The Bangor Savings Bank Foundation recently awarded $40,461 in grants to 13 nonprofit organizations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Among the recipients is the Code Maine Coding Academy in Dover-Foxcroft, to provide nine-month, tuition-free, software development and professional skills training to under-advantaged high school graduates in the Maine Highlands region.

Two organizations with a shared vision to meet the health care needs of the people of Piscataquis County have officially come together. Northern Light Health and Mayo Regional Hospital completed their merger agreement on Sunday, March 1. On Monday morning, Michelle Hood, president and CEO of Northern Light Health, joined with Marie Vienneau, president and CEO of the newly named Northern Light Mayo Hospital, for a press conference and celebration at  the hospital with employees.

When Maine achieved statehood in 1820, it was home to a number of wild creatures that are no longer seen in the region today. Wolves, caribou, panthers and rattlesnakes are among the animals found roaming the woods and waters of Maine 200 years ago. 

Agents from the company’s 34 offices in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont were recognized for their achievements in real estate sales including Betty Ann Richardson, Grover Kilpatrick and Donna Vainio of the Dover-Foxcroft office.

The U.S. Postal Service will celebrate Maine’s bicentennial with the issuance of a new Forever stamp and a dedication ceremony on the actual anniversary of Maine’s statehood, March 15.

Anglers are invited to Sebec Lake for the ninth annual Dover-Foxcroft Firefighters Association Ice Fishing Derby on Saturday, Feb. 29 and Sunday, March 1.

“We have current conditions drafted,” Town Manager Jack Clukey said about a Dover-Foxcroft Urban Area Transportation Study during a Feb. 24 selectmen’s meeting. “Now Gorrill Palmer is working on the future alternate analysis.”

The General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)/Miosac Club is conducting its 2020 Sebec Lake Ice Out Contest for the 44th consecutive year.  Tickets may be purchased from any club member through March 31. Monies raised will be used to maintain a variety of club projects in the Dover-Foxcroft area.

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.

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

The Maine attorney general’s office has asked a federal judge to dismiss an ex-police officer’s lawsuit against the Penobscot County district attorney on the same grounds that an appeals court threw out a similar lawsuit in 1992 against the man who was then the county’s top prosecutor. 

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 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. 

The typical snowmobilers were older than they used to be, but helped inject $606 million into Maine’s economy last winter, according to the first economic study of the state’s snowmobile industry in 22 years.

But it was an issue that continues to be central to the ongoing story of the United States -- the enslavement of kidnapped African people -- that is irrevocably tied to Maine’s independence, thanks to an 1820 federal agreement known as the Missouri Compromise.

A former police officer in Penobscot County has sued the county’s top criminal prosecutor, claiming she relied on false information in putting him on a list of police officers who are potentially unreliable trial witnesses.

The coalition selected five communities to serve as host sites for the tour with the loop route starting and finishing in Old Town. Cyclists will spend the first night in Binette Park -- along the Penobscot River -- then move on to Lincoln, Patten, Millinocket and Dover-Foxcroft. 

This story isn’t specifically about this year’s high school basketball tournament, but it does involve a championship trophy. Not mine, mind you.