The Commons at Central Hall will be introducing four new programs in January.

Two men from southern Maine will assume key leadership roles in the Maine Sports Hall of Fame beginning in January. Former television broadcaster Bill Green and Brian Corcoran, the chief executive officer of Shamrock Sports & Entertainment, are set to help guide the organization.

Visitors and local residents using their smartphones, tablets and other devices to access the internet in downtown Greenville and beyond have received an early holiday gift -- free Wi-Fi service. The gift is courtesy of Bill Varney, a well-known Maine businessman who branched out from car sales and insurance to fiber-optic and broadband information delivery a decade ago. Varney

You winterize your boat. You winterize your house. Heck, you even winterize yourself, grabbing a pair of gloves and a hat before heading out to work in the morning. But I’ll bet you do a less-than-impressive job winterizing your fly-fishing gear at the end of a season. That’s OK. Many of us are the same way.

My last column was about the immigrant Ulster Scots. Now, I’d like to introduce you to Scottish immigrants who didn’t come voluntarily.  

Christmas is coming, and you’re not ready. You’ve still got a few holes on your shopping list, and you just don’t know what to do. Don’t worry. My elves have you covered. At least, if you’re trying to find something for an outdoorsy friend or relative, you’re in luck. I’ve got a few suggestions that may just turn you into a holiday hero.

Louise and Stephen Rhoda have watched a number of riveting things happen outside their back door, which faces the Piscataquis River in Milo: deer trying to cross the ice, flooding and, over the last three years, baby eagles. But on Tuesday morning, Dec. 17 they woke to something they had never seen before: a spinning disc of ice that nearly spanned the entire width of the river.

The United Methodist Church of Dover-Foxcroft will hold a Christmas dessert pie sale starting at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 24, until sold out, with many varieties of delicious homemade fruit and filled dessert pies.

Even as health insurance companies report record profits, I regularly read about the growing crisis of Surprise Medical Billing (SMB). It seems implausible that these two trends are somehow unrelated. SMB occurs when health insurers won’t pay for medical care and, instead, those costs are shunted off to patients who can scarcely afford them. So are the insurance companies pocketing more profits at the expense of patients they claim to insure? It would certainly appear so.

On Nov. 19 the Land for Maine’s Future (LMF) program board voted unanimously to allocate $105,000 to the Moosehead Lake Region Economic Development Corporation’s (MLREDC) project to acquire the last remaining greenspace in downtown Greenville to conserve it as a permanent public park with direct access to Moosehead Lake for everyone to enjoy. The LMF’s commitment brings the MLREDC’s fundraising campaign to $216,000 on the way toward its goal of $250,000 to purchase the 3 Lakeview Street property and develop the site and the docking system plus an additional $40,000 goal to establish a reserve fund for annual maintenance.