You could be forgiven for thinking the bearded man in the photo to the right is Noah Kahan. After all, even AI can't tell them apart. Last Thursday, the University of Vermont Program Board held a Kahan look-alike contest on the Davis Center Green. The Vermont-AF affair, honoring the Grammy-nominated "Stick Season" singer, drew a crowd of between 150 and 200 people. Few could have predicted it would also draw such a remarkable doppelgänger. Among the 16 participants of various ages, genders and degrees of facial hair — several wore painted-on beards — one Kahan-testant stood out for his uncanny resemblance to the real thing. "Everyone was like, 'That's literally Noah Kahan,'" recalled UVM senior Casey O'Toole, who organized the contest. In fact, it wasn't Kahan. But it also wasn't the first time Sam Spanierman was confused for the singer. "It happens a lot," Spanierman said in an interview after winning the contest. Spanierman is a 2018 UVM grad who now works in the school's Student Financial Services office. He's a native Vermonter and said he and his wife are Kahan fans, adding that people have been telling him how much he looks like the Strafford singer since well before he blew up internationally. The resemblance is so striking it's even duped friends' smartphones. "A friend of mine saw him in concert last year and took a picture of him onstage," Spanierman recalled. Her phone then ID'd Kahan as Spanierman from her contacts. Spanierman sports a shorter haircut than Kahan's flowing, sometimes braided locks, so he wore a knit Carhartt cap to complete his Kahan-semble on Thursday. Otherwise, he's the spitting image. Spanierman is tall and shares Kahan's athletic build. They both have thick, dark beards. They're even about the same age: Spanierman is 28; Kahan turns 28 on January 1. While visual similarities made Spanierman the runaway winner of the look-alike contest, he's akin to Kahan in another, perhaps more important way: generosity of spirit. As the winner, Spanierman received a copy of Stick Season on vinyl. While taking photos with a throng of fans after the contest, he spoke to a student who told him how much they hoped to get that record for Christmas. Spanierman doesn't have a record player, so as the crowd dispersed he sought out the student on the green and gifted his copy…