New Hampshire
‘No way in hell, wild animal, you’re not disrupting my engagement!’ – The Boston Globe
They returned one cool November evening in 2023, and the former colleagues-turned-couple were dressed for a ’70s disco — Hillary in a hot pink jumpsuit, Henry in embellished bellbottoms. They had just returned to their Merrimack, N.H., home after celebrating Hillary’s 37th birthday at the Gimme Gimme Disco — a roving ABBA-inspired dance night — when Henry began putting her pink polka-dot rainboots on her feet and shuffling her toward his car.
“We need eggs,” he remembers fibbing, when Hillary was baffled by the sudden change in plans.
But in Henry’s car’s glove compartment was an engagement ring. He had considered waiting to propose on an upcoming trip, but under the disco ball in the Hampton Ballroom, “we had so much fun and she looked so beautiful…and I brought her boots because I knew where it had to happen.” Once Hillary recognized the 10-minute trip’s destination, the pieces began to click into place.
Instead of driving to the store, Henry drove to Benedictine Park. There, they emerged through the darkness in sequins and spandex — startling some loitering teens — and began the five-minute hike up the hill. As they walked, Henry started narrating the steps he’d taken to get to this day.
Months before, he told Hillary as they walked, he’d asked her twin teenage sons, Conner and Dylan, for their blessings.
“I talk to you about this because I’m not just marrying your mom, I’m also marrying you guys,” he remembers telling them over a boys’ night dinner. The twins happily agreed, and continue to hold him accountable — “Remember, you’re also married to me so you better give me good Christmas presents this year,” one recently quipped.
Not long after, Henry spoke to her parents, who live in Merrimack, where Hillary grew up. (Henry spent his childhood in Managua, Nicaragua, and moved to Merrimack in 2016.) Her mother helped Henry design an engagement ring inspired by a cocktail ring Hillary owned and longed to wear on a daily, forever basis.
As Henry finished his story and they approached the peak, they both heard an animal-like growl.
“It was a deer,” he says.
“I think it was a cougar-ish, apex predator type,” Hillary says. “So, we could have died.”
Empowered by the moment’s adrenaline and her pink faux fur jacket, she made herself as “big as possible” (she’s about 5′3″ to his 6′), raising her arms above her head and roaring aloud in response to the creature they estimate was “maybe 40 yards” away. She remembers thinking, “No way in hell, wild animal, you’re not disrupting my engagement!”
As Henry shone his phone’s flashlight into the surrounding woods, Hillary noticed a shooting star in the sky above them. When he missed it, he took it as a sign to propose, already.
They assumed the growling creature moved on as they spent the next 15 minutes crying and hugging after Hillary had answered, “Yes.”
On the trek back to the car, Henry saw a second shooting star: “What are the odds?” he says.
Henry and Hillary met by accident. She was working as a scrum master — a type of project team coach/facilitator — for Fidelity Investments’ Merrimack campus in 2017 when she signed up for what she thought was an open learning session on deployment strategies. But when she arrived at the meeting, she realized it was meant to be a small team training.
Crossed wires had led to Henry’s meeting with his direct reports being published on a companywide events calendar.
“[It was] a little awkward, but also kind of funny,” Hillary remembers. “I’m a very social person, so I was like ‘Great, I get to network and meet all these new people.’”
Henry, though, identifies as “reserved” — “I don’t smile at people. I don’t wave unless they wave me at first,” he says (with a smile). But he “wasn’t angry that she crashed my meeting,” he says. “I was more amused.”
Hillary was married at the time; her friendship with Henry began months later after he noticed Hillary’s copy of Randall Munroe’s “What if?,” a book that answers hypothetical questions using scientific evidence. “That book definitely opened him up and warmed him to me,” she remembers. “He became part of my social circle in the office.”
Hillary, who is now a strategy consultant, left Fidelity toward the end of 2019. She and her then-husband, with whom she shares twin boys, separated in spring 2020. Co-parenting through pandemic restrictions and lockdowns elongated and complicated the process, and when Henry texted that December, asking how his former colleague and friend was doing, Hillary filled him in.
