Rutland Daily Herald from Rutland, Vermont • 40

Sunday, February 6, 2000 The Sunday Times Argus The Sunday Rutland Herald E6 JLiving For better or verse Perfect poem may be harder to find than perfect partner Eugair-Pitts PITTSFORD Andrea Beth Eugair and Charles William Pitts Jr. announce their engagement. The future bride is the daughter of Diane and Pat Eugair of Pittsford. She is a 1994 graduate of Otter Valley Union High School. She received a bachelors degree in childrens literature from Castleton State College and is licensed in ele-mentaryspecial education.

She is employed at Northwest School in Rutland. The-future groom is the son of Alice Pitts of Granville, and the late Charles Pitts Sr. He is a 1986 graduate of Rochester High School. He received a bachelors degree from Massachusetts College of Art and is an account executive at Retail Vision in Middlebury. An Aug.

19 wedding is planned. Katie-Lyn and Lyle Newell Elizabeth and John Hebert Newell-Norkeveck Hebert-McDermott Phil and Angela Scott Scott-Wright MONTPELIER Angela Wright and Phil Scott, both of Montpelier, were married Oct. 26, 1999, in a double ring ceremony performed by Veronica Lopez in Cancun, Mexico. The bride is the daughter of C. Allan and Louise G.

Wright of Berlin. The groom is the son of the late Howard Scott and Marian DuBois of New Smyrna Beach, Fla. The witnesses were Mark and Linda Surgen, Brent Curtis and Kathy Rouleau. A reception was held at the Capitol Plaza in Montpelier. They honeymooned in Cancun.

The bride graduated from Northfield JuniorSenior High School in Northfield and from Becker Junior College in Leicher, with a degree in travel and tourism. She is a travel consultant at Macpherson Travel in Montpelier. The groom graduated from Spaulding High School and from the University of Vermont with a degree in education and technology. He is coowner of DuBois Construction. They live in Montpelier.

NORTHFIELD Elizabeth McDermott of Northfield and John Hebert ofWilliamstown were married Oct. 2, 1999, in a double-ring ceremony performed by the Rev. Ronald Soutiere at St. Sylvesters Roman Catholic Church in Graniteville. The bride is the daughter of Madeline McDermott of Northfield and the late John McDermott.

The groom is the son of Clifford and ADella Hebert of Williamstown. The bride was escorted by her mother and her brother, Thomas McDermott. Janice Terrill, sister of the bride, was maid of honor. Kelly Carr and Donna Longchamp, sister of the groom, were bridal attendants. Thomas Hebert, brother of the groom, was best man.

Ushers were James Terrill, brother-in-law of the bride, and Thomas McDermott. Amanda Hebert, daughter of the groom, was flower girl. Nicholas Hebert, son of the groom, was ring bearer. A reception was held at Capitol Plaza in Montpelier. The couple took a honeymoon trip to Aruba.

The bride graduated from Northfield High School and Norwich University with a degree in business administration. She is employed by the Washington County States Attorney in Barre. The groom graduated from Williamstown High School. He is a master electrician working as a test technician at Bombardier in Barre Town. BARRE Katie-Lyn Norkeveck of Barre and W.

Newell of Williamstown were married Sept. 25, 1999, in a double-ring ceremony performed by the Rev. Kevin Rooney at St. Johns Parish in Northfield. The bride is the daughter of Brian and Barbara Norkeveck of Barre Town.

The groom is the son of Thomas and Deborah Newell of Williamstown and the late Linda Carlisle of Springfield. The bride was escorted by her father. The brides mother was matron of honor. Christine Radley was an attendant. The best man was Donald Slothower III.

The ushers were Lannin Norkeveck, the brides brother and Steven Lakin. The flower girl was Keli McLellan, the grooms cousin. A reception was held at The Country Club of Barre. 1 The couple honeymooned in Cancun, Mexico. The bride graduated from Spaulding High School in Barre and from the Community College of Vermont in Montpelier with an associates degree in child development and is working on a degree in elementary education.

