In recognition of their decades of being land stewards through forestry and farming at Breakneck Ridge Farm and efforts to educate young and old about conservation management at the local, state and national level, Steve and Diana Hobart were recognized by the Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District (PCSWCD) by receiving the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award during a presentation at their farm on Sept. 16.

The Piscataquis County Commissioners are looking to follow their counterparts in Somerset County by drafting a letter to express their opposition to additional industrial-scale wind development near Moosehead Lake. The commissioners authorized County Manager Tom Lizotte to write a letter during a Sept. 19 meeting, and the document is scheduled to be on the agenda for the Tuesday, Oct. 3 session for a formal vote.

In an effort to deal with space issues at the SeDoMoCha School, RSU 68 officials are considering moving the superintendent’s office from the second floor to a vacant building a stone’s throw from campus. During a Sept. 19 school board meeting, Superintendent Stacy Shorey was authorized to make a $36,000 offer for the former Head Start building off of Autumn Avenue next to the SeDoMoCha campus.

The selectmen gave their approval to both a $155,000 financing package for a fire department brush truck and an approximate $41,700 bid for a 2018 Ford Expedition to serve the police department, during a meeting on Sept. 11.

Several days into the job new Dexter Town Manager Jim Chandler was welcomed and sworn in during a Sept. 14 town council meeting.

During a Sept. 12 meeting of the SAD 4 school board at the PCSS, Principal John Keane said the idea of changing the name of the secondary school back to just Piscataquis Community High School (PCHS) has been discussed by students and staff.

Maine Highlands Senior Center Directors President Dr. Lesley Fernow, left, and Piscataquis Thriving in Place Collaborative Project Director Meg Callaway hold open a bin for two young helpers during for the Piscataquis Shredding Event on Sept. 16 behind Central Hall on River Street in Dover-Foxcroft. The center, collaborative and the AARP Fraud Watch Network sponsored a visit by the Shredding on Site company to enable resident to bring documents, such as those with confidential and personal information, to be shredded. Dr. Fernow and Callaway said older adults are at a greater risk for fraud and those stopping by could watch the bins be automatically dumped into the rear of a truck with the papers then cut into numerous little thin strips.

The Maine Warden Service is seeking interest from the public to create a volunteer search and rescue team in Piscataquis County. There will be an informational meeting held at the Greenville Fire Department, 10 Minden Street, at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 20.

From 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 12 the Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce will hold its annual meeting and Business of the Year celebration. The chamber’s board of directors is pleased to announce that this year’s Business of the Year recipient is Pleasant River Lumber of Dover-Foxcroft.

The Maine Warden Service is seeking volunteer searchers. Maine game wardens are planning a search for missing person Diana Esteys in Medford on Sunday, Sept. 17.

More than a year ago residents accepted the conveyance of the approximate 97-acre Derby Shops commercial railroad property on B&A Avenue. Citizens attending the June 2016 special town meeting also authorized the selectmen to apply for and accept any grants for cleaning up the property, which is the home of Central Maine & Quebec Railway and had been a part of the bankruptcy proceedings for the former Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. Town officials are now in the process of applying for funding to help clean up the site, and a public hearing on the proposed remediation to make the property more suited for economic development was held at the town hall on Sept. 6.

The evening before a public hearing on the process -- please see related story -- Milo selectmen discussed the process for securing funding sources to clean up the town-owned 97-acre Derby Shops commercial railroad property on B&A Avenue during a Sept. 5 meeting.

Numerous volunteers and many donations of funds, materials and hours have gone into an expansion project at the Sangerville Veterans Memorial Park on Route 23. The efforts have created a new all-purpose field and a gazebo under construction, and will help make the property a site to be enjoyed by all ages.

Again in the 2017-18 academic year SeDoMoCha Elementary School families will have the opportunity to read together as part of a shared reading experience through the eighth annual One Book, One School program. For about a month through early October students and family members will read and discuss “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” and then be able to attend an ending celebration on Thursday, Oct. 5.

The resignation of Penquis Valley High School/Middle School Principal Jeremy Bousquet was accepted and the nomination of new building principal Daniel Ross was accepted during a Sept. 6 meeting of the SAD 41 school board.

M. Michelle Hood, FACHE, president and CEO of EMHS announced that Teresa “Terri” Vieira, MHA, FACHE, has been named president of Sebasticook Valley Health (SVH) and Charles A Dean Memorial Hospital. Vieira has led SVH since 2013 and has been acting president at C. A. Dean since 2017.

Starting for the current academic year SAD 4 students in grades 7-8 have been moved up the hill from Piscataquis Community Secondary School, which now is the home of just grades 9-12, to Piscataquis Community Elementary School (PCES) to join their younger peers.

Much of the community’s railroad history, including previously missing components, has now been captured in “More than a Train Yard and a Whistle Stop: The Canadian Railway’s Brownville Division 1886 to 1963.” The book by former resident Ken Hatchette, who now lives in Dartmouth, Mass., is full of photographs and features cover art from a mural painted by resident Suzette East which was a contest-winning submission. Book proceeds will help fund a heat pump for the Brownville-Brownville Junction Historical Society’s Parish House Museum.