Mountain Times - Volume 49, Number 43- Oct. 21-27, 2020

2 • LOCAL NEWS
The Mountain Times • Oct. 21-27, 2020
OBITUARY
Robert Arnold Buttner, age 68
Robert Arnold Buttner, age 68, formerly of Killington,
died Feb. 26, 2020, surrounded by family during his last
hours in a hospital in his current residence of Venice,
Florida. Bob Buttner was born in Flushing, New York on
Oct. 22, 1951, and was the son of Arnold and Emilia Buttner.
He grew up in Flushing and summered in Candlewood
Lake, New Fairfield,
Connecticut where
he started his love of
swimming — including
holding some unbreakable
records (mostly due
to regulation changes
in length of swim laps).
He attended Brooklyn
Technical High School,
where he was a great
asset to the swim team;
then went onto SUNY
Maritime College in
Bronx, New York, where
he was competitively
successful in swimming and baseball. He graduated with
a Bachelors Degree and as a United States Coast Guard
Licensed Officer in charge of the Navigational Watch. After
graduation Bob sailed for the Exxon Shipping Company/
Seariver Maritime, and there acquired his Captain’s License.
During his lengthy vacations from sea, Bob Buttner
became an avid skier who resided in Killington, Vermont.
It was there that he met another avid skier who was part of
a share house, but lived in New York City — June Hughes.
They were married in 1982 at a Our Lady of Good Counsel
Chapel in White Plains, New York. When they were ready,
the happy couple chose to raise a family in Killington. Bob
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Farm fresh ideas
Greg Cox, Democrat for state senate
By Lee J. Kahrs
WEST RUTLAND —
Vermont’s farm culture is
far from dead, and if Greg
Cox has anything to do
with it, agriculture will
bring young people back
to Vermont and grow the
economy again.
“If we’re going to grow
more farms, we need
more farmers,” he said.
“Ag is the easy one and will
bring young people back
to Vermont. They leave,
they sow their oats, and
then they say it’s time to
start a family. We want the
boomerangs.”
Cox, 69, is a Democrat
running for one of three
Rutland County Senate
seats in a crowded field of
nine candidates, including
two incumbents. A
longtime farmer and
educator, for the last 38
years, Cox has owned and
operated Boardman Hill
Farm in West Rutland.
He also founded Rutland
Area Farm and Food Link
(RAFFL) and the Vermont
Farmer’s Education
Centers.
From hippie to home
Cox isn’t just waxing
poetic about bolstering
agriculture and improving
economic development
through farming. He uses
Boardman Hill Farm as an
incubator space, drawing
young farmers and helping
those with the most
potential get a foothold in
the business.
“I offer land, equipment,
help with a business
plan and I work with
the Vermont Land Trust
to hook them up with established
farms,” he said.
“We’re trying to bend that
age curve. I grow my own
competition.”
Cox grew up in
Lamoille County and attended
Johnson State College
majoring in education,
until the day he knew
teaching wasn’t what he
wanted to do.
“My mother was distraught,”
he said. “But, I
do teach after all.”
Cox has been working
with at-risk youth most of
his life. He also taught agriculture
classes at Green
Mountain College.
But it was his experience
coming of age in
the 1960s that led him to
agriculture, and helped
form his views on what
Vermont needs, right now.
“I was one of those back
to the land food growing
hippies back in 1968,” he
said. “We were 100,000
strong. We changed
Vermont and Vermont
changed us. We need that
same influx again. The
low-hanging fruit is food
and food business.”
Cox describes Rutland
County as “the food
mecca of Vermont,” ripe
for an infusion of young
blood, energy and new
ideas to enhance what
Rutland County already
has going for it.
“Youth and entrepreneurial
spirit, we need to
bring that back to Rutland
County,” he said. “Agriculture
can be an economic
engine and it can backfill
a lot of those industrial
jobs we’ve lost.”
Is dairy dead?
With the shuttering
of more dairy farms all
over the state each year,
and the recent news that
Rutland’s own Thomas
Dairy would close for
good on Oct. 1 due to the
pandemic and loss of
demand, Cox was asked:
Is dairy dead?
“No, dairy is not dead,”
Cox said emphatically.
“But we need people with
new, fresher ideas. The ‘get
bigger’ idea and the Agency
of Agriculture, they’re
system thinkers and they
can’t get out of the rut
they’re in. They can’t see
a new way and Covid is
the perfect change agent
because it’s exposed all of
our weaknesses in our institutions:
social, judicial,
agricultural, education,
healthcare.”
Cox said he thinks the
Agency of Agriculture
could use some new
blood and an overall of its
approach to agriculture in
Vermont, or else nothing
will change.
“It’s not the individual,
it’s the system,” he said.
“So people are stuck in
a system, not equipped
to deal with the new
problems, so this is a
time to evaluate all these
systems, but they have no
new ideas. That’s where
you need someone who
doesn’t own a suit and tie,
who works with people
and sees these things from
the outside.”
Inside out
That person is Cox, but
he has no illusions about
how he would fit in on the
Senate Agriculture Committee,
his first committee
choice, should he be
elected.
“They want you to
play,” he said. “I want to be
on that committee on my
terms and I’m qualified to
“For every $100 you spend at a
locally owned business, $48 dollars
stays in Rutland County,” Cox
said. “At a chain store, only $16
stays local. We really need to work
together to create a local economy."
do it.”
Cox would also like
to serve on the Senate
Economic Development
Committee, understandably:
his philosophies on
Greg Cox
agriculture and economic
development intermingled
and reliant on each
other to succeed.
“We need to invest in
us,” he said. “The only
thing Applebee’s has on
the neighborhood is a
method for extracting our
dollars and sending them
elsewhere. Any business
is not what we should be
going after.”
Cox said he wants to
see Rutland County encourage
small, community-based
business owned
by local folks.
“For every $100 you
spend at a locally owned
business, $48 dollars stays
in Rutland County,” he
said. “At a chain store, only
Submitted
$16 stays local. We really
need to work together to
create a local economy.
If elected, Cox would
also try and steer more
state funding to Rutland
County, saying that the
Rutland County delegation
doesn’t work well
enough with Montpelier
to secure funding for the
county.
“I want more state
resources coming to Rutland
County,” he said. “We
don’t play well with others
at the state level because
we are a more conservative
county. I would like to
make sure Rutland gets at
least 10% of funding we
get from the state.”
Not party time
The father of three,
married for 29 years to
Cox > 10