PAGES in TIME: Maine is the main thing

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by Milt Huntington

Just when you think everything good about the State of Maine has been said or read, you come across another platitude from another source that makes your chest swell with pride. Here we go again.

Almost every time I look out the window or go for a ride in the car, I see something else that makes me thankful that I live here in the Pine Tree State. Before I attempt to wax eloquently about my personal love for this incredible place, let me offer my credentials.

I was born on Bay View Street in Belfast, Maine, a stone’s throw from the harbor. It was on those rocky shores I played with my toy soldiers, watched the tides come and go, and sat behind a sloping ledge pretending I was operating a ship. I caught flounders off the Belfast wharf and picked berries on the embankments leading to the beach. I observed the mail boat arriving each day from Castine and the humongous Boston Boat when it docked on the outside of the wharf to discharge passengers from away. No one ever had a better playground than I. We moved to Augusta when I was ten.

To add further to my Maine credentials, I had the enviable pleasure of working with the old Maine Department of Economic Development. Equipped with a typewriter and camera, I was charged with the responsibility of promoting Maine’s recreational, agricultural and industrial pursuits. Talk about a labor of love, I would have done it for nothing. Well, maybe that’s carrying my enthusiasm a little far.

I did, however, serve without pay, as president of the Maine Publicity Bureau. In my days of work and play, I got to know Maine pretty well. I think back on those days of joy and remember attending the New England Governors’ Conference, in Rangeley, which was set deep in the woods on Kennebago Lake.

I was afforded the opportunity to handle publicity when Maine officials went to Fenway Park on Maine Day, and when Governor John Reed went to New York City for the opening of No Strings. The Broadway play, starring Richard Kiley and Dianne Carroll, featured a song about the Pine Tree State. It was called Maine is the Maine Thing, by Rogers and Hart. One verse went: “The fields and streams are like a frozen cup.” It stunk! So did the play. It closed after a couple of weeks.

We also visited back stage during rehearsals with the likes of Perry Como, Carol Burnett, Don Knots, Gary Moore and a bunch of other well-known stars of the day. Perry Como didn’t like Maine lobsters, but I photographed him with a dead one anyway. We orchestrated a contest between Maine clam chowder and Manhattan clam chowder. Maine won in the judgment of a nutritionist from Harvard who also raved about the healthful values of Maine sardines.

As far as Maine Day at Fenway Park is concerned, the DED and Old Orchard Beach cooked up a scheme to promote that incredible Beach area. Old Orchard girls, during the seventh inning stretch, swept the outfield with brooms to accentuate the cleanliness of their white sand beaches. Best of all, however, a ten-foot-long hot dog was trucked from Maine but became impounded by Bay State troopers for some perceived violation of the Pure Foods Act. Imagine the publicity we got with a story about a hotdog from Maine that was arrested in Massachusetts.

I was there for the dedication of Two Lights State Park, in Cape Elizabeth, having written the speech for Governor Reed who delivered the message against the beautiful backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean. Lady Bird Johnson was a special guest when she was the wife of the vice president. I heard her say she didn’t like potatoes, and I heard her aide say, “Yes you do. You’re in Maine.” Lady Bird proceeded to fill her plate.

On another occasion, I escorted a Japanese film star and her crew along the length of our marvelous coast as they filmed it all because it reminded them so much of the coast of northern Japan. The cute little Japanese TV star ate lobsters raw in Tennant’s Harbor and filmed seagulls the same day on a Bar Harbor wharf.

My other publicity score was when I was publicizing Maine at the Eastern States Exposition, in Springfield, Massachusetts. We had somehow arranged to obtain as a model for the day – Tina Louise, who appeared as Ginger Grant on the TV comedy Gilligan’s Island. I got to drive her around in my family car and photograph her in a Maine potato sack. My picture went everywhere thanks to the Associated Press.

Milt Huntington is the author of “A Lifetime of Laughter and Things That Make You Grin.”

