ORLEANS – Dr. Maxine Minkoff loves to do jigsaw puzzles. In fact, she admits to loving to solve "puzzles of all kinds." The Orleans resident and retired principal of Nauset Regional Middle School, now also the newly named executive director of the Centers for Culture and History (the CHO) in Orleans, has just the right skills for her new job, especially the ability to pull all the pieces together to form a cohesi...

ORLEANS — Carolyn Carey didn’t take a time machine to get to the Orleans Citizens Forum meeting, but she did seem to beam in from a future to which this town might aspire. Carey, director of the Harwich Community Center since its opening 21 years ago, participated Jan. 25 in an online panel discussion titled “Orleans Community Center: Imagine All It Can Be” with Select Board Chair Kevin Galligan and recreati...

“God made mud. God got lonesome. So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!" "See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars." And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud.” Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut ORLEANS — When Cape Cod sat up, it looked like Dana Eldridge. Tall as a lighthouse, casting a cheerful beam on people and places, illuminating fo...

ORLEANS — The May 31 deadline to qualify the redevelopment of Nauset Regional High School for $36 million in state funds toward the $132 million project cost is not hard and fast, according to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. “We’ve granted two extensions (to the project) during the COVID period,” MSBA Executive Director and Deputy CEO Jack McCarthy told The Chronicle Jan. 15. “Nobody has asked...

ORLEANS — Seventy-five years ago, Jack and Laura Johnson of Truro cooked up an idea for a weekly newspaper. Under its second owner, Malcolm Hobbs, The Cape Codder built a headquarters at 5 Namskaket Rd. in with ample space for a printery, including a giant ink tank. The building would shake as a press operator announced each run: “Caaaaape Cod-uh!” The press is long gone, stilled and sold by an off-Cape corp...

ORLEANS — The May 31 deadline to qualify the redevelopment of Nauset Regional High School for $36 million in state funds toward the $132 million project cost is not hard and fast, according to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. “We’ve granted two extensions (to the project) during the COVID period,” MSBA Executive Director and Deputy CEO Jack McCarthy told The Chronicle Jan. 15. “Nobody has asked...

ORLEANS — An online survey that drew more than 700 responses ranked affordable housing and a community center as the top desired uses for the 5.5-acre Governor Prence Inn property between Route 6A and the Cape Cod Rail Trail. The survey was part of a feasibility study, supported by town meeting in October and the affordable housing trust, to help determine whether the town could benefit from buying the prope...

ORLEANS — There were pluses and minuses in the third year of growing at Putnam Farm, Conservation Agent John Jannell told the agricultural advisory committee Jan. 11. “The 2020 season was a good season,” he said of the five plots in the conservation area not far from the district courthouse. “We had five full growers for the first time through the season out there. Everyone was active.” Even so, “I’m not sure I c...

ORLEANS — A district-wide vote to approve the $132 million Nauset Regional High School building project will be held in the four member towns on March 30. The date was approved by the regional school committee Jan. 7 following consultation with town clerks. The one-day balloting decision was a response to the uncertainties of the pandemic, which prompted worries that Brewster, Eastham, Orleans, and Wellfleet...

ORLEANS — Sometimes, floating an idea means just that. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty member is testing an experimental solar-powered data buoy known as PEARL that's anchored in Deep Pond. Last month, Professor Olivier L. de Weck answered questions from the conservation commission about the device, which is a prototype of a larger version to be deployed in the ocean. The floating p...

ORLEANS — A preference survey of potential new uses for the Governor Prence Inn property is open for responses until Jan. 9 and available online here . Results of the brief opinion poll created by the town’s consultant, Barrett Planning Group, will be available Jan. 12 at 5:30 p.m. during a joint public meeting of the affordable housing committee, affordable housing trust board, planning board, and select b...

ORLEANS — Who isn’t running for town offices next May is as interesting as who is. After many years on the elementary school committee, Josh Stewart won’t run again. He’ll remain on the regional committee. The three incumbents whose seats on the library board of trustees are up for election – Carolyn Dowd, Mary Beth Fincke, and Mary Reuland – will have served two consecutive three-year terms and will have to...