WCAX

ACROSS THE FENCE: Patrick Ripley of the Vermont Small Business Development Center helps businesses make use of Internet tools through the e-Vermont program. He talks with Judy Simpson on WCAX's "Across the Fence" which was broadcast on 3/26/12. Click here to watch the interview on Across the Fence. Or click here to read the transcript (pdf).

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. (WCAX) - The town of Middlebury will soon offer free wireless internet.

Money in the town budget along with funding from the Vermont Council on Rural Development, has allowed the local library, which already offers free Wi-Fi to patrons, to expand its coverage to the downtown. Though a provider hasn't been chosen yet, the library director hopes the signal will reach most of Main Street, the town green, as well as Merchant's Row, meaning people can browse the web for free almost anywhere downtown.

SOUTH ROYALTON - Nearly 200 agro-enthusiasts gathered in South Royalton Sunday for a conference on direct marketing to consumers. This annual conference focus on marketing techniques that work. 1992 to 2007 Vermont farms' direct sales increased from 4-million dollars to nearly 23-million. Click HERE to read the article.

LEICESTER, VT ~ The Morrison family has been running its dairy farm in Leicester since the 1960s. "I wouldn't want to do anything else, I never had any idea of doing anything else," said Kenneth Morrison of the Morrison Brothers Farm... ...Decades of waking up with the sun came to a close Wednesday. The family put their cows up for auction, stopping production and bringing Vermont below 1,000 cow dairy farms for the first time on record.