1995

September 6: The first, 28-page issue is published with a "back-to-seminary" essay by Peter Freyne, a short story excerpt by UVM prof Philip Baruth, and a pizza survey headlined "The Pies Have It." The winner? Leonardo's. The calendar spotlights Rusty DeWees in Seven Days. The paper's sole comic strip is dug Nap's "Duane."

September 13: Seven Days gets an email address, [email protected] and a classifieds section. The first of more than 1,000 mottos is: Better read than dead.

October 18: The cover story is prescient: "Fermenting Revolution: Vermont's beer biz hops to it" spotlights Long Trail, Otter Creek, Catamount and Magic Hat. Writer Irving Shelby Smith predicts: "The word 'Vermont' may soon also say 'great beer' to the rest of the nation." Peter Freyne's Inside Track debuts in Seven Days.

October 25: A directory of local musicians in the first Music Issue spotlights James Kochalka, Superstar, Wide Wail keyboardist Amanda Gustafson and the Fags. Ukrainian frontman Eugene Nikolaev would go on to create Gogol Bordello (as Eugene Hutz).

November 8: Paula Routly reports in Back Talk that Bob Denver, aka Gilligan, visited the office. The paper publishes its first two iSpys, the better of which reads: "I spy with my little eye a M who's sexy, sweet, caring, hairless, a morning person, huggable, has a fetish for cows and is keepable. Box P-14"

November 15: Peter Freyne pens the cover story: "Billy the Kid: William Greer, football folk hero or biggest drug dealer in Vermont?" The former Rice High School football star is accused, and later convicted, of masterminding Vermont's largest pot and hashish smuggling operation.

December 20: Tom Paine's short story "From Basra to Bethlehem" appears in the first Winter Reading Issue. A few months later, it earns the paper a prestigious Pushcart Prize.