For the 17th straight year, I’m happy to share with you, our BDN readers, these magic words: Our “Win a Drift Boat Contest” is open. Feel free to start entering to win a prize you’ll never forget. Begun in 2003 as a promotion by our marketing folks to help introduce the BDN’s new outdoors columnist (me) to the public, this contest was unveiled at an outdoors expo and was an instant hit.

The Southern Aroostook girls basketball team returned every starter off last year’s state Class D championship team and it certainly showed on Saturday afternoon, March 2. The experienced Warriors of Dyer Brook reeled off a 14-0 run in the first quarter to build an 11-point lead and pulled away for an impressive 55-30 victory over a hardworking Greenville team while winning a second straight state title for the first time in school history.

“By Honor Bound,” is the autobiographical story of Vietnam War US Navy SEAL Congressional Medal of Honor recipients Tom Norris and Mike Thornton. In the book's epilogue I learned new things about that medal. Moreso, I was reminded of the contrast of how people I grew up with -- adults and kids -- valued America as the Land of the Free; much different than the America of self-identified socialists running for US President in 2020.

An act of the Legislature is needed if Mayo Regional Hospital’s merger with a statewide health care system is to go forward in the way administrators at the Dover-Foxcroft hospital are proposing. But no legislator from Piscataquis County has publicly committed yet to sponsoring the legislation that would eliminate the charter the hospital has operated under since the 1970s.

I have been a family physician living and practicing in Dover-Foxcroft for over 25 years. I have lived in Piscataquis County nearly half of my life. This is my home. Mayo Regional Hospital is my hospital. My daughter was born here. My mother and mother-in-law each died here. I get my personal care here. Every day I am proud to say that I am a part of the Mayo team. I write now to tell why I think that the time is right for Mayo to move forward with its merger with Northern Light Health as has been proposed by our board of directors.

On Feb. 27 the board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital (Hospital Administrative District 4) voted 14-2 to tax the 13 communities it serves should it need to in order to balance its debt service. Two board members abstained and one member was absent.

The Maine Community Foundation’s new Roger N. Heald Fund has awarded $85,000 in grants to support conservation projects across Maine. The grantees include $10,000 to The Conservation Fund for an acquisition project in the 100-Mile Wilderness along the Appalachian Trail.

The public board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital has voted to begin a merger with Northern Light Health, the statewide health care organization that’s based in Brewer and includes Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. The board members, who are elected from 13 Piscataquis County communities served by the hospital and who oversee a quasi-municipal entity known as Hospital Administrative District No. 4, approved the merger agreement in a 15-3 vote during a meeting Wednesday night, Feb. 27.

There will be plenty of room on the bench for the Greenville High School girls basketball team for Saturday’s 2:05 p.m. state Class D championship game in Bangor against defending champ Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook. That’s because the Lakers have only eight players on the roster.

Gage Stone’s wrestling postseason didn’t get off to a great start, but it’s on a much higher trajectory these days. The junior from Dexter Regional High School is set to leave Thursday for Providence, Rhode Island, the site of this weekend’s New England interscholastic championships.