The board of directors of the Piscataquis Regional YMCA, staff and community members gathered at the PRYMCA Oct. 22 to celebrate another year of service in Piscataquis County during the organization's annual meeting. The meeting began with recognition of the 2019 Piscataquis Regional YMCA Volunteer of the Year, Maureen Doore.

The Penquis Valley High School Key Club is working to change this situation for a village in the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland a landlocked country in southern Africa, through the Thirst Project. The Thirst Project is a national nonprofit organization bringing safe drinking water to communities around the world where it is not immediately available.

The Dover-Foxcroft Area Food Cupboard would like to invite the general public to attend an open house at the new location in the Piscataquis Regional Food Center building at 76 North Street from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15.

The fall hours for the Abbott Museum, 12 Church Street, are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday -- closed Sundays, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving. The museum offers seven exhibit rooms on local history in areas of business, industry, recreation and veterans.

A gun-stealing beaver. A moose looking for love. A paraplegic hunter and handyman. A writer saying goodbye to his dog. These are just a few of the characters -- some of them hilarious, some in the midst of heart-wrenching moments -- readers will meet in the pages of “Evergreens: A Collection of Maine Outdoor Stories.”

More than two dozen students in the younger grades at Piscataquis Community Elementary School are now HEROs for their outstanding conduct. The HERO honorees were recognized with the presentation of certificates during the elementary morning meeting on Thursday, Oct. 24.

Dover-Foxcroft selectmen are considering a plan to convert the local airport into the home of a 4-megawatt solar power project, a proposal that is drawing opposition from pilots who use the facility. In order for the solar project to move forward, Charles A. Chase Jr. Memorial Field would need to be decommissioned, a town official said. A public hearing on the plan has been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 12 at the Morton Avenue Municipal Building.

After several decades owner Bill Graves of B & W Glass of Brownville (the business is named for Graves and his wife Wendy) has retired and turned his business over to Josh Guffey.

Back in 1980, Billy Lander and his brother Tim -- along with more than 36,000 other eager Mainers -- applied for one of 700 permits that were to be handed out in Maine’s first modern moose hunt.

Dover-Foxcroft Kiwanis Charities held the annual fall dinner for Thayer Parkway residents on October 17. Over 50 residents and members were served a smorgasbord of chicken, tuna, taco, mac ‘n cheese, ham and casseroles as well as salads, maple baked beans and hot dogs, fall desserts, cider and coffee.

Dover-Foxcroft's Shallynn Stevens, a ninth-grader, has been named STAR Student of the Month by Maine Connections Academy (MCA), the state’s first virtual public charter school. The STAR Student of the Month is an MCA student who has shown particular accomplishments and spirit.

With the state’s firearms hunting season for deer looming, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s deer specialist says he expects plenty of hunters to fill their tags this year after a banner year in 2018.

Crime in Maine dropped for the seventh consecutive year in 2018, according to data from the Maine Department of Public Safety released Wednesday, but there were more assaults and homicides compared with 2017.

A number of events are planned for the weekend and on the holiday as part of the annual Dover-Foxcroft Halloween BooNanza. A full schedule and more information is available at http://www.boonanza.info/.

More than 300,000 Maine homeowners can expect a $100 check early next year under a new state law. The households that can expect the payment qualified for the homestead exemption in 2019. The homestead exemption reduces a home’s taxable value by $20,000, so a taxpayer pays property taxes on only $130,000 in value for a $150,000 home. Homeowners can only claim the homestead exemption on their primary residence.

The Center Theatre has announced that theatre officials are building a second movie screen and plan to have it open to the public in April of 2020. The new screen will seat 40 to 50 people and will be located in the space formerly occupied by the Center Coffee House.

The Piscataquis Observer’s Stuart Hedstrom picked up top honors in the food story/feature writing category among the state’s smaller weekly publications from the Maine Press Association in the 2019 MPA Better Newspaper Contest on October 19 during the organization's annual awards banquet at the South Portland DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel.

Ahead of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day this Saturday, October 26, U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine and Angus King, I-Maine announced the locations of the Maine collection sites, the full list is at https://takebackday.dea.gov/. Area sites include the Dexter, Dover-Foxcroft, Greenville and Milo police departments and Piscataquis County sheriff’s office.