with Donation” appears on the screen, you can donate to Stephen Horaj using his eGift number, SH0148. Or you can mail a donation, made payable to PMC, and send it to Horaj at his home: 6 Red Fox Road, Windham, NH