On Thursday, Oct. 18 from 5:30-8 p.m. the Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce will hold its annual meeting and Business of the Year celebration at The Commons at Central Hall. The chamber’s board of directors is pleased to announce that this year’s Business of the Year recipient is Gordon Contracting of Sangerville.

Kimball Insurance is excited to announce that we are expanding our services and we are now able to offer guidance and service to our senior clients with Medicare health plans. As of Sept. 1 we have made an addition to our team and Nolan Lovell will now be the primary contact that clients can rely on for this newly added service.

An activity that began in high school has now grown into a large component of a business owned by 23-year-old Courtney Nichole Gay with her Courtney Nichole Salon & Photo Studio at the Millworks complex in the renovated woolen mill building in downtown Dexter.

The good people of Greenville have always banded together for a community cause and as September comes to a close the activities downtown have picked up in the spirit of cooperation for the common good. You may have noticed a lot of people down on the boardwalk near the Steamship Katahdin hammering and sawing away as they replace boards in the walkway.

Partners for Peace, the domestic violence resource center serving Piscataquis and Penobscot counties, will be observing Domestic Violence Awareness Month with three End Domestic Violence Days across the two county region in October, including from 2-6 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 2 in Dover-Foxcroft.

In partnership with the United Way of Northeastern Maine, Helping Hands with Heart (HHH) has received one of six Early Childhood Community Planning Grants in the amount of $25,000 from The Maine Community Foundation. These funds will support a rigorous study of the region’s age 0-5 population, map community resources, identify barriers to early childhood education and develop local solutions intended to help communities ensure their youngest children are ready to learn and thrive when they begin school.

Betty Van Dyke of Guilford was recently notified that a soon to be released book is dedicated to her. Walter Boomsma, program director of Valley Grange in Guilford and the Maine State Grange communications director, has authored the book, "Exploring Traditions--Celebrating the Grange Way of Life." He dedicated the book to Van Dyke, calling her a "Granger Extraordinaire" and explaining the great influence she had during his "formative years" as a Grange member.

As you drive north to Greenville, not long before you get to Indian Hill, you may have noticed a place on your right, with tidy freshly painted brown buildings and wood stacked in a style reminiscent of the artist Monet’s impressionist haystack paintings. This is The Farm at Moosehead, and as their Facebook page states, they are “a working homestead farm with naturally grown produce, eggs and pastured poultry sold in their Farm Store.”

On Sept. 7 the Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District (PCSWCD) honored Alexandra Conover Bennett by presenting her with the Outstanding Educator of the Year Award at the East Sangerville Grange Farm-To-Table Suppah for her exceptional work over the years in natural resource ecology and education.

Reps. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, Thomas Skolfield, R-Weld, and Norman Higgins, I-Dover-Foxcroft, have formed the House Broadband Caucus to advocate for building out Maine’s broadband infrastructure in rural parts of the state.

The Spotted Cat Winery is a wonderfully discoverable gem in the Greenville area; it is a small home-based farm winery specializing in natural and handcrafted wines, according to their brochure. This place is named for their cat, Aphrodite, who presides regally over her two diligent humans who grow the fruits and tend the tanks to create the varieties of small-batch wines they produce every year.

There’s nothing quite like sipping a cold craft beer, enjoying a soft homemade pretzel and watching goats play.

The Piscataquis County Commissioners recently filed a motion to intervene in the state’s lawsuit against the owner of Moosehead Mountain Resort in the Greenville and Moosehead Lake region. The motion to intervene is the most recent significant development in ongoing legal proceedings of consequence to the future of the ski resort and the economic health of the region.

Each year the Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District (PCSWCD) recognizes a cooperator in Piscataquis County who has implemented exceptional conservation practices on their land. This year, the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) Maine Woods Initiative will be honored for their outstanding on-the ground conservation efforts, educational outreach and overall excellence in sustainable management of the land.

The executive committee of the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council (PCEDC) is seeking nominations for the annual Warren "Pete" Myrick Community Service Award, to be presented at the annual meeting of PCEDC in December. Meeting date and location will be disclosed soon.

On Saturday, Sept. 1 the Moosehead Quilters will present the “Quilts in the Woods” quilt show from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Union Evangelical Church (at the blinking light) in Greenville.

On Thursday morning, Aug. 2 an unexpected visitor arrived at The Covered Bridge Motel which is located at 382 Water Street across from the famous Low’s Covered Bridge which spans the Piscataquis River. Linda Moon, the owner, was informed that the visitor was a health inspector. So Linda proceeded to take the inspector wherever she wanted to go.

A legislative watchdog found “no evidence” that Gov. Paul LePage’s administration diverted public timber from Maine millowners because they criticized the governor, though there was “very little documentation” to back that finding.