First places on first try

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Huard’s Martial Arts student Jackson Jandreau, 5, of Clinton, entered his first martial arts competition on March 24, at Thomas College, in Waterville, and captured first place in forms, fighting and chanbara. (Photo by Mark Huard)

Benton Father/daughter dance

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Sisters Aaliyah Crowell, 9, and Alexis Crowell, 6, of Fairfield, with their dad Nick Crowell, at the annual Benton Elementary School father/daughter dance on March 24. This year’s theme was “Hollywood,” and Central Maine Photography captured lots of special memories. Photo by Central Maine Photography staff

ERIC’S TECH TALK: On the internet, the product being sold is you!

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by Eric W. Austin

How does it feel, sitting there on the digital shelf? Have you checked your best-buy date? I think I’m still good for a few more years yet.

It may not feel like it, but on the internet, the product companies are selling is you. Facebook isn’t a social media company, it’s a people factory. It processes you, formats you, and wraps you up in a neat little database. Then it mass produces you and sells you at a discount to anyone with a credit card.

Four years ago, a British political consulting firm named Cambridge Analytica, colluded in a campaign to capture profile information from Facebook users. In the end, it would lead to a scandal involving the user information of more than 70 million Americans, the use of psychometrics as a new political tool, and an influence campaign that may have turned the tide in two world-altering elections a continent apart.

Let’s start at the beginning. In 2014, a lecturer from Cambridge University, Aleksandr Kogan, formed a UK company called Global Science Research (GSR). He then developed a Facebook app posing as a personality survey. He paid American Facebook users $1 to $4 to download the app and fill out the personality test, for a total of nearly $800,000. In the process, those users gave the app permission to collect their profile data. Whether Kogan did this on his own or at the encouragement of Cambridge Analytica is open to debate, depending with whom you talk.

In any case, around 270,000 people downloaded the app and filled out the survey. Next to America’s population of 325 million, that may not sound like many people, but under Facebook rules at the time (which were changed in 2015 in response to this incident), when users gave the app permission to collect their profile data, they also gave the app permission to collect the profile information of their friends as well. Since the average Facebook user has between 100-500 friends, this meant the app was able to collect the profile information of nearly 87 million people.

The data they collected wasn’t simply ordinary information like work history and places lived. They also pulled other user data which Facebook collects, such as the posts you’ve ‘liked,’ status updates you’ve posted, and the groups you belong to.

Kogan then began working with another company, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), the parent company of the aforementioned Cambridge Analytica. Up until this point, Kogan had not done anything illegal or against Facebook’s terms and conditions. But when he shared the data with SCL, he broke Facebook’s rules, which stipulate data acquired through an app cannot be shared with another entity without first obtaining Facebook’s permission.

SCL is a private behavioral research and strategic communications company, purchased by billionaire conservative donor, Robert Mercer, in 2013. They analyze large sets of data and attempt to identity patterns in it for use in political marketing. Taking Kogan’s data, with information about pages you follow, posts you like and create, comments you leave, and much, much more, a team of psychologists and data analysts looked for ways to target people for maximum effect. It’s called psychographic profiling and it’s the new weapon in political warfare.

Let me give you a real-world example of the type of data these apps collect. If I go to my Facebook settings and select ‘Apps,’ I get a list of the apps that I’ve used on Facebook. Clicking on an app pulls up a screen that tells me what permissions I have granted. In the app “80’s One Hit Wonders,” which I don’t even remember signing up for, it lists nearly 20 different categories of information to which the app has access. This includes my hometown, birth-date, friends list, work and education history, religious and political views, status updates and more than a dozen other categories. I am most definitely deleting this app.

This is the type of information Kogan shared with Cambridge Analytica, through their parent company SCL. Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary of SCL founded just after Mercer’s acquisition of the company, was the brainchild of Mercer political advisor and former Trump Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon. The creation of Cambridge Analytica was an attempt to harness the psychological techniques of its parent company for the domestic political scene, and was used by several important political campaigns, including those of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, as well as the Brexit initiative which successfully withdrew the United Kingdom from the European Union.

