For a century the employees have been instrumental in the success of Hardwood Products and the Puritan Medical Products Company. Company officials recognized employees with a 100th-year celebration party on Friday, July 26, the eve of the annual Piscataquis River Festival, near the town athletic field on the shore of the river.

For the second year in a row, aircraft will be landing at Lake Wassookeag during the first Saturday of August to benefit Make-A-Wish Maine. The 2019 “Wings for Wishes on the Waterfront” event will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 3 by Lake Wassookeag. Planes will start arriving at 9:30 a.m., landing in a nearby field and taxiing the short distance to the waterfront, and the public beach will open at 10 a.m. Entry is free and donations for Make-A-Wish Maine are encouraged as pilots will meet with the public.

For the 18th consecutive summer wrestlers in grades 5-12 from across Maine came to town to learn techniques and skills they can use during the upcoming scholastic season at the Foxcroft Academy Olympic Wrestling Camp held July 23-26. The camp features guest clinicians and this year the younger grapplers had the opportunity to learn from two Maine wrestlers who have gone on to earn collegiate All-American status.

Four hundred volunteers from around the country spent nearly a week in Dexter from July 22-26 working to fix 60 homes at no cost for residents who otherwise could not afford to have the needed repairs taken care of. The improvements were made through the Fort Collins, Colorado-based Group Workcamps Foundation’s Group Mission Trips organization, a non-profit, interdenominational Christian volunteer home-repair group.

The selectmen set the tax commitment for the 2019-20 fiscal year during a July 22 meeting, with the mill rate rising 30 cents (1.41 percent) from last year to a rate of $21.50 per $1,000 in assessed property.

The Trebor Mansion Inn was destroyed in a fire during the early morning hours of Saturday, July 20. Investigators with The Office of State Fire Marshal have been on the scene since Saturday working to determine the cause of the blaze. The 19th century building located on a hilltop just off of Route 15 had been vacant for several years and is now bank-owned.

Two videos compiled from home movies shot from 1939 into the 1950s around Brownville/Brownville Junction and Maine railroads are available on Youtube under “Michaud family home movies” and will be screened at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30 at the Brownville-Brownville Junction Historical Society’s Parish House Museum on Church Street.

In other business, the Dexter town council took no action on the recommendations of the cannabis task force. Councilors will continue to look at the possibility of allowing for commercial marijuana operations in town.

With students away on summer vacation, the Penquis Valley School is a construction site with hallway ceiling tiles down and stacked on the floor as part of the work to make way for an upgrade to the heating system.

Earlier this year spring runoff caused nearly $23,000 in damage to an approximate 1,000-foot stretch of the Mountain Road in Blanchard Township. Closing this section of the narrow, steep, dead end travelway to winter maintenance could prevent such occurrences and save money but with one year-round resident and other property owners using the road, the Piscataquis County Commissioners will have a decision to make.