One year after announcing new President & CEO Lee Umphrey, EMDC (Eastern Maine Development Corporation) continues to evolve with a brand refresh and new website at https://www.emdc.org/.

This summer area Democrats undertook a “Write On” service project and collected 3,486 pencils for SAD 41 schools. Pencils came in from different areas of Maine as well as North Carolina and Washington.

Every five years the town of Bowerbank celebrates community with Bowerbank Days, held Aug. 9-10 in 2019 with a mid-morning parade on Saturday as the procession traveled down the Bowerbank Road past the town hall and fire station.

Recent Penquis Valley High School graduate Cymeria Robshaw, who will be attending the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, was recognized as a Red Sox Service Scholarship recipient during a pregame ceremony at Fenway Park before the Red Sox-Tampa Bay Rays game on July 30. The program awarded students from public high schools across New England with $1,000 scholarships toward their college education based on academic performance, financial aid eligibility and demonstrated community service.

To alleviate cramped conditions and lack of privacy inside the main sheriff’s office in the same larger complex as the Piscataquis County Jail on Court Street in Dover-Foxcroft, in the spring of 2018 the patrol and investigation divisions moved up Route 15 to Guilford at the former primary school building. The law enforcement space previously was the home of the SAD 4 administrative office suite. With the school building for sale county officials are working with the town of Guilford on an agreement to rent and then purchase, following an affirmative vote at the annual town meeting in mid-March, the C.H. Lightbody Medical Center on Park Street.

On Tuesday evening, July 30 nearly 40 people gathered at the Brownville Community Church to view home movies recorded in Brownville Junction and along both the Canadian Pacific and the Bangor & Aroostook rail lines by Sam Michaud and his son Andrew in the 1940s and 1950s.

The Office of the Secretary of the Maine State Senate has released its records for the first session of the 129th Maine Legislature and Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville has been recognized for having a voting record of 100 percent.

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

Two of the nation’s top credit rating agencies have expressed growing confidence that Northern Light Health will be able to pay back $391 million in outstanding debts, a change that could help the hospital system borrow money more cheaply in the future.

Autumn Finkle of Brownville, a graduate of Maine Connections Academy (MCA) the state’s first online public charter school, has graduated with a prestigious Mitchell Scholarship as well as a MELMAC scholarship. Finkle will be enrolled this fall as a freshman at Husson University in Bangor, where she plans to study nursing.

The Maine Appalachian Trail Club (MATC) was awarded $20,083 in grant funding by the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund (MOHF) to support critical trail maintenance projects on one of the most heavily-trafficked sections of the Appalachian Trail.

A severe thunderstorm that swept through eastern Maine on Sunday afternoon left hundreds of Emera Maine customers without power. Amanda Cummings, a spokeswoman for Emera Maine, said that the storm toppled many trees, leading to the interruption of service to customers in northern Penobscot and Piscataquis counties.

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.

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.

Voters whose disabilities prevent them from signing petitions for citizen initiatives could have alternative ways to express their support under a proposed constitutional amendment. Maine voters will consider such a constitutional amendment Nov. 5.

Drivers in Maine are colliding with the state’s largest land mammal a lot less often than they used to, and a number of factors play into that, according to two state biologists.

SAD 41 residents in Brownville, LaGrange and Milo approved a $9,639,532 budget for 2019-20 during the June 27 referendum by a combined total of 152-37. In the Brownville the numbers were 35 in favor with 15 opposed, 16-5 in LaGrange and 101-17 in Milo.

On Friday, June 28 Gov. Janet Mills signed into law legislation that will allow Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft to move forward in merging with the statewide health care organization, Northern Light Health.