Kim Varney Chandler is a researcher, amateur genealogist, photographer, bird watcher, and dog lover. She is a two-time graduate of the University of New Hampshire (‘91, ‘96G), where her love of history began in Professor Charles Clark’s classroom in Horton Hall. She has been researching ever since.
Kim has spent a good amount of time in libraries and historical societies, tracing genealogy, reviewing property deeds, and reading history books. She hasn’t done much with this information except repeatedly share it with unsuspecting friends and family. Until now.
When not immersed in the past, Kim works as a high school counselor and commits an inordinate amount of time to volunteer work for a variety of organizations. She is a lifelong resident of New Hampshire except for two stints living south of the Mason-Dixon.
She lives in Hancock with her husband Marshell and Pemi the hiking therapy dog.
Kim has received extensive press coverage for Covered Bridges of New Hampshire, including a feature piece on WMUR-TV’s New Hampshire Chronicle and Chronicle on WCVB Channel 5. Covered Bridges of New Hampshire was honored with a New Hampshire Preservation Alliance Award for education, documentation, and advocacy, and the accompanying podcast placed second in the New Hampshire Press Association Awards. The book received honorable mention from the Foreword Indies and was chosen as book of the week from the New Hampshire State Library. Covered Bridges of New Hampshire received the Independent Publishers of New England award for Informational Nonfiction in 2024.
Kim is a member of the New Hampshire Humanities Speaker’s Bureau and travels through New Hampshire, delivering programs about covered bridges in the Granite State. She is a life member of the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges and a member of the New Hampshire Historical Society, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, the Historical Society of Cheshire County, and the Hancock Historical Society.