Crown Point Realtors donate $2,500 to local needs; Hunter gets research internship at Vanderbilt

Pictured from left front row, Realtor Betty McEnaney, John Bohannon of Our Place Drop in Center, Dee Robinson and Gail Gibbons of CAFC, Peter LaBelle of BRGN, and Realtors Joe Karl and Suzanne Garvey. From left in the rear. Realtor Phil Atwood in red cap, Kelly Parent, Realtor Kevin Barnes and Lee Potter of BRGN.

The Crown Point Board of Realtors raised a total of $2,494 during its annual Memorial weekend tag sale on the Ludlow Green. With that money, it was able to donate money to a number of local charities and people with needs.

At a recent event at the Heritage Deli in Chester, the board presented $659 to Kelly Parent of Chester, who lost her home to a recent fire. The board also gave checks of $458.75 each to four area food banks, including Black River Good Neighbors in Ludlow, Chester-Andover Family Center, Our Place Drop-in Center in Bellows Falls and the SpringfieldFamily Center.

Attending the event were Realtors Betty McEnaney, Joe Karl, Suzanne Garvey, Phil Atwood and Kevin Barnes. Also attending were Chester resident Kelly Parent, John Bohannon of Our Place Drop-in Center of Bellows Falls, Dee Robinson and Gail Gibbons representing the Chester-Andover Family Center, Peter LaBelle and Lee Potter of Black River Good Neighbors.

Chester resident gets Vanderbilt research internship

Kuniko Hunter

Kuniko C. Hunter, of Chester, is working as an undergraduate research intern at the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering’s Center for Bone Research Nyman Lab, which has the ultimate goal of lowering “the number of bone fractures associated with osteoporosis, diabetes, cancer, and aging.”

At the Nashville, Tenn., facility, she is learning state-of-the-art laboratory practices and techniques by assisting a post doctorate fellow and medical school students in physical measurement, imaging and strain analysis of an age/disease spectrum of bone tissue samples.

The Nyman Lab, headed by Jeffry Nyman, Ph.D, has published 22 peer review articles on bone imaging and assessment methodologies and the relationships between bone interstitial dynamics and disease.

A rising senior dual major (Biomedical Engineering and Design, Society and Innovation Studies) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Hunter will work at the Nyman lab until early August when she will travel to Denmark to study at the Technical University of Denmark in Kongens Lyngby for the fall of 2014 to study design studio and other courses as partial fulfillment of her Rensselaer DSIS degree requirements.

Hunter is a 2011 graduate of Green Mountain Union High School in Chester. She is current president of the Rensselaer chapter of the Society of Biomedical Engineers, and is active in the Society of Women Engineers and Engineers without Borders.