A lawsuit seeking to block the merger of Mayo Regional Hospital with Northern Light Health is heading to court late next month after the Maine attorney general’s office and both health care organizations all filed motions seeking to dismiss the case.

Most of us who hunt for wild meat or pick wild berries and mushrooms, and take profound pleasure from the hunter-gatherer act, recognize that there is an ancestral or antediluvian connection. Your caveman lineage is likely to take on a new focus if you spend some time with a book titled “The Man in the Ice” by Konrad Spindler. Dr Spindler is an Austrian archaeologist. 

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has relaxed the ice fishing rules at Allagash Lake. For the first time in many years, the lake will be open to ice fishing for three months: January, February and March. Ice anglers will also be allowed to use five lines instead of the two-line restriction that has been in effect since as long as I can remember.

Join the Community Climate Conversation potluck from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 28 at The Commons at Central Hall. The Citizens' Climate Lobby will then meet at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 1 at the Mayo Regional Hospital Resource Center.

Pine Tree Hospice brings you Trivia Night at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 14 at The Commons at Central Hall.

Upcoming events around the region.

The Wassebec Genealogy Chapter will be holding a meeting at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 1 in the conference room at Mayo Regional Hospital. After the general meeting a program will be presented by Thompson Free Library Director Greta Schroeder on conducting oral interviews.

The Dover-Foxcroft United Methodist Church is holding a soup sale from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 23. The many types of soups, stews and  chowders are homemade by the Methodist church family, and the many types of soups, stews and chowders include squash soup, corn chowder, a few different recipes of chicken soup, oyster stew, minestrone soup, broccoli cheddar soup and stuffed potato soup.

Currently the younger students at Penquis Valley Middle School have little more than a decades-old basketball court and a small area with a pile of dirt and two roads going right by to use for recess but a group of educators, parents and community members are working to change this with a new playground.

Dirigo Reads, a program that aims to put a book in the hands of every Maine first grader each month during the school year by 2025, is looking to increase the number of schools that will participate in the program during the next school year. Dirigo Reads co-founders Dan and Karen Cashman of Brewer say that new schools are being solicited and considered for the 2020-21 school year now.

The League of Women Voters of Maine presents “Make Your Vote Count! A Guide to the March Elections” from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 23 in the Sebec Conference Room at Mayo Regional Hospital.

The Bangor Humane Society is delighted to announce receipt of a generous bequest of over $1.3 million from Violet and James Moffett of Dover-Foxcroft, the proceeds of which will be placed in the newly established Violet F. Moffett Memorial Fund. “This is the largest single gift BHS has ever received,” said Executive Director Suzan Prendergast, “and we will forever be grateful for their remarkable generosity.”

The Sangerville Historical Society will hold its next regular monthly in the Community Room at the Sangerville Town Hall at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 25.

On Nov. 22, something wonderful happened in Guilford. The former Guilford Primary School building, which had been on the market since the summer prior, was sold to its long-standing tenant Friends of Community Fitness (FoCF).

The Center Theatre for the Performing Arts announced that for the first time in facility history it is raffling off a lifetime supply of popcorn. Tickets are only $10 per person and can be purchased at the Theatre or from a member of the Center Theatre board of directors. 

Pine Tree Hospice participated in the 17th annual Maine Nonprofit Day at the Statehouse on Tuesday, Feb. 11. Nonprofit Day provides an opportunity for nonprofits and government to assert their commitment to working together in order to creatively, efficiently and effectively serve the people of Maine.

From 7-10 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 21 there will be a Contra Dance at The Commons at Central Hall. This a change, for this month only, from our usual second Fridays.

A Monson resident is working to combat plastic pollution by launching a small-scale, community-based plastic recycling workshop called Precious Plastic Monson. Precious Plastic Monson is currently crowdfunding (fundraising many small amounts of money from a large number of people) to purchase a set of plastic recycling machines that will shred collected plastic, melt it and remold it into new products.