The following births were recorded recently at Mayo Regional Hospital:

On Thursday, Jan. 24 from 4-7 p.m. Tri-County Technical Center (TCTC) students from the six area high schools (Nokomis, PCHS, Dexter, Foxcroft Academy, Greenville, and Penquis Valley), will participate in the local SkillsUSA competition. Instructors from the 12 programs, along with advisory board members and practitioners in the field, will judge students’ skills based on particular national standards that are exercised in the workforce every day.

I am writing to support with enthusiasm Gov. Mills’ proposal in making preschool available to all children in Maine. As a teacher of English and communication, I have had the opportunity to work with a broad spectrum of students from middle school through college. Based on years of observation and experience in various settings, I realize the vital role of early exposure to a rich learning environment -- it is an essential contributing factor to positive outcomes in future formal academic expectations.

It is the traverse in the woods of ideology. The divergence in paths once aligned. It is here where the “one nation” meets its impassable chasm, a void too deep and too far to bridge.

Upcoming events around the region.

I recently received the birth record of a distant cousin’s spouse. I’d been having trouble locating his parents and the record revealed why. His birth record said he was illegitimate.

The public is cordially invited to the Foxcroft Academy Winter Student Recital, to be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 20 at the Dover-Foxcroft Congregational Church.

Over the past few years Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) has sponsored free public sharpening workshops which drew people from as far away as Skowhegan and Bangor to share skills and learn how to get small tools back into sharp condition by hand. Sandpaper on glass, water stones, oil stones, hand-powered grinding wheel, files of all kinds, honing strops, and peening jigs were among the items demonstrated to and then used by the curious and hopeful. The informal and participatory nature of the event was so successful that another sharpening workshop is planned for 5 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 29 at Dexter’s Tri-County Tech Center (TCTC -- up behind the high school).

Although the short snowy days of winter are upon us, the Greenville Recreation Department has all kinds of things going on inside and out that enhance staying around the area this time of year.

A Maine snowmobiler drove his sled eight miles Friday night, Jan. 11 with a fractured leg after he was involved in a chain reaction snowmobile accident started by a moose, game wardens said.