Died September 1: Doug Kohl, a Northampton developer who cared about the quality of the neighborhoods he built and listened to the concerns of everyone with a stake in his projects. Not just a McMansion builder, he created resident-friendly co-housing projects as well as conventional housing clusters, and contributed to the town’s conservation land holdings. A pair of gold-lined wings to Kohl for preserving Thornes Market as a charming constellation of distinctive local businesses rather than just filling it with chain stores.
Died October 2: Terry Blunt, who loved the Connecticut River and the Pioneer Valley and worked tirelessly to build the Connecticut River Greenway, an “emerald necklace” of preserved land along the shoreline. Blunt, who treated those who differed with him with the same sympathy and understanding that marked his dealings with allies, also enlarged the tracts of protected land in the Holyoke Range, which he loved to explore, delighting in the mass migrations of birds past the mountains during the first cold snap of each year. He got his start in land acquisition with the Nature Conservancy, then worked with the Connecticut River Watershed Council, then, for 25 years, for what is now the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, passing on his skills to other dedicated conservationists.
Died November 13: Sally Venman, who with her husband Bill started up the Valley Light Opera in Amherst in 1975. The northern lights wouldn’t have brightened November in our vale like the annual Gilbert and Sullivan epiphany, with its procession of Japanese emperors, fairies, pirates, assistant tormentors and minstrels fainting with unrequited love. It’s because of people like Sally that good things happen; for her, a halo all ablaze like Yum Yum’s sun.
