New Hampshire college heats campus with used cooking oil Maine couple wins beer, cash in wife-carrying competition

Keene, N.H. (AP) — Things are heating up at New Hampshire’s Keene State College, which is now using 100 percent used cooking oil to keep more than a third of its campus warm.

Officials say the college’s decision to replace their polluting heating fuel oil with purified waste vegetable oil both supports a local business and improves the air quality around campus.

Cary Gaunt, the director of campus sustainability, said he was told by industry leaders that Keene State is the only college in the country using purified waste vegetable oil to heat a campus . The school has about 5,500 students.

“Sustainability is a core value at Keene State College,” he said. “We are taking bold steps to demonstrate our values by significantly reducing our greenhouse gas footprint and improving the well-being of the people on our campus and the surrounding community.”

The college uses the new carbon-neutral fuel for heat and hot water, and intends to increase its use of the alternative fuel in the coming years.

Officials say the cost is comparable to the old oil once renewable energy incentives are factored in.

Newry, Maine (AP) — Carrying your wife over the threshold means good luck in your new marriage. Carrying your wife over an obstacle course featuring log hurdles, sand traps and water hazards means beer and cash prizes.

A husband and wife from Maine are this year’s winners of the North American Wife Carrying Championship held Saturday in Newry, Maine, and will compete in the world championship in Finland next year. Elliot and Giana Storey, of Westbrook, will bring home 11 cases of Goose Island Octoberfest beer and $665. They bested 43 other couples to win the 17th annual competition.

The Storeys completed the 278-yard course in 59.18 seconds. Their prizes were the weight of Giana in beer and five times her weight in cash.

The legend behind the event is based on Finland’s “Ronkainen the Robber,” whose 19th-century gang was known to pillage villages and take the women.

The modern version features teams racing through a regulation length obstacle course dry and wet hazards.

These days, men usually carry a woman — they don’t have to be married and the couple can choose who carries whom — in a variety of styles including piggyback, the over-the-shoulder fireman’s carry and the “Estonian carry,” which features the woman upside down and dangling behind her partner.