She is a teacher at the Rainbow club at Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin and a special educator at Berlin Elementary School Child Care Center. The groom graduated from Williamstown High School and from Champlain College in Burlington with a degree in business management. He is a technology advisor at Ormsbys Computer Systems in Barre. They live in Williamstown. Pitts-Devenow NORTH CLARENDON Charles and Phyllis Pitts of North Clarendon announce the engagement of their daughter, Erica Pitts, to Joseph Devenow, son of Joseph and Cathy Devenow ofWallingford.

The future bride is a 1996 graduate of Mill River Union High School and is employed at the Vermont Country Store in North Clarendon. The future groom is also a 1996 graduate of Mill River Union High School. He is employed at Kinney Motors Ltd. in Rutland A July 1 wedding is planned. Bathgate-Mathews LONDONDERRY William and Beverly Bathgate of Branchville, N.J., announce the engagement of their daughter, Carrie Darice Bathgate, to Stephen Glen Mathews, son of Steve and Joyce Mathews of Londonderry.

The future bride is a 1993 graduate of High Point High School in Sussex, N.J., and a 1995 graduate of SUNY Manhattan with an associate degree, and a 1999 graduate of Johnson State College with a bachelors degree in art education. The future groom is a 1992 graduate of Green Mountain Union High School in Chester. He is employed at The Bryant House Restaurant in Weston. A May 2001 wedding is planned. Davis-Delbeck WEATHERSFIELD Mr.

and Mrs. Phillip Davis of Weathersfield announce the engagement of their daughter, Marie Elizabeth Davis, to Mark Delbeck, son of Shirley Delbeck of Burlington, and the late Gerald Delbeck. The future bride graduated from Springfield High School in 1987, and from Champlain College in 1989, with an associate degree in accounting. She is a captive insurance manager for AIG Insurance Management Services in Burlington. The future groom graduated from Burlington High School in 1981, and from Champlain College in 1984 with' an associate degree in general business.

He is an assistant manager for Burlington City Employees Credit Union in Burlington. No date has been set for the By JOANNA WEISS The Boston Globe The groom was a physician, a dignified type, and at his wedding he insisted on reading poetry to his bride. Already that made Rabbi Bob Alper nervous. Theres no accounting for taste. And when the groom started into his selection, from a rock song, Alper felt his fears confirmed.

Oh, baby, be mine, the doctor started, deadly serious. Oh, baby, be mine. Alas, many clerics say theyve seen it before: wedding readings that are somewhat out of touch with the occasion. There are rock songs that sound great, but there are rock songs that sound a little over the top. Just like the personalized vows that Alper, a Vermont spiritual leader-tumed-stand up-comic, says are so overboard, you think, This isnt going to last.1 Poptry has troubles of its own too many bland passages that sound like greeting cards, too many pretty lines that are really about divorce or promiscuity or death.

And the Bible is full of readings that sound beautiful if you dont know the context. A few lines past your short selection, youre likely to come across a verse about vengefulness, or punishment, or how wives should submit to their husbands. But if the prospective bride and groom included no readings, they figure, the guests would be aghast. Whether its sentimentality, peer pressure or romance, a wedding seems to scream out for verse, something that sums up your unique relationship in 15 pithy lines and leaves the guests dabbing tears from their eyes. You feel compelled to have this very special passage because thats what everyone else has done, said Dan Zevin, the author of The Nearly-Wed Handbook: How to Survive the Happiest Day of Your Life.

There comes a point where you realize We dont have a special passage.1 So the hunt begins. When Zevin planned his wedding, he and his wife spent hours in the library, scouring the shelves and filling the pages of poetry books with Post-It notes. Every week, a stream of brides, grooms and bridesmaids strides into Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge, seeking a poem for a wedding, owner Louisa Solano said. They might not might know Keats from The Cat in the Hat," but they figure it wont be a difficult hunt. As it turns out, its not so easy to find a poem that fits suitably sentimental without being corny, suitably deep without being dark.