Henry was instantly sympathetic. He offered to listen, asked how she was coping, and how the boys were doing. Soon they were texting memes and music and movie suggestions, making plans to hang out as friends.
Their first kiss came months later at Mel’s Funway Park in Litchfield, N.H. Henry remembers Hillary’s hugs had begun to feel different around that time: “It felt like we were two pieces of a puzzle that are meant to go together.”
Hillary, now 38, and Henry, 35, married on July 26 at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club in Dover, N.H., with 85 guests.
She walked down the aisle to a live strings arrangement of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” with her parents on each arm. Her sons, now 15, swapped with their grandparents at the aisle midpoint to join their mom on her path to the altar.
Henry had asked that they forgo the popular trend of a “first look” — when the photographer helps stage a private pre-ceremony moment for the couple see each other in their wedding attire for the first time. So Hillary’s ceremony entrance was the first time they saw each other on their wedding day.
“She looked so beautiful, and that’s when I stopped being nervous,” Henry remembers. “She looked so happy. She couldn’t stop smiling.”
“I felt like a kid on Christmas morning … I was grinning from ear-to-ear,” Hillary confirms. ”I had practiced all those very demure smiles — but no, I was just a grinning goofball.”
Read more from The Big Day, The Boston Globe’s new weddings column.
Rachel Kim Raczka is a writer and editor in Boston. She can be reached at rachel.raczka@globe.com.
New Hampshire
N.H. lawmakers to vote on increasing tolls, civil rights, and k-12 education – The Boston Globe
One proposal (Senate Bill 627) would generate more than $53 million per year in estimated revenue for turnpike projects by essentially doubling what certain cars pay on the state’s toll roads.
The cash fare for Hampton’s main toll booth on Interstate 95, for example, would jump from $2 to $4 for cars and pickup trucks. The toll wouldn’t increase at all for motorists who use New Hampshire’s E-ZPass transponders.
“Surrounding states already have the same in-state discount structure in place,” Democratic Representative Martin Jack of Nashua wrote on behalf of a House committee that unanimously recommended the bill.
A potential hitch: Governor Kelly Ayotte. She’s expressed opposition to the whole toll-hiking idea, and proven she’s not afraid to use her veto pen.
Modifying civil rights standard
Another proposal (Senate Bill 464) would add a few words to the state’s Civil Rights Act. Instead of addressing conduct that is merely “motivated by” a legally protected characteristic, the proposed revision would address conduct that is “substantially motivated by hostility towards the victim’s” protected characteristic (such as their race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or disability).
The prime sponsor, Republican Senator Daryl Abbas, an attorney, testified the change was small and aligned with the law’s intent. But the attorney who oversees the Civil Rights Unit at the New Hampshire Department of Justice, Sean Locke, testified in opposition, saying the proposal could reduce protections, especially since the meaning of “substantially” is somewhat vague.
The House is also weighing a proposed amendment that would add a few more words than Abbas’s version, potentially narrowing the Civil Rights Act’s applicability a bit further.
Open enrollment for K-12 schools
A third proposal up for a vote on Thursday (Senate Bill 101) would make every K-12 public school in New Hampshire an “open enrollment” school. That way, students could freely choose to transfer to a district other than the one where they live.
The proposed policy is controversial, partly because of how schools are funded. Districts rely mostly on local property taxes to cover their costs, as the state government chips in relatively little, and property tax rates vary widely from one community to the next. That generates concern about who will foot the bill when a student transfers.
In light of those concerns, Republicans are offering a compromise amendment to SB 101 that would require the state to provide more money per pupil that a district receives via open enrollment, as the New Hampshire Bulletin reported. Democrats are offering their own amendment to establish a study commission on this topic, rather than adopt the proposed policy now.
Lawmakers have until May 14 to take action on the bills that came from the other chamber, though they have until June 4 to iron out any discrepancies.
