From the birth of a tiny horse to the death of a literary giant, New Hampshire saw its share of highs and lows in 2010.
Einstein, a 6-pound, 14-inch tall pinto stallion, was born in April in Barnstead, 3 pounds lighter than the smallest newborn horse listed in the Guinness Book of Records. His owners later moved him to an out-of-state boarding facility in part to shield him from the national spotlight.
J.D. Salinger -- who knew something about hiding from the world -- died in January in Cornish, where residents had fiercely protected his privacy for decades. Salinger became a sensation in the 1950s after the release of "Catcher in the Rye," but hadn't published anything since 1965. His death at age 91 only intensified the mystery of whether he had other manuscripts hidden away.
Another famous "D," Doris "Granny D" Haddock died in March at age 100, 11 years after walking across the country to promote campaign finance reform and six years after waging a quixotic campaign for U.S. Senate. Haddock, of Dublin, was as open as Salinger was reclusive, welcoming local and national media attention during her 3,200-mile, 14-month trek.
"Sometimes I think it was a fool's errand, but I think there are more people in this country who know what campaign finance reform means since I started," she told The Associated Press in 2000.
Other deaths made headlines not because they involved prominent people but because of their circumstances. Though neither Stephanie Beaudoin nor Kimberly Cates died in 2010, bringing those responsible to justice took time. In March, Erica Blizzard of Laconia was convicted of negligent homicide for the 2008 speedboat crash that killed her Beaudoin and injured another friend.
In November, a Brookline teenager was convicted of first-degree murder and other charges for killing Cates and maiming her daughter with a machete during a 2009 home invasion in Mont Vernon. Steven Spader, 19, was the first person to go on trial in the attacks. Three co-defendants accepted a plea deal and testified against Spader; a fourth is set to go on trial in February.
Judge Gillian Abramson tacked on 76 years to Spader's automatic life sentence, telling him, "You will stay in that cage for the rest of your pointless life."
There were no criminal charges when two men died in a workplace explosion in Colebrook in May, but the company has been fined $1.2 million by the federal government. Authorities said Jesse Kennett of Stratford and Donald Kendall of Colebrook, who had been on the job only a month when they were killed in the blast at the MDM Muzzleloader plant, weren't properly trained and had been feeding explosive powder into equipment by hand.
A week earlier in Portsmouth, fears of an explosion resulted in a nine-hour standoff that cost the city $13,000. The scare aboard a Greyhound bus was prompted by a Burundi man's overheard phone conversation in Swahili that got reported as a possible bomb threat. The driver and other passengers got off the parked bus within several hours, but the Burundi man was too frightened to leave until a relative was brought in to interpret.
The year also ushered in a new era for New Hampshire Republicans, and the end of an era for a historic farm.
Gov. John Lynch was practically the last Democrat left standing after November's election, when Republicans won 298 of the state's 400 House seats, 19 of 24 Senate seats and all five Executive Council seats. Republicans also swept the federal races, with former attorney general Kelly Ayotte defeating Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes to claim retiring Sen. Judd Gregg's seat, former Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta ousting Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in the 1st District and former Rep. Charlie Bass winning back the 2nd District seat he had held for 12 years. Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was not up for re-election.
"New Hampshire has sent a clear message to Washington, and that is: No more business as usual. No more spending money we don't have on programs that don't work. And no more backroom deals," Ayotte told her cheering supporters on election night.
In Dover, one of the oldest continuously operated family farms in the country went up for sale in August after 378 years of management by the Tuttle family. The current owners, siblings Lucy and Will Tuttle, had turned the farm into a year-round business and diversified its offerings beyond fruit and vegetables but were unable to compete with large farms and the growth of supermarket chains.
In northern New Hampshire, the sale of the state's last paper mill called attention to another struggling industry. Fraser Papers closed its Gorham mill in October, putting 240 people out of work. After two other deals feel through, a firm that specializes in buying ailing plants purchased it in December for $2.7 million.
That purchase price was just a tenth of the $30 million investors lost in what prosecutors called the state's largest Ponzi scheme. The abrupt closure of Financial Resources Management in Meredith in November 2009 spawned a year's worth of hearings and investigations at both the state and federal level and led to two department head resignations.
"I didn't see the company going down. It was a self-delusion," the company's president Scott Farah said at a hearing called by the secretary of state last month.
Farah pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud in October and could face up to almost 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in January. The former director of the state Bureau of Securities Regulation resigned, saying he wanted to speak up about how other agencies mishandled the mortgage firm. And the head of the state's banking department retired early rather than risk being fired for not doing enough to stop the scheme.
Peter Hildreth's decision came in the midst of the state's second removal hearing in 2010, a process by which the governor and Executive Council can remove a department head from office.
In the first case, the council voted in September to reprimand and reinstate Liquor Commission Chairman Mark Bodi, who was accused of interfering with an investigation into a Keene bar accused of over-serving customers.
Perhaps already looking to 2011 after a rough year, Bodi said, "It's important we look forward and not in the rearview mirror."
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