What sets SCL and Cambridge Analytica apart from other similar data-marketing companies is the way they approach their influence campaigns. They employ a developing science called “psychographic targeting.” This is the process of tweaking your market-targeting based on the psychological characteristics of your intended audience.

Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL, first honed its skills in cyber-psychological warfare by messing with the elections in developing countries: “Psyops. Psychological operations – the same methods the military use to effect mass sentiment change,” a former Cambridge Analytica employee told The Guardian in May 2017. “It’s what they mean by winning ‘hearts and minds.’ We were just doing it to win elections in the kind of developing countries that don’t have many rules.”

This anonymous former employee is speaking about the company’s work prior to 2013, before the success of SCL’s foreign influence campaigns attracted the interest of wealthy American hedge fund manager and tech entrepreneur, Robert Mercer, and his political ally, Steve Bannon, who were looking to bring those modern techniques of psychological warfare to the political battlefield back home.

Imagine targeting users who are members of the Facebook group, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), with ads depicting horrific car crashes and a message suggesting one of the candidates in a political race will go easy on drunk drivers. Would such a campaign be likely to sway some of those voters, even if its claims were untrue?

Now, in lieu of drunk driving, imagine instead targeting the darkest aspects of human nature: racism, hate, sexism, the worst extremes of political partisanship. Afraid someone will take away your guns? There’s an ad for that. Worried about your religious liberty? Don’t worry, there’s an ad for that. Hate immigrants or Muslims? There’s a – well, you get the picture.

And it gets even more deeply duplicitous than that. Not only did they target the most vulnerable people on the political fringe, but those targeted ads might link to articles on fake news websites which look eerily similar to real news sites like Fox or MSNBC. The whole idea is to trick visitors into thinking they are viewing an article from a legitimate source. The web address of the page might be “msnbc.com.co” but most people won’t even notice the extra “co” at the end. Even the links back to the homepage at the top of the article will likely take visitors back to the real MSNBC website, so that anyone leaving the page will think they’ve just read an article published and endorsed by a legitimate news organization. In this way, innocent people become unwitting conspirators in spreading fake news; and it helps fuel the public’s current distrust of national news sources.

This scandal with Cambridge Analytica has caused an identity crisis for Facebook, too. On the surface, Facebook appears to be a platform designed to facilitate communication, and that is the description promoted by the company itself, but a number of cracks have begun to show through this carefully constructed facade.

The scary truth, which nobody wants to talk about, is that Facebook is a company designed to make money for its creators and stockholders. It does this by encouraging the sharing of personal data by its users, and then making that information available for use by marketers who buy ads on the platform. The more users the platform has, and the more data those users share, the more valuable Facebook is to its investors. Facebook is confronted with the dilemma of needing to reassure its users that their information is safe, even as their business model is designed to exploit the information of those very same users.

Facebook itself is built to addict its users. The more people using the platform, the more ads that can be shown, and the more money Facebook makes. The constant endorphin-spiking feedback loop of likes, notifications and updates, serves to addict users as surely as any drug. “They’ve created the attention economy and are now engaged in a full-blown arms race to capture and retain human attention, including the attention of kids,” says Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist, who now serves as a senior fellow for the nonprofit advocacy group, Common Sense Media.

The internet has changed the face of commerce. But the most important product being purchased on the internet is not the latest toy marketed on Amazon, or the newest video streaming service. In the internet age, the most valuable commodity is you. Your information, your vote, and your efforts in pushing the agenda of those with money, means, and power.

Eric W. Austin lives in China and writes about community issues and technology. He can be reached by email at ericwaustin@gmail.com.

