Karen Chase has worn many hats in her lifetime.
She has been a business owner, held several public service roles, and been a police dispatcher and a Meals on Wheels driver.
In more recent years, though, Chase has best been known as the driving force behind reviving a news publication – this, the Kent Good Times Dispatch – in Kent in October 2023.
She served as the founding president of Kent News, Inc., the nonprofit publisher of the GTD.
“The newspaper is one of the most important things in a community,” said Chase, a longtime resident of town. “The community needs it to keep informed.”
Chase recently retired from the board. She is succeeded as president by resident Andrea Schoeny.
Kent News, Inc. will celebrate the first anniversary of publishing the GTD, the town’s contemporary, independent online news source Oct. 13 from 2 to 4 p.m. at Kent Town Hall.
At that time, Chase will also be honored for her public service and dedication to Kent News, Inc. The public is invited to attend.
The publication and its sustainability of a local news source is meaningful to the New Milford High School graduate.
“Think of (a news publication) as a daily civics lesson because it tells you everything that’s going on in your community,” she said. “It’s history. And when historians go back and write the story, where do they go? They go to the newspaper.”
Chase, who grew up in a family with ties to the publishing industry, said bringing a news source back to town was “really important” because it enabled her to “give back to the community” in which she has lived since the early 1980s.
“I would go around town and people would say I really miss the GTD….We need a newspaper,” Chase said of the buzz she heard around town for years prior to the launch of the new GTD in 2023.
The present GTD was named as a nod to the town’s former newspaper, the Kent Good Times Dispatch, that served the community under several publishers from 1959 until 2009.
“She’s been a pillar in the community,” said Taylor Muro of Pawling, N.Y., who grew up as Chase’s neighbor. “She’s always wanted a better Kent and to help the community.”
As an active citizen for decades, Chase has always looked to bring joy to those around her, according to those close to her.
Twenty-year friend G. Halsted Lovig of Kent described Chase’s giving nature, emphasizing her continued interest in “helping people” and “giving back.”
Lovig regularly calls upon Chase for rides to various destinations. Once, her friend drove her to South Carolina.
“I think (being a driver and helping others) is important for her,” Lovig said. “People really respect her and she’s a good driver.”
Lovig noted another of Chase’s strengths – absorbing knowledge and disseminating it to the public.
“She always wants to know what’s going on and to make sure people in the community understand how things come to be,” Lovig related.
TIMES HAVE CHANGED
Back in the 1980s, as a fairly new resident in town, Chase took a job working for the local paper, first submitting snippets about local happenings. She was eventually asked by former GTD staff to assume the role of editor.
That was the beginning of her longtime love for community journalism, and introduction into the latest technology.
“At one time I was told there was no way we could send my work done on an IBM computer to the paper’s Macintosh computer,” Chase said. “An employee at a local Radio Shack wrote a computer program so I could send the stories between computers.”
Writing had long been a favorite pastime for Chase, who began exploring poetry and short stories as a child, so it was a smooth transition into journalism.
Chase reflected on the variety of stories she covered during her time as a reporter/editor, including the implementation of water meters, the construction of senior housing, and the need for affordable housing.
The latter still remains at the forefront of community conversation.
Chase cited the town’s evolution, too, in particular, the shift from Republican to Democrat leadership; the increase in the variety of Main Street businesses, many of which are now more “upscale;” and a reduction in the number of traditional working farms, which today focus on fruits and vegetables.
“The shift is attributed to the people who moved to town…. and the kinds of things they wanted,” Chase observed.
CLOSE TO THE HEART
Chase may be retired from the majority of community projects in which she has been involved, but her pace is only slowed a little.
She enjoys time at home, which she built with her late husband, Andy, and spending time with her daughter, Sarah Chase, and her husband, William Watts, who recently moved back to Kent.
“It’s like watching me when I was young….getting involved in everything,” Chase said, reflecting on watching her daughter become active in the community.
“But she’s a little better at it than me,” Chase quipped.
Chase’s home, located in the Macedonia section of Kent, is a celebration of creativity and nature, the house designed by Andy and built of oak and fieldstone by the Chases.
The house itself is unique with three sides underground. The interior boasts flagstone throughout and a special flagstone centerpiece fireplace in the living room.
“It was quite a project,” Chase fondly recalled of the construction process. “Wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow… we didn’t have a big truck come and dump anything. We did almost everything.”
Outside, chipmunks and squirrels scurry from the nearby woods to her front lawn while birds earn frequent flyer miles over Chase’s front patio surrounded by wildflowers.
Chase’s camera is never too far away; she captures the beauty of the world around her and prints notecards and participates in local art exhibits.
If she isn’t outside tending to her garden and yard work, she can be found indoors writing poetry, or baking scones.
“I really like baking,” Chase said. “My mother was an excellent cook. And her neighbor was a famous French chef. She wasn’t ashamed to invite him to dinner.”
Muro recalled spending many of her childhood days at Chase’s home, where she’d “have tea” and be “taught how to bake and cook.”
“She gave me my love of tea,” Muro said, fondly reflecting. “We’d have afternoon tea and cookies. Anytime I have tea, I think of her.”
Muro also remembered trips to theater with Chase.
“She was an incredible influence on me throughout my childhood and an incredible part of my family,” Muro said.
In addition to exploring the culinary arts, Chase has long enjoyed writing.
Following the death of her husband in 2009, she found poetry as means of therapeutic healing and reflection.
Writing “is a way to express things that I can’t normally say,” Chase said.
“Instead of being able to say things (after my husband died), I would write poetry and little streams of consciousness about how I was feeling,” Chase related.
Chase admit she has discovered that, with age, she communicates “better” when she writes than when she talks.
Her travels to her ancestors’ homeland of Ireland are another favorite pastime and have played an integral role in her art.
“It was the most moving place I’ve ever been,” Chase said of Ireland, which she first visited in the early 2000s, encouraged by her mother.
The landscape and the people inspired her to learn more and write numerous poems, many of them about the Irish famine.
