A 2018-19 academic year budget totaling $7,087,042, which includes a local assessment of just over $4,180,000, was approved by the SAD 4 school board during an April 10 meeting at Piscataquis Community Elementary School. The directors also set the district budget meeting for 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 3 at PCES.

For a decade the Valley Grange of Guilford has sponsored advertisements in the Piscataquis Observer’s annual Newspapers in Education supplement, which features business advertisement content created and drawn by school children from across the area. The advertisements for the Valley Grange have been drawn by students at the former Guilford Primary School and currently at Piscataquis Community Elementary School as again this year PCES third- and fourth-graders put their talents to work.

A project to make the Penquis Valley School complex more energy-efficient will be heading to the voters of Atkinson, Brownville, LaGrange and Milo on Thursday, May 10. Eight days prior the public is invited to learn more at an information meeting scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2 in the Penquis Valley cafeteria. Both events were set by the SAD 41 school board during an April 4 meeting.

A look at the past four decades serving the region and a look to the future of helping the community were both features of the 40th anniversary celebration for Mayo Regional Hospital on the afternoon of Monday, April 9 in the Resource Center.

The current figures have the 2018-19 RSU budget totaling $11,559,907 for the 2018-19 academic year, Superintendent Stacy Shorey said during an April 3 school board meeting at the Harland A. Ladd Municipal Building.

Bridges in Blanchard and Williamsburg townships are both set to be repaired later in the year as the bids were opened and approved by the Piscataquis County Commissioners during an April 3 meeting.

Well over a dozen students in the younger grades at Piscataquis Community Elementary School are now HEROs for their outstanding conduct during the month of March. The HERO honorees were recognized with the presentation of certificates during the school-wide morning meeting on April 6.

In 2015 Stephen and Rita Shiman of Saco received a phone call that no grandparent would ever want to experience. The caller claimed to be their grandson, who said he had been arrested after being involved in a car accident in Georgia. The caller told the Shimans not to tell anyone and directed them to immediately contact his public defender, who demanded $1,250 for their grandson’s bail.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine announced the awarding of $10,836,220 in federal funds to replace the three bridges in what she called “the Penquis Region Rural Bridges Project” and on the morning of April 5 she had the opportunity to tour the Pleasant River Bridge on outer Pleasant Street with MDOT Commissioner David Bernhardt.

Piscataquis Community Elementary School third-graders had the chance to be a little messy at their desks as the students each put together or birth a “dirt baby” -- seeds in a paper cup -- on April 3 during a GrowMe Project day at the school with activities held for the four younger grades.