SOLON & BEYOND: Invitation for bids out for road projects in Solon

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Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percyby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

Now for some news from the Solon Selectmen’s Office, from a statement given to me: You have been invited to bid on our 2018 Road Project. Project: repave Meeting House Road and South Solon Road. Bid deadline: April 25, 2018 at 6:30 p.m.

Bids must be filed with the Town Clerk at the Solon Town Office in a sealed envelope with “Road Bid” written on it. If mailed, mail to PO Box 214, Solon, Maine 04979; 207-643-2541 or Fax 207-643-2864 and “Attention Selectmen – Road Bid.” If hand delivered, it must be in a sealed envelope with “Road Bid” written on the envelope. No bids will be accepted after 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. The job must be completed by October 1, 2018.

Bids will be opened and read aloud at the meeting of the selectmen at the Solon Town Office Conference Room on Wednesday, April 25, at 6:30 p.m. After consideration of all bids the selectmen will announce their decision. The selectmen reserve the right to waive all formalities and to accept or reject any or all bids.

We reserve the right to accept or reject any and or all bids.

The newly-elected selectman, Keith Gallagher, will be taking over the position of overseeing the Solon Transfer Station and Tree Growth. Kerry Evangelista is now on the planning board. There are openings for anyone interested on the Coolidge Library Board and planning board.

Several notices have been sent out for tax liens.

That seems to be all the real news I could gather up this week, always waiting for your e-mails and letters telling about what’s going on in your life to share.

Several times during the many years I have been writing for different papers, people have told me, “You should write a book!” The other day when I was going through some boxes I found an envelope with three little books, (3″ x 3″) that I had made out of folded paper and written stories in them, way back when I was a child in Flagstaff. The names of these books were, The Book of an Adventure, Pailsblue, A Book of the Color, and The Book of Adventures and Buckingbronkos. (As you can see, my spelling wasn’t the best way back then!)

The word buckingbronkos brought back many memories and wonderment that I’m still alive to tell the story! I grew up on a farm and one day two of my cousins and I were in a pig pen where there were also apple trees, (I figure we were after the nice juicy apples)….But ….the older cousin dared me to ride a great big fat old pig! He was certainly old enough to know better, but I never turned down a dare, and probably too young to know better. My two cousins caught the pig and proceeded to put me on his back. My short little legs were not long enough to reach very far around his big fat old body, and, of course, there were no reins. As I can remember, it was a very short rough ride until he bucked me off on a huge, hard rock! Maybe some day when I don’t have real news, I’ll share this little book with you, then I can say, it was published! (what do you say, Roland?) In my later years, I’ve wondered if maybe I hit my head on the rock and that is why I’m such a nut now??

And now for Percy’s memoir entitled Sunshine: Come out into the sunlight, Heart of mine; Why linger in the shadows And repine! Winter’s snows can’t last forever, Neither pain; Oh, come out into the sunlight Once again! In the blue the birds were singing Up above; Throw away thy gloom and sadness All is love! Oh, come out into the sunshine, Soul of mine; Never wert thou made for darkness, Love is thine! (words by Ralph Spaulding Cushman.)

Lief and I went snowshoeing one beautiful bright sunshiny day recently and it was a great feeling to be out and about in such glory to behold!

Obituaries, Week of April 12, 2018

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MERTON D. CAMPBELL

WINSLOW – Merton D. Campbell, 86, passed away Friday, March 30, 2018, at the Lakewood Continuing Care Center, in Waterville. Merton was born in Malagawatch, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, on June 9, 1931, son of Avice and Murdoch Campbell.

Merton graduated from Waterville High School in 1949.

Mert married his childhood sweetheart, Lois M. Armstrong, in May 1951. The couple moved to Dover, Delaware, where he was stationed in the U.S. Air Force. Upon his completion of service, they moved to Winslow, where Mert founded Campbell Taping Company, and was well-respected in the drywall contracting business. His two sons learned the trade from their father and continue to provide these skills and services to many Maine communities.