And suitably original, so your guests wont feel deja vu. One summer, Zevin says, he heard the same reading at three weddings in a row, a passage by proto-new-age philosopher Kahlil Gibran. Love one another, but do not make a bond of love, it warned. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. In the wedding-selection anthologies that line the library shelves, Zevin found scores of generic warm and fuzzy passages with similar themes.

Theyre plastered all over the Internet, too. Among the greatest hits: an Apache wedding song (Now you will feel no coldFor each of you will be warmth to the other), an ungrammatical poem called Love Is (Love is being happy for the other person when they are happyBeing sad for the person when they are sad) and a fairly self-centered offering called Love (I love youNot only for what you areBut for what I amWhen I am with you). Zevin blended them into what he calls All-Purpose Wedding Reading. 1 He included it in his book and read it aloud at a friends ceremony: Were together, were independent Were the same, were not the same Were gie, were two Love, love, love Blah, blah, blah 1 Amen. Engagement, wedding and anniversary policy The Sunday Times Argus and Rutland Herald devotes free space in its Vermont Living section to wedding, engagement and anniversary news.

1 Announcements may include a small, black-and-white photograph. Because color seldom reproduces well, photographs are printed in black and white. Originals are not returned by mail. Please write both last names on the back of the photograph. Do not submit a photo of which you do not have a copy or a negative.

All articles and photos must be received at our offices within three months of the ceremony. All use of the articles and photographs is at the discretion of the editors. Forms arg available at The Rutland Daily Herald, 27 Wales Rutland 05701 and The Times Argus, 540 N. Main Barre 05641 and 112 Main Montpelier 05602. you leave behind when you die.

Leaf through Nortons Anthology of Poetry, and youll find these titles: Dead Boy The Dead Butterfly Death! of the Day, The Death of the Hired Man, The Death Of a Toad. And even the poems about love and marriage tend to be thingB you wouldnt want at your wedding ceremony. There is Robert Greeleys Ballad of the Despairing Husband: My wife and I lived all alone, contention was our only bone. I fought with her, she fought with me, and things went on right merrily. Vermont poet laureate Ellen Bryant Voigts For My Husband, -is about am aging couple working a Ouija board together.

They get to JL. and 0" just fine, but then the Ou(ja veers toward loss and the long past A Robert Frost poem starts, Love at the lips was touchAs sweet as I could bear but goes on into pain and weariness; its title is Earthward. Even poems that seem wedding-appropriate can be trouble, if you take the time to understand them. Pinsky acknowledges that Shakespeares oft-used sonnet that begins Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments, contains a lot of strange stuff that doesnt exactly celebrate marriage. And some readings are nice in sentiment, but still dont fit the couple, said one priest, who didnt want to use his name.

He recalls the day he wed a little bit of a thing to a groom built like a linebacker well over 6 feet tall and about 300 pounds. The reading selection was from the Song of Solomon. Look, he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills, it said. My beloved is like a gazelle. Other religious passages sound nice in a vacuum, but wouldnt work so well if you knew the whole story.

Many brides love the sweet lines about marriage in the Book of Tbbit. They dont know that the book is about a woman who married seven men, all of whom dropped dead on their wedding night. Indeed, when you examine every word of Borne poems, youre bound to find some problems. Anything by Walt Whitman runs the risk of -sounding a bit, well, easy unless you commit the cardinal sin of changing the authors words. Miracles" shows up in one wedding poem anthology after a little careftil surgery.

An editor has discreetly removed the word any from Whitmans original line, Or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love. In such cases, it could be that ignorance is bliss. Solano says some of her favorite poems about marriage are by poets who, themselves, are well beyond spouse No. 1. Most people dont realize that theres a context to most of these poems, Solano says.

Which is OK, unless someone in the audience happens to know about it and starts laughing hysterically. Which almost happened at another wedding that author Zevin attended. The couple thought they were being really groovy by getting someone to sing an opera selection in Italian, he said. But one savvy guest knew the language, and shared that the song was about splitting up. Its hard to blame the couple; when the search for great poetry gets overwhelming, its awfully tempting to cheat.

