At the first North Kingstown School Committee meeting of 2020, the 15 percent capital reserve fee dominated public comment and carried over into the meeting itself, seeing the item pertaining to it moved up earlier in the meeting as multiple parents and students, many of which with connections to the school’s musical theater department, voicing their displeasure with the fee.

The General Assembly opened its 2020 legislative session on Tuesday, and local lawmakers from South Kingstown and Narragansett said they’re ready to get to work on new initiatives in the new year.

More than 100 men’s dress shirts, 45 huge plastic bags full of sweaters, shoes, pocketbooks and pants and 60 assorted coats, dresses and suits filled Rob McKay’s collection of clothes.

After last year’s show was called off due to a high number of deployments, the Rhode Island National Guard announced last Friday that the annual Open House Air Show will return this June to the Quonset Air National Guard Base.

The final year of the decade was another eventful one for the town of North Kingstown, with the future of the Town Hall building at 80 Boston Neck Road once again one of the most talked about local news issues in the area while business continued to boom in the Quonset Business Park with new developments and contracts, and bond projects approved in 2018 for the North Kingstown School District got under way. 

Here’s a look back at some of those stories that were the talk of the town in 2019.

When the West Bay YMCA closed its doors in April, it left the community without one of its main fitness centers and put the future of its annual events in jeopardy.

In their final meeting of the year, the North Kingstown Town Council set their sights on the decade ahead as they approved a proposal for future bond initiatives to revamp the school system as well as voted to award a new contract to DBVW Architects to explore options within the $5 million bond budget for Town Hall.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Congressman Jim Langevin (D-RI02) joined workers and managers of Electric Boat Friday morning at the company’s Quonset Point location to celebrate the awarding of the largest shipbuilding contract in U.S. Navy history to their parent company, General Dynamics, as well as Huntington Ingalls Industries in Virginia.

The North Kingstown School Committee held its final regular meeting of 2019 Tuesday night with a focus on the state of technology in the North Kingstown School Department, while the Citizens Comments portion of the meeting was taken up by students and parents making the case for a later start time for the high school.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a massive aerial attack on the headquarters of the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, killing 2,335 US service members while wounding an additional 1,143 in the first attack by a foreign power on US since the War of 1812, propelling the Americans into World War II and making that Sunday morning a date which President Franklin D. Roosevelt said “will live in infamy.”

Parts for up to nine new Virginia-class submarines are set to be built in Quonset over the next few years after the Navy awarded a $22.2 billion shipbuilding contract, the largest such in the branch’s history, to General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc.

If unique gifts — perhaps one-of-a-kind — fill your holiday list, the artists and crafters at Shady Lea Mill could have the right ones.

Every year since 1993, the week leading up to Thanksgiving break has meant one thing at Wickford Middle School: it’s time for the Turkey Trot.

“North Kingstown: Rhode Island’s Best Kept Secret.”

So goes the tagline for a new promotional video highlighting the town and its businesses unveiled Nov. 18 by the Town of North Kingstown and North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce in a premiere at Anvil International.

In the first Town Council meeting since the Nov. 5 Special Election, the future of the Town Hall at 80 Boston Neck Road was still very much on the mind of both councilors and citizens alike Monday night at the Beachwood Senior Center.