Mert was always ready to lend a hand to anyone needing his many skills. He was a craftsman, builder, carpenter, welder, and mechanic, often coming to the rescue of his children, neighbors, and friends. He was also a “one-of-a-kind” grandfather who volunteered to babysit his grandchildren as a blessing to their working parents.

Mert had a servant’s heart for many ministries at the Winslow Congregational Church, where he was a trustee for years, tending to the needs of the church building as requests arose. He could always be
found washing dishes in the kitchen during church suppers. He was also a great help in mixing up the batter for blueberry pancakes at the church’s annual Blueberry Festival. Mert and Lois also worked as volunteers for the Meals on Wheels Program.

Mert most enjoyed spending summers at the family camp on Messalonskee Lake, which he built in 1962. Mert and Lois welcomed both family and friends to spend time with them at their beloved “Camp Bell” in Campbell Cove. Mert enjoyed sailing on the lake on boats he designed and built. He was continually working, though, even at camp, raking the property, painting, and making repairs.

Mert’s wife Lois passed away in November of 2013.

Mert is survived by his three children, Debra Clark and husband Dan, of Winslow, James Campbell and his wife Peg, of Fairfield, and John Campbell and his wife Bridget, of Winslow; two sisters Joscelyn Moody, of Macedon, New York, and Peggy Crosby, of Benton; grandchildren Erin Pollock and husband Jonathan, of Durham, David Campbell and wife Heather, of South Portland, Ben Clark and wife Theresa, of Winslow, Beth Carlton, of Fairfield and Haley Campbell, of Winslow; great-grandchildren Emily and Hannah Carlton, Grace, Ella, Lydia, Samuel, Theodore, and Oliver Clark, Gabriel and Lily Pollock; cousin Larry Bailey and wife Linda, of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

A memorial gathering will be held at Lawry Brothers Funeral Home, in Fairfield, on Saturday, April 28, from 2-4 p.m.

An online guestbook may be signed and memories shared at www.lawrybrothers.com.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to: Friends of Messalonskee, a nonprofit volunteer organization dedicated to the preservation of Messalonskee Lake, also known as Snow Pond, Mert’s favorite place, P.O. Box 532, Oakland , ME 04963, or visit www.friendsofmessalonskee.com to donate online.

LUCILLE A. GIROUX

WINSLOW – Lucille A. (Cote) Giroux, 93, passed away on Friday, March 30, 2018, at Glenridge Comfort Care, in Augusta. She was born in Waterville on May 29, 1924, daughter of Onesime Sr. and Stella (Proulx) Cote.

She attended local schools and graduated from Waterville High.

She married Donald L. Giroux, from Winslow, on June 12, 1948.

She stayed at home to raise her three children and then entered the work force in the assessor’s office at Waterville City Hall until retirement in 1989.

Her family was her pride and joy. Holidays and family celebrations were a big part of her life. There was always room for one more person. Two of her favorite hobbies were crocheting and word puzzles. She enjoyed watching old movies, especially musicals, and going out for a drive.

She was predeceased by her husband, Don; her parents; two sisters, Arlene and Jeanette; three brothers, Francis, Onesime Jr. (Zim), and Leo.

She is survived by her son Daniel, and daughters Ellen Grenier and husband James, Janet Delile and husband James; grandchildren, Amber Mitchell and husband Ken, of Corinth, Jennifer Young and partner Jake, of Waterville, Kelly McDonald and husband Joe, of Rhode Island, Matthew and wife Jenny, of Fairfield, Kristen Eppinger and husband Neil, of New Jersey, Aron and wife Jamie, of Michigan; great-grandchildren Erica and Emily Mitchell, Caitlyn Young, Kyle and Kendal McDonald, Charlee Grenier, Lily Eppinger and Delisa Roulo, Dylan and Mia Delile.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 11 a.m., Monday, April 23, 2018, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 26 Monument St., Winslow. Burial will follow in St. Francis Catholic Cemetery, Grove Street, Waterville.