A Romance language song would sound soft and sentimental, even if it were about fleas. Fortunately, Zevin and his wife didnt have to resort to such measures. After a vigorous probe, they found a poem in English. It was really incredibly meaning- fill at the time, he says, and right now, I have a hard time remembering what it was. But Zevin says he came away from his big event with a lesson more important than any poem can offer: No one listens to the wedding readings, anyway.

they cant hear it, or theyre just looking at what youre wearing," he says. That wont stop most brides and grooms, lost deep in wedding tunnel vision. So console yourselves, at least, with the thought that as you search, you might be getting a serious Bible lesson, or reading all of the poetry you ignored in high school and college, and discovering that some of it is actually quite good. Youll be making at least one poet laureate proud: I like imagining them looking around, hunting through anthologies, Pinsky says. And if your search for meaningful verse still leaves you empty, it might help to forget about being deep.

Try practical, instead, as in Ogden Nashs Advice to Husbands: i To keep your marriage brimming with love in the loving cup, Whenever youre wrong, admit it; Whenever youre right, shut up. Make Your Wedding First Class With Help From These Fine Merchants wedding jigged 1 (Pf 11 ESSENTIAL ALTERNATIVES 22 Center Rutland, VT DOWNTOWN CENTER 773-B834 Ideal Cut Diamonds 29 Or Less Over Our Cost! We Show You the Invoice 775-7234 72 Merchants Roiv, Rutland tmmm Let our staff help you I coordinate everything from invitations to wedding party gifts, FREE DELIVERY Christina and Kent Batchelder Batchelder-LaPorte ORLANDO, 'Fla. Christina M. LaPorte and Kent Allen Bqtchelder of Orlando, were niarried Oct. 2, 1999, in a double-ring ceremony performed by the Rev.

George Harrison of St. Michaels Church on Providence, R.I. The bride is the daughter of Richard and Phyllis LaPorte of Seekonk, Mass. The groom is the son of David and Sandra Batchelder of Barre and Ken and Dayila DeConza of Tarpon Springs, Fla. The bride was escorted by her father.

The maids of honor were Reneg LaPorte-Price and Danielle LaPorte, the brides sisters. Other bridal attendants were Kara Stutz-Schmidt and Beth Walsh. The best person was Angelique Xenick. The others were Douglas Bathelder, the grooms brother, Paul Stutz-Schmidt and Jason Bellerose. The flower girls were Victoria and Nicole Price.

A reception was held at the Downtown Providence Marriott in Providence, R.I. The couple honeymooned in Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. The bride graduated from Seekonk High School in Seekonk, Mass, and from the University of South Florida in Tampa, with a degree in history. She is a 7th grade geography teacher at Conway Middle School in Orlando, Fla. 1 The groom graduated from Spaulding High School in Barre, from the University of Vermont in Burlington with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology and the University pf Florida in Gainesville, with a master of education degree.

He is a guidance counselor at Conway Middle School in Orlando. They live in Orlando. I OOFFrtTCOUPOM 775 1 029 West 5l RutlnJ VT Checkup It the simple ua to answer any questions about vur Jamily insurance protection Ana it free Ken DeCandio, Agent Martha Congdon, Staff (802) 747-7975 If that thought leaves something to be desired, perhaps it should, says U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky, who teaches at Boston University. Good poems, he says, are meant to be specific rather than generic, urgent rather than reassuring, memorable rather than genial, sharp rather than bland.

In other words, they arent supposeji to be uplifting. Which leads to another problem: The deeper you ig into the poetry books, searching or tales of undying love, the more likely you are to grow profoundly depressed. For one, you wont find much about undying love at all. Happy marriage, it turns out, is far down on the list of common poetry themes well below aging, dying, death and the people Looking for a place to ge Married? THE UNITARIAN UNTVERSALIST CHURCH is the place! 117 West St. Rutland, VT 802-775-0850 To advertise in this wedding directory call your Rutland Herald representative at (802) 747-6126 i.