The Plainfield Select Board has a new member filling the seat vacated by Dennis Mimitz, who resigned June 30.
Leslie Rule, of Broom Street, defeated Claude DuPont, of North Street, 76-33 in a special town election July 23.
Rule also was elected without opposition to the School Committee with 93 votes.
Turnout for the election was 111 of the town’s 457 registered voters, or 24 percent.
Rule, 57, originally is from San Francisco and moved first to Cambridge before landing in Plainfield in 2013.
“I love it here, I love the seasons and rural life just really fits me at this point in my life,” Rule said.
With a background in education and communications, Rule worked in outreach, education and digital media productions for PBS at the Digital Media Center in San Francisco. She ran KQED’s Digital Storytelling Initiative and was a founding member and sat on the executive board of the Digital Storytelling Association.
Rule currently serves on the Mohawk Regional School District Strategic Planning Committee and as a Plainfield delegate to WiredWest. She said her interests are in maintaining the character of rural communities while making rural schools and economies viable and sustainable.
“I think rural communities have all kinds of challenges that Boston does not understand, but I think it is possible to make rural life sustainable,” Rule said. “We need to bring income into the town and I think that has to do with getting broadband and modern communication tools.”
Mimitz resigned from the Select Board because his family is relocating to another state.
Also in Saturday’s special election, Lynn Robbins ran unopposed for a seat on the library board of trustees, receiving 103 votes.
Lovers of theater, history, the environment and social justice will likely be entertained by a performance starting Saturday at the William Cullen Bryant Homestead in Cummington.
“A Fiery and Still Voice: William Cullen Bryant at Home” is set in 1866, a time of intense political and literary discourse, and offers an intimate portrait of the man behind the poet, delving into the life of Bryant and his progressive, American voice.
The play was researched, developed, and written by Priscilla Kane Hellweg, Rachel Kuhn, and Steve Angel. The production is a collaboration between the Trustees of Reservations and Enchanted Circle Theater.
The play features two actors, one playing Bryant, the other a tour guide, and as it unfolds, it takes the audience on a journey through the property.
“The performance is really incredible because it moves through the house and goes outside,” said Andrea Caluori of the Trustees of Reservations. “At one point outside you are actually standing under a sugar maple that Bryant planted himself.”
There will be three shows at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. Saturday, with additional performances Aug. 17, Sept. 3, 17 and 24, and Oct. 9 and 10.
Tickets are $9 for members of the Trustees of Reservations and $15 for nonmembers. Tickets can be reserved at www.thetrustees.org/things-to-do/pioneer-valley.
The show is appropriate for audiences age 10 and up and will be held rain or shine. Attendees are encouraged to wear comfortable walking shoes. Umbrellas will be provided in case of rain.
The public is invited to share their poetry, poetry by others, or simply to come and listen from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Meekins Library at 2 Williams St. in Williamsburg.
The open mic poetry night is held the first Thursday evening of every month.
For more information, contact Rochelle Wildfong at 268-7472 or rwildfong@cwmars.org.
Ideas for this column on life in the Hilltowns can be sent to Fran Ryan at Fryan.gazette@gmail.com.