Robert Frost was a distinguished American poet by recognition and a Vermonter by preference, serving as Poet Laureate of Vermont and for many years as “First Citizen” of the Town of Ripton. He was long associated with the Middlebury College School of English and its Writers’ Conference. In 1961, he wrote, “Breathes there a bard who isn’t moved When he finds his verse is understood And not entirely disapproved By his Country and his Neighbourhood?”