Joe's Yearbook: Chronicles of a teen's last year in high school
WEYMOUTH - It's 6:45 a.m. on Tuesday and Joe Ruvido's alarm clock is blaring, a wake-up call to the start of his senior year in high school.

Fire destroys beloved church
WEYMOUTH - Grief-stricken parishioners picked up bricks and shingles today from the blackened rubble of Sacred Heart Church to keep as mementos of a building many knew as babies.

St. Albert the Great Church reopens
WEYMOUTH - Mary Williams pumped her fists as she strode into St. Albert the Great Church.

Local Marine was ready to leave Iraq
WEYMOUTH - Marine Sgt. Andrew Farrar Jr. broke his right hand two weeks ago in Iraq and had the chance to be assigned to lighter duty. The Weymouth native refused.

Budget hubbub haunts air base
WEYMOUTH - Almost $1 million for legal fees. Tens of thousands of dollars for Internet services. Thousands in consulting fees. And $62 for long underwear. Those are just a few of the things the agency overseeing the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station spent money on last year.

Highway haven
Herb Winters has a home. Some may not see it that way, for when he wants to go to sleep on cold nights, he has to first warm up the place because it's 20 degrees in his bedroom. That's one of the consequences of the lifestyle he's accepted. He started building his home 18 years ago in the state-owned woods of a cloverleaf on a ramp from Route 24 to Route 139 in Stoughton, and has lived there ever since.

Braintree teen dies on rainy street
BRAINTREE - Sitting on her front steps yesterday, eyes wet and a cigarette in hand, Robin Dickerson remembered her 19-year-old son, Paul, as a good kid who loved drawing and heavy metal music. "He never gave me one minute's trouble," she said. Eleven miles away in Whitman, James Thompson paced his driveway trying to understand how in a matter of seconds a routine day had turned into a nightmare.

Scholarships to honor crash victim's memory
WEYMOUTH - More than anything, more than her voice, her spunk or spirit, even more than her smile, Linda Close misses the smell of Jenelle's hair.

Marines bring comrade home
WEYMOUTH - Lance Cpl. Alexander S. Arredondo arrived at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Jamaica Plain in a coffin draped with an American flag and carried by six Marines. It was a brilliant Saturday morning and the Marines wore dress blues that included trousers with the Marine Corps blood stripe down the side.

A neighborhood divided
HOLBROOK - The Hendersons, Henrietta and John, have two cars. They live at the same house on Springvale Avenue and park their cars in the same driveway. When Henrietta pays excise tax, Holbrook gets the check. But when John pays his, Randolph benefits.