Like a true rite of spring, the opening of Stutzman’s Farm Café & Brick Oven Bakery on Friday, April 5 ushers in the beginning of the farming season. This third generation family farm located at 891 Douty Hill Road, enters its sixth season as a field to fork restaurant and its 40th anniversary since operators Sid and Rainie Stutzman took over the family farm.

SAD 41 voters heading to the polls on Thursday, March 14 overwhelmingly approved -- via a combined count of 152 to 25 pending verification of voting results from the towns -- a referendum for a $2.4 million funding package to carry out a heating system upgrade converting from steam to hot water and energy efficiency project at the Penquis Valley School. The referendum was approved in each district community: 7-1 in Atkinson, 55-9 in Brownville, 19-5 in LaGrange and 71-10 in Milo.

Mayo Regional Hospital has announced four community forums to provide updates and answer questions regarding the potential merger with Northern Light Health, a statewide health care system. The forums will be held in four of the 13 towns that make up Hospital Administrative District (HAD) 4 and will provide an opportunity for citizens in the district to learn more about what a merger might mean for the hospital and local access to quality care.

The 2019-20 academic year budget continues to be developed by district officials, but SAD 4 is scheduled to receive approximately $234,000 more in state subsidy than for the 2018-19 Superintendent Kelly MacFadyen reported during a March 12 meeting at Piscataquis Community High School.

A Dover-Foxcroft resident whose body was discovered on his front porch by a neighbor on New Year’s Day, after apparently being there for days, died of a heart attack, according to the state medical examiner.

With the HAD 4 board of directors voting 15-3 last month to start a merger with Northern Light Health, Mayo Regional Hospital officials are looking to hold four public information nights across the region to share details of the process and hear from residents and answer their questions. One session is tentatively scheduled for 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 2 in the Morton Avenue Municipal Building Gymnasium.

Ridge View Community School seventh-grader Kaleb Ranquist, the son of Erin and Robert Ranquist, has been notified by the National Geographic Society that he is one of the semifinalists eligible to compete in the 2019 National Geographic GeoBee Maine State Competition. The contest will be held at the University of Maine Farmington on Friday, March 29.

The popular Dudley Trail up Mount Katahdin won’t reopen this year, according to Baxter State Park officials. In a post on the park’s Facebook page, park officials said it’s “difficult to gauge” when it will reopen.

The Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office plans to keep its patrol division housed in Guilford at the former primary school building -- the law enforcement space more recently was the home of the SAD 4 administrative office suite -- for another three years after the county commissioners approved extending the space lease through the end of 2022 during a March 5 meeting. A formal document should be signed during an upcoming session.

A revised energy infrastructure upgrade project, which per an agreement between SAD 41 officials and the town will not result in any new debt for Atkinson now and after the town deorganizes at the end of June, will be voted on at the polls on Thursday, March 14.

Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville introduced LD 555 “An Act To Reduce Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality by Updating Screening Coverage” late last month to the Legislature’s Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee. With this bill, Sen. Davis hopes to remove the reference to the minimum age at which insurance companies must cover colorectal cancer screenings.

Local resident Wendy Weiger is planning an exciting adventure this month. She is embarking on a hike on the relatively new American Discovery Trail (ADT). This trail system of 6,800 miles is, according to the ADT website, “a new breed of national trail — part city, part small town, part forest, part mountains, part desert — all in one trail.” It stretches from the east coast at Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware to Pt. Reyes National Seashore in California.

SeDoMoCha Middle School art teacher Bobbi Tardif selected the artwork of Karson Tibbetts, a seventh-grader at the school in Dover-Foxcroft, to hang at the Maine Education Association (MEA) headquarters in Augusta for a year. The MEA in collaboration with the Maine Art Education Association frame and display the artwork of 30 students selected from 30 different art educators in grades K-12 from all over the state for the show.

Bissell Brothers opened its newest brewery location in Milo last summer, making it the first brewery in Piscataquis County. Last Friday, the brewery that got its start in Portland celebrated the release of its first sour beer brewed from start to finish in Milo.

Phil Adams spends three days a week in a heated, wooden structure at the top of the chairlift at Big Squaw Mountain near Moosehead Lake. The 72-year-old has been making sure everyone gets safely off the chairlift for six years. He loves his job. He loves the clean air and the views from his “office.”

After discussion that day about issues facing young adults and what can be done, Mills encouraged those present to go back to their schools and form a Positive Action Team. “Our group thought if kids had more positive things to do then maybe they would not turn to drugs,” Keane said. The teams have caught on.

An act of the Legislature is needed if Mayo Regional Hospital’s merger with a statewide health care system is to go forward in the way administrators at the Dover-Foxcroft hospital are proposing. But no legislator from Piscataquis County has publicly committed yet to sponsoring the legislation that would eliminate the charter the hospital has operated under since the 1970s.

On Feb. 27 the board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital (Hospital Administrative District 4) voted 14-2 to tax the 13 communities it serves should it need to in order to balance its debt service. Two board members abstained and one member was absent.