Amanda Gokee of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
This story appears in Globe NH | Morning Report, a free email newsletter focused on New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles elsewhere. Sign up here.
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.
Boston MedFlight often touches down at the scene of some of the worst tragedies in New England – where minutes can mean life or death for a victim. The critical care transport operation is now expanding with a new base in New Hampshire.
The organization is hosting an open house at the new Manchester location on Thursday.
Boston MedFlight flies a critical care transport paramedic and nurse on every flight. Jaik Hanley-McCarthy says their helicopters and ground vehicles are equipped to handle just about any emergency medical procedure.
“Anything that can be done in the ICU,” explained Hanley-McCarthy. “We have a mobile lab so we can draw blood and run labs in real time.”
Boston MedFlight now has five bases across the region.
“Having a base in Manchester just expands this Boston-level care even further north to the more remote areas of the state,” said Hanley-McCarthy.
Boston MedFlight operates as a network of bases and some of the locations are staffed 24 hours.
Chief Executive Officer Maura Hughes says the nonprofit operation survives on public and private donations.
“We provide about $7 million in free care every year to patients,” said Hughes. “Not every hospital can be everything to every patient. We’re really the glue that keeps the health care system together.”
Heather Young says her daughter, Teighan, is still alive because she was flown for a critical assessment and procedure after falling off a truck and hitting her head.
“She should not be driving and walking and talking and all the things she’s doing as quickly as she is,” said Young.
Teighan just turned 18 and plans to go to college to study the medical field.
“I want to be a nurse and help other people,” she said.
It’s stories like this that keep the men and women who work Boston MedFlight focused on their mission.
“I think we just go call by call and try to do the best we can,” said Hanley-McCarthy. “I think when we stop and truly think about it, I think that weight is pretty heavy.”
Boston MedFlight also has a yearly reunion where patients and the team get together here in Bedford to meet and check in on their progress. It really shows you how connected they are to the people they help.
New Hampshire
Hiker who set out in warm spring weather found dead after snowstorm in New Hampshire mountains
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A Massachusetts hiker who set out in warm spring weather was found dead deep in New Hampshire’s White Mountains after a snowstorm dumped several inches of snow in the area, authorities said.
Kent Wood, 61, of West Roxbury, was discovered Tuesday evening on a remote section of the Kinsman Pond Trail in Franconia Notch, about 5.5 miles from his vehicle, according to New Hampshire Fish and Game.
Wood had driven to Franconia Notch on April 17 for a weekend camping and hiking trip, and set out on a hike the next morning in warm, clear weather, officials said. Family and friends last heard from him Saturday afternoon.
When he failed to return or make contact for two days, officials said relatives reported him missing Tuesday morning, prompting a large-scale search.
HIKER IDENTIFIED, POPULAR TRAIL CLOSED AFTER DEADLY FALL A UTAH’S ZION NATIONAL PARK
An aerial view of Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire, where a hiker was found dead on Tuesday. (Joseph Sohm/Universal Images Group, File)
Rescuers quickly learned Wood had packed for mild conditions, not the three to five inches of snow that fell in the area between Sunday and Monday.
Fog hovers over a narrow road through Franconia Notch in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire on Dec. 27, 2021. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis)
Search teams from Fish and Game, PEMI Valley Search and Rescue, and the Army National Guard launched a coordinated effort, focusing on the Lonesome Lake and Kinsman Pond areas.
FAMILY’S SPRING BREAK HIKE TURNS INTO LIFE-OR-DEATH RESCUE AFTER PARENT FALLS 70 FEET OFF UTAH CLIFF
Conservation officers located Wood’s body around 7:41 p.m. Tuesday. Crews carried him out overnight, reaching the trailhead shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday.
Franconia Notch and the Appalachian Trail are seen in New Hampshire on Sept. 21. (Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)
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Since Friday, six hikers from Massachusetts have been rescued in the White Mountains, Fish and Game said.
Officials are reminding hikers that winter conditions still grip the mountains, with snow, freezing temperatures and rapidly changing weather.
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