An online guestbook may be signed at www.gallantfh.com.

In lieu of flowers, donations cam be made to: St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, one of her favorite charities.

BERNICE R. SCHISSLER

OAKLAND – Bernice R. Schissler, 52, of Oakland, died on Friday, March 30, 2018, at MaineGeneral Medical Center, in Augusta. She was born on July 25, 1965, in Brooklyn, New York, a daughter of Monika (Catalano) and Frank Perpinan.

She was educated in Mastic Beach, New York, schools and came to Maine to attend Kennebec Valley Community College, in Fairfield, where she obtained an associate’s degree in accounting.

Through the years she developed a talent for crafts and became adept in primitive art. She was known as a good baker, especially cheesecakes. She had the ability to see humor in most things and readily laughed when appropriate. Bernice had a spirit of kindness that showed itself in a certain spirit of innocence, honesty and dedication. Her greatest joy was found in her family and she took tremendous pride in loving everyone; be it as a big sister, daughter, mother and grandmother.

Bernice is survived by her daughter Andrea Donadio and her fiancé Ron Cloutier and their daughter Bailey Cloutier, of Waterville; son Anthony Schissler, USMC, of South Carolina; mother Monika Catalano and husband Al; sister Jacqueline Cabrera and husband Carlos, brother Ken Hamada and wife Lisa, sister Jennifer Pahlitzsch and husband Kurt, sister Lisa Perpinan, all of Long Island, New York; as well as a large extended family.

MARK A. HUARD

UNITY – Mark Ames Huard, 49, of Unity, passed away suddenly at his home on Sunday, April 1, 2018. Mark was born to Leon and Bette Huard on November 21, 1968, at Redington-Fairview Hospital, in Skowhegan.

Coincidentally, just a few rooms away in the same hospital, the girl who would eventually become his childhood friend, high school locker partner, and dedicated life partner, had been born six days earlier.

Mark grew up in the town of Norridgewock and graduated from Skowhegan Area High School in 1987. He served in the U.S. Army from 1987-1993 and earned a B.S. in Wildlife Management from Unity College in 2004. Mark worked for the state of Maine, Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry, in various positions from 2001-present, with a brief stint at the U.S. Geological Survey.

Mark was a private person, a man of few words who let his actions do the talking. All who knew and loved him would agree that he was a doer in the fullest sense of the word. He could design, build, repair, and invent almost anything. He was known as “MarkGyver” because there was nothing he couldn’t do, from carpentry, mechanics, beekeeping, electronics, construction, plumbing, etc. He was a voracious reader of how-to- books and owner’s manuals, and constantly watched videos to learn as well.

Mark loved projects, and though he may not have immediately appreciated the projects Kim suggested, he always indulged her requests for such things as raised garden beds and a chicken coop. He was in the process of designing a greenhouse for her this spring. Mark and Kim enjoyed working on projects around their home in Unity and taking back road drives in the “Big Red Truck” with their beloved dog, Ginger. They loved spending as much time together in nature as possible, especially being on the water.

Mark is survived by his partner of 27 years, Kimble Ann Hardy; his father Leon Huard and wife Glenda, of Unity; his sister Heidi Jordan and husband Tim, and niece Emily Jordan; Kimble’s family, mother, Bette Anterra (Bette #2), of Colorado Springs, Colorado, father, Malcolm Hardy and partner Marti Gross, of Mt. Vernon; sister, Karin Hardy, of Fairbanks, Alaska; and niece, Kasey Kelley, of Portland; brother Andrew Hardy and wife Teyara and their children Kaenon, Hathaway, and Minka; her brother Aaron Stasulis and his children Isabella and Logan; as well as several uncles, aunts, and cousins.

Memories and condolences may be offered to the family at www.ripostafh.com.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to your local animal shelter or a charity of your choice.

