Two employees of the Greenville school system were honored at a retirement ceremony in the auditorium of the school on Tuesday, June 4. Roxanne Cunningham had been teaching for 39 years and Vera Davis was a bookkeeper for 16 years. Altogether these ladies had served the Greenville school system for a whopping 55 years!

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine and Angus King, I-Maine announced that a combined total of $2.35 million in federal funding has been awarded to five recipients in Maine to clean up and redevelop brownfield sites. Among the recipients is the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council, which has a $350,000 allocation.

The Maine State Envirothon was held at the Maine Lakes Science Center on May 25. Greenville High School, Piscataquis Community High School and the Super Science 4-H Club from the Monson/Guilford area comprised four of the 10 teams total, and two of those squads brought back trophies for second and third places.

The Kiwanis Club of Dover-Foxcroft held its 46th annual Piscataquis River Race, from Guilford to Dover-Foxcroft, on May 26 (the event was moved back a month due to unsafe conditions in late April) with 26 boats and 41 racers.

Art Wheaton is the “perfect storm” kind of guy to write a classy, keepsake book about hunting the king of game birds. For a lot of reasons. Art, a son of the late Downeast guide Woodie Wheaton, cut his teeth on grouse and gun dogs. He and his family moved to Forest City ( near Princeton) when Art was 11 years old. From the time he was 15 years old, Art guided landlocked salmon and smallmouth bass anglers from his folks’ sporting camp, Wheaton’s Lodge, and hunted grouse and woodcock every October.

The Penquis Valley High School Class of 2018

Fort Kent rallied to tie the game in regulation but came up short as Dexter Regional High School defeated the Warriors 3-2 in nine innings in a Class C North quarterfinal matchup on June 7.

Summer is in the air … and the annual Dover-Foxcroft Kiwanis Auction is right around the corner. The auction will be held Thursday, July 26 to Sunday, July 29 at the Piscataquis Valley Fairgrounds with all the old traditions and exciting events attendees look forward to each year.

Hold your horses! Ease off that throttle. Slow it down there, bub. The U.S. Supreme Court did not legalize discrimination and it did not affirm the right of business owners to turn people away who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. And the court certainly did not say that the First Amendment allows business owners to ignore state law, including anti-discrimination laws, on the basis of religious beliefs.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That, of course, is the text of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.