Katherine Nolan Burlin July 16, 1922 – December 8, 2020                     Katherine Nolan Burlin, 98, of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and North Chatham passed away on Tuesday, December 8, 2020 in Alexandria, Virginia following a stroke.  Born July 16, 1922, in Whiz Bang, Oklahoma to Margaret Cecelia Phalen Nolan and Leo Bernard Nolan, she was raised in oil field boom towns in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. ...

CHATHAM – The town's business community is weathering the COVID-19 crisis despite significant losses, with some sectors down nearly 50 percent. Hardest hit are accommodations, down 40 to 50 percent, and restaurants, which are off about 30 percent, said Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mary Cavanaugh. Retail businesses are down 25 to 30 percent, she said, due primarily to the three-month closure last spri...

CHATHAM – Two of the town's largest restaurants will be closing for the winter due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chatham Squire and Wild Goose Tavern will close at least through mid March. Knott's Landing will also close later this month. Usually, restaurants with year-round liquor licenses are required to seek permission from the board of selectmen to close for more than a few days. In the past, selectmen ...

CHATHAM — Some unusual activity at Harding’s Beach this week is a precursor to a large dredging operation expected to take place later this month or in early February. Starting Tuesday, the easternmost parking lot at the beach was closed to vehicles to provide working space for crews assembling dredge pipes. The finished pipes will be used by the Barnstable County dredge to pump sand from the Stage Harbor en...

CHATHAM – Selectmen Tuesday balked at accepting the donation of the historic Stage Harbor Coast Guard boathouse, expressing concerns about renovation and maintenance costs as well as its future use. Resident David Doherty has arranged for the 83-year-old building to be moved from Hull to Quincy, where it will be stored for up to six months, all with private funding. But what happens after that is too uncertain...

Ken Baughman has fished since he was a kid and loves being on the water. The Falmouth resident, smart and determined, bought a second-hand motor, built his own boat and launched his career as a commercial fisherman this summer. It has been tough going. “It’s virtually impossible. You really have to come in as an apprentice,” he said. That may soon be a possibility with the recent passage by Congress of the ...

WEST HARWICH — After a one-year demolition delay expired less than two weeks ago, the Roman Catholic Diocese and Holy Trinity Church moved quickly to remove the Gothic Revival late Victorian 1914 structure on church property along Route 28 in West Harwich, razing it last Wednesday. “It is sad that the church couldn’t have found it in their hearts to conserve, restore and repurpose this...historic parish home,”...

HARWICH — There was a sense of urgency expressed by selectmen Monday night when Monomoy Regional Schools Superintendent Scott Carpenter came before the board to discuss the growing inequities in the per pupil budgets in the district's elementary schools. In the past decade the Harwich Elementary School student population has decreased by 12 percent. At the Chatham Elementary School the enrollment has declined ...

There's Still Hope For The Project, However HARWICH — Hope that a policy change in the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's Complete Streets Program could pave the way for a long-sought sidewalk along Route 28 from Saquatucket Harbor to Harwich Port may have been premature. The agency altered its policy on sidewalks and bike lanes, which could not have been accommodated on both sides of Route 28. Bu...

Imagine starting a new job that requires constant communication without being able to see the mouths of the people you’re talking to. That’s exactly what Jenn Stevens and Drew Locke are up against as they take over coaching duties at Nauset Regional High School during the masked era of COVID-19. Stevens and Locke both have past coaching experience, though there’s little that could’ve prepared them for the real...

ORLEANS – It wasn’t the victory that the Nauset Regional High School boys’ hockey team had hoped for, but the Warriors remain confident that their performance in Saturday’s season-opening loss gives them a foundation they can build on going forward. After skating to just three wins a year ago, Nauset was eager to return to the ice in what marked the debut of first-year head coach Drew Locke, who had overseen t...

One morning in that blurry week between Christmas and New Years I went for an early morning walk on the beach. There’d been a full moon and the high tide that accompanied that and the sand was filled with shells, twists of seaweed and a multitude of beaten up and well worn feathers. The sky was that silvery shade of blue we get when the sun feels pale and watery and the sea was nearly white from glare and spark...

January Is Human Trafficking Awareness Month January begins the year with Human Trafficking Awareness Month. Cape Cod PATH (People Against Trafficking Humans), a non-profit under the umbrella of the Cape Cod Foundation, is a task force on the frontline in addressing this pervasive human rights issue. The reality is that there are more people enslaved today than at any time in history. Across the globe, an e...

In the charming 1987 rom-com movie “Roxanne,” a tongue-tied young firefighter is unable express his romantic feelings for a beautiful woman. Step in Steve Martin, who ghostwrites love letters of such eloquence that the woman falls in love with the firefighter. Jill Meyer of Chatham, who founded the wedding service company “Write Weddings,” has performed that same magic. A Washington, D.C. man contacted her and...

Thankful For Asymptomatic Testing Editor: Thanks to Outer Cape Health Services and Pat Nadle, Julian Cyr , Sarah Peake, and Mass DPH for supporting asymptomatic COVID-19 testing at the OCHS sites. Hopefully, funding will continue past Jan. 10 and a “stop the spread site” can be arranged in the near future. I was lucky to obtain a testing appointment for my husband and myself after an exposure scare which ha...

There is a lot of hope invested in 2021. Hope that the pandemic comes to an end. Hope that the economy picks up. Hope that schools can return to in-person classes. Hope that the turmoil and bickering in Washington, D.C. ends. Just a week into the year, it's hard to see signs those sentiments will be realized. A lack of federal leadership resulted in a botched rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. The situation in M...