RICHARD S. DROHAN

WINDSOR – Richard S. Drohan, 66, of Windsor Neck Road, and formerly of Florida, died Tuesday, April 3, 2018, at Alfond Center for Health, in Augusta, following an extended illness. He was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on April 12, 1951, the son of Harold Drohan and Edna (Scott) Drohan.

Prior to his retirement, Mr. Drohan was employed by the U.S. Postal Service for many years. He was a member of the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, in Florida.

Mr. Drohan was predeceased by his parents; two brothers and one sister.

Surviving is his son, Matthew R. Drohan and his wife, Emily, of Halifax, Massachusetts; sister, Jacqueline Fox, of Windsor; and several nieces and nephews.

Condolences, photos and memories may be shared at www.plummerfh.com.

Memorial donations may be made to the charity of one’s choice.

OTHERS DEPARTED

GLENYS C. RINES, 91, of Pittsfield, passed awat on Tuesday, March 20, 2018, at her home. Locally, she is survived by a grandchild, Stanna Alton, of Benton.

WILLIAM A. HALE, 62, of Norridgewock, passed away on Saturday, March 31, 2018, at his home. Locally, he is survived by his mother, Faye Hale, of Augusta, and brothers Douglas Hale and wife Rose, of Augusta, and Steven Hale and wife Lucinda, of Palermo.

Erskine alumni Red Sox trip planned

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CHINA – Erskine Academy Alumni has planned a trip to a Boston Red Sox vs. Baltimore Orioles game on Sunday, May 20, at Fenway Park, Boston. The cost will be $110 and covers the bus and game ticket. Tickets are limited; reserve your tickets now! Coach bus will leave the Erskine Academy parking lot at a.m. For more information and to reserve your tickets, please email Halda hstout@erskine247.com or call the Alumni Office (207) 445-4026.

 

Kennebec Historical Society’s presentation

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When it comes to quirky energy, Augusta has it in spades! A capital city with a schizophrenic personality, this little town by the Kennebec River sits in one of the most beautiful valleys in all of Maine. Filled with gossipy neighbors, charming merchants, down and out vagabonds and smartly dressed bureaucrats, there’s no other place in the state that can quite match it.

Michael Hall is the executive director for the Augusta Downtown Alliance, a member of the Main Street Maine program. A native of Florida, Michael moved up to Augusta in the winter of 2016 to realize his goal of working in a historic, urban setting.

The Kennebec Historical Society’s April Presentation is free to the public (donations gladly accepted) and will take place on Wednesday, April 18, at 6:30 p.m., at the Viles Arboretum, located at 153 Hospital Street in Augusta.

China selectmen to hold executive session

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The China Board of Selectmen will hold an executive session on Thursday, April 12, at 5:30 p.m., at the town office. This meeting is not open to the public.

China Transfer Station coordinator: Volunteers needed for Earth Day cleanup on April 21

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by Irene Belanger
China selectman

Thank you for your continued support of all the transfer station initiatives to “hold the line” on expenses! Once again April brings all of Palermo and China residents outside into warm spring days armed with rakes, large trash bags, and gloves to clean lawns and roadsides of winter debris. Volunteers are needed; April 21 is Earth Day and we will be cleaning roadsides of trash and other debris. Thank you to the Goodine Family and to the Boy Scout Troop #479 for their past years of volunteerism. Please call me to volunteer so that we can plan accordingly. If there is any confusion, please meet at the South China Community Church or China Baptist Church between 8:30 and 9 a.m. on Saturday, April 21, to be assigned roads for clean-up. We will provide trash bags and gloves and bottles of water for hydration. You may take the full bags to the China transfer station directly or call 445-3033 to have the trash bags picked up or other heavy items left on the roadsides.

Drug Take-Back Day for China and Palermo residents is scheduled for Saturday, April 28, 2018 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The Kennebec Sheriff’s Office will again sponsor the event at the transfer station. The KSO will have an officer on site to receive the returned medications. This is a good opportunity to remove unneeded medications out of the hands of those who should not have access to them.