Kate Sloper News Today

LONDONDERRY — Not every hero wears a badge, but in Londonderry, every hero gets the recognition they deserve.

Jeremy Wilner watched his highly-touted boys hoops team from Lincoln, R.I., hold on down the stretch, ultimately knocking off a very strong Waltham team to win the Red Division with a 62-52 victory.

But having revitalised the town’s pig and sheep market, the business was hit hard by successive disease outbreaks in the livestock industry. The 14-week closure from August 2000 due to East Anglia’s classical swine fever outbreaks, followed by the world’s worst epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in February 2001, were a knock-out blow.   When markets could finally re-open in 2002, the cost of compliance with new stringent biosecurity rules was prohibitive for smaller specialist cen...