Leandra Beabout

Last week I clicked on the radio in my car and the news anchor’s words caught me off guard: Guam. Attack. Nuclear.
A knot of worry gripped my throat — but when I checked my phone, but there was no message. Breathing a sigh, I listened closer and determined that while there was a threat — serious, yes — there was no missile or warhead or weapon hurtling on its way to the Pacific territory whose jungles and beaches I’d explored just last month.
See, my parents live there, on this island that wa...

Leandra Beabout taught high school English before transitioning to a brief career in newspaper journalism. She now splits her time between teaching English as a new language in the virtual classroom and writing. She attended middle school in Slovakia, taught English in Uganda, and most recently returned from a trip to Croatia. She travels and writes as often as possible.
Today’s students grow up in a world far smaller than the globe of decades past. Italian landmarks are only an Instagram scr...

If you want to get lost in Venice, take a left at your hotel. Cross the bridge, but watch out for the couple with limbs intertwined, their beating hearts kept sheltered in one another’s arms. Don’t catch your sandaled foot on the stone step. It is ancient and strong, jutting out to remind you it belongs here, ever-buoyed by the waters, while you are a passing shadow in this city.
Don’t follow the thoroughfare. Instead, slip into the alley so narrow you can touch both walls with outstretched a...

I’m a fairly frequent traveler, and I get a lot of comments from acquaintances about how they would love to travel too, but it costs too much money or depletes too many vacation days or takes too long to plan a great trip. The problem, I’ve found, is that some people store up all their travel dreams in one bottle, and envision for themselves a trip that is so absolutely perfect that they will never find the time or resources to make it into reality.
To me, the best trip is the trip you actual...

SHIPSHEWANA — Tucked behind the Shipshewana Post Office is a small wooden building, the red paint fading, with a sign that reads “BLACKSMITH.” The sign is adorned with a simple metal lightning bolt, a symbol Jim Rubley etches on each knife crafted in his forge.
Rubley’s blacksmithery stands out in the country because he refuses to use modern conventions and tools, he explained as he stood outside surveying his workshop.
“The reason I’m acknowledged as uniquely as I am is the fact that I do it...

LA DIGUE, Haiti — A group of 18 people from River Oaks Community Church in Goshen was supposed to return home Monday evening from Haiti. Instead, they’ve taken shelter and delayed their trip due to violent protests in the capital city of Port-au-Prince.
Protests throughout the weekend included rioting and vandalizing shops after the Haitian public learned the government planned to raise fuel prices. At least three people were killed during Friday’s protests. Road blockages, lack of transporta...

MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury School Board members approved a K-12 e-learning plan that will replace snow days and any other unexpected school cancellations in the upcoming school years. Board members also congratulated seven teachers and staff members who recently retired and approved the hire of Kelly Anglemyer as the new Heritage Intermediate School assistant principal during their meeting Tuesday afternoon.
Assistant Superintendent Robby Goodman summarized the e-learning plan, which had been pr...

Whenever you travel far, you’re likely to experience a layover or two — and while direct flights might seem like the holy grail of a distant destination, I tend to enjoy my stopovers. First, they give me a chance to stretch my legs between long-haul flights , then there’s the freedom of knowing my one and only responsibility is to kill time for a few blissful hours.
Here are my favorite ways to make the best of a long layover:
Leave the airport
If your stopover will last more than five or six...

ELKHART — Inside the Indiana Tech building Wednesday afternoon, rooms filled with more than the buzz of voices. Robots traveled in circles around the hallway or plucked candy from a bowl to send along a conveyor belt. Outside, a drone buzzed above the parking lot. It was the school’s first Technology Day, and enrollment manager Stephanie Kabel and professor Riad “Ray” Ardahji seemed thrilled with the variety of vendors, manufacturers and visitors at the facility.
“We’re trying to do … two rea...

GOSHEN — To Leah Borden, art is a way to channel tangled emotions into something that makes sense. When she stands in awe of a mother’s strength in a delivery room, when reveling in the beauty of the new life she has helped usher into the world, she wants to paint. When she allows herself to pause for a moment and remember her father’s slow death, she longs for a brush and paper.
Maybe that’s why she can’t imagine making prints of her work. She has no desire to dilute these intense, deeply pe...

Whether you’re an infrequent flier or an airline aficionado, you probably know overnight flights in economy class are no joke.
I took my first long-haul flight, a red-eye from D.C. to London, when I was 10 years old. I remember stretching across two seats (ah, the glory days when my overnight flights weren’t fully booked) and dreaming the night away until the flight attendant came by with a glass of orange juice as pink streaks of morning light began stretching across sky. Outside my window l...

MIDDLEBURY — Local students are getting a lesson in money management with the help of a program sponsored by First State Bank of Middlebury.
The bank has partnered with Banzai, a financial literacy program, to make curriculum available to area schools. Banzai simulates real-life scenarios to teach students how to manage their money. Students learn how to pay regular expenses like rent and insurance, as well as deal with unexpected costs like car repairs.
“We have really had great experiences ...