The Highlands Classical Chamber Ensemble will appear in concert at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 10 at the Dover-Foxcroft Congregational Church located at 824 West Main Street. Admission is by donation. For more information, please call 564-0043.

Fermentation as a method of food preservation is an increasingly popular topic, and Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) is pleased that Mary Margaret Ripley (of Dover Foxcroft’s Ripley Farm) will share her fermenting knowledge and experience at a “Kombucha” workshop 10 a.m. Saturday morning, March 9 at Dexter’s Abbott Memorial Library.

Advance care planning isn’t just for those with life-limiting illnesses – but for all of us. Pine Tree Hospice is offering a free informative seminar at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 17 Church Street, on Saturday, March 16, from 9:30 a.m. to noon.

Penquis Valley High School senior Cymeria Robshaw is the second best girls high school long jumper in New England as she finished in second place at the 32nd annual New England Interscholastic Indoor Track & Field Championships on March 2 at Roxbury Community College’s Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center.

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.