Getting the ‘Best of’ Taylor Swift
The superstar performed at New Hampshire Magazine's annual party in 2003 when she was teenager. We're inviting her back.
This year’s Best of NH Party marked my first anniversary as editor of New Hampshire Magazine. I joined Yankee Publishing last year just in time to spend my third day on the job helping my new colleagues stuff gift bags with magazines, almanacs and coupons.
Our party the next day at Flag Hill Distillery & Winery — the venue once again for this year’s party June 20 — kicked off with a special retirement gathering for founding editor Rick Broussard.
Among Rick’s responsibilities for the party since it debuted in 2001 was to orchestrate the evening’s entertainment. I took the easy path for this year’s celebration by inviting the incredible Scott Spradling Band for a return engagement.
By the time most readers see this issue, we’ll be sharing memories on social media about another great salute to New Hampshire’s best and brightest and thinking about how to outdo ourselves next year.
For 2025, I’d like to reach into Rick’s bag of tricks to crank it up to 11.
No, not Spinal Tap (though we’re excited about the upcoming movie sequel.) We’re talking to you, Taylor Swift.
You have a favor to return, and we’re calling on you to make good on it. Now that you’re a global superstar, don’t you think it’s time to pay off a debt that is more than 20 years old?
If that memory is a little fuzzy for you, ask your mom. Back in 2003, she approached Rick at the Best of NH Party and asked if her teenage daughter could perform a few songs.
Rick recounted the story in a 2011 column, “My Date with Taylor Swift.”
“We had a pretty loose schedule that year (we had dueling Elvises, as I recall) so I just asked, ‘Is she from New Hampshire?’ The woman said no, but she assured me I wouldn’t regret it. All I recall about the skinny teenager with the big guitar standing alone on the Verizon Wireless Arena stage was that
she had a great name for show business. I’m terrible with names, but this one I remembered: Taylor Swift.”
Thanks, Taylor, for signing the photo taken by former New Hampshire Magazine art director Susan Laughlin. Former publisher Sharron McCarthy displays it in her office at Girls Inc., a nonprofit that champions the lives of young girls and helps them to become strong, confident women like you.
In honor of those girls — and that small act of kindness my predecessor once showed you — we’d love to invite you back.
We’ll have great food and beverages, and I know an assistant editor here who would be very interested in buying another one of your cardigans to add to her collection.
We’d even let you sing again, even though you’re not from